thodrik

Okay, bringing this thread back to life as it seems Guitar Guitar have received their first shipment. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/180206322275007--sadowsky-metro-express-mv4-tobacco-burst https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/180206322274007--sadowsky-metro-express-mv4-candy-apple-red Well, they look pretty much indistinguishable from the Metro MV4 I have, which is great. I guess the real question is what they are like to play and what they sound like. It seems that they are located in the Birmingham store. I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of anybody lucky enough to try one, as the chances of me getting to Birmingham is slim to none at the moment!

Bass Gallery in London as well: https://thebassgallery.com/ Along with Bass Direct they would be the main two ones that come to mind.

I may be wrong, (in that I writing this from memory of reading other threads from years back and without checking or verifying anything) but my understanding is that: Part of the reason was cost efficiency. The new Series IV basses could be produced more quickly. This resulted in the Series IV Arpeges being available for a much lower price than the Series III basses. I also understand that the equipment that was being used to create the neck through models were getting old, so it was becoming more difficult and time consuming for Vigier to produce the neck through models. Also, I think that part of it is that Patrice Vigier doesn't see in any tonal advantages/disadvantages between bolt on vs set neck vs neck through. This could explain why the GV Guitars (the Vigier equivalent of a set neck single cut Les Paul or neck through PRS) are all bolt on designs. None of my basses have neck though designs and I don't think I am missing anything in terms of tone. However, I will accept that a high quality neck through bass like a Vigier (or Spector or Warwick or Fodera or equivalent) is real work of art in terms of design and gives the instrument a real bit of 'Je ne sais quoi'... I'll get my coat....

I have a Series IV (when they started to go bolt on). I love the shape, but in my opinion the shape of the Series IV models are slightly more mainstream and bit less 'uniquely' Vigier like the Series 1 and 2 models. The fit and finish to Vigier is generally top notch whatever the time period or model (I have an Excess as well and my brother has an Excalibur).

Calling @ped!

Possibly. I have had one for nearly ten years now. That perhaps gives a clue as to why it was discontinued. The people that love them bought them years ago and mostly haven't needed to buy another. The people that didn't fancy the Walkabout in the first place, because they wanted more clean headroom or they wanted an even smaller class D solid state head, were never going to buy a Walkabout. That gives a limited market for Mesa to sell 'new Walkabouts'. This is particularly the case when the head has been on sale for 15 years or so, so it isn't difficult to find a Walkabout in the used market for less than what a new one would cost. So yeah, I understand the reason the original amp was discontinued. In terms of feature set though, the WD-800 seems to have a lot more going for it. I'm hoping though that Mesa haven't abandoned their big valve/simul-state bass amp designs for good. I have always wanted a 400+ or the Big Block 750.

Thanks for the clarification. From owning both a Walkabout and M6, my preference is definitely in the Walkabout camp in terms of how the pre-amp operates. I will probably be trying the WD-800 at some point as I'm intrigued in how the power amp dambing control operates.

Given how long the Talkbass Walkabout thread has been running, trying to redesign an updated version of the same preamp would be a tricky task! I would agree that most of the improvements can be seen as a positive, especially a quieter fan! Admittedly I am a massive fan of the original Walkabout and of Mesa products in general. My only query to the current Mesa bass line is whether there is enough differences between the D800, D800+ and the new WD800 as to warrant them all existing in the same product line at the same time? Three different 800 watt bass heads, all with similar features, all within the same general price bracket, all three of them released within the last couple of years. I have read that the D800 series was designed to sit somewhere in between the Walkabout and the Carbine spectrum in terms of tone. However, if the WD800 is designed to have benefits of the Walkabout pre-amp but with far more clean headroom and tonal flexibility, would this not mean that the new WD800 also sits in pretty much the same tonal spectrum as the D800 and D800+? The differences between the various models seem very subtle compared to Mesa's guitar line (say like the Rectifier Series as compared to the Lone Star series). I don't mean this as a criticism, more that I would just be interested in trying the different heads and seeing the differences and subtleties between the heads.

‘World’s Okayest Bass Player’ Christmas present from my brother.

A shame. Cool stage presence and personality. Most importantly though, a great taste in hats and sunglasses.

That is a poor sales person that doesn’t know their products. Surprising from Guitar Guitar as their staff usually know their stuff. Sorry to hear that they gave you false information, I would be annoyed as well.

None of the new VRs are made in the USA. Only the Heritage stuff is made in the USA and the cost for them is about two grand. Still, that is a top of the line valve bass head for a grand. It is a great deal. If you want a made in USA VR you will have to look used, probably have to pay more and have no warranty.

I don’t hate it, but I have owned a a 1974 Gibson EB3 since 2000. I don’t like the three point bridge design. It is very difficult to set it up to achieve are decent action and intonation. Only two of the four pick up selections deliver a workable tone. It is heavy and neck heavy. Due to the tiny space between the string entry point and the string saddle and the short scale neck, it is very difficult to find strings that work well with the bass. I have been thinking of selling it for ten years but have been too lazy to do anything about it, as part of my brain thinks it is cool to have such a unique bass and a bit of history as part of my collection. Also my brother thinks it is cool.

