mcnach

Sounds like they are lower tension than the ones you normally use, that's all. (shrug)

Yup. Some places I'm just happy to walk out with a smile... and never ever return. That place you describe sounds just like one of them.

You can't go wrong with Chris McIntyre. It's true, I know what I know because of a large period of trial and error, with focus on error I used to check eBay and later this forum for used pickups and preamps etc and buy stuff that looked interesting at reasonable prices. It meant that I could try things and sell them on if I decided not to keep them without losing (much) money. But again, that only makes sense if you enjoy that kind of thing and the idea of spending one Saturday afternoon testing pickups makes you smile. I understand a lot of people just want to get on with things. It kept me off the streets getting into trouble... or buying new instruments 😛

One of the instruments I plan to sell as the VM4 arrives is my Fender Classic 50s Precision. However I can't see myself not having a 'proper' Precision. I have a super cheap Mike Dirnt Squier that I found a nice maple fingerboard neck for a while ago, and has a nice a pickup too, which could satisfy my 'proper Precision' requirement... but both sound great in slightly different ways. I expect the VM4 to be yet another variation on the same theme, just like a couple of PJ basses that I have have their own variation (a Maruszczyk Jake P/JJ which I never fully gelled with and the VM is intended to be a direct replacement for - I want that MM at the bridge; and a Schecter with active EMGs which sound great but are definitely not Precision-sounding) That's my plan anyway... to have some kind of Precision kicking about, just like I have a Jazz even if it's never my primary instrument... and then those I really use with its own vibe. In my case, a Stingray first, and then something with a chunky fat humbucker a bit closer to the bridge than on a Stingray coupled to some kind of Precision pickup. So many words. So little content

The VM4 I just ordered (why is time running so slow suddenly???) I went with their standard pickups too. I hope I love them

See? My ways don't work with you and yours don't work with me. Diversity. I personally don't like the Yamaha BBs (blasphemy to some, but I'm already going to Hell, so what's one more ), and I'm pretty handy with a solder iron and I *enjoy* doing that kind of thing. I'm not sure what a set of black labels would be, or Haussels. I don't think I'd buy either... after spending far too much money on pickups that were considered Some of The Very Best, I have accummulated a repertoire of pickups that I generally like, and for once in my lifetime I seem to favour not the expensive ones. Jazz pickups? DiMarzio Area J or Model J for me, depending on what I'm after. Precision? Seymour Duncan SPB-1, or Antiquity II, MM style? Nordstrand MM4.2 for more classic and Seymour Duncan SMB4-A for a slightly wider response and more modern take... Hardly expensive. Preamps... I'm a big fan of John East ones... but really I'm talking about the semiparametric mids module that's found on a lot of his preamps. It cost £70 as a stand alone module. I have a couple of MMSR and a U-Retro in my drawer, from years of tinkering and accumulating stuff. It's hardly expensive, and most of the work can be done in 30 minutes if you're focused... or a bit longer if you're not in a hurry. So no, I don't think cost or effort is much of an issue. I think the issue is that some people find that too much of a faff. That's fair enough. I don't even change the oil in my car because I consider it to be too messy and not worth my time so I pay someone to do it. A colleague of mine thinks it's crazy because he can do his in 15 minutes and save money. The thing is: he enjoys getting dirty with his car. I don't. I also pay someone to do my brake work, which is not that hard at all... while he looks at me probably the same way I look at someone saying that they need to take their bass somewhere to install a new pickup It's just a matter of what we individually like more or less, in the end. I've even routed a couple of basses to add a pickup, and adding battery compartments etc. I find that a bit too stressful because I'm not the most skilled wood-worker, so I would rather pay someone now to get it done... But when I had not a lot of spare money, and the tools were there, I did it and enjoyed it. It's a bit like learning to set up your guitars, at least at a basic level. One of the guitarists in my main band was taking his guitar to be set up a few months ago. I asked him what was wrong with it, and he said mostly the intonation was off. He's not mechanically inclined and I explained to him and even offered to set it for him, but from his reaction I got the feeling he thought I was suggesting a hack job, as in his eyes you need a proper tech to do that. He got that done, adjusted the relief, a bit of contact cleaner on the potentiometers and a general clean (lacquered maple neck, no not even putting oil on the fretboard) and he was paying £60 for it and he loved it. He needed to borrow one of my guitars for a couple of weeks until he got his back. But he is happier that way. I'm sure I prefer other things that won't make much sense to him. And that's ok.

