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Just took delivery of a Sadowsky Masterbuilt. It’s an amazing looking thing and I hope it sounds as good as it looks! That’ll be a job for this evening.

Been waiting a year for this, there's a build diary some of you have been kind enough to comment on. Awesome build quality, the pictures don't really do the complexity of the grain justice. Plays like butter, Alan commented that it was "very fretless" and he's bang on, tons of mwaaaa all day long. Absolutely love it.

OK, first impressions: This thing is LOUD. And - let's get this out of the way - it does sound like a Trace, especially with the pre-shape engaged. It's got that characteristic scoopy punch in spades. The compressor is great, possibly a little heavy-handed, but I recall the original SMX compressor was no different. The volume goes down noticeably when it's dialled anything above around 10 o'clock. EQ las a lot of flexibility, the two mid controls seem to affect quite a wide bandwidth, so there's a lot of sounds in there. I like the footswitch, but it might have been nice to have a cordless Bluetooth one - the MIDI cable kinda gets in the way. Rack ears are cheesy. Only thing I'm not liking so far is there's no input gain monitoring LED or anything like that. It'd be nice to see if I'm overloading the preamp. Might have been nice to incorporate that into the LED that lights the gain knob. Going to A/B it against my Mesa WD-800 next.

It's here. I'll post some thoughts on it later once I've had a bit of a play.

Board update... I just need to tidy up the cabling underneath now!

So close. unfortunately…got lots of follow up work to do after a bad day at work. anyhow…at some point… The Modern player will be fully rescued. Thanks to @OllyWfor the heads up on the tuning pegs.

I ended up buying the Sire P5 that Jezza was selling. I have to say it's very very nice!! The neck is beautiful and it sounds lovely!! I had previously tried a Squire CV a week before and the Sire was much nicer to play!

I'm not convinced that anxiety is the reason. I think the main reason is boredom. The amount of time musicians have to spend hanging around just waiting is enormous. That's ok when you play weekends, and return home at night. When you're travelling around it gets tedious fast, and alcohol and other substances start to appear regularly.

Oh for god's sake. Why couldn't you have told us it was crap? Why? Now I can hear my credit card whimpering from the other room. Rack ears do look a bit, errm, yes... I think I'd be getting busy with the T-Cut to get rid of the logo.

Still playing with it. It's good. And my BF Big Twin II is a good pairing for it, since it's got the power handling capacity to properly do it justice. Regarding what I was saying about the input monitoring, an active/passive switch might have been nice. I was using my MM Bongo (VERY hot output) and it was distorting slightly at about 50% input gain. My J-Retro-equipped Jazz and my Spector were super-clean at that level. Did the A/B test with my Mesa WD-800. The Mesa isn't as loud, the tone is a little smoother thanks to the valve preamp, and I really appreciate its highpass filter control to dial out the super-lows. More versatile EQ too. But it's nowhere near as punchy as the Trace. The Trace is, for want of a better expression, more lively and feels "bouncier", if that's actually a thing. One other little niggle though - I've just packed it away in its gig bag and the bag has a carrying handle but no shoulder strap. But at least there's room for the amp, the footswitch and a bunch of cables.

Dear Friends, attached the final version ( Rendering ) of my new EVO 4 Headless Bass Bridge , including tuners 😎

It's pronounced:

That makes sense. You wouldn't read that in the leftist controlled liberal media which is controlled by Soros under the orders of the illuminati who are working with the Clinton's and Bill Gates to control us and keep us away from the bird drones that the Mason's are building for the new world orders communist plans to cancel Christmas.

Can I again say a huge thank you to Rich and Andy and Andy’s son for the help in getting this to me. I can’t say thank you enough to all of you. Jon

I spent at least 15 years obsessing about my tone in the mistaken belief that other people gave a toss.

Sooo…yeah. Looks like I’m ordering the hipshot ultralights. Neck holes are pre drilled. A little wax and pre fit screw check…all good. but I’m not getting into pressing the bushes in. Will be a nice bass when it’s done. Needs a good clean still.

You must be absolutely exhausted!