I have had this dilemma for ten years or more. I generally hit mute on my Boss tuner and then retune. It generally takes about 3-5 seconds and I never have needed to switch tunings in the middle of a song. Even if I had an extender I would still probably stop and check the tuning anyway so I don’t think an extender would save me any time in practical terms. I don’t do any session stuff, pit work, open mic nights or blues jams that require me to have access to standard tuning, drop D or songs in e flat tuning on the fly. If I did, an extender would probably be very handy, if just playing a five string is not an option. I have generally been in bands where the guitarists are checking tuning every other song and take far longer to switch to drop D (or equivalent) than it does for me to do the same on the bass, particularly if the guitarist is playing a Les Paul.

I have a 5 string tuned to A flat on the B string with a set of DR DDTs. It is fun, but in my opinion once I start playing stuff below a low A, I find it easier to play a note an octave up. I have played with guitars going as low down as F sharp, it is a tough push for me to set up a bass to accommodate that, so I just use the note an octave up. Even the bassist in Meshuggah doesn't drop down to the level of the guitars. I do like downtuning but I am more of a stoner/doom bass player when it comes to downtuning rather than the modern djent stuff that needs a really fast attack and precise definition.

No problem! At least it isn’t a certain other bass forum where every other thread has a passive aggressive first response of ‘Do a search before you post buddy because we already covered this in a sub-discussion in random other thread 36 1/2 months ago’.

I think you did a very similar topic to this a few months ago, except looking at Sadowsky as a price comparison point rather than Alleva, etc. You aren’t really going to find anything new other than you still really like your bass and that you can buy a Sei bass for less than another version of a high end Jazz bass made by a different manufacturer in a different country.

In the current market, the price for a boutique made in the USA head is pretty good. My Walkabout 1x15 combo was about £1300 new back in 2008 (the head alone I think was £1100 or so back then). The price of the cabs are silly. Just ridiculous. You would think with the lighter weight they would be easier and cheaper to ship than the old Powerhouse cabinets (which are/were really expensive as well). I see that Mesa have deleted links on their sites to the Powerhouse cabs and any non-Subway amps, such as their all valve Prodigy/Strategy heads. It looks like Mesa are really committing to lightweight gear, which is cool. Probably a wise move, despite being great, the Powerhouse cabs are really heavy and are only really 'easy to move' if you are used to moving those old Diesel or Roadready cabs about. I wonder if they will make a classic Powerhouse 1000 lightweight cab, fitting a 4x10 and 1x15 into a 'lightweight' box. Keep the mix of old and new cabs.

My solution for a louder Walkabout was playing it through a Powerhouse 6x10! No volume issues anymore. I need to hit weights more before I can really be able to lift the cab in and out my car unaided. Hence a portable 2x15 has me excited.

I own a Walkabout and M6 Carbine. I much prefer the tone of the Walkabout. I would be tempted of getting rid of the M6 for a new higher power equivalent of the Walkabout. My concern is that part of the 'magic' of the original Walkabout that the tubes are used at the driver stage with the Mosfets. I'm interested to see how Mesa have approached this with a class D preamp. The cabs look great. A portable 2x15 would be something!

Me too thanks to this thread! Really digging their stuff.

So many great bassists are in bands that do not lend themselves to a pub rock cover set, as they are not in mainstream ‘everybody knows the songs’ type bands. The bassist in Karnivool is one of the most most talented bassists in semi-mainstream rock, but Karnivool material is not really stuff that that will fit in with a set of Foo Fighters, Oasis and Strokes songs. You could tweak a couple of Royal Blood or Death From Above 1979 songs for a full band. Some of the trippy, less heavy Deftones or Queens of the Stone Age stuff might work as well as the basslines but they are hardly new and a lot of the songs are in lower than standard tuning. Also, I might be on the verge of losing my ‘stoner/doom fan’ credibility but I absolutely love the early We Are Scientists albums. With Love and Squalir is such a cool pop/rock album. Not a great bassist but the songs are so catchy and fun to listen to, with added bonus that the album sold quite well so any of the songs would fit in with a popular modern rock/covers set. I also don’t mind some of the Kasabian basslines. The basslines in some Elbow songs are pretty cool. Not new bands, but newer than Oasis.

When I was 22 my band at the time were asked play a charity evening gig in aid of breast cancer and testicular cancer awareness at a school that was close to where our singer grew up. Sounded innocent enough. Unfortunately when we got there we discovered that the ‘breast cancer awareness’ aspect consisted of 15-17 girls wearing only their bra and pants and 15-17 year old boys in their underwear. The adult supervisors were off duty police officers and parents of the children. None of them seemed to think that any of this was remotely weird or inappropriate. I was fairly disgusted and couldn’t wait to leave.

Have owned the Duality for a few years. It is very much a 'over the top' and raw fuzz. I don't think it is great for an 'always on' overdrive or slight fuzz effect. However for bass solos or for moments you want things to go all out of control or make your bass sound like a big distorted guitar it is so much fun. If you are happy with the amount of gain on offer, the pedal is actually fairly flexible as you can tailor the tone of the fuzz to your liking. you can't get less gain, you can only get less of the fuzz in the signal via the blend control. The Alpha Omega will offer more flexibility, but I don't need it. I use my B3K more, but I have more fun with the Duality.

I think I can agree with that.