zigmondo

I'm a bit old-school myself: I have a top E tuning-fork about me person: I just hit something with it then hold against the instrument's body for resonance, then bring up the guitar neck against my ear, feeling the interference beats as I press the tuning-fork base against it. Honest...and it even works live as long as the gig's not too loud!

What everyone has said really. I've just treated mine to some Status Hotwires, half-wound .40-100s, and find these a very happy compromise between doing and thud. I've always found Hotwires to be very classily put together and they last very well. I actually liked the Picato halfwounds that came with my fretless too. The Hotwires are maybe a tad smoother.

Lyrically put. My.. I could waffle on but would be in danger of hijacking...!

Hi Chris: what a delightful predicament you are in; my heart bleeds! Alan Cringean. Now, though I do realise it's not possible to praise too highly most of your shortlist, I would say that AC would always have the ability within his vision to surprise you in terms of build and aesthetic in a major way. I've read several reactions by clients to ongoing builds, where Alan has come up with something so very left-field, it actually extended the result beyond the initial vision of the client. As an example, I remember there was much surprise at single-cuts: sort of, "very nice, but SCs are not my thing,"...however, the client would often end at a postion that totally embraced this. I don't have a personal example of this, though I do own an ACG 5-string Harlot singlecut. Not only visually stunning and with impeccable sound quality, this bass looks like a surrealist painting. It looks as if it "won't go", as if proportions are exciting but somewhat impractical. The bizarrely fulfilling thing is, though, that when one puts the bass on(!), the proportions to the player all suddenly make sense...and the anticipated neck-dive is replaced by a perfection of balance. Thus, no disrespect to any of the other names you mention(er actually, apart from one...and I'm too much a of a gentleman to mention which!): it's just that I think your epiphany has only just begun if you go with Alan C. Not only that, but the journey you will have through the build will be above and beyond the best of what you expect. Personally, I'm delighted for you..and I'll follow your decision with great interest!

I'll add an affirmative: I had a good few goes on an early one about 3 years ago, as my mate picked it up from somewhere local(Cheltenham, Gloucs area). I have to add, rare does not mean good either! It was a double cutaway, neck-through beast with layers of extremely dense wood in the neck and a solid mahogany body...I remember it weighing more than my Yamaha SG2000: a monster. It looked as if it should mean business in terms of tone, yet it had several dead spots...one of those unfortunate happenings when the resonances of the wood were all working against each other. The pickups had all manner of switching and coil-splitting arrangements going on but sadly the tone was poor. My mate thought, reasonably enough, that putting in a decent set of humbuckers would transform the sound. It did not; he was very happy to be able to sell it online, who assumed the same as he had: as an A. P., surely it would be both rare and toneful...I hope that the one you mention has everything working for it!

Great respect to Rich's wisdom here, yet I was thinking there might well be quite a difference in sounds, given the string tensions, Eqs, circuitry, woods and builds, do you think? Still that Statusesqueness(er, that's a word; I looked it up... ) but the Status palette can still be a wide one, so to speak. By 'eck, you're on a roll here Rob: wot economic downturn?! Top man.

Yep, one is too many and a thousand never enough as they say... ...My, you know how to choose them; your kit list is a roll-call of, er..bespokitude..nice to see you've got that Vintage in there too: did you by any chance pick that up from Aroundabout a few years ago?

Mention Jeff Berlin somebody(oo I just did).

Like wot Pete said! There's further tweakability with no. 4 above, in that you can assign via the circuitboard-mounted "pot" which pup receives most(or all or none) treble filtering. I personally find(like with Stati) that there's more than enough resident treble lurking about anyway; I've never felt the need for this control myself...and given the coil-splitting options, things can get blue-rizla-paper thin I guess..

Hey Rich, nice to see you again; I wouldn't have even known of these basses' existence were it not for 2 of our stalwarts on the boards...speaking of whom: yes Pete= yours IS the amboyna top, is it not? BassBod: where you buddy? Bath?

