thodrik

If you are not a qualified tech or do not have the correct equipment to bias an amp then biasing an amp is an alien concept and not something that a lot of players want to 'dabble' with. Having an amp with a pre-set bias is a real benefit to me personally. If a power tube goes in my Mesa Rectoverb, I just need to buy a new set of tubes (either Mesa branded or ones which I am confident have been measured to be an equivalent to a Mesa set). Job done. Very handy if you are on tour or at a gig. If a power tube goes in my Trace Elliot V6, I'm probably going to send it to a tech that I trust, which in my case is about a 6 hour drive. I could try and fixing it myself but I could end up killing myself or doing something worse like damaging the amp.

I played a few Fender Custom Shop Jazzes in Guitar Guitar a while ago. Very nice basses but they all had the vintage 1960s spec 7.5 inch radius which I just don't like. They also had quite a lot of single coil hum, which I suppose is being true to vintage spec but to me was annoying to have on a £3k 'new' instrument. In the same shop there was an actual 1975 Fender in store for £500 less than the Custom Shop which I preferred by a significant margin. I'm not sure that the Fender Custom Shop offer a 1970s jazz (most of the ones I have seen are 1960s inspired) as one of their 'stock' models, so a custom order for one would probably be pricey (but if you got one it would be fairly unique and would probably retain value). If you want a proper 1970s passive Fender jazz vibe, I would probably stick with passive Fender basses. I have two Sadowskys but even set passive and with the vintage tone control 'on' it never feels like I am playing a 'vintage' bass (it is very much a modern take on a vintage design, which I actually prefer). The relic Sandbergs to me get a bit closer to being 'vintage' but the oversized Delano pickups scream 'modern' to me even with the heaviest of relics. I would wait until you find an actual 1970s Fender if something like an American Original 1970s model won't scratch the itch and a bespoke Custom Shop 70s model ends up in the £5k or above range.

Guitar Guitar can do a good set up. There is also someone working out of CC Music where Jimmy Egypt used to work out of. Jimmy Egypt would be my first port of call for fretwork.

You don’t need to bias preamp tubes. Just install them and they should just work until they stop working.

I think that all the stock Mesa preamp tubes in my Walkabout and Big Block have been replaced with JJs (the stock Mesa ones in the Walkabout lasted ten years so they did a good shift!). I didn't know that they 'had' to be either Mesa or JJ's though. I had always thought that most 12AX7 preamp valves were fairly interchangeable. When I got my Big Block second hand, all of the preamp valves were of a different brand and had gone a bit microphonic and the amp sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies when I first turned it on but the amp still worked. With my Rectoverb 50 guitar amp, I had some bad luck with new Mesa 6l6 tubes which went microphonic and developed rattles within a short period of time after I bought them. I actually replaced them with Watford Valves' own brand 'Harma' valves (bought as matched for Mesa set) which perform much better for me. The fixed bias of Mesa amps is a great feature, as it makes so tube changing so much easier and quicker.

Let me know how you get on, as it might come in handy for me in the event that one of my bits of of Mesa kit stops working.

Hi Dave, With any amp repair in Scotland I generally use Flynn Amps. https://www.flynnamps.com/ Fortunately/unfortunately I have never had to have my Walkabout repaired in 13 years, but if I did I would probably send it there. They have fixed a fair number of my old Trace Elliot amps and speaker in the past and my brother's old Marshalls. I think that they can fix most types of amps but they really specialise in older valve amps and solid state amps. Checking the Mesa website (https://www.mesaboogie.com/support/locations.html?q=United+Kingdom&page=1&t=repair), they have Fretronics Engineering as a recognised repair centre. They operate in the same premises as the CC Music Shop in Otago Street (I am pretty sure that this will be the same premises that Flynn Amps used to operate out of before they moved to their current location). The Fretronics website has a big picture of a Rectifier so I would presume that they would be well placed to assist! https://fretronics.com/.

Yepp, I am waiting for an update on that front too. Mostly, though I am hoping that the cabinet includes a 4 ohm lightweight 4x10 I can pair with my V6. On topic again, I believe that the Mesa M9 has onboard compression too.

With my basses I have been using the rubber washers off Grolsch beer bottles as strap locks for the last 14 years. No failures yet. I have Schaller straplocks on my Les Paul because it would come a cropper if the strap came loose and the original strap buttons were not deep enough to fit the old Grolsch washers.

I can't think of any 'off the shelf' type designs. Sandberg do produce 35 inch scale basses that might be worth a shout if you can live with the string spacing. Also with any kind of 24 fret design, be wary as whether the design of the bass allows the upper frets to actually be playable. I like having 24 frets, but only if the frets are playable, otherwise I am fine with a standard 21 fret Fender design. A second hand Mike Lull PJ5 would probably be my recommendation, if you can find one though second hand I think that they go for about £2k or more. I nearly bought one but ended up with a Sadowsky NYC 5.

I have been really enjoying the new Green Lung album, Black Harvest. They have been picking up quite a bit of mainstream attention, The Guardian even did an article about them. Critics could call them Sabbath clones, but there is enough of a twist for me to stop them being too derivative of other bands. The guitar work for a start has loads of Brian May influences which I really like. I also love the way that they have a lot of old school English folk music influences and despite not being a massive fan of organs, I think that the addition of a full time organ player really helps the band. I really like the production too. Sometimes they remind me of what would happen if you mixed Black Sabbath and Boston. Between that an Boss Keloid, both of my favourite 'heavier' albums this year have been released by bands from England, which is a nice change. There is of course the new Mastodon album out this week which I am looking forward to as well. https://greenlung.bandcamp.com/album/black-harvest

Good to hear the positive reviews. I have seen a few nice basses they have advertised on Reverb and Ebay. Good to know that they are a good outfit.

