Ed_S

Our lead singer tried the SE V7 at rehearsal last night and I thought it behaved very well in a loud room. It sounded good with no EQ or DSP - just straight into a QSC K8.2 set flat. Needed a bit more gain to achieve the maximum output level before feedback that we've previously been getting with the e838 on a stand, but then allowed me to go on and almost max-out the dial on the QSC with no feedback even whilst being hand-held. We'll give it a first proper run out at a gig on Friday, but on current evidence I'm hopeful it'll work well for her.

I had the 2816 set (2814 with a 130 B string added) on a Fender Jazz V not too long ago and my personal experience was... They aren't silky smooth (Galli Jazz Flats would be my benchmark for that) but they're also not rough; they're just kinda finely textured and uniformly grippy. If it makes any sense, they have the kind of texture than makes them 'sing' when you run your hands across them. I found the tension to be similar to other comparable-gauge flats I've had (Fender, Chromes, EB Group) which I guess is to say they feel like playing the next-gauge-up set of rounds. They do sound brighter and more like rounds than all other flats I've tried, and I personally liked the grippy feel of them so I'd happily get another set at some point in the future. I think the feel is what might put some other people off, though.

That's something I've been pondering just recently. I provide a mic for our lead singer who is an operatic soprano and therefore not used to needing a mic, but now fronting a metal band. Whilst the Sennheiser e838 (cardioid) she's been using sounds great for her voice and was very forgiving while she was developing her mic technique, I've noticed that some sound guys seem to have a hard time working with it. I was considering just getting her an SM58 for all the reasons given, but then couple of months ago I played alongside another metal soprano who was using an SE V7 (super-cardioid) and it both sounded great for the style and didn't seem to cause undue headache at the desk, so I've actually got one of those arriving tomorrow to try out at rehearsal next week.

I owned multiple Ashdown cabs back in the day, but that was because I was experimenting with different speaker sizes before I knew better. It wasn't brand loyalty - it was just all you could buy in local shops. These days I own multiple Barefaced cabs based on the progression... Super 12 - Bought because everybody said it was the one cab to do pretty much any gig. It was. It still is. G2 Midget - Bought because it's half a Super 12 and sometimes that's all you need. Also vertical 3x12 potential. One10 #1 - Received as a birthday gift. One10 #2 - Bought to make a pair with the first one so it was any use to me. Two10 - Bought to give me the same sound as the pair of One10s in a one-hand-carry format. Also vertical 4x10 potential. I don't know whether it's brand loyalty as such - more just that they engineer light cabs that perform well and look acceptable in a utilitarian kind of way, and if something goes wrong they sort it out.

I believe it was pau ferro - nice looking board, too. I had the issue with ebony once before on a Jim Root sig Telecaster but this was the first time with any other wood.

I like the idea of Sandberg as a brand, and enough of the ones that aren't factory-damaged appeal visually, but having had four of them I can't see me getting another. Three were original cedar body superlight 4s (two TMs and a TT) which were great for my back problems but the recessed and un-filled fret slot ends felt weird, they all sounded somewhat lifeless in the same way, and the matt finish was stupidly easy to damage. My Maruszczyk Jake L4P+ wasn't far off the same weight, sounded lively, was finished in good strong gloss poly and had smooth fretboard edges, so it ended up winning. The last one was a Central 5, which ended up with the finish peeling off the edge of the fretboard so had to go back to be refinished. They did it perfectly well, but I'd not had it long enough before the issue appeared to really bond with it in any way, and by the time it came back from refinishing I'd kinda lost interest; played a couple of gigs with it and just couldn't get excited about it so moved it on.

Yeah, I guess if somebody was making a big thing of the fact that they'd had their bass fettled by a recognised luthier, could prove that to be the case, and the work done was exactly what I would be having done myself... maybe I'd offer or accept paying a few quid extra for that, provided I was totally confident that it was worth it to me. But to my mind, the thing about having the work done yourself is that at least you've seen the instrument in its original state, know who's done what and (perhaps most importantly) why, and you can have some input into the process, so I think I might still be more inclined to get a cheaper deal on one that's been left alone and take it to my own choice of professional.

