Obrienp

It’s quite hard to find a reasonably priced, decent P, or P/J medium scale these days. The Ibanez Mezzo has been discontinued and the Squier Jaguar H is a bit marmite (I think it might have been discontinued as well). I recently had a near miss with an 80s Aria P/J and that gave me huge GAS for one of those 80s Japanese medium scale basses. There seemed to be so many of them back then. A lot of the Matsumoku produced Ibanez and Aria basses are commanding a premium these days, so I was delighted to see this Greco Atomic medium scale P/J for sale on Reverb for around the £235 mark. I took the plunge last week and it arrived yesterday. It’s actually in amazingly good condition for a bass from the 80s (I think it genuinely is from the 80s). The worst knock it has is where it obviously got put down with a bump or dropped on the end strap button, which caused some of the poly to chip off around the button. Apart from that there are some minor dings and scratches on the body that haven’t gone through the poly, which has aged from white to cream. There is a very slight hairline crack off one side of the neck pocket that looks pretty innocuous. The Jazz style neck is in great condition for its age with no significant dings and no cracks, or repairs. It’s carved from a single piece of maple which might make it vulnerable to headstock cracks/breaks but it is fine. The rosewood board is in really good condition with no gouges, or wear and the frets are fine, with no sharp ends . It looks as though it has Gotoh machine heads (marked Made in Japan). In common with the rest of the hardware, there is some pitting in the chrome but it’s all serviceable. It appears to have the original electrics: full sized pots (Vol, Vol, Tone), which turn smoothly without crackling. On the not so good side, the bridge was in a mess. The A string saddle was on the wrong way round so that the string was not sitting in the slot but crossing the adjuster screw and spring over the edge of the saddle. The D string saddle was upside down, with the Allen sockets on the bottom of the screws. It had the top 3 strings from a tired medium scale light gauge set on it and an E string which was .110” long scale bodged on and sitting proud of the nut (too big for the slot). The pickups were crazily high on the bass side and on inspection all the screw heads were cheesed, so clearly not functional. There is a slight twist in the neck/fretboard, according to my local luthier, which he doesn’t think is too tragic. After adjusting the truss rod (that fortunately seems to work fine) it is pretty straight. Adjusting the rod is a pain because the hex socket is at the heel end and there is no cut out in the body, so you have to release the strings and undo the neck screws to get at it. I gave it a quick once over yesterday afternoon: sorted the bridge saddles, lemon oiled the neck, adjusted one of the machine heads and put a set of barely used D’Addario nickel medium scale lights (45-100) on it. I also replaced all the pickup retaining screws, which enabled me to set them to a sensible height. All of that done it plays and sounds pretty good. I took it to a band rehearsal in the evening and I was very pleased with it. I still need to sort out the nut, which is a bit high and get the intonation set. It is incredibly light and really tiny, so a great bass for long gigs. It will certainly do fine as a back up to my Maruszczyk medium scale ElwoodI. In fact my bandmates asked why I had brought a toy bass. In short I’m well pleased so far. I will add some photos when I have reduced them in size.

I don’t blame anyone for changing away from LaBella flats. They sound the business on a P bass: pure Motown but they feel horrible to me. Sticky is the best way of describing them. I have heard others say that they can be cleaned up with lighter fluid, rubbing alcohol, meths,, etc. I have tried all of these and it doesn’t work for me, they still feel sticky. The best flats for me are D’Addarios but each to their own and they are quite bright. As to the original question: rounds sound great on a P bass and I would have thought would fit in very well to your band situation. Personally, I don’t get any issues with the strings squeaking but then other people don’t find LaBella flats sticky.

