lownote

Hi y'all I'd be interested if anyone else shares my experience of the Overwater Tanglewood Classic Jazz. I bought it so I could choose P bass or J bass vibe, according to need or mood. But the nearest I can get to an edgy deep P bass growl is by mixing the bridge and neck pups equally. If I select ONLY the neck (split P bass style pup) I actually get more treble mixing in, plus what to me is an unpleasant honk. I can't get a grip on why that should be. FYI I'm running D'Addario flatwounds on her. I can coaxe a pretty good p bass grunt from the neck pickup (pickup selector full clockwise) but only by filtering out the treble and mids on the amp EQ

I've been through 16 basses and almost half as many amps/cabs in three years. Of that lot, my go-to bass was a £10 Aria P Bass clone, although now it's a Tanglewater Classic jazz that jumps in my lap. Some basses do that and some don't. Plus a good setup and experimenting with different strings can make a big difference - they're not all the same, including between different basses. And amps do matter. I could never get on with my TC BH250, but my Warwick Fet IV will be buried with me. Looking back, my best bargains were the £10 Aria and a £50 HiWatt combo. Never had them at the same time but I think that would have done me - £60 for bass and combo. End of! .

Just bought an acoustic bass from Andy. Very easy transaction with a nice chap. What more do you want in life?

Very helpful and concerned that the deal goes smoothly, and tolerant towards awkward customers like me. Deal with confidence.

[quote name='jezzaboy' timestamp='1408650433' post='2532289'] I was on the verge of buying the Jazz with the P/J setup from one of my local stores for £219 I think it was. But ended up buying an old Yamaha BB. Still like the look of those Overwaters though. [/quote] I had a Yamaha BB300 which played and handled like butter. Very nice.

Yeah, clearly Nevada have the models mixed up. Being the OP, I confirm I now realise I actually have a classic J, not a contemporary, so thanks for clearing that up. I have tried to clarify with Chris May, but I've found before Overwater's email response is not in the same class as their luthery so nothing's come back. Like Mornats I have always until now had great experiences with Overwater strings, and what's more they're very cheap. I have no idea why these weren't any good. But I do find strings aren't just the twangy bits that give truss rods something to do. The same string can sound very different on different basses. I used to run Overwater nickels on my Hohner 6 and they absolutely sang, while D'Addario nickels wrestled the richest sounds out of my Peavey Grind 5. But when I tried swopping them over neither set sounded anywhere near as good. What's I've found in this case, for me personally, my Overwater Classic J loves D'Add flats, but YMMV.

Ah ha, you see how confusing it is! That's what i thought but the shop told me I was getting a Contemporary Jazz and it says that on the invoice. Plus that model with those features appears on dealers websites as the Contemporary Jazz. Also some of the their jazz basses are like twice the price of others but with the same name? . I don't know how such a prestigious manufacturer gets away with the random tangle of branding which is 'Overwater by Tanglewood' (and it only says Overwater on the bass itself), and the confusion over which model is which. When you buy any other bass it pretty much says what you're getting on the tin. Actually I don't think they do get away with their confused marketing. I suspect they would sell a lot more if they sorted it out.