Beedster

Interesting bass the relic, I had a real love/hate thing with it. I take your point re the PUPs, but I guess the Custom Shop set out to engineer them as close as possible to what they believed the PUPs in Jaco's bass were like at 'that' stage of his playing/recording, when I guess they were far from new! Before I bought it i did a lot of reading around the instrument and I recall a post on TB in which the author said that people who thought it was a bad bass didn't understand what a good bass was!!!! Not sure I agree, but if I had the money and there was a used one at a decent price I'd buy it, the body relicing was a bit obvious but the neck was a joy to play and whether the PUPs were or were not as good as those in other instruments, it still sounded lovely (as you proved Phil). I've a set of Wizard '64s in my fretless Jazz and I feel they're a similar thing, they don't have the obvious refinement or immediacy of more contemporary voiced PUPs, but there's something rather nice about them all the same. But you're certainly right about little difference between CS and factory sometimes

Always good to hear a happy ending

I've always felt that this was the beauty of Fenders, especially the Precision, and part of why players, producers and engineers love them so much. Like a decent hire car, they're predictable, reliable, have no unexpected quirks, and most do the same thing the same way. Pick up a Wal or some of EBMM's more esoteric models and you're talking a very different kettle of fish. You make a bass 'feel' by playing it, just like you make a car your own by driving it

Hey mate, many thanks, that's exactly why I asked as I've been thinking about those PUPs for a while, if you had a moment could you add your thoughts on the sound to this thread (I don't want to divert this one any further). Cheers. Chris

It was the CS Relic, yet another of those basses I wish I still had, although a bass that, once Phil had played it, I realised was one that I wasn;t quite making the most of

Ha ha, my neighbours have put up with worse trust me. Thanks for the comment Phil, my kids felt the same, IIRC you also correctly identified that Katie, my youngest, has the correct temperament for drumming

With apologies for the thread derail, how does that bass compare to a Jazz Bass tone wise?

Hey Phil, hope all’s well mate, my daughters still remember your visit

Yep

It’s been on eBay for ages, guess it’s a problem to collect for most at present. Weighs a ton as well. I’d still love it

I think it’s all the other stuff ?

All I can say to that is that I’d guess there’s more to perceived tension than is represented in the tension figures (or that the figures are wrong) because they’ve always felt very low tension to me

There must be soundclips on the Mesa site, and if not on Talkbass?

It was a compliment, it moves very fluidly and effortlessly. By comparison my left hand looks like a primary school robot project. Rhythm Stick is a relatively easy track to play mechanically but a very hard track to play musically, your version was very much the latter, great playing

I cut a nut using the string trick, takes time and the nut had tiny guide lines already marked which helped, but it can be done. There are easier ways, but then building a bass isn't the easiest way to acquire a bass either ......

Yep, I get that, one of the things that makes Roland versus MPC difficult is the fact that I have never been disappointed by a Roland product, never struggled to use one, and never broken one, and that’s a pretty good reason to consider them for future gear. The flip side is that a lot of folks appear to favour MPC for what I want to do. Decisions, decisions, decisions

Ah, OK, fair point

Thanks, my problem is the opposite, when confronted by a huge database of of snares and high hats I will be forever changing my mind. What I loved about the Roland TD30K was that pretty early on I found a pre-installed kit that just worked and stuck with it. I'm something of a luddite with tech

The times they are a-changing If you had a spare few minutes, could you share what is making you lean towards the TR8S over the MPC?

Thanks for the advice, I've owned a few of those also, have to say the one I liked the most was the Electribe, just so easy to use, and at the time we were playing a lot of stuff that allowed for its very tight and obvious albeit quite characterful tracks (seemed to work very well with Prince tracks IIRC, we even did some RCHP tracks using it, it was extremely easy to programme). COVID has done some very odd things to prices across the board, I was looking at used Roland gear a few days ago and some of it is more expensive than RRP simply because they're not available to order at the moment. Must be hell to be in retail at a time when people want to buy this stuff but they can't get stock. I had to take all my face-to-face stuff online earlier this year and wanted to buy a decent hardware compressor, shops were simply not able to help, and eBay/Reverb sellers were having a grand time of it! Anyway, re the MPC One, do you know if it comes with decent samples or whether I have to go looking for them from word go?

That has seen some action