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Sandberg appreciation society


GisserD

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Have to say i'm liking the Sandberg steels. Had them on since i got the bass few months ago. 

The twang wore off after about a week of playing and they've kept pretty same since. After a 6 hour rehearsal on Sunday i've noted they are starting to show signs of becoming dull but only just.

I don't know how old the strings were as i bought thru a shop but the bass was new and was set up by Chris at Classic and Cool Guitars.

That's about the same as the Fender and Daddario nickels i've been using recently.

The steels haven't been as bad as i thought they would on my fingers either My memory of using Rotosounds years ago were of blisters and at some gigs blood from my plucking fingers. I did play very hard back then to be fair. Age has mellowed my playing a bit. :D

Dave

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 28/05/2019 at 16:12, dmccombe7 said:

Strings look as tho they are under proper tension to me as i can pull my E string over the nut same as in clip. 

This is the first bass i've had with a zero fret so i'm kind of asking a question here rather than making a statement but i would have thought the zero fret should have been set up along with all other frets. Is the point of a zero fret meant to be same as playing against any other fret and that the actual nut should be slightly lower than the zero fret but still retaining the strings in place. ?

So i'm not getting the measurement at the first fret in the clip ?

Need someone with more knowledge than me on this topic.

Dave

Oh no! There was a whole argument thread over Sandberg zero frets last year!!

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  • 2 months later...
On 04/06/2019 at 23:52, Ed_S said:

Such a shame it's not an ebony or maple board. I'd have been seriously tempted by either of those. Reminds me of my Shuker before it was refinished, right down to the extra scale length. Will just have to keep on enjoying my TM4-SL for the moment. Maybe one day I could get them to do me one of those in satin orange and black with maple board 🤔

1699205813_OrangeShuk.jpg.603102b628dcddcb0a3154c912b90dc5.jpg

 

That's very close to the colour I wanted originally... but I didn't fancy it enough to pay the £525 extra they asked for...

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4 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

That's very close to the colour I wanted originally... but I didn't fancy it enough to pay the £525 extra they asked for...

That orange was apparently a Porsche nitrocellulose car body lacquer. It was a great colour but sadly it started to crack (and not in the usual aged-nitro kind of way) so it ended up being refinished with olympic-ish white poly.

774C5216-5221-4698-81C6-63386C88C080.jpeg.6282e01e62bae7a4318a7b5f61740d6f.jpeg

Can’t go too far wrong with oly white.

Reckon you did right not to pay that much just for a custom colour. What did you end up going for?

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14 hours ago, Ed_S said:

That orange was apparently a Porsche nitrocellulose car body lacquer. It was a great colour but sadly it started to crack (and not in the usual aged-nitro kind of way) so it ended up being refinished with olympic-ish white poly.

774C5216-5221-4698-81C6-63386C88C080.jpeg.6282e01e62bae7a4318a7b5f61740d6f.jpeg

Can’t go too far wrong with oly white.

Reckon you did right not to pay that much just for a custom colour. What did you end up going for?

 

Classy colour combination!

I love the look of that double-P one. The bridge pickup looks pretty close to the position in a Stingray. Nice pair of basses!

I went for metallic orange and specified as little 'aged' as possible. I actually went to pick it up a few hours ago... and it just looks like a high gloss new instrument, with a couple of very very very minor marks. 

It's pretty light (8.1 lbs), feels and balances great. Not a huge fan of the strings it came with but then I don't like new stainless steel strings ever... I'll wait a bit and see. I'll probably end up with DR Fat Beams, or maybe nickel Sunbeams as they're a bit mellower. 

The colour is very vibrant, much nicer than I thought from the pictures online. Here's a couple of pictures taken outside just now, taking advantage of the sun, as the pictures look just like 'in the flesh'. I haven't yet adjusted anything, I think it needs a *touch* on the truss rod as the relief is a bit higher than I'd prefer... which is not unusual as it was set up in Germany and the temperature/humidity here will be different, but even as it is it plays nicely and feels very "solid" despite its light weight. A quick test made me smile... good start ;) Not sure I love that preamp, there's few 2-band preamps I love... we'll see. I've got a John East U-Retro in my drawer that could go in there if the original frustrates me... but first strings. Never judge the electronics in a bass until you've got the right strings on.

IMG_20190921_143609568_HDR.jpg?dl=1

IMG_20190921_143626032.jpg?dl=1

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1 hour ago, mcnach said:

 

Classy colour combination!

I love the look of that double-P one. The bridge pickup looks pretty close to the position in a Stingray. Nice pair of basses!

I went for metallic orange and specified as little 'aged' as possible. I actually went to pick it up a few hours ago... and it just looks like a high gloss new instrument, with a couple of very very very minor marks. 

It's pretty light (8.1 lbs), feels and balances great. Not a huge fan of the strings it came with but then I don't like new stainless steel strings ever... I'll wait a bit and see. I'll probably end up with DR Fat Beams, or maybe nickel Sunbeams as they're a bit mellower. 

The colour is very vibrant, much nicer than I thought from the pictures online. Here's a couple of pictures taken outside just now, taking advantage of the sun, as the pictures look just like 'in the flesh'. I haven't yet adjusted anything, I think it needs a *touch* on the truss rod as the relief is a bit higher than I'd prefer... which is not unusual as it was set up in Germany and the temperature/humidity here will be different, but even as it is it plays nicely and feels very "solid" despite its light weight. A quick test made me smile... good start ;) Not sure I love that preamp, there's few 2-band preamps I love... we'll see. I've got a John East U-Retro in my drawer that could go in there if the original frustrates me... but first strings. Never judge the electronics in a bass until you've got the right strings on.

IMG_20190921_143609568_HDR.jpg?dl=1

IMG_20190921_143626032.jpg?dl=1

Very nice indeed - good choice!

Completely agree about the factory fitted strings - I really do like new round steels (though I actually tend not to use them due to the fret damage they cause) but the stock Sandberg ones with the grey silks are not to my liking at all. I’ve encountered them three times recently in the process of getting my pair of SLs and the first thing I’ve wanted to do each time is just get them gone.

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Used it at rehearsal this evening, at last... 

🥰 this thing.

It also sounds a lot better now that the strings are getting a bit older. I still think I'll put a set of Fat Beams on it, but the stock ones are finally losing some of the annoying zing and they don't sound bad at all in the band mix.

The Stingray is feeling a bit worried :D

Bring on Saturday: first gig with the Sandberg.

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One thing that to me became clear last night, on my VM4 with standard Sandberg pickups is that there is nothing wrong at all with these pickups!

While it may be possible that I would like it better with other pickups (there's a million out there all slightly different) the truth is that these don't lack in any way. I'm a little picky, I am a serial pickup replacer, what can I say? For comparison, all 3 of my Maruszczyk underwent some kind of change. The P/JJ (stock Maruszczyk pickups) had a P replacement. The reverse P (Delano) , I'm still considering it, but the MMSR preamp helps a lot. The JJ (Haussel) didn't impress me me at all. The stock Sandberg P is very sweet, like a burly big beast of a man can be sweet ;) It's not very traditional sounding but it's got that bark, and it growls (I guess these pickups are dogs 😛) which I can control nicely with the onboard 2EQ (which I'm getting the hang of it, a lot more different from the Stingray's 2EQ than I initially thought). The MM seemed like the weak link., but with both pickups on it sounds very good, and altering the balance slightly towards one or the other gives you a very useable range of adjustment. The MM alone, even, sounds good in a band context once the volume gets to band level (not super loud, but louder than bedroom). 

The Black Labels may be nice... but I don't think I need them

edit: typo correction

Edited by mcnach
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