carlsim

So... this is how it turned out. I'm not sure how I feel about the control cavity to be honest... Thoughts anyone? Luckily my work has a laser cutter so the clear plate cost me £1.30... just the price of the perspex. So I can make more if needed. Maybe I should start up a sideline?? I like the clear plate allowing the quilted top to show through, but the control cavity.... not so sure. I wondered if there was something I could put underneath / on top of the cavity maybe? Any ideas anyone?

Completely with you - although I hadn't thought about the headstock from that perspective! I have probably just devalued mine! 🤪 Stock strings are a bit naff... I need to change my fretted one when get the chance.... I put some EB flats on my fretless - it sings! I with you about the Preamp and pups... mine is nice and quiet and I don't think £200 is worth it just to add the VTC...

It's a funny thing, when I first started playing, i got involved with a local jazz big band playing DB and electric on some numbers. It was a lot of reading dots which was a great learning curve and I did notice that with big bands, arrangement - due to the transposing nature of brass and woodwind instruments, you tend to find yourself reading flat keys a heck of a lot more than sharp keys. That's not to say that ALL big band arrangements are in flat keys, but arrangers definitely seem to prefer flat keys when writing for big bands... that's my experience anyway! Now, 30 years down the line of reading gigs, function, theatre work etc. I always seem at ease when I see a flat key signature but pucker up a little when I see 5 sharps! 5 flats.... no worries, 5 sharps... concentrate!! It's not so much of a tone thing, but maybe you get used to hearing your instrument more in certain keys so maybe it becomes more familiar to you? I certainly feel happier playing wise and sound wise when I see flats rather than sharps.... Just my opinion of course!

Yeah my atelier z jazz has a clear plate and clear control cover, exactly as the pic… luckily, my work has a laser cutter so gonna have a go at making one myself by scanning in and vectorising the image… hopefully if the scan is accurate, it will match up perfectly!

Yeah, I saw the separate VTC option - I'm not sure if I fancy that!

Clear plate is the obvious idea... it just struck me! Any other ideas...??

I have recently acquired a Sterling Ray35 (big SR5 fan, had plenty over the years) and this new has a particularly nice quilted top - see pic! It has also been routed nicely around the pup so that just leaves the control cavity to cover if I wanted to leave the scratchplate off. Any ideas? A chrome cover? Would need to get this made... or maybe a thin aluminum sheet or something which is then powder coated? I'm open to ideas... a black 3 ply small cover would probably look a bit naff... something quite statement-ey?? Anyone else done this? 4 string players are lucky, they can just take the plate off. 5s need a bit more thought....

I find that these days a lot of the cheaper far east instruments are all of a similar quality and standard. They all need a little fettling to suit the player, but that's the deal with cheaper instruments. I don't think manufacturers can afford to try and offload cheap rubbish these days - word of mouth travels quickly these days via 't'net' and can destroy a brand very quickly. The 1st gen of the chinese metro express basses is a great example of that. Roger came out and said himself that he wasn't happy with the first iteration and problems would be fixed on the next batches. Credit to them, I never saw a first gen model but the next batches seem to be great basses for the money. Sires the same - great basses for the money although I don't think they have ever had QC issues like Sadowsky had to deal with on the first gen ME. Having said that, I don't think I would have spent £700+ on a ME, just for £350/£400, as others have mentioned, they are a great platform to mod and tinker! I keep thinking about the VTC but I don't know if it brings enough benefits to warrant the outlay! I may see if I can pick up a used one to try out. To spend money I like to see an obvious difference, I'm not sure if it would bring me that much to warrant a near £200 spend. I recently put in a Glockenklang preamp in my Atelier Z DAL5 and that sounds amazing! It has the passive tone, 2 band EQ and is cut and boost rather than just boost. And it is just over half the cost of the VTC. A difficult decision but luckily not an urgent one as my MEs are not my main gigging basses.

The sadowsky metro express basses have a SME or SMX serial on the rear of the headstock… metrolines and other sadowsky basses have simpler serials on the rear… would be quite obvious from the serial on the rear… plus it isn’t just printed, it seems to be embedded into the wood… I don’t have a picture at hand but can post one.

https://www.guitardecals.co.uk all the information is on the other thread...