Maybe if you wear a sturdy jacket. All it does for me is pulling my t-shirt and after a few songs it looks like I'm having a fight, and losing, with it. It requires a lot of concentration to keep the tummy in and pretend my stomach is flatter than it is... It does not work for me, unfortunately.

Depending on how the pickups are wired, there's an interaction that affects the sound of the P soloed so it's not exactly how it would sound on its own... just how much that matters it varies: some think it's a deal breaker and others don't care. The J adds to the tonal palette available, but just how interesting is that depends, again, on personal preference. Both pickups on can sound pretty good, but it sometimes it's such a mid-scooped sound that I have no real use for it. It depends on the actual pickups, and how they're balanced. I find a bridge J alone to be too thin for me to want to use it on its own, so when I have a PJ, what I do is set the P pickup first so that it sounds balanced across strings and the way I want it (pickup distance from the strings can change things a lot). Then, I just adjust the height of the J pickup until it sounds nice when I have both pickups on together. Sometimes it means the J will be very weak and it's only adding a bit, other times it's louder... I don't care, as I will never use it alone. That's just what I do, not a 'you must do this' rule. I prefer a more powerful pickup at the bridge, to go with the P. Another P works well as long as it's reversed (the DG coil being away from the bridge), a dual J can be very nice, and a big MM style humbucker also works well (my preferred option). Why aren't all P actually PJ? Because there's enough people who prefer it to be just a P. I have a single pickup Stingray, and I'll never buy a dual pickup one. Why? Because the single pickup one does what I want it to do and I like the simplicity (plus the extra pickup gets in the way for me, but that's just me). As with a lot of other things here... it comes down to personal preference really, and there's no one single superior solution.

Pickups are a LOT cheaper and easy to replace and that's crucial.

I loved it *especially* because of the wide neck. Another example of how subjective all this is. After a while, I realised that it's not width that matters the most to me, but depth, which is why a Sandberg with a 39.5mm width at the nut could have never worked for me (my rule was 42mm minimum... I had an interesting chat with Maruszczyk trying to get him the neck *I* wanted, because he felt it was too wide :D In the end I got what I asked for, and was good, because I also specified the depth along the neck at various points)... But when I tried that neck, it felt as if I had designed it myself. It was just right. I so wanted not to like it, so that I could last a bit longer without buying a new bass... but it was not to be :p

All this talk of the pickups seems, to me, a bit like not buying a certain car because the stock tyres are not your favourite. I separate the basic build from the electronics, maybe because I got used to mess with the electronics of my guitars when I was younger and poorer, and found it was a great way to change the sound of an instrument you loved to play but didn't love soundwise. I understand that others want an instrument 'just so' from the start, and that's ok too, but they'll be missing out on some great stuff, in my opinion.

That's my take too. There's a lot of love for Glock preamps in Talkbass, you'd think that it's a great and widely love preamp. I had one with superb specs (3-band, with additional passive tone, etc etc), but I didn't feel it was all that. It's all pretty subjective and when you look at it, the sample size making 'noise' against or in favour is relatively small. When I bought my Classic 50s Fender Precision I was ready to replace the pickup as at the time I read lots of "great bass, if only had a better pickup". I was on a Precision quest at the time and I had a few pickups in my drawer to try. But I loved it as it was and never changed a thing. We're talking nuances here, it's not like Sandberg stock pickups are bad, I'm sure (I have zero experience on this: I have only really properly tried 2, and they didn't have Sandberg pickups)

