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Did anyone here actually buy a EBMM Joe Dart?


fretmeister

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Just curious really. They have caused an itch I'd love to scratch but they are seemingly very rare so I've never had the chance to try one.

 

But I love the tone he's got on the "Live at Carnegie Hall" Vulfpeck vid and I keep listening to it, and despite my best efforts I haven't got anything that I can make sound like that.

 

Did anyone get one? Was it worth it? etc etc

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13 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

Did you not instantly turn into Joe Dart mate?

 

Shocking isn’t it. 
 

I found the same with the Marcus Miller Jazz

 

Yes, te Fender Custom Shop Jaco Pastorius was similarly a rip off, I lifted it out of its case with the reverence that it undoubtedly deserved, plugged i in to my B-15 and started playing, and it sounded like some fecking idiot from Kent was playing it :) 

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I didn’t, but I did buy a Tim Commerford long scale passive which, I suppose is similar in some respects (although has a tone, volume, parallel/single coil/series, and boost/cut facilities so vastly more controls than the Joe Dart).

 

The two areas where the Joe Dart differs a lot (and I love the tone on the MSG Vulfpeck concert to the extent I’ve watched it over and over, as per @fretmeister) is……. it’s Joe Dart playing it and it’s through the Vulf compressor - otherwise he’s using the same amp as me as well. 
 

I’m about to invest in a compressor (to get closer to his tone and also Bernard Edwards’s as well as some other things  looking at) and have worked on trying to play as hard as Joe Dart appears to on some of his stuff. 

 

I came very close to ordering a natural Joe Dart but then the Commerford came along and I absolutely had to have that - so the Dart fell by the wayside. I don’t like the Jazz version. Gratuitous pics……
 

FA660A0F-9CF9-428B-9260-AE5DA3F1E8B3.thumb.jpeg.d929d64d96c733b3580293af05f12d06.jpeg55746561-6AA8-4EB7-9AFC-0601170D53C9.thumb.jpeg.2d7c8b0be02449bec8fd06ff0215781e.jpeg

 

Edited by drTStingray
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I'd have the jazz if someone gave it to me, but the cost for a bass that would need instant modification (changing the wring so it has a tone control) if a bit rich for my blood.

Not tried either though & have never seen them in the shops which is a shame.

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The Vulf Compressor is available as a plugin but unfortunately not as a pedal.

 

I suspect there's a load of post compression EQ going on too. Not a lot of point Pre EQ as the compressor will flatten it all out again, but there's definitely something going on afterwards.

 

I might have to dig out my Boss EQ-200 and have a play around with a variety of curves to see what I can do.

 

The stage rig at the MSG is a bit misleading - he's clearly running a di from the head and then that will be getting processed somewhere. It looks like there might be a mic on the cab from some angles but not from others. I suspect the recording and FOH is all di - through the Vulf compressor etc.

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4 hours ago, fretmeister said:

Ray's are lovely but I find the neck a little too chunky, and I've never seen a Ray Special SLO, let alone one that is light enough.

I’m happy to be corrected, but I don’t think there is such a thing. They stopped offering the SLO neck as an option before the Special line came out (if that’s what you mean by Ray Special SLO).

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5 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I’m happy to be corrected, but I don’t think there is such a thing. They stopped offering the SLO neck as an option before the Special line came out (if that’s what you mean by Ray Special SLO).

They have made a small batch of SLO neck Stingray Specials which were available in The Vault (on line shop which shops internationally as well) a whole back. In a similar way there are currently left handed H and HH Stingray Specials available. 
 

@fretmeister my TC signature is about 7lbs 10oz and my Stingray Special HH is more or less 8 lbs. The current neck profile seems flatter and narrower to me - a joy to play! Perhaps try one to see (though I’m not sure where they have them in stock - maybe Anderson’s?)

Edited by drTStingray
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Sorry I meant to write about my experience with the bass after posting but just pulled into something else. 

 

So I ordered the bass, through Vulf in the first run on the second day they came out, had to sell a few basses to make up the scratch but I made it work. Being a massive Vulf fan at the time, I just jumped at it with no real consideration as they where only for sale for the month of March that year. They where also sold directly through Vulf via Gumroad, so any questions where handled by Vulf, and I exchanged a few emails with Jack about spec and questions I had about the instrument, so that was cool. I had originally contacted Musicman with my questions and had pointed me at them directly. The bass was shipped from Musicman in the middle of August so I got it in the UK around the start of September. It cost me about £1700 plus £100 for shipping. Naively, I never looked at how much this bass would cost on import tax, this is my first time buying a bass direct form the US the only way you could get them. So when the postman arrived at my house, I had a £600 import tax bill..... I was very shocked but again its on me for not doing my homework. So I was already in the hole for £2500ish just getting the bass to my house.

 

The bass was really really cool, it came strung with half rounds, which is what Joe uses, i'd never played them so really enjoyed the thump of them being half wounds they also had a little sparkly on the top end when you slapped, I have since used them a few times. It was built to an exceptional quality and I could not find a single fault with it. I loved that is was also the Sterling body shape and not the Stringray, slightly smaller overall and lighter. Now in reality the idea of having just a volume knob, was really refreshing, no getting lost in tweaking, just plug in and off you go, i think that was the beauty of it. But yh forgetting how much of the tone is in the fingers, I couldn't get it sound anything like Joe Dart haha again likely on me. Also having to use the EQ on my head to tweak really was a bummer as usually I can afford to leave it pretty flat and just use the onboard to add what i needed which obviously you cant do on the Joe Dart bass. So meant I had to keep adjusting it back for my other basses, again not a massive issue but just something I had to think about where I didn't before. Also worth noting, I was playing in hardcore and metal bands at the time, so the Joe Dart bass was for me at home, I didn't dare risk someone stage diving into it and breaking it. 

 

In the end, after owning the bass for a little under a month, I decided it wasn't worth the £2500 I had sunk into it for the amount of use it was likely to get. My band at the time was also about to embark on our first European tour, and I my head had decided to die which needed replacing so that also forced my hand a bit. Being a fickle bass player, by the time I received the bass, i'd moved on to GASing for something else haha.  I ended up selling it and recouping all of the charges and sold within 24 hours. It was actually purchased by Scott Devine of Scott's Bass Lessons and gifted away in one of his bass competitions so  was cool to see it being played on his channel and he was professional and dealt with me direct through out the whole purchase. I hadn't even removed the tags and still had the original box with only a few hours of play so it was still a brand new bass by the time it got to him. 

 

A few more photos of it, I didn't get many 

 

601BCF32-2A5F-4DB5-A3A0-46F376681169_1_105_c.thumb.jpeg.97a50e51e4519c3197fddbd55ee0232e.jpeg

 

7F87FE99-98ED-4D70-98FB-1302F460B5DE_1_105_c.thumb.jpeg.4fdd01266261164c814ab98805d9632b.jpeg

 

 

Edited by greentext
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Lovely flame on that neck!

 

The Spec sheet shows they come with a custom set of EB Group flats 45-105 (The normal Group iii are 45-100) and he used ancient Rotosound rounds on his jazz.

 

The silks on your photo are from the Group flats - I have them on most of my basses. They are much brighter than an old thuddy flat, although not as bright as the cobalt flats. EB don't make a halfwound.

 

I've never read anything about JD using halfwounds - was it from an interview somewhere?

 

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