I made a thread about this - it isn't totally detailed about the process but should cover most of what you need: Basically, sand the headstock (make sure the sanding is nice and even) apply a few dust coats of your chosen finish (I used a matt finish poly which I buffed to a satin finish...) wet sand a little and apply the decal lay on some dust coats to seal the decal and then you can apply a few more heavier coats to level out. I then wet sanded with 1200 W&D and buffed to a sheen. reassemble. i couldn't get around not having a very fine outline of the decal showing (you can see it in certain light and angles) but I can live with that. Hope this helps. Carl

Yep, spotted this about 2 seconds after I posted the images! All sorted now... It's not at all, the E string wasn't in the saddle correctly - all fixed now. It's a great bass for the cash - would be hard pressed to find something this good for £350 new.

Received my CAR 5 string a few weeks ago and only just had the chance to do the decal change and also put a carbon vinyl wrap on the scratchplate as the plain white was booooring!

Hi all... just a quick question to all the B6 users out there... I have a B6 that I use with my QSC 12.2 as backline and monitoring, much better IMO than a backline amp. Anyway, that's another discussion... The only issue I have is fine tuning overall volume control. I have plenty of headroom, but I don't like to control overall volume on the bass and can't be going behind the QSC or bending down mid-song to alter the volume on the B6. The B6 has a master output volume control for each patch assigned to the right side button (the 4 encoders under the screen) - if I connect a volume pedal to the B6 (I have an old Bespeco one that still works), will that default to controlling this volume control or will I have to assign it in the patch? I just want it to control this volume output globally, I'm not interested in wah control or anything, just for volume so I hope that if I plug it in it will default to this control automatically. Anyone tried this? I haven't tried it yet, will do when I get time, I just wondered if was as simple as I hoped!

To be honest, Rob already had the Sadowsky logo so just amended the design he already had and added the MetroExpress… initially he made a mistake and put a space in between the metro and express, but when I mentioned it he sent me another set FOC! definitely recommended… read the instructions it comes with and you can’t go too far wrong… don’t do what I did though - as per my thread, I tried to remove a hair in the poly, pierced the decal and it melted! good luck and post results…

I went here for my decal: https://www.guitardecals.co.uk really helpful guy and you get 2 decals for about £10. I saw this as a just in case but it also persuaded me to buy a second bass! My process: rub the headstock down mask up (get some good quality masking tape, I used frog tape for the edge.) apply a few dust coats of poly (I used rust oleum satin poly) let it dry for a couple of days and do a very light wet sand with 1200 apply your decal Apply at least 8-10 very light dust coats of your chosen finish, after this you can layer it on a bit thicker to get the finish you are after… the question lies with what finish you are after - gloss, satin or Matt. I didn’t bother doing a wet sand at the end and buff, I was happy with what I had. hope this helps - certainly improved the overall look in my view and it wasn’t a lot of work. Very gradual and don’t rush it! carl.

That's what mine is... a PJ 5 fretless... I think I must have got one of the last ones Thomann had as they only did the fretless ones in black... It's great though - a bit of fine tuning for setup but it plays great and as it has an ebony board, tons of mwah! Carl.

You should do what I did… £10 for a new decal and voila! sand it off, couple of coats of poly, apply the decal and a few more coats! reassemble and the Tesco style logo is gone… I did my fretless and I’m waiting for my CAR fretted 5 to turn up and I will do the same to that one…

That feels about right for my 5 fretless... not super lightweight but certainly not boat anchors either... 9/9.5lb is a good weight in my mind...

My fretless 5 is amazing… I think the early ones were a mixed bag… later ones do seem to have fixed the issues… no idea what the new ones are like though.

For anyone interested, i picked up today a Sadowsky Metro Express 5 String in CAR for £369 from Thomann! Considering I paid £479 for a fretless 5 one of these a few months ago, this is a bargain! I know these had a bad rep in the beginning but the newer versions of the old headstock design were much better... my fretless 5 plays great! Anyway... just thought I would mention... https://www.thomann.de/gb/sadowsky_metroexpress_5_21_hybrid_tb.htm - sunburst 5 at £369 The CAR and Greens are also at £369... some of the 4 stringers are even cheaper!! Considering these were £700+ when they first arrived... that's a second hand price for a new bass!