BigRedX

These spammers are even more deeply stupid than normal. Did they not check the subject of the forum first? We're bass players we don't need Viagra or porn, as we have nubile groupies at our beck and call!

I played a couple of these at the LGS earlier this year. Pretty good. The pickup and pre-amp is very flexible - lots of sounds there. However I was less impressed with the very V-shaped neck. This is probably the only high-end bass I've played where the neck shape actually made a negative impact on my perception of the instrument.

Price-wise I think it's about right for the quality of the bass - provided that you like the neck because according to Martin Sims at the time they would all be like that (maybe this will change later after some more use feedback?)

However the web site is appalling. Design is a subjective matter, but ease of use isn't and the navigation leaves much to be desired!

If you're going after that filter make sure the PSU is included as the Peavey rack gear uses something non-standard like 16V AC IIRC.

Also worth checking out is the Adrenalinn.

Don't know of anything in a stomp box, but I've used a couple rack effects to do this.

Firstly a Peavey Spectrum Filter - envelope following and MIDI triggering of both VCF and VCA with full ADSR envelopes for each section. The filter part is reputed to be based on the Mini Moog filter.

Secondly, not quite as versatile but still good, the tremolo section of the Electrix MoFex which has variable shape tremolo sync'd to MIDI at different note intervals.

You can hear the Peavey filter unit in action by clicking on my sig and listening to the track "Love Junkie". All the bass parts are an Overwater bass through the filter, being controlled by a MIDI sequencer.

I find dots for every fret simply too confusing.

You could do what I have on my Sei which is to have the standard side dots (including one at the first fret) and then discrete dots (at the same positions) on the front of the fingerboard between the highest two strings to counter parallax.

Cool. If it had been a 5-string you might have been in competition from me.

Full report when it arrives please. I might still have a punt on one of the guitars if the get re-listed cheaper.

The Italia bass has little in common with the original Ampeg except a vague approximation of the body shape. The Eastwood version is very slightly more authentic. The Johnson scroll basses are in a whole different league with regards to authenticity of construction and sound and with an equivalent price to match!

Still haven't seen one of the re-issue plexiglass basses in the UK yet. Anyone know somewhere with them in stock?

Thanks for the Trussart info. The new price is now $4500 according to their web site so it sounds like you picked up a bit of a bargain there!

Would love to see some more photos of it

On the subject of uncontoured bodies do you have any problems with the Rumblefish in that respect?

Firstly to the OP, if you like your bass that's great. If it plays well and has the sound you want, don't let other people's views affect you.

The thing with Warwicks is that they're very polarising of opinion. You don't come across many people who can take or leave them, they either love or hate. I suppose they're not particularly fashionable right now and do have a rather dated image of early 90s Funk Pop and Metal, but give it another few years and that will all change.

As for personal opinions, I'm not a fan. I don't really like the looks and all the basses I've tried except for one just didn't feel comfortable. Most of the ones I've tried have been fretless, because that's what I mainly play, and I found on the whole the necks felt sticky which is definitely not conducive to fretless playing, and on one in particular the edges of the fingerboard were really sharp. Now on a cheap bass that could be forgiven, but not on anything costing over £1000. The one Warwick I did like had a price tag of around £4000 on it. It was nice but IMO not even £2000 nice let alone the asking price.

Yes more info on the Trussart please!

And back on topic here's the ramp on my Sei Flamboyant Offset Bass:

[quote name='Protium' post='295747' date='Sep 30 2008, 06:49 PM']Off topic sorry: Anyone know what type of bridge that is?[/quote]

Looks like an [url="http://www.ets-hardware.com/"]ETS[/url]

There was a Johnson Scroll Bass in the Gallery last month. Very nice. If I hadn't been there to pickup and pay for my Sei Bass i might have been tempted.

That looks like the newer version bridge but without a close-up pic it's impossible to say for sure. The newer versions allow you adjust the action with a allen key and without having to remove the string. On mine because the whole saddle rotates to screw up and down you have to slacken off the string to do this and height can only be adjusted in half-turn increments.

