Wolverinebass

Yeah. The joys of auto correct.

As a lifelong chili peppers fan absolutely nothing grabbed me. They're bland, crap albums. To me at least. Some might argue that their whole back catalogue is like that. However I digress. If you're outside Kiedis or Flea's house waving a placard saying "Bring Back Klinghoffer!" I wish you all the best of luck with that. You'll be the only one. My point is that kind of like how you can listen to 10 seconds of any recent Dream Theatre album or song and know it's all crap.

Quite. The "Josh" of auto correct.... I skimmed both those albums and they're pants.

I don't think his tone matters. The albums with Justin Klinghoffer are crap. The fact that they've been badly produced is only one more nail in the coffin.

I made a joke at the time that not only had they copied TC Electronics styling, they'd even copied their falsification of their power output ratings.

They've totally messed up Dood. The class D offerings Hartke have now are crap. They're underpowered. Laughably so. Plus, they juked the specs as someone on Talkbass took them to bits and sadly the power module labels don't lie. They're stuffed.

Exactly. The HA series is great. Just put a 1000w class D in it. Job done. But no. Let's discontinue the 5500 which is well beyond its alleged 500w output. It's just devastating. Total morons.

Just to add to this total debacle. I had a look at Hartke's website today. In an unrelated note, the drummer from one of my bands his studio bass amp (some kickback combo) had died and asked my advice. I went to look for the model and noticed some rather unamusing stuff. The Kilo isn't made any more. Flagship amp binned. HA5500 is also discontinued. The best thing they've ever done is binned too. That's madness, but it's heavy. Unlike Ashdown who remain immune to lightweight amp trends, Hartke don't have the profile to carry this off. That is in itself why nobody should buy Hartke. The pooch has well and truly been screwed.

Fair play. I forgot those 2. My point is speaking towards the companys ambition. Think about it. Darkglass have went out and got virtually every major player in the metal/djent field. Ashdown still have some very high profile people as well. Tech 21 went and got Steve Harris, Dug and Geddy and a whole slew of others. Hartke have been overtaken and are still sitting about doing not very much either interesting or more importantly, good. Which is a shame. That's why their distributor network is crap.

He hasn't used the HA5500 for years and I'm pretty sure he went Helix a few years ago as well so he might not even use the LH series anymore either. Or maybe just as a power amp.

That was about 10 years ago Si. Frankly, I think the company is doomed. Larry can post as many photos on Facebook of "Look over here! It's Jaco's aluminium coned 8x10!" or "Here's Jack Bruce's Warwick Thumb!" but it doesn't disguise the fact that both of those thoroughly excellent bass player's are dead and if you exclude Victor Wooten as an endorser they don't have any high profile ones. I'm sure if he were offered a skip of cash he'd play anything. Probably why Stu Hamm left to go to Markbass. They haven't had a well known modern age bass player on their books of endorsements for a very, very long time. I think that in itself speaks volumes about the company's standing. I'm bummed though. The HA5500 is just brilliant, but by modern standards it's just too heavy. Most of the stuff I use are companies that don't pay you to use their stuff so if I ever was better known for anything other than sideburns, claws and sarcasm it would all be for nothing.

Hartke went crap about 2007. After sitting with the thoroughly excellent HA series for probably a touch too long they then shot themselves repeatedly in the head. The LH series regardless how powerful they were they had a woeful eq. Plus, they were heavy at a time where companies were starting to go light as a matter of course. The Kilo was delayed for 3 years after being announced and has been plagued with reliability issues. Finally, with the lightweight amp head market fully standard, they put out the woefully underpowered TX series. A friend had one and I literally laughed at how pitiful it was. Then it came out that they'd juiced the power ratings as a few people on talkbass had taken photos of the guts and showed the power module wasn't quite what it claimed to be. They can pay Victor Wooten all the money in the world, but their current products are crap. Wooten will always sound good as he's a very talented player. He just uses Harkte to pay the bills. Fair play. Hartke haven't done anything better than the HA5500 and that amp is 20 years old. They're a dead company walking.

My response other than "just say no," which has never worked for anyone under any circumstance would be to ask if he has dental insurance. When he inevitably says "no" make some sort of observation about that being a pity were his saxophone used to knock out most of his teeth then give him an experimental brass enema. A friend of mine has a midi saxophone which he brought to a random jam we had a few years ago. Hateful thing. Sounded like a badger being castrated whilst trying to sing "Welcome to the jungle," by Guns & Roses. I'd take suggestions. Dictated to? Good luck with that, pal.

Like all heritage brands, they can't win. They could however, try to not screw up so readily. They could have just used the same kind of design as their 4 string pickups instead of something as bad as those triangles. Not that it matters as I don't play 5 strings. My Rick kills and I use it dropped to C# standard in one band. Just fantastic.

I don't need to try one. Any bass where the pickups look like they came from a low budget 1980's sci fi horror film are a definite no from me.

Then clearly, not using it right or in the right situation as an owner of 8 and 12 string basses they absolutely kill.

"But it's been designed like this for Geddy....." I still can't get over how silly that is.

Hans Peter Wilfer - "We have improved the Sadowsky logo design. We at Warwick are committed to taking something good, great even, and ruining it completely, then getting out of the consequences by having a team of lawyers that would make OJ Simpson's legal team look like rank amateurs who couldn't even get your 96 year old gran off a speeding ticket when she did 21 in a 20 zone. Previous cases against Spector, Status Graphite and Alembic have shown this. We are ready. Ready to ruin what you hold dear and take credit for inventing everything."

Not in my case Si. Previously, I've bought tons of stuff which is no different to many people. A year off was good. It gave me time to assess what gear needs I have and plan ahead for this year.

Yeah, I did. I only bought things for the studio. Did I win anything?

As @Cosmo Valdemarsays, an all graphite status buzzard will happily take an action down to less than 0.5mm which is almost immeasurable. If that's not low enough for people I don't know what is. It really is scary. Ironically, when I got it the action was way too high for me (especially if you do tapping), but it adjusted down easily. My alembic also takes a truly insane low action as well.

I wonder if you're lucky not to have been burned at the stake for heresy by sharing a guitar demo..... I'd be barricading my windows if I were you. In all seriousness though, it is a guitar preamp which works very, very well for bass and quite a few other things. Oh, no! Does this mean I'll be burned too?!!

I can't wait for Hans Peter Wilfer to come out with some crap soon, like "All these designs are mine," "We pioneered the Sadowsky shape and electronics," "I own the patents to all Sadowsky basses." It won't be long before he says that "Warwick invented the wheel in 10,000 B.C." No irony will be present either.

I haven't bought anything this year except for my studio. However, the minute this is over I'll be getting a pedal board as well as a few other things.

£450 at Andertons. I must admit I paid £500 for the rack which has stereo fx loop and DI outs. That was 2010 though. Yeah, I think that had it been a bit less that would have been better. I take your point of course. It's not cheap.