If you are getting choking on the first fret then it potentially calls into question the initial set up. Without seeing the bass, the choking could relate to the neck relief (or lack thereof) or the string height not being high enough, both of which can be cured by a revised set up. Failing that it might be a high fret rather than a badly cut nut. It might be the nut but I definitely wouldn't buy a new nut until I absolutely thought it was required. I would initially try raising the string height slightly to see if that cures the choking problem. If if does then you will have solved the problem without it costing you any money.

A five string Sadowsky but with a zero fret and a neck constructed with the Vigier 10-90 carbon system in the neck. The pickups will feature a single J in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge that can be coil tapped (like the Sandberg TM line). preamp will be the standard Sadowsky. Bridge will be the big hulk of metal they use in the Excess. Roger Sadowsky and Patrice Vigier can then licence Warwick to manufacture the instrument at a cost of £30,000 and then the design will be amended against my wishes to include the Just a Nut iii and be made of solid bubinga and will weigh 13lbs.

Pretty much word for word exactly what I was going to say!

Generally any old Mosfet or valve amp can be repaired by a qualified tech provided that they can source the correct parts. However a lot of those amps are now 20+ years old and parts can be scarce and in many cases the cost of repair will be greater than the actual market value of the amp. Class D amps are so high tech in comparison they are not capable or any kind repair if the power module fails so if they go wrong it is usually more economical to buy a new amp if it is out of warranty. Buying new, I would say Ashdown or Orange would be a good bet as they are large companies with probably a big lot of capacity for parts. I mean, you could also buy a Matamp and I am pretty sure they would repair the amp if it went wrong. Generally I find EBS good in terms of sourcing parts, but I think I have sourced about 4 lightbulbs from them over a 13 year period on the Fafner.

True. For my own current situation (live band, heavy rock loud drummer, two guitarists with valve amps, often minimal on stage monitoring) having an amp and cab (or just a combo) on stage at least gives me a chance of enabling the rest of the band on stage to hear what I am playing even if the onstage monitoring is non-existent and/or useless. I generally set up according to the rest of band. If the rest of the band want to go the IEM route then I would be up for it. If the guitarist wants to use an old 100 watt Marshall valve amp (hopefully with an attenuator) then I am game for that too. After the last 18 months of the pandemic I am pretty much game for anything!

The Eden model on the original Bass Pod was my favourite setting when I was a teenager. I always wanted to try a proper World Tour amp as a result. I still never have though!

For smaller venues when I'm on tour and have no idea of what the provided PA and monitor system is like (or what the local soundperson operating the PA system is like), I like to have an amp and cab so that I can at least be sure that I will be able to hear myself. If I was a megastar playing larger venues with a top level PA or if I was in a function band that owned its own PA then I would certainly consider going the 'in ears' route. However, I am not so I don't. I do love the mechanics of amps in general, so I do own a massive valve amp and a 6x10. However, for practical gigging purposes it is an entirely unnecessary set up.

I only tried an ‘original’ Japanese MetroExpress one. I didn’t try any of the newer Warwick made MetroExpress ones that come in at a much lower price. I have heard though that the new versions of that are much better than the initial production run.

Well, in terms of the fit and finish and generally level of the fretwork, the Japanese MetroExpress was pretty much on par with my Metro. It was just the volume knob that was the issue, though that should not be an issue on a £1600 bass. I also don't think that the Metroexpress line were done in the same workshop by the same people as the original Metro line. It was designed to be a factory 'production line' bass to be manufactured in far greater numbers than the original Metros, but I don't think many actually got made because of various issues in terms of actually getting the basses produced. From playing one however, I would probably opt for a German Metro or a Sandberg at that price point.

I think you are talking about the pickup blend pot. I was talking about the volume pot. For reference I have an NYC and Metro. In the Metro Express the volume pot worked the other way round from the two I have. So unless the Metro Expresses were specifically designed to have the volume pot going the other way then it was an error in the production process. Fit and finish was really good though.

I tried one in the Glasgow shop. Really nice fit and finish, however the volume pot worked the wrong way round, which was something that definitely would not have happened with a Japanese full fat Metro of the time.

I actually didn't mind Stadium Arcadium and thought it was a return to form after By The Way, which I found to be entirely boring apart from a couple of tracks (I think Don't Forget Me is one of their best songs, even though it is very similar in structure to Other Side) Honestly, I haven't really listened to them after seeing them on the Stadium Arcadium tour. It was the most uninspiring, phoned in performance I had ever seen at the time, which was an impressive achievement on account that I had seen Van Morrison a few months prior. I probably will give this one a miss too.

It happened with a guitar to me but has never happened with a bass. I bought an American Deluxe Fender Toronado as my guitar in 2006 and really liked it. However, when I tried a Les Paul for the first time in 2016 my mind went 'my guitar feels like a toy' by comparison. I ended up buying a different Les Paul in 2018 and sold the Toronado to fund a Mesa Big Block 750 six months later. That was the first time I sold a decent instrument as I normally keep them, however I needed the cash, never played the Toronado and I really really wanted that Big Block!