Thanks @nikon F for putting up the YouTube comparison. I have a Gnome iPro (280 watt) and had the 200 watt version before. I have to say that I prefer the tone of the Elf in that comparison, except for when he was slapping. I think that is reflective of the built in EQ of the Gnome, whereas the Elf has more of the TE one out of the box. You can get close with the Gnome but it takes some tweaking of the EQ controls. I find that my Gnome, with its 280 watts @4ohms, works really well with my Barefaced Two10 and is very giggable. Paired with my LFSys Monzas, it sounds pretty horrible until I correct the eq. I suspect that the Elf would sound pretty good (without such tweaking) with the Monzas but possibly a bit too vintage with the Two10. Horses for courses and as the guy in the video points out, there is a significant price difference. If Trace came out with a 300 watt version of the Elf (for not much more cash), I would be tempted to jump for the tone, plus headroom.

I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll have a look at them to see if the ports are different. I won’t be able to tell about the crossover, although I suppose I should be able to hear the difference. The horns look the same but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the same compression model driver attached to them. It would be a bit too much hassle to remove the grills and take the drivers out to see if they are the same.

Funny: a mate has a Monaco; he was round at my place collecting some speaker stands and saw I had a second Monza. His reaction somewhat incredulously: Why do you need two? I think that sums up the capabilities of these cabs. It probably sums up my character as well: one pint is nice but two is even better!

Yep, they are both bog standard as far as I am aware.

Wow, £2,599! Is that reasonable? It hasn’t even fixed things like the lack of contours! I’m sure it’s well made but that still seems a lot. I had a completely custom built (to my spec) short scale bass made by a local luthier for under £1K . Material costs have risen a bit in the intervening few years but I reckon it would still come in under £1,500. I think if I was in the market for a Musicmaster style bass, I would buy a Squire Bronco and put my choice of pickups and hardware on it. It would still come in around a fifth of the price of the Samson. Each to their own though.

Not tried Ernie Ball bass strings. I am sure someone else on here has.

The standard Ibanez gauge seems to be D’Addario light/medium :45-105. I’m pretty sure that was what was on my Mezzo. I thought it worked better (more balanced) with standard D’Addario light: 45-100, flats, which are available in medium scale length. The flats give slightly more tension and are still quite bright. However, I have the nickel round wound D’Addario 45-100 equivalents on a medium scale Maruszczyk Elwood and they work just fine on that, without being too floppy, provided you are not tuning down.

I kind of feel we are hijacking the thread. However, as I have been called out on this: I only have one iPad at the moment that I use for everything. When I get another and reassign my current one to gig only duty, I will control updates much more rigorously. At the moment iPadOS and app updates are automatic for security and functionality reasons.

True but the app authors update them to work with the latest OS functions, so they stop working with your iPad, if Apple are not updating the OS. This has already happened with a few apps on my iPad, including Apple Store, which I find ironic! There is also the problem of battery degradation. WRT cost; I was thinking of a like for like update. I was still working when I got this iPad, so I treated myself to a high end model. I will probably keep it for running my set list app (until that won’t work anymore), as you suggest and buy a new cheaper model for home use.

That is a drawback. I’ve reached the age where a tablet is a necessity, as apps on my phone are too small to read and far too fiddly to use. My iPad is 8 years old and Apple are clearly edging it into obsolescence by reducing updates. I’m dreading the day when I have to shell out the best part of a grand to replace it! However, there are reconditioned units around for quite reasonable prices, if the latest and greatest is not a priority.

Try putting it onto a tablet. There are plenty of apps about for the purpose. Hercules do a great stand (other brands are available). It has the added advantage of reducing the size of the barrier between you and the audience (some might see that as a disadvantage, I guess).

My daughter has one too: great protection but the aluminium reinforcement round the edges catches the instrument when putting it in the case. It’s almost impossible to avoid doing this and it has marked it quite badly.

You just know, the day your strap fails, is the day you forgot to bring a spare. I’ve never had a strap fail but I have had Schaller strap lock buttons unscrew themselves at a gig mid-song with catastrophic results. I’ve now gone over to Loxx, as there is less chance of the two parts binding and unscrewing.

