Alpha-Dave

All the mechanical bits were about the same as an Ibanez BTB405 I used to own, they all functioned well, but nothing 'extra special'. The finish was ok, very matt. The frets were all fine and with a new set of strings on it felt nice to play. I admit it wasn't as good as my Warwick or ACG, but I don't think that's its fault. The truly worst POS I've played was a Lindo bass I bought for £60 NEW from ebay - rusty screws and the truss rod snapped within a month, but as I only needed it for a demo model I didn't care.

Erm, please define nasty ...

Fender [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc0qoAhHUgo&mode=related&search="]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc0qoAhHUgo...ted&search=[/url] PRS (guitars) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T_tXP0W2zU&mode=related&search="]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T_tXP0W2zU...ted&search=[/url] Gibson Guitars, mildly sycophantic. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzxV1_ZGj4w&mode=related&search="]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzxV1_ZGj4w...ted&search=[/url]

Already mentioned (below Gigbags), but it certainly needed emphasising, as would any comments people have of gear the wouldn't survive. For example, the moulded plastic Gator Range I'd be happy to take to a gig, but I wouldn't want to let Parclefarce get hold of one.

I've just bought 10 lithium PP3s, which are meant to be better than Duracel for £15 inc P&P. [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10-x-ULTRALIFE-LITHIUM-PP3-9V-BATTERYs-FREE-UK-POSTAGE_W0QQitemZ290121686293QQihZ019QQcategoryZ50615QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10-x-ULTRALIFE-LITHI...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url] They arrived today and looked a little dusty (must have been sat somewhere for a while), but they're functioning fine and I just put one in my bass, I'll write again when it dies. D.

+1 for OBBM he's the best.

There aren't many, but there are a few places that stock them such as Hot Rox in Nottingham where I got mine from. If you ever pass through Teesside (most people do quickly), you're welcome to try mine. Is there a Bash organised for September yet? I don't think anything has been mentioned yet.

[quote name='Dragonlord' post='8362' date='May 28 2007, 10:32 PM']BTW, Alpha-Dave, have you compared it to the POG? Someone on TB said that it doesn't track as well as the POG on bass. Have you found any truth in that?[/quote] In all honesty I haven't tried the POG, I found the HOG was great so went straight for that. It does -2 down, and +4 octaves up (with various intervals). Straight out of the box, the octaves up and intervals will track a low E, and start to mess up on the D of my B string, but other than that it's perfect. The octave downs appear to work perfectly on all notes, but I can't tell if they're actually working below the A on my E string because my amp can't put anything that low out. The guys on TB don't specify what the issue is, but if anything it may be the it's because the HOG is too good. One annoying thing is that it'll octave any fret noises, including some that I didn't realise I had before! Therefore I had to change to my neck p'up because of the reduced treble and stringer fundamental and it was great. Also one of the best features is the gate the works before the octave effect, this allows only the strongest note through (the fundamental), and with that on ANY note tracks, even low B. I spent well over an hour playing around with it in the shop, found it could make a range of good sounds, but then spend a further 10 hours over the next week getting the really great sounds out of it, and it took me well into a couple of months to master how to get it to gliss from one drone chord to the next. Also getting it to work with all my other FX took quite a while too. So to be honest if the guys on TB just spent 30 min in a shop A/Bing them then I'm sure they got better sounds out of the POG straight away, but the HOG is capable of so much more. I’ll get round to writing a proper review of it soon with some decent sound clips. D

Update: the additional redwood for the p'up covers and ramp has arrived!

Waldo: none of the online dictionaries could recognise even a single word, so an easy translation isn't possible. Alun: the HOG is very much like the POG but better IMHO. If you can make it to the next bash I'll bring mine for you to have a play with.

Ah, I see where you're coming from. That requires a different (but much easier) solution than getting a custom-moulded case. My Warwick streamer is quite small bodied and rattles around in its Hiscox case (at least 1&1/2" on each side if it’s in the centre). To avoid this I bought some medium density chair foam off my local market and some furry cloth (tiger stripes, for reference the inside of the case was green), and got my sister to sow the cloth into tubes which I stuffed with rectangular tubes of the foam, 1 long one for each edge of the body and a short one for the head. Totally snug and safe now. Similarly with cut-foam flight cases, you can always cut the foam then line with a different material to be doubly sure of a protected finish.