[url="http://www.pbase.com/doverow/acg_harlot_s"]Here[/url] A raftload of pics of this beauty at my gallery above. No soundclips as yet as I'm recording; these'll follow in a few weeks. If any of you fancy hearing what I do on a small guitar, feel free to give me a listen here: [url="http://mychristianbands.com/Shaun_Reeder/"]Shaun Reeder[/url]

Best of, guys; might be worth a wander into Aroundaboutsound and having a word/looking on the wall? I've heard of nobody recently who's a bass specialist over this neck of the woods(Stroudy way), though again a phone call to Riffs in Stroud may be fruitful..?

True. Harry's rubbish at getting those EBS rigs EQ'd, so I hear. What impresses me is the ease and fun they all generate en bloc. My "musical operancy" light was first switched on when listening to Blow By Blow as a 14 yr old: I was happily thudding my head to Cozy Powell, then all of a sudden had a PING in my chest whilst listening to Diamond Dust and just knew I needed a guitar to deal with it; Jeffers is the kiddy as regards guitar for me...AND I've got tickets to their Brum gig in June: YEAHBAYYYBYEAH!

Congrats; I really like the look of these. Now, I'm hoping that a teal-green tint 5-er with black hardware will look awful in 2009...but sadly I know it won't....

Hmm..oddish, but I remember a series of gigs once in which there were 3 guitarists: me, a jazz-chordal chap and a classically-trained one. We were all jawdropped by both what the others could do but also by the "glaringly simple" things they could not: "whaddya mean "improvise?", or, "sorry, I can't play; my music has fallen off the stand", or, "how do you know what notes to play when you've never heard this before?" As a guitarist, though, it doesn't half peeve me when other guitarists(not me of course) play as if they're still in the bedroom rather than with other breathing humans. What I do definitely find weird is that though I'm primarily a guitarist, I find strange things happening since developing as a bassist: I find myself saying quasi-apologetic stuff like, "well I usually play guitar...you know, looks like a bass but smaller"...heck, I'm even growing that unruffled smugness and smirk, along with that feeling that only comes with actually knowing that size on some all-pervasive level, does make a distinct difference...to everything everywhere. I suppose even my being able to use the word "bassist" in self-reference is not actually indicative of the descent into mossy old-age that I'd always thought. Even odder, there are some circles now in which folks don't even know I play,er, a small 6-string, referring to me as the "bass guitarist". And perhaps even odder than that, I'm losing that guilty look when I'm discovered to be playing the 5 thick- stringed thing... and often don't come out with, "but it's not my first instrument, really." Funny old life!

Hey, glad it sounds like it looks!

I was also looking at this one online a few weeks before getting me new 'un..I came up with absolutely nowt in all my searches too. Looks pretty neat: happy Crimbo though methinks! Looking forward to any thoughts you might wanna share on it.

My tuppence: depends on your audience and output and on whether you'll be doing a lot of midi stuff or mainly audio, I guess. Heck, Mac+Logic...PC+ Cubase/Cakewalk..whatever, in a sense. If portability and liive music on the fly is your thang, then the Mac+Logic+Reason/Ableton combo is well-vaunted, if you're of the age and peership that would warrant it. I personally went the pc+Cakewalk route, as I couldn't understand the Cubase interface: there'll be many here who will have found the inverse to be true. For bang for buck, I'd say: desktop+XPPro+ 2GB RAM+ fast processor; 2 hard drives and Acronis True Image; add a PCI soundcard with 4in 4out breakout box with or without midi depending on your needs. If you're undecided about midi then one could always add a USB midi keyboard like an Edirol PCR-M30 or the like. Something like ESI nearfield monnies; Cakewalk Home Studio. Have your OS and prog files on the smaller drive, audio on the larger, and nowt else. Don't hook up to the internet. Have as many USB ports as you can but don't get a hub. 2 cheapish visual display monnies and a vid card able to support dual monitors. I'd avoid spending out a shedload on audio monitors: a decent set of heads will allow you to lsiten out for artefacts..and you can use really just something to "reference" your sound with: I use the home stereo as that it what I listen to music on. I could go on but I'm boring myself! Best of.