wavey_davey

Today is a good day!! My Clement #177 is complete!! Just have to wait for her to cross the pond into my waiting hands!!

Cavity Shielding going in now. Final assembly this afternoon.. Final live test tonight and... SHIPPING TOMORROW! Should get completed pics later on today which will be posted shortly afterwards

[quote name='bubinga5' post='711716' date='Jan 13 2010, 06:39 PM']Somebody mentioned Wal...What was there slogan? "The Sound of Wood"...,[/quote] Marketing can be an evil thing......

Does the wood choice alter the sound? I think you have to admit it will. But not to the same degree and the strings, pickups, electronics or style (finger / pick etc) and definately not as much as the dumb ar*e guitarist who insists on eating you midrange on stage, or the sound engineer that insists on turning you down front of house cos you might blow his bins up!! If you're buying Hi-Fi kit, you can quite easily spend an absolute fortune on gold cable and connectors, and for the vast majority of the public, the nuances of the improvement will go unnoticed. On a similar vein, you can have your £3,000 per metre cable hooked up to a sack 'o spanners tape deck and it will still sound like a sack o' spanners! That follows the plywood bass post earlier. I've just gone Custom on one of Tom Clements Bass's [url="http://www.clementbass.com/web"]http://www.clementbass.com/web[/url] and I pretty much had free rein on what wood I wanted. I had a good trawl through various sites and forums see who said what. Thing is with describing sonics, one mans mwah is another mans bwaah! What exactly is Growl? Burp? Fart? Sounds more like my dog!! I ended up none the wiser and opted for a tried and tested Ash body / Spalt Top / Maple Neck. My opinion is that wood does make a difference, but will you be able to hear it in a full-on band situation? I doubt it. What's more important is getting consistent quality throughout the instrument.

Try on Talk Bass, there's a couple of Trace Nuts on there and a load of info... Here's a couple of threads [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=291451"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=291451[/url] [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=388352"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=388352[/url]

Just added a poll to see if anyone like this, Positive responses will encourage me to do some more, so be careful!!!

Ladies and Genltemen - Boys and Girls..... I would like to take the opportunity to draw your attention to the following inter-web hyper-linky-things to ebay, where you will find the following... [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretted-4-string-bass-164-34-Scale_W0QQitemZ120515832275QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item1c0f4da9d3"]http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretted...=item1c0f4da9d3[/url] and [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretless-5-string-bass-165-34-Scale_W0QQitemZ120515832109QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item1c0f4da92d"]http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretles...=item1c0f4da92d[/url] Tom's been building mine for the last month, you can see how its going in the custom build forum, I vouch 100% for this guy, a real diamond geezer. Though I haven't got my bass yet, I ordered it based on the comments here.... [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=594709"]Talk bass, clement thread[/url] and the first view of this review.... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NesfQhGtFQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NesfQhGtFQ[/url][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NesfQhGtFQ"]Ed Freidland Review on Youtube[/url] Also, FYI, both Tom Bowlus (www.bassgearmag.com - Editor) and Ed have both placed orders with Tom Top Bloke, quality basses. Grab a bargain

Ladies and Genltemen - Boys and Girls..... I would like to take the opportunity to draw your attention to the following inter-web hyper-linky-things to ebay, where you will find the following... [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretted-4-string-bass-164-34-Scale_W0QQitemZ120515832275QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item1c0f4da9d3"]http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretted...=item1c0f4da9d3[/url] and [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretless-5-string-bass-165-34-Scale_W0QQitemZ120515832109QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item1c0f4da92d"]http://cgi.ebay.com/Clement-Custom-fretles...=item1c0f4da92d[/url] Tom's charging me $120 shipping for the custom order, so i doubt its any more that that for one of these. Starting at $400 ( no idea what the reserve is)

