BassAgent

I used to be at one Precision, but now at two! Picked up my brand new De Gier Soulmate last week. Custom options are an amázing Candy Apple Red finish, lollipop tuners (first De Gier bass éver to have lollipops), dots & binding (first Soulmate to have so). Fralin pickup. And it's brilliant.

Thanks! That's what I was aiming for😁 It wasn't cheap but this bass is really something else.

Fralin!

So last year I wanted to buy a new bass, partly for tax reasons but mainly just because I wanted to. So after very, very short deliberations with myself I decided. Sander de Gier was going to build me a brand new Soulmate; I already own a Bebop 5 string and that's a great bass too, so what could possibly go wrong? The specs were pretty easy for me: I wanted dots & binding, lollipop tuners, a sixties sound and a Candy Apple Red finish. I ordered it in September and picked it up today. And what. A. Bass. It's hands down one of the best Precisions I've ever played. The neck, the sustain, the sound... Everything is just perfect. It's a great add to my '71 Precision. Sander told me it's the first Soulmate ever with dots & binding, and possibly the first De Gier bass ever with lollipop tuners. I'd love to make some family pics but I'm currently in the middle of moving so that has to wait.

Every single thing is wrong about that bass. It might sound good, but it's not a Mustang. Or a Fender. Or anything I've seen before.

This thing is:

Thanks good sir! I am really surprised at how good the 'Stang sounds, and how well it complements my Precision. I've used them both at a studio session a couple of weeks ago and they both worked so well (especially with the vintage Bassman 50 that was in the studio).

I could, but the issue is not the bass on its own: I switch a lot between basses during gigs and all my other basses have a higher output than this bass.

I'm considering doing a Facebook live Q&A about fretless playing, featuring these two animals. Would you guys tune in?

I was fixing a friend's bass yesterday and it was loaded with a Bartolini preamp. Those preamps include a trim pot, which controls the output gain. Could that be a solution, and can that be added to the Aguilar OBP-3 or do I need a completely new preamp then?

Haha wow now I feel réally lucky🙃

Thanks! We've re-recorded it on the new EP, sounds even better IMO

We do! We play together in a 2 Tone ska tribute (but I play guitar there), and we play in Violet Hour, an americana band. Debut EP upcoming We've been playing together practically non stop for the last 20 years.

It was my first car and I loved that little thing.

Apparently I bought the bass from a guy who sold it just because it wasn't original.

The drum kit in question.

Yes! He had a gorgeous drum kit built in Finland. I think it also depends on whether your bass is original to begin with: mine was already refinished, had two screws replaced and was without the original case.

10 years ago, my brother and I did this: We participated in a Dutch TV quiz. While driving to the final round in my Fiat Panda, we fantasized about what we would do with the prize money. My brother (a drummer) said he'd have a drum kit built, and I said I'd buy a vintage Fender bass. Not long before that I was at Paul's Bass Matters here in NL to have some coffee and drool over vintage Fenders, as I did pretty often back then because I lived very close to his shop. That specific time, I played on a 1966 Jazz that was absolutely perfect for me. It had everything. The colour was right, dots & binding on the neck, sound, feel, the lot. But then there was the price. The 19-year-old me thought he'd never be able to afford this kind of bass. And then we won. The prize money was more or less exactly the price of that bass. I don't recall it exactly but I think I sent Paul an e-mail that very day stating "please hold the bass for me, I'm coming for it". And so, a day before my 20th birthday, exactly 10 years ago, I drove to Nijmegen to pick up my favourite bass of all time. I take it to pretty much every recording session I do, and especially since it got some new frets last year, it's seeing more stages again. What a bass. Everything is absolutely perfect.

Thanks for the advice I know about pickup height. The pickups are kind of high already, I like 'em high, also because of playing comfort. I can try to raise them even more, but I doubt if that would give it so much more output.

As you may or may not know, I own this gorgeous De Gier Origin fretless. It sounds absolutely amazing, but it has a big problem, which made me put it up for sale: the output is very, véry low. I took it to a gig when I first got it and compared to my '71 Precision the output is amazingly low, same goes for all my other basses. I really don't want to sell it but I feel forced to. Unless there is a solution: get some other electronics. It has the Bartolini Classic Dual Coil pickups and an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp. I have very good experiences with Aguilar preamps so no worries there. Then there's the pickups: you'd think "just get yourself some decent 5-string, high output pickups and that's the end of it" but there's a catch: the pickups are relatively small. The bridge pickup is 93 mm (3.66"), neck pickup is 91 mm (3.58"). I am a pretty decent googler but I couldn't find any 5-string pickups that match the size of these. Does anyone have a solution? I don't want to go gigging with extra preamps.