LukeFRC

you can go straight if you want - will (probably) sound more open with less roll off of high freq. Also depends on the input impedance of your amp. I quite like the straight to jack sound.

can I get away with entering this and not telling my work... not a problem unless I won!

This thread seems to be going around and around without actually getting anywhere.... AC makes lots of very good basses, everyone likes them - he makes one dog, sells it, turns out customer service isn't a strong point. Every tom dick and harry chimes in with their opinion, some of which are interesting, some of which arn't. Twelve pages later the same things go around and around again. So... we learn every luthier in the world can have a bad day, and one man band luthiers may be crap at customer service. Beyond that... it just all become so negative.... [quote name='E sharp' timestamp='1376505687' post='2175185'] Was saving up for my dream Status and probably looking close to 3k . Although this thread is only about A.C. , it surely must make anyone think long and hard about a new build . Certainly made me think , and I'm not even questioning Rob's work . [/quote] don't be daft. Ask around - now for each maker you'll meet one or two who maybe get something with major or minor issues.... and hundreds of happy customers. I'm pretty sure you could spend £3000 on anything status, overwater, ACG, sei, shuker, or the other british builders and have no problem at all. (Also EU legislation protects you from defects better)

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1376462141' post='2174145'] Erm... [/quote] that's what I was thinking too

if you were going to try and age a bass you think you would realise that the wood isn't going to discolour that much... if it's on the inside of a neck pocket!

[quote name='steve-soar' timestamp='1376433463' post='2174051'] I have never played a JC bass and would have found the opportunity of playing this lefty as a coup, as I'm a lefty and have been disappointed by custom builds in the past. I think the photos show serious finishing issues, both in woodworking and lacquer. I worked for a luthier for 4 years and I can say that no instrument ever left the shop in such an appalling condition as was shown in these picks. Finish sinking does happen, [b]but that fingerboard was a total abortion.[/b] What really is of interest, is that the post on Talkbass from JC, implied that the owner may have photoshopped the pictures. Also, how does playing with a pick cause fret buzz? [/quote] aberration ?

[quote name='warwickhunt' timestamp='1376421080' post='2173792'] ...but this is t'interweb, you're supposed to shout at your screen and lambast folks you know nowt about! [/quote] I do that. Then remember you sold me a nice bass warwick once and are a decent chap so I feel guilty about all my lambasting.

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376391914' post='2173143'] Unfortunately Jimmy is a complete one-man show - he selects the woods, carves them, hand-winds the pickups, puts all the electronics together, does all the sanding and finishing, sprays and lacquers etc. etc. about the only thing he brings in is hardware (and even some of that is custom built for him). He spends pretty much his entire life building instruments and is really not a PR guy at all. In all my experience with him he's been very open and honest. When there's an issue he's accepted it and sorted things without a single quibble. He's also sold some things with obvious flaws and, again in dealings with me, he's explained these very clearly in advance. He's a very, very passionate guy and wears his heart on his sleeve - what you see is what you get with him and I've never had a problem with this. His rebuttal on TB in the face of a lynch-mob is pretty strongly worded and may not be the most PR-friendly way to respond but I can imagine how he felt on discovering that there was a tirade of abuse being fired at him in such a public way and from a bunch of people who'd obviously decided to hang him out to dry. Personally if I had the sort of problems the buyer had I'd get on the phone to Jimmy immediately and, again from personal experience, I'm sure he would have sorted everything without any bother. I can't help like the guy. He absolutely loves what he does and he makes some amazing instruments and puts his all into his, really quite small, business. It seems a shame that so many people on TB seem to be happy to put all kinds of labels on him without actually knowing him or how he works [/quote] Have you ever worked in catering? Worked on a busy week, say christmas, with a chef? So they are passionate, and brilliant at their job and really really good- but in my experience stick one and a sous chef and a KP in a dark hot little room for a week, working fast under pressure and they will (90% of the time) turn into utter swear-words. I wonder about these one man shop builders, stuck there with an order list as long as their arm, buyer of custom instruments constantly pestering them and bothering them, and trying to have a life as well... and mess ups and mistakes and stress induced bad customer service is probably going to result. I can't help thinking that if you get to that stage you may be better trying to take staff on, or using a shop as a customer centre. Thing is though with custom basses- I've looked at the videos that warwick put up on their website where they show how they build their basses - all computer controlled high precision small batch production -how people expect a single luthier to have (or be able to have) that sort of precision I don't know. [quote name='molan' timestamp='1376396421' post='2173258'] Jens Ritter is one of the few guys that always builds something really special for each major show he's at. He guards them with his life though and makes sure they are incredibly well looked after. [/quote] mind you he can point people round the corner to play a chinese version of them..... (google for the video if you don't know what that's a reference too)

I was wondering what your take on this all would be Molan - as I know you've had a few AC... it's all a bit of a mess really - best bet would be Jimmy take it back - refund and then spend a few hours sorting it out and he can resell it again. Mind you suggesting that "the buyer knows how to take photos that will show the flaws" and this isn't on is a bit out....