Sound-wise there's lots of tones available, whether there will be all the ones you want is another matter. The controls are master volume, bass, mid, mid frequency and piezo volume. There should also be a switch to give two piezo tones. I've found that there can be a hole in the frequency range between the highest mid and piezo which may be a problem for getting some sounds. I don't use the piezo much because it generates too much handling noise with my playing style. Also because mine has an unfinished maple? board, it's never been strung with anything more abrasive than half-rounds.

That eBay listing has been running for a couple of weeks now and despite what they say the price has not been significantly reduced. Factoring shipping and VAT/customs at the moment it's at the upper limit of what the bass is worth. I'd be tempted to wait for it to come down by at least $100 unless you are sure it's the bass for you.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5525&view=findpost&p=290332"]Post 448[/url]...

As budget bassist says I have a LightWave Sabre A:





It's a very light bass because nearly the whole body is hollow - the top half is semi-acoustic chamber and the bottom to take the extensive LightWave electronics. Mine is from one of the earliest proper manufactured batches and construction is OK, but not as good as a more conventional bass in the same price bracket.





There are a lot of sounds possible from this bass partly from the electronics and also from the fact that you can use pretty much any bass strings. I the current range there's two different pickup versions - LightWave plus piezos and LightWave plus neck magnetic pickup. The sound from the LightWave pickups is very full and even with the controls on flat much bassier than magnetic pickups with a strong fundamental. The ectronics for the LightWave system are very versatile and inside the control cavity there are trim-pots for balancing the volume of each string individually. The sound from the secondary pickup can only be added to the LightWave sound so you can't have it on it's own. I don't know if you'll get classic Jaco J-bridge sound, I haven't really tried as I have two more conventional fretless basses that do that sort of thing effortlessly. However with the right strings, you can certainly get a decent faux URB sound out of it. Mine is currently set up to do this and strung with TI Jazz Flats.

The two downsides I find with the bass are the slightly flimsy construction and the fiddley and un-ergonomic bridge design that means that if you want to experiment with different strings, you're going to find yourself spending a lot of time setting the bass up after each change. To se what is involved I recommend that you download and read the [url="http://www.lightwave-systems.com/Support/SaberUserManual.pdf"]user manual[/url]. On my version the action adjustment is particularly user unfriendly (it's better on the current bridge design), plus the action adjustment is wider than the optical sensor adjustment, so it's possible to find yourself having lowered the action the where you want it not being able to get the sensors to line up with the strings. I've had the neck off mine 3 times so far to adjust the shims to overcome this problem. This is a pity as this is one bass where string experimentation can yield rewarding results, but at the same time involves lots more work than a more conventional bass.

IMO a second-hand 5-string in good condition shouldn't be more than £500 for a recent model and less for one with an earlier bridge design. Also if you're buying one from the US you'll also need to get a 240-110V step-down transformer for the battery recharger.

LightWave have supplied their pickup system to a number of builders in the past including some serious high-end designs from Ritter, Sei and Zon. The LightWave own brand basses are good to try out to see if you like the system, but ultimately if you're going to be a serious user, I'd consider either going for one of the better makes with the system or getting the electronics transplanted into something custom built.

If you'd like me to have a look at the listing you're interested in either post here or PM me a link and I'll try and give you some more info.

There was a 5-string in the cheaper version the [url="http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=48&brandID=3"]XK=5[/url]. It seems to be the same design but cheaper parts, so no Sprezels, EMGs or Schaller bridge. It's J-J pickup configuration and available in black only. I've not seen one for sale since they were discontinued. Also the XK basses sell for same price second hand as the XLs so they're not as good value for money.

Here's the second in an occasional series...

Hartke XL-4





More aluminium necks this time from Hartke. The XL-4 was the top of the range Hartke model, built by the Vaccaro factory in the US and apparently each instrument was personally inspected by Larry Hartke himself with a certificate of authenticity to go with it. I bought this second hand from the US (those of you who also hang out at TalkBass may have seen this bass before), and unfortunately the certificate is long gone.