Don’t give me an excuse! Fortunately, my wallet is a bit empty at the moment. I could always put my BF Two10 alongside switched to 12 ohm. My U700 could handle that (approx 2.67 ohms) but nearly all the power would go to the Monzas, or feed the DI out from the U700 to the LMIII and have both sets of speakers running at 4 ohms. Hmmm

The best option would be to try one out. There are quite a few LFSys owners around the UK. I’m based in Norfolk, which is convenient for no one (unless you are in the neighbourhood) but someone nearer to you might be prepared to let you have a go.

I’ve got a Two10 as well as the two Monzas at the moment, so I can comment on the difference up to a point. Absolute like to like comparison: same MB LM111 500 with EQ at 12 o’clock and no shaping, same gain and master settings: the Two Monza’s are louder but nothing like as boomy. The Two10 produces overpowering and slightly unpleasant boominess centred around D on the E string, or A string but extended down to the C and up to the E to a lesser extent. I am assuming this is either the cab’s resonant frequency, or my basses’. The Monza’s resonant frequency is around the low B (on a 4 string, not tried a 5) but much less pronounced, with the identical setup and instrument. The Two10 runs out of steam in the highs, whereas the Monzas will keep reproducing what you throw at them. Of course, this is all based on my particular examples but you only need to look at the frequency ranges in the spec sheets to see the objective differences. EQ at equality the Two10 appears to give you more bass but this is because of the huge low mids hump it is tuned to. Barfaced aimed to tune it for a vintage speaker type response and that is what you get. In reality the Monza gives you the same amount of bass but without the low mids boost and without the boominess. Of course, if you want that, you can eq it in. I use the shaping on the LMIII, or the amp character controls on my Blackstar U700 to put in the vintage sound when I need it. Really, comparing the Two10 and the Monzas is comparing chalk and cheese. They have different design objectives and both products achieve them well. I’m not much of a fretless player but my gut instinct is that the FRFR approach of LFSys would suit that application better. Others might disagree.

That blue baffle looks really good! However, two Monzas is more than enough for anybody.

Reviews are encouraging then. If it is a genuine 51 P copy, it would have pole spacing to cope with the 20mm string spacing at the bridge. That might be a smidge wide for a Bronco but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem given the size of the slugs. The previous model Bronco was about 16mm at the bridge, if I remember correctly but as the new one seems to have a standard BBOT, perhaps it’s gone up to 19mm. Good luck anyway.

Right. I didn’t have the joy of configuring this one but apart from the bridge, it is what I would have chosen. TBH I mostly use it passive anyway. I had a play at configuring a medium scale Jake on Public Peace with two soap bars, chambered body and lots of other “name” parts. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the price! Now I know the truss rod could be dodgy I certainly won’t be pulling the trigger.

P.S. I look forward to reading a review when someone takes the plunge. Obvious comparisons are going to be drawn against another British manufacturer’s products. BlueLine wins on looks IMO and I am sure the performance will be impressive.

I knew these were coming, having had a dialogue with @stevie when I bought my second Monza recently. They look great and I am sure the spec will appeal to a lot of folks. Well played @stevie!

Wow! Stumbled across this thread by accident. I had no idea that there are issues with Maruszczyk truss rods. I had seem comments about the quality of the screws used but truss rods? I also hated the standard bridge and it took ages to find a drop in replacement with screw adjustment for the intonation. Touch wood the rod on my Elwood 4a 32” has been OK so far. It has very little relief and I haven’t touched it since I bought it secondhand. It’s my main gigging bass for the Blues/Rock band I play in and I would be gutted if the rod broke. I’m not sure I could afford the kind of repair/upgrades you have had. BTW I think the Glockenlang preamp is the standard active offering. It certainly seems to be the unit used in my bass and the spec sheet doesn’t have a specific mention of a non-standard preamp. Anyway, I’m really pleased for you that you have your bass back intact and with the action where you want it. It really is a beauty!