Electronics do not bother me one bit. If the basic instrument is well made, I'll find a pickup and/or preamp (or different circuitry, does not need to be active) that works well with it. I have to say that I have not been able to love any Delano pickup in any instrument I tried, although the two Sandberg 48 that I tried last week seemed pretty decent and had Delanos of some description in them, according to the guy at Guitar Guitar... I think it will depend a lot of each individual instrument (+ amplifier used). When you order new, you don't have the chance to try it until it's made, and then it's yours... so it's always nicer if you can find what you want in the second hand market, but that's not always an option. I've only tried Haussels once (Jazz), in a Maruszczyk I owned. They were ok, but I can't say I felt they were any better than say a common DiMarzio Area J set, or even Model J (different sounding entirely, but still quality sound).

Most places I play I go DI (pre) and the amplifier onstage is just to be my monitor. In one of the bands I use a few pedals, so the sound is generated before it reaches the DI. I include a cab simulator, for DI, so that my overdriven bass sounds ok and not fizzy. When I play bars and my amplifier is what carries the bass for the whole place, then there's just one sound, obviously. And earplugs.

Superglue! Came to the rescue quite a few times for me.

I've just ordered a Sandberg VM4. I went for their 'soft aged' finish purely because of the cost. I'm not a fan of the relic thing, although when done well it doesn't put me off either, and Sandberg does do it very well. My first choice was a solid colour, high gloss finish. Unfortunately it's not one of their normal colours, so it would add £525 to the price. Now, I liked that colour, but not THAT much. So I asked about the nearest alternative, which happened to be a metallic colour they do do, but only on aged finishes. I asked about getting it 'not aged'. It was possible, but at a cost, because again, for high gloss, it means more work. For an aged finish, they don't need to get it perfectly flat and nice before they 'age' it... so it's like an in-between level of effort and the time it takes. So I got the order in specifying "very light soft aged pretty please" or something along those lines Sandberg is the only company that has made me thought "hmmm, yummy" about their aged instruments.

Yes, but very variable. They wanted £600 for a really battered Stingray a few years ago, with big dents on the back of the neck and generally in terrible condition. That's when a reasonably clean Stingray could be found for 5-700 on eBay, and I bought mine for £700 immaculate including its EBMM hard case. But I've seen some other cool stuff there at much more reasonable prices.

He's always been good by email to me, even if sometimes it would take a few days to get a reply. However, I'd recommend a phone call if email does not seem to work. He's been really helpful to me with a variety of enquiries in the past.

You'll have to wait until September for that. But it's essentially this one below (metallic orange, very soft aged) with black rather than nickel hardware:

I thought it was about helping each other empty our pockets on bass related stuff... It certainly is like that for me. There I was, minding my own business, reasonably happy with my gear, until I discovered BC. My expenditure skyrocketted after that. But I do enjoy what I discovered along the way

I saw a black/maple V4 on Facebook a few days ago... if I were after a Precision, that's what I would have bought. IN fact, I am not after a Precision and I was still tempted

That's what Teo at Guitar Guitar was telling me. I was commenting on how nice that neck on the red 48 in particular felt and he took note of the serial number and said that Sandberg would be able to check their records and get a pretty good match. Once I decided to order, I could have just done it in Edinburgh, but Teo had been really helpful so it was only fair that he got to make the sale. I go to Glasgow often so it won't be a problem to go there to pick it up when the time comes... around September, I was told. So... if you go to Guitar Guitar in Glasgow, talk to that man.

If by helping you mean making him poorer, yes, you helped a lot. Thanks...

Finalising details... by the order will be official within days, yes. My first choice was a non-aged high gloss solid colour, but I didn't like the colour enough to pay the £525 they wanted for a 'custom colour'. So I'm going with metallic orange. Just checking out a couple of minor details before signing the document. Teo at Guitar Guitar in Glasgow has been very helpful, ensuring Sandberg is aware of the specific 48 bass I liked the neck of to make sure my VM has the same kind of profile (both 48s they had were slightly different). This also means I'll take the opportunity to do a clear-out of a few instruments I rarely use these days... at least 3, maybe 4: "fewer but nicer instruments" is what I want.