SumOne

I'm sure an SP1 is great, and I might treat myself - but I think I'll feel like I've paid a bit much if they rise much above £2k. Not least as the D-Roc 5 is about £1,750 and I can't see many (any?!) reasons the SP1 should cost more to produce. (the D-Roc often being about 4.4kg rules that out for me though). With quite a big multiscale range from Ibanez (EHB, SR, BTB), and a lots of others others doing it (Cort, Spector, Maruszczyk, Hils, Sire, Strandberg) at least there is a fair amount of choice/competition nowadays. I think Dingwall are onto something good with he SP1 doing the more traditional passive P Bass thing though for the sound and look and front jack etc. almost all of the multiscale competition has gone the ultra-modern route.

Bass Direct ticks a lot of boxes for me: Fair part excahnge prices, great selection of basses to try out in a friendly place, and it is often only shop in the UK to get certain basses.

Bax seems to be back. For places like GAK and PMT with physical shops mostly making their £ selling mass produced new instruments then they can't compete on price with big online only shops for price, so what's their selling point? Even if people want to test the instruments, they can just do that in the shop then buy online elsewhere. And even that isn't really necessary as all online sales can be returned for refund within a month. I don't think they've adapted with the times with internet, return laws, big automated warehouses, cheap delivery. We've seen it with shops like Our Price and HMV going under while shops like Rough Trade have expanded. They do in shop signings/gigs, have cafes, have fairly obscure vinyl and merchandise that can be tricky to get online. Personally I'd try and do similar with an instrument shop - don't compete directly with online shops for shifting mass produced boxes, put some effort in to offer alternatives: In shop demos, talks from musicians and manufacturers, small gigs, product launches, lessons, good part exchange deals, second hand, servicing, in shop experts happy to help, equipment rental, practice spaces, cafe/bar, boutique brands and custom stuff. Incentives like 'buy here and get a free lesson on how to use your new keyboard/set-up your bass/pair your mixer with your Laptop' etc. really make it a 'go to' hub for musicians. I think places like PMT have dropped the ball on this.

Nice one. I should've got in there with the original Bass Direct prices, their prices have now gone up to £2,050.

Nice! So I assume <4kg? Yeah, I've usually found that fretting for the fanned frets is not really much adjustment - especially for that area where most fretting is done from about frets 4 - 10 where it's nearly verticle and covers roughly 2x octaves where most basslines live. More to get used to right up around fret 20....but no need to venture up there too often! I see Bass Direct have another one in stock (unless it was this one and they haven't updated the website). I'm very tempted to make the trip there to give it a go and potentially part-exchange....but the 5hr round trip means I don't think that'll happen any time soon.

Nice! A bit off topic, but just for my education - why drop A? Do you use the low A or is it more for helping with certain chord/open string stuff across all strings?

Yeah, I bet the SP1 will be great. I've been in contact with Bass Direct to get a part-exchange price for my current Bass and they've offered a fair price so I reckon I'll go for it once they have some in stock to try.

So are the Bass Direct prices the actuall prices, or just a pre-order estimate? ....I dunno about paying more than £1,950 (for the 5) as even that feels slightly over-priced given that it is about £200 more than the D-Roc 5, and what is there on the SP1 that costs more than the D-Roc to produce given that the D-Roc has 3x pickups, metal flake or colourshift paint? (I'd probably get a D-Roc other than the fact I've seen them weigh up to 10lbs/4.5kg, nobody needs that kind of backache in this day and age!). Compared to other multiscale basses ,the SP1 5 at £1,950 is £250 more than the most expensive new Ibanez EHB (or about £900 more than the basic ones) and £250 more than the Spector NS Dimension. Saying that though, some more real-life weight measures are available now from USA shops for the 4 strings, they tend to be about 8.2lbs (so roughly 3.7kg) so I'm guessing the 5 strings will be slightly under 4kg (which is my self-imposed weight limit). I reckon I'll get one but £1,950 is my spending limit.

The split path is good, can use as a simple A/B switch or as a blend, and the blend can add more complex stuff like dynamic sensitivity and cutoff frequencies for each path. I found that it isn't really necessary for most compressor/drive/effects though as the 'x comp bass' is multiband compression (Boss like to confuse things and call it 'multi dimensional processing') and has a clean mix (Boss call it 'direct mix'). The same with distortion like the 'X-OD Bass' and in fact I think all the amps and all the bass effects have a clean mix so I often use the split path just as a simple A/B switch to make it visually easier to see what is going on to turn a few effects on/off together (which can be done without a split path). The split path things is useful for the Royal Blood type separate Guitar/Bass amp split and I've found the split path and dynamic sensitivity things also useful for nerding out with effect stuff like slicer+delay etc.

Yeah, I guess there's a certain amount of supply and demand for the pricing of these first ones, but the 'out of stock' pricing at Bass Direct is best. Seeing as a D-roc is about £1,650 for a 4 string or £1,750 for a 5 I'd hope that is roughly where the price of an SP1 settles. If anything then not having a preamp or fancy glitter paint jobs would presumably make it a bit cheaper to produce.

I got an SR305E in part exchange to have as a relatively light/small/cheap backup. Gotta say though, after doing a thorough setup (which it really needed) there now isn't much difference between this and basses I've owned worth £1k extra. 16.5mm spacing is a bit tight for me, can live with it though. The only thing I'm really not a fan of is no passive mode, feels risky potentially doing a gig and finding out half way through that the battery has died.

Generally, our audience is people who happen to be at the pub, some people that go to the pub because they see a band (any band) is going to be on, friends/family, or they've heard us play at their local before....but last night was the first time there were a notable amount of people that had heard us before and specifically travelled to hear us - which felt like a bit of a 'next step'.