eude

We're even closer... Eude

How did I miss this thread before now?! I own a fair few ACG basses and have played many many more, so hopefully I can give you some of my impressions of the bits you're asking about. Righto, pickups. The regular ACG pickups, the B Series ones are hand wound by Aaron Armstrong, and come in several flavours these days and in 3 casing sizes. There's the original FB which is a sidewinder humbucking pickup which gives a nice modern jazz bass vibe, with more midrange and a bit of natural compression to the notes. There's the RFB pickups, which are more like a Musicman pickups, with the magnets side by side, giving a more ballsy tone. These can both be augmented with the switches you mention, to give you access to series, single coil and parallel modes. I appreciate that the series mode always sounds better, as it's bigger, but there's subtleties and nuances to the other two modes which are worth exploring too. There's the SB, single coil pickups, which come in a '70s style' now too, which are very much Jazz Bass style pickups, and finally the PB, Precision Bass style pickups, which can also be reversed for a more modern take. All of the above can be tuned to a certain degree by using different magnet types and having things underwound or overwound too, as these are hand made to order it's no huge hardship. MC Series pickups are a very different animal! As @EMG456 stated, they are punchy and detailed, very detailed. My experience of them is that they pick up every single thing on the bass every subtlety come across in quite a hifi manner, you basically get EVERYTHING you play and every note regardless of position or string sounds even and balanced throughout the entirety of the bass. If you've got the budget I would go for the MC pups as it just gives you more to work with, unless you're looking for more of a vintage tone vibe. The preamps. The original EQ01, which you've had experience of, had a wider sweep than the DFM, but now the filter sweeps are the same on both preamps. The main differentiator now is that the DFM has a different stack for the treble control, which is basically a sweepable treble/mid boost which is easier to use than the high pass filter on the EQ01, but obviously less flexible. I've had, and still have some basses with Uni-pre's and ACG filter preamps, and if you're a set it and stick guy, and you really like to go for that burpy midrange on the back pickup, I would stick with the filter preamp, probably the DFM, dialling in that kind of tone is an absolute breeze with that set up, and technically, you could still have a different tone set up with the other filter on your 'spare' pickup to blend in or switch to entirely for a different sound on the fly, something you can only do when you have separate controls per pickup. I really like the spec you've come up with, but I'd be careful weight wise as a Sycamore body might be a little heavy. You thinking bolt-on or set neck? Hope that helps and that you made it to the end of my post! Cheers, Eude

Sooooooo Classy.

I hear a lot of folks saying you can get a lot more than that done to death djent bass sound out of DG kit, but it's hard to find examples. If anyone has any good links to share with that kind of stuff I'd be keen to hear them... Eude

Yup, I don't doubt that, I love me a bit of Ashdown. I need to get myself over to Ashdown HQ sometime soon. I wouldn't argue that the MarkBass stuff sounds bad, just that it looks a bit naff in my humble opinion... Eude

Speaking as a Graphic Designer too, it would not take much studio time to significantly improve the look of the MarkBass stuff though, if they did use an external resource, they're some of the way there already, they have a strong brand ID the products just need a bit of finesse. I'm sure there would be several graphic designers willing to give some input in exchange for some gear, there seems to be a few of us bass playing graphic designers out there. They do however need to shoot whoever came up with that red with gold knobs look for the Limited Marcus stuff. Eude

To be fair, it doesn't seem to stop them selling, but I see less of this stuff here in the UK these days. I appreciate that they've tried to make their offerings stand out in their own way, but I think "Homer Simpson's Dream Car" is the perfect analogy of their product design ethos. Maybe us stuck up Brits don't appreciate their flamboyant Italian styling, but I think it's more likely that they need to employ another designer to work on the aesthetics of their products as every single product they've released in the last four of years has been a swing and a miss as far as appearances go. To some, it's not important, and I get that, but to most of us it is... Eude

What and absolute beauty!

It works brilliantly, mine are actually 31.5" scale! Here's some samples of my Salace, with some low B thrown in >> https://m.soundcloud.com/eudeboy/sets/acg-salace-sc-e-type-samples And here's some samples of my AJR Guitar Mods rebuilt 6 string fretless, same scale length >> https://m.soundcloud.com/eudeboy/sets/ajr-6-string-fretless-samples-round2 What are you planning/plotting? Eude

Oh dear, one worse than Papyrus, but not quite as bad as Comic Sans...

Is it just me, or has the look of Markbass gear gone a bit crazy of late? I used to really like the workmanlike appearance of their heads, nothing fancy or overdesigned, just practical and sensible. These weird big knobs they've moved to are pretty fugly in my opinion, and have you seen the Limited Marcus Miller heads?! It's got gold knobs! Compare both of the above to this >> Personally, I much prefer the older stuff looks wise... Eude

I think it would be more realistic to say "penciled in"...

Doug Wimbish. His career and legacy is enormous, but if I had to pick one thing, it would be Stain, by Living Color. His playing on that album is SO incredible. I've been listening to it fairly regularly since I bought it back in 1993 and the hairs on the back of my neck still stand up every time I hear it! Eude

+100! I've got 2 headless ACGs! Eude

More filth...

I've literally only ever seen high profile endorser types playing them, usually always in YouTube demos rather than in real life, and they all seem to have given them back. Lots people excited about trying them, but nothing but radio silence since the launch. Like I said, a swing and a miss... Given the fact you can get a completely hand made, fully customised instrument for less, the market for these basses doesn't exist. Eude

Very true, the ideas in concept with the Boden are all sound, but they way they've been applied have let most who were keen to see the results down. The end result is only representative of the Boden. Looks like a pretty big swing and a miss from Strandberg from where I'm standing. Eude

Before I moved to Newtone strings I used DRs most of the time, I always got mine from these guys >> https://www.ebay.com/str/Bass-Specialties/ Don't think I ever paid much more than £30 including shipping from the US for a 6 string set. Never got stung for any import tax either, unlike when I bought some custom La Bellas, but all that might be down to the package value maybe? Still, even with tax they're still cheaper than buying in the UK. Madness... Eude

Have to say mate, that sounds marvellous, really full sound considering to diminutive proportions of the rig. I used to see a band play regularly, years ago in Glasgow and the bassist had an SWR Baby Blue 2x8 combo with the matching 2x8 extension cab and it was loud enough for a reasonably sized fairly lively pub with no PA support. I'm fairly sure those things maxed out at 180w too! They literally don't make them like they used to... Eude

My 6er is wonderful! @Andyjr1515 certainly know's what he's doing! Eude

We have some more progress. The fingerboard is now blocked and will be getting glued to the neck soon. It's second from the top, Cocobolo with AI Maple blocks 😎 Eude

Ooooft! That's working out well!

Wow! I borrowed an Acoustic Image combo once for a gig, I think it was a 2x8" with one of the speakers firing downwards, similar omnidirectional concept and it worked really well, it even kept up with a loud drummist and filled the small/medium room, probably about 100 folks in attendance. I didn't realise they did stand alone cabs?... Tell me more. Eude

New sofa, new bass porn shot. Eude