If it's still possible to go out and get a new one that you'd expect to be perfect and not need the work, or if it's no longer available new but you'd expect the vast majority of second hand ones never to have needed the work, then no, I'd say that's on the seller for electing to keep and fix a b-stock, rather than swap out for a different one. Nothing against anyone who does that, btw.. as long as they realise that it's rarely an investment. I've done it myself - for example keeping an unusually light example of a bass with really attractive wood grain patterns but a knackered preamp because a swap could easily turn up as a boring-looking boat-anchor of an instrument, but with a functional preamp. I knew the money for a new preamp was never going to be recouped, and I was fine with that. I broadly agree with the 'what it owes me' comments, though I do use the phrase when talking generally about what a project has cost in total. If I ever use it when it's time to sell, I switch to a different version which involves completely writing-off the initial purchase price of anything I buy as a modding platform or fixer-upper, and then not spending any more on parts than I'm confident I can sell the whole thing for once completed, unless I'm willing to lose the additional outlay. That's perhaps just a me-thing, though!

Agreed. I put GB707s on all my Ibanez SRs. Never had a problem with the function of the stock ones myself, but I prefer the shape of the tuning keys and the wider string posts on the Gotohs, and they feel nicer. I also used them on my Harley and Fazley cheapo P copies, but that required a degree of bodgery to get the 18mm holes down to 14mm.

Aye, at least with those you can just replace the barrels if you really object to a whole different bridge, and if you don't then there are loads of drop-in replacements from the sublime to the ridiculous. Sadly this was the cheaper end of Ibanez, and I think they choose mounting screw locations by committee.

I doubt it, to be honest, but in the spirit of this thread I'll be sure to include it should I ever come to sell. I've actually just recently bought another Rockbass - a Streamer LX this time - and I've done a version (the pickups are passive J's, so no battery or switch needed) of the same thing with that so they're both nearing P-bass levels of 'nothing to go wrong', and I wired them up so I've only got myself to blame if anything does! I guess some would call what I've done a downgrade... I know my limits where the tinkering is concerned, but I bought both of these as end-of-line b-stock returns and was quietly confident that I'd be able to get them into shape. They were both Friday afternoon specials in the fit and finish department and the fret ends needed attention, but they've got good bones and they're now metal-gig-appropriate workhorses.

Yeah, it was beyond buzzing on the worst one - we're talking full choking-out and rattling within one song. Speaking of Warwick preamps, as you were, I had a Rockbass one fail last year and after a bit of back-and-forth they eventually sent a new preamp out to Thomann who forwarded it on to me to fit. They would have fitted it but I said I was happy to avoid the chance of loss or damage in shipping and just do it myself. Thing is, in the intervening time I'd actually grabbed some pots, a switch and a jack from my bits box and wired it up passive (well.. they're active pickups so still need power, but then into a passive volume/tone) and used the switch to allow me to split the twin-jazz pickup in the bridge. In the end I much preferred that to the preamp, so the new one it still in packaging.

Granted this isn't a 'fail to do after a while' - it's a manufacturing defect, but I've had bridges where the grub screws for adjusting the action were so loose that the vibration of the strings caused the screws to turn and the saddles to hit the deck. Tried new grub screws but it was the holes in the saddles that were too big or badly tapped, and replacement saddles weren't an option. I could have bodged them with thread-lock or PTFE or nail varnish etc. but in all cases it was just easier to get a new bridge that actually worked.

I like to find really cheap basses that just happen to have great necks, and then have fun replacing all the bits that were actively skimped on in order to have that standard of woodwork and fretwork at such a low price. In those cases I think the word 'upgrade' is more easily justified, but I do agree that it's important to make peace with the fact that a £200 bass with £200 of parts fitted and a load of time invested using expensive tools is still very often only worth £100. All the same, if such a bass falls out of use or favour down the road, I prefer to send it off as-is and stand to a degree of loss - partly in the hope that it makes the new owner happy and perhaps lets them have something they otherwise couldn't, but mostly because taking something that I've made as good as I think it can be and then spending even more time to rip it apart and make it worse (even if only subjectively), I find to be the complete opposite of fun.

Doesn't always work perfectly, but the quick calculation in my head is that I expect the offer when I sell current gear back to a shop to be about half the value of a new one, and that then represents two thirds of what they'll aim to sell it for. So if I'd bought a bass that retailed for £570 and wanted to move it on, I'd expect to be offered about £285 and then see it up for sale at £425-450 in the shop. Buying from a private seller, I'd be looking to split the difference between the shop buy-in and sale prices with them, probably two thirds in their favour, so if we take a mid-point of £435 that works out nicely to a difference of £150; an extra £100 for them, and £50 off for me. £385 would be my offer.