Hi Tinman, I asked a similar question on BT a few weeks ago, these were the responses: Essentially for full protection there are 4 options of cases going up in cost: Gigbags+case; Moulded plastic cases; Wood/aluminium flight cases; Military Hardware cases. [b]Gigbags:[/b] Ritter - good quality, do a range of sizes so something usually fits Warwick - as above, but less 'features' (phone pockets etc.) Overwater leather - nice but very expensive at £200 Harvest leather - probably where Overwater source theirs from, £15 cheaper, but increased postage Gig bags can be put in other cases such as the specifically designed SKB BassSafe if going on a plane that will offer a good amount of protection too. [b]Hard/semi plastic cases:[/b] INCASE - from the states, consdered the best thing between a hard and soft case on TalkBass, they have no UK distribution and only use expensive shipping so Bleedproof was looking at getting a large order together, but that's not been mentioned in a while. Hiscox - great UK manufacture, my personal preferance. [b]Flight cases:[/b] BUSTERCASES. www.bustercases.com tel:0161 761 2040. fax:0161 761 6040 Spider Engineering: Tamworth (near Reading), Protech Sound & Light (1) Unit 1a, Sedbury Trading Estate, Grahamstown Rd, Sedbury, Chepstow, Gwent NP16 7AD Tel: 01291 630410 [b]Military hardware cases:[/b] Google [i]explorer[/i] or [i]pelican[/i] cases. Made from high strength plastics, these are very expensive but can be made air tight and will take any punishment and are usualy lighter that a flight case D.

Jeez OG, I think you made your point!

Excellent, that sounds like a great spec. Jon is great to deal with. Whats your estimated build time? I'm off to see Jon on Tuesday!

Yep, it was mentioned on BW, the major downside I think was that you could buy a matched fretted and fretless pair for the same cost as one of those. These are the makers: [url="http://www.mikeyguitar.com/bass.asp"]http://www.mikeyguitar.com/bass.asp[/url] An alternative that looks quite good was to have fret furrows or grooves so you have the accuracy of a fretted instrument, but could slide or trill like a fretless. Edit: these are the fret grooves: [url="http://www.fretgroove.com"]http://www.fretgroove.com[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h7fH592u8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h7fH592u8[/url]

Although I stick by my earlier short reply, there are a few changes that happen to an instrument over time. Cosmetic: scratches/colour fading these are purely surface and affect the tone in no way. Fret wear: can affect intonation and string buzzing, neither are probably good things. Neck wear: a gloss neck will initially become more polished as the coating is worn (your hand is smoother and softer than a buffing wheel), then at the extreme it wears through and roughens again to the texture of wood. Assuming we're talking about old Fenders or other basses that have maple necks they are sealed with a lacquer that will eventually wear through, and then hand grease/sweat will allow a green fungus stain to take on in the wood. I don’t see this as a nice thing, personally. Most important: Pick-up demagnetisation: as the years go by the magnets will slowly become less aligned (polar), so less sensitive. I'm not sure how this would affect the tone. IIRC I've heard a guitarist saying (about an old strat) that it gave a 'mellower' sound, but to me I can only think that the signal output would be reduced, so you'd have to turn the volume up more and so have more electrical noise. Perhaps the neck is finally settled down, so the truss rod and strings are in perfect balance, but this should be achieved with a good set up anyway. I think the biggest thing is familiarity: it's no different to getting a new car; It's a lot to concentrate on the first day, less so a week later, the after a couple of months you wonder why you ever drove the previous bucket of bolts. So as I said before: No

No

That's going to be an amazing piece of kit. How far into the range of ERBs have you gone before? Personally I've had a 7 and found that too much because I wanted to use open strings but also couldn't stop 1 or 2 from droning. How do you intend to cover that: scrunchie on the neck, or a bridge dampener or actual string-switches? I can see that the neck-dive isn't going to be a problem with the upper strap button positioning.

OG: that really sucks. Same question as WoT: how was it packed? Personally I've never posted a bass, but I've recieved 3 in the post and the big triangular boxes they come in usually seem pretty sturdy.

I think it's a good idea as long as we aim for a diversity of opinions, for example tone woods: Having a link to the various wood recommendation sites would probably be enough, plus various opinions on what worked for whom. On the other hand the structural/sonic/playing differences between the 3 major types of neck join would have to be a couple of paragraphs, but I doubt that it would reach much longer (that is based on the thread HP started on BW)

It depends how it would work: just a load of threads in a forum (possibly mod edit only), or whether it's actually organised in some way. Ideally I'd like a list of parts of the bass - or a picture of a bass - then more info from there but I doubt that's feasible in the forum software.