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1376312864' post='2171951'] Whatever the 'entire' story is, I think anyone who has seen this, or the TB thread, will think twice about AC if ever we're in a position to buy something of this level of expenditure. Meanwhile, some where in New York, a luthier is rubbing his hands together [/quote] agreed - it suddenly loses a lot of the appeal of a brand with a rep of making $5k basses that.. .well are possibly worth $5k. Mind you UK lutheirs are pretty competitively priced at the moment. [quote name='CHRISDABASS' timestamp='1376321097' post='2172090'] This is awful! Really sad to see! I would be flying out to the shop to take it back and sort it out directly! I'm only on page 7 of the talkbass thread......i hope it gets resolved! [/quote] it doesn't, I skipped to the end.... As I was reading it did make me think of your workshop though and the difference in quality of the basses you make- that I would look/pickup at your stuff and just presumed that of course all custom builders make stuff of this quality..... turns out from that talkbass thread that they do not

[quote name='BobVbass' timestamp='1376116595' post='2169833'] I really like the look of them but ... Really? Hmmm so the speed of sound in hardwood is about 3900 metres/sec in Aluminium it's about 6500m/s so are they really telling me that I'd be able to spot the difference over the length of a bass or that it would have anything to do with the sound anyway? Can't they just say they look great and unusual and sound great as they have a decent pickup and preamp? Maybe I'm just grumpy with a Spanish holiday sangria hangover [/quote] some people will tell you they can tell the difference in sound of maple body vs a alder body and I would think that is a smaller difference in sound. Wether they can or not, or if it's just some phycoacousitc trick that people think they can hear the difference.... thats a disscussion for one of the many other threads we've had on the subject. (plus I would have thought it would be stiffness rather than speed of sound in the materials which would make the difference in this example)

sage green isn't a bad colour.... some people may prefer it to black - why not ask for a swap?

[quote name='iceonaboy' timestamp='1376071342' post='2169429'] +10 to moving the pick up height. I have found a HUGE difference by just a tweak of a screw. I find it strange that you cant find enough low end from a P bass , because they are renowned for their low end. much more so than a GL Jazz, therefore, I surmise that you must alter the pup height in relation to your strings. Get the D+G side lower and raise the A+E, then low is at your disposal. Sorry if this sounds a bit condescending, but I really am struggling to comprehend how a P bass can be not giving enough "bottom" [/quote] A P doesn't have as much bass as say the neck pup on jazz. What it has is low mids, which sound like "bass sound" but are actually higher freq - if something about the set up, the amp eq or the cab flattens out this low mid bump then it would sound like it had little bottom end.

try screwing the pickup down a bit....

some of his other stuff isn't too bad! bit of a shame to wreck that kawai half moon guitar though

Tom, your review for basschat was more or less a copy and paste of your review that the company have on their website. Put it another way, their website has so little meaningful info your endorsement makes up most the sales pitch they make. If you don't get how turning up and copy and pasting that might come accross as (bad) marketing I don't know what planet you are on - I first read your op and thought you were some made up player imagined by a marketing department to push product...

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1375462321' post='2161851'] According to the spec posted on another forum, the amp goes down to 4hz or something, so pretty far from optimised, what with 4 octaves of wasted power below audible. High passing is pretty key to amps working well. [/quote] ouch! Like why - now I have no idea at all but would guess if this is car/bike stereo technology (hence the twin input and output) that it would be optimised to roll of most the bass - I mean if you're on a bike I can't imagine you get many low end woofers.... My guess its a typo and roll off at 40 Hz (or around) with the focus on the mids giving a nice hifi clean tone with little low end - a bit like a low fi version of the hi fi monitor I started a thread about last month.

[quote name='TomRichards' timestamp='1375453894' post='2161652'] Those are not micro buttons, but touch sensitive spots on the top. And the 1/8 inch jack is an input, for your iPod or MP3 player or any other source you want to run through it that uses an 1/8" input. I have a special guitar cable that is 1/4" to 1/8 that splits the mono signal to both channels, so it's kinda cool for me. Yes, this amp is definitely not everyones cup of tea. But I think it merits a look, as most power amps are really built for only line level inputs and do not have pre-amps optimized for instrument input directly. And, I think the button layout and functionality is different and cool. I once had a Tech21 Bass Power Engine bass cab that I paired with a SANSAMP preamp and it was killer! They were the only ones in my memory to actually design a pre-amp - powered cab (ne power amp) match for working together specifically. I sold that rig several years ago to fund a vintage bass purchase, but in hindsight probably should not have. I love raw sound. I want my metal necks to sound like metal necks, my Brubakers to sound like my Brubakers, my Backlunds and Retronix to sound like.... This is really a great concept. I need to post some video/audio. It is really a cool amp. I used the cables they provided me to bridge the amp 400W into 8ohms yesterday, and it was louder then my Hartke LH500 and cleaner, crisper. As Charlie Sheen would say, "Winning!" [/quote] touch sensitive spots/micro buttons - whatever you call them, I would question (perhaps unfoundedly) their long term durability. My comment bout the jack sizes was more their size relative to the whole box.... ie it's not actually that small - if it were the size of a fag packet then it would be interesting - as it is it looks quite sizeable. Don't get me wrong - it's an good idea for a fella sticking theiese in motorbikes to look to see how they would work with bass or guitar but I don't think it's a great design in terms of functionality and I have no idea in terms of audio engeneering how they have designed it - but based on the website there's little information. I'm guessing it's a class D amp modual of some kind, with some built in power optimisation to get the most out of it...

if they are the inputs on the front (two jack one headphone jack) it's not as small as you would think. It's only 1 lb lighter than my amp - so not that lightweight... and how many times have you had those micro type buttons fail on you in other applications? It might sound nice but looks like an ugly underpowered little box to me.

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1375349947' post='2160035'] We try to keep temps as constant as possible but it's a tricky business. Loosely speaking we use minimal heat, and from small portable rads only, in the winter and just airflow without air-con in the summer. This kinda works but things still move around. It's usually spring and autumn when things are most noticeable though. [/quote] I think you work in a bit of a higher end music shop than the one I'm talking about

imo