Posted this on Talkbass (is that a bad word on here?!) thought I'd share... Ok, here goes! [b]Features [/b] 10.0 - Loads of holes to poke stuff in [b]Sound Quality [/b] 10.0 - Get the pre stage right and you're laughing [b]Reliability[/b] 8.0 - Couple of issues with the footswitch, read on if you're interested [b]Customer Support [/b] 9.0 - Easy to get hold of, and helpful [b]Value for Money[/b] 8.5 - A bit expensive, but hey its green and it glows (and its a Trace) [b]Overall Rating [/b] 9.5 - I don't think I'll be changing this one First encountered Trace way back in the late 80's when a friend (somehow) managed to afford one!! We were 14. I've GAS'd since that day for the unmistakable Trace Sound. So many years on, I found myself in a position to actually buy a rig, only to find that the G**son had managed to screw it all up, ended up with a Hartke set up. Good, but not right. Then all the peavey hoo-haw came along, I got interested again and flogged the Hartke to buy the Trace rig.. [b]AH1000-12[/b] - Twin Channel Amp (500W per channel) [b]1028H [/b]- 2 x 10 + horn Cab [b]1518[/b] - 1 x 15 cab Am I happy? You betcha! Student-hood and poor paying jobs meant I missed owning any of the original TE gear, so my comparisons are going back to a hazy memory of being 14, in my mates bedroom learning to play Maiden and Metallica, but what came out of the new stuff took me right back there. As far as I'm concerned, its definitely Trace sounding and it sure looks pretty! Totally blew the Hartke (3500a with XL 2x10 and 1x15) away with the richness of tone, control and tightness of sound. So the Amp.... [b]Power?[/b] Its a monster. I can't get it off 3, even on a big stage. There's power to burn. Admittedly, the pickups in my 'wick $$ are hot as hell, but even dropping them a few mm lower I've still got stacks of Volume! And its damn Heavy! [b]Tone?[/b] Stacks of it, using the trace preset, its deep and controlled and with the graphic, you can dial in whatever you need to personalise your sound The valve pre gives you a great range from warm and subtle to hard and dirty. Factor in the Dual comp, there's no need to go outboard on the compression front [b]Flexibility?[/b] Yep, with 3 effect send and returns (Low Pass, High Pass and Full send, Left Right Mono return, all can be used together) you can hookup what you want. I've got my ocatver off the low send, envelope, wah and fuzz off the high or full). and you can control it all, Tube, comp, graphic and effect loop from the footswitch. The cabs, to me sound great and work well with the amp. I've not tried any others with it, so can't really give a meaningful comparison. The 10s are tight and punchy, the horn in the 2x10 adds that bit of sparkle for the upper fret work and fuzz. The 15 takes care of the low end. I've got mine setup so the low pass effect output hits the right channel which is connected to the 15, and the Hi pass hits the 2x10 They (as opposed to the amp) are a lot lighter than I had anticipates and are easy enough to lug around. I do have 2 gripes though: First off, the vinyl covering on the 2x10 wasn't very well stuck down in the port at the bottom, so when shifting some serious air through there, it flapped about and added unwanted fart factor to the sound. So it was Mr Gaffer Tape to the rescue, stuck down firm. Can't see it and more importantly, can't hear it either! Second gripe. The footswitch, while built like a tank and would probably survive being driven over by one, has stopped working. Still trying to figure out why. I think its either the socket on the f/switch (which was always a very tight fit for the DIN cable) has waggled its way loose, OR its the stupidly dusty garage I rehearse in. Gotta get it on the bench and open 'er up! ** EDIT ** Turns out it isn't the footswitch thats causing the problem, it appears that it is something in the amp that isn't working properly ** end EDIT ** Would I recommend it? Yep!! I'm happy as a pig in the proverbial!!

[quote name='eude' post='705459' date='Jan 8 2010, 01:48 PM']Hey Mr. Wavey, welcome to the forum! I've been following your build on TalkBass. That's gonna be a one hell of a bass! What's the ETA? Eude[/quote] Sometime in the next couple of weeks!! Its been cold in Florida, which apparently is not good for the polyurethane coats that are going on!

[quote name='neepheid' post='705470' date='Jan 8 2010, 01:59 PM']Welcome to the forum, that is certainly an interesting looking bass. What are the neck dimensions? That small body makes the neck look rather wide, but it's probably an optical illusion.[/quote] Its 19mm string spacing and the body is quite slim, so it does look a bit wider than 'normal'

New on here, but I thought I'd share the shots of my soon to be arriving Tom Clement bass. All this in a little over a month! If you haven't heard of Tom Clement (I hadn't until an impromptu visit to ebay), he's a top geezer and a hell of a luthier to boot. [url="http://www.clementbass.com"]www.clementbass.com [/url] for the website and this posted today from BassGearMag's channel on Youtube [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NesfQhGtFQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NesfQhGtFQ[/url] Laters!

Hello Y'all, Just joined so thought I'd drop a post in here. Currently playing Ovangkol'd body Warwick Corvette $$, with a Bartollini equipped Washbur Taurus as Back up through the Trace Elliot AH1000, 2 x10 and 1 x 15, with a few extra outboard effects. On order, a Custom build Clement Joan, 5 sting, fretted, Nordy Twin Jazz pups and an Aguilar obp3. Due in the next couple of weeks and will post up the finished article. In the meantime, heres a couple shots of the first assembly