I'm currently waiting on these 2 short scale builds. 30" Cazpar: Swamp Ash natural matte finish, roasted flame Maple 3 piece neck with chosen White Ebony fb, Nordstrand Zen blades with Delano sonar 2 pre and Hipshot hardware, I have this set of custom White Ebony knobs waiting for it also. 30" Elwood L: Alder body with this chosen unique looking Spalted Maple top & headstock, roasted maple neck with Wenge fb, Delano Xtender humbucker ( to be placed in sweet spot), Noll TCM3 preamp & Hipshot mini clover tuners.

Ok, video. Enjoy! I swear to goodness this took me ages to figure out how to do, and it's so long I had to do a ton of editing. On the plus side, I've learned a lot and can now make a video in Reaper. I'm still adding time stamps in description, please be patient... @NickA I'm not sure I'll have time today to upload the screenshots I promised of frequency response. Will get to it!

That is 100% the truth - my old ABm 210 combo was making all sorts of weird noises - Guy from Ashdown stripped it, replaced one board, re-soldered a whack of it - put in new slider grips and gave it a hair cut, all for the princely sum of a great chat!!!! And for that reason, I am Ashdown4Life.

Bob murley perhaps 🤔

Movement of jah peupel, I think.

I discussed it with my brother who borrowed it from me on occasion. He remembered it as being not light. I have rose tinted lenses on and remember it as being fabulous in all ways. As I do with virtually everything I have sold ever.

DooDoo Da Doo Doo Doo

broadly speaking, anything that's conductive will work. I've always found that roughing up the back of the pot (sandpaper or a small file) takes the plating off the back, and allows the solder to attach to the metal better.

Thght I re-visit this cracking thread.. It's 1980 and I'm on the Ilse of Wight (substantial pub, club and holiday season scene at the time). I was 20 but done a lot stuff and was currently in a very good prog rock outfit with a deal, the coach and UK mainland tours (yes terrible timing etc..it failed miserably!) Once I'd got myself together I met in a guitar shop a guy called 'Neil Cassidy'. What a revelation this guy was...he could play Reggae like crazy and dance Specials style too. We found a drummer and made a few calls. The next 18 months ( along time to be in a band back then as there was always something else going on), we stormed it..An amazing time. Just the three of us doing BM, UB40, and all the others..... A three piece Reggae outfit where everyone knows what there doing is huge fun......Good memories. Got a feeling we broke up when Forget me Knots found its way onto the set list....what?..haha

My favourite is Rubus Cockburnianus.

sorry bout the mess!!

Has arrived, is awesome. What a finish, I'm used to bubinga having a grain to it and I think I imagined the feel of the bass to be more textured, but it's absolutely flawlessly smooth. Gong to take some time to get used to it and the filter based pre, which seems to be capable of some very wide-ranging settings. I'll out a few more pics in an NBD post in Guitars.

FEN-der. No need to worry about all that other stuff.

I WANT ONE

I think I've just seen the perfect bass for me. I've never quite liked the appearance of most ACGs before but that is stunning in every way and I love the description as "very fretless". That's just a cut above.

Spoiler alert…but best line yet ”as long as I can have a wee within next 20 minutes, I’ll have beer now”😂😂

I heartily endorse these statements

I've been playing for 35 years and I still couldn't tell you what the Ampeg sound is and I've even had an Ampeg amp.

Basstardised, surely?

You can get near the ABM tone with it by lots of careful playing, mainly cutting on eq rather than adding, but it’s not exact as the ABM has a lot more tonal options, especially the 600 where it’s 9 band eq v 5 on the OriginAL.

Just reviewed to stats and the website has had 16000 hits since it passed the 100,000 mark. That's an average of 2,000 hits a week. How cool is that? People want to read!

The op is spot on. I grind my teeth when I see overpriced basses justified because someone has changed some part or other It's just changed. Not improved. You may think it's better, but that's just your opinion.

Prince Fatty is such a cool dude and really knows his mixing, this is a nice tune

Just as an FYI here- The amp has been repaired as it was just the resistor that had blown. The resistor in question cost a total of approx 3p It works perfectly now, and is now in very regular service.