There is no denying though that this instrument has been assembled from quality parts. Sprezel Trim-lock machine heads, Schaller bridge, EMG active P-J pickups and active 2-band EQ. Poplar body finished in a sparkly metallic purple, flamed maple shell around the Vaccaro double T-bar aluminium neck and ebanol fingerboard.





There's other design quirks apart from the aluminium neck - the frets are much thinner than normally seen on a bass and there's a zero fret as well as the nut. The controls are individual volume controls for each pickup rather than the more conventional volume and balance. There's also a distinctly unconventional-looking truss rod nut that appears to require a special tool to operate, which is also long gone. As with all basses I've imported from the US, the neck could do with some adjustment to suit the different climate here (even with the aluminium reinforcement) but unless Hartke's UK distributors Sound Technology can come up with the goods, it may require a call to Larry's mobile to sort out!

Difficult to know what the target market was for this bass when it came out. It was pretty pricey at $2500 list for what is, apart from the aluminium neck construction, basically a P-J bass albeit one fitted with above-average parts. It's not as quirky as the Vaccaro basses that it was derived from, plus there was a much cheaper version with more normal hardware and not personally inspected by Mr Hartke. All-in-all a bit of an oddity really and I do have the feeling that the aluminium necks were a bit of a gimmick for Hartke simply so the bass would match the aluminium cones for their speakers...



I like it though simply because of it's oddness. plus this is probably as close as I'll come to owning a conventional modern P-J. It's got a bright ringing sound although not the sustain of the Kramers, but it does have a slim fast neck and who could resist the sparkle purple finish! Also at a little over £300 including a (Non-Hartke) hard case and shipping, customs etc. not a bad deal at all.

If you're after the roundwound fretless sound then you may well find that halves won't do it for you. Nickels rounds are kinder to fretless boards than steels.

It's all down to the kit and drummer, and how much time the drummer is prepared to spend tweaking the presets to suit the sound of the band and his/her playing technique. It's been a while since I've last played in a band with an electronic kit, but just before the most recent versions of the V-Drum came out the best sounding kit IMO was the Clavia D-Drum, which was based on what is ancient technology, but thanks to way the sounds have been designed and the responsiveness of the pads it sounded much better than newer kits based on supposedly superior tech.

As regards monitoring you need to treat the kit the same way as any other electric/electronic instrument - that means the drummer needs some dedicated amplification for on-stage monitoring purposes.

Yes considering I've just got an Overwater Original fretless 36" scale for less than half that... (although IMO and to my advantage it was severely underpriced)

I'm not sure about the pickup positioning on the Battlestar either.

However on the Sauron I think that's an optical illusion due to the fact that the pickups are slightly angled. Of course whether that itself is intentional is another matter...

Maybe time for an email to the seller?

The last couple of late 60s/early 70s EB0s I watched on eBay went for around the £700 mark for worn but original examples. The thing that everyone will want to see is where the neck becomes the head to make sure that it's structurally sound there. A repair at this point unless it's invisible and done by a well-known luthier will knock quite a bit off the value. As for the addition of the John Birch pickup, if you have documentary evidence that it was done by John Birch, i.e. a receipt for the work, then it may well negate the less in value due to the non-originality.

That is nice!

And good to see a bass where the back of the neck matches the body colour!

It's been ages since I last added to this thread so let's put that right straight away!

Found a brand new luthier just now - [url="http://www.nuax.de/"]Nuax[/url] with some very tasty looking guitars and basses.

Here's a Sauron 6-string





and a Battlestar 5-string





All the instruments feature less than conventional body shapes and the basses have Q-Tuner pickups and a [url="http://www.wittman-spins.com/tunersJackTuner.html"]Wittmann tuner[/url] built into the jack socket.

Prices are around the €2500 mark, but the prototypes are on [url="http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZshapein"]eBay[/url] with £599 starting prices and a £999 BIN. If the Sauron had been a 5-string rather than 6, I would have probably kept these to myself until the auctions ended.

Anyone going to have a punt on these?