CamdenRob

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1414677350' post='2592142'] [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/244864-new-fender-adam-clayton-and-dee-dee-ramone-signatures"]We've done this already...[/url] [/quote] We're doing the same thing again but slightly different... in homage to Fenders business strategy.

It does look good though... without the signature and association I'd be interested.

I quite like the BBOT to be honest... I like the threaded sadles too.

Looks like a bargain to me.. the photos arent great bit it seems to be in good nick.

I don't really use a P bass in any of the music I'm currently playing but I still keep one around... sounds great with flats when I'm doing singer / songwriter sideman type gigs. I think it's a bass worth having in the arsenal... Although I think a jazz is more flexible I can't see many situations I will be using it over my prefered active sixers, where as the P bass still offers something I can't get from my usual basses.

I recently moved on a shuttlemax12.2 as I'm favouring Glockenklang at the moment but the genz was a cracking piece of kit, I originally had it paired with 2x NX212Ts and whilst impractically enormous it was the loudest rig I've ever had by miles... then again that's not surprising as it was 1200watts into efficient cabs.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1414640901' post='2591726'] Certain inconvenient facts emerge from the swirl of opinion: * Fender is the world's leading musical instrument brand with #1 market share in the USA for guitars, basses and amplifiers. FMIC turns over around $700m a year and - in terms of its core brand sales - is perfectly healthy. This at a time when other brands are disappearing or licensing their names to - er - Fender. * Fender's share of the guitar, bass and amplifier market has continued to grow since the introduction of the multi-model, multi-price point business model, even during the downturn in the musical instrument market dating from around 2011. This would suggest that the 'confusing number of models' has - in fact - been a highly successful business strategy. Buyers seem to like the idea of greater choice and have voted with their wallets. Events show that those who would have preferred the company to slash itself back to producing only expensive replicas of old designs in a few colours would have backed the wrong horse. * On annual sales, FMIC [i]as a whole[/i] is only marginally profitable due to faulty corporate strategy enacted by its owners. FMIC would probably have cleared its historic debt overhang with its IPO had the company not put too many of its eggs in the Guitar Centre basket (due to conflicting ownership interests) and not bought the massively over-valued Kaman corporation. There is no problem with the core Fender guitar and bass operation but rather with the implementation of FMIC Group sales and corporate acquisition strategies. * Fender (like the other great amp brand Marshall) has more or less vacated the bass amplifier market whereas sales of Fender guitar amplifiers have increased dramatically since the early 2000's. The multi-level, multi-price point model has worked well for the guitar amps though there remains a market gap between the Chinese imports and the 'low-end' Mexican and American products. * Published instances of recurrent or systemic Fender QC problems are vanishingly rare by comparison to Gibson and - only a few years ago - Rickenbacker. A cursory inspection of the numerous forums devoted to Fender and to specific Fender guitars (e.g. TDPRI) supplies proof - were it needed - that Fender guitars and basses are - on the whole - reliable products. The rumours swirling around FMIC have almost nothing to do with Fender brand guitars / basses / amps or the 'end-user experience'. We think we know what we're talking about. But the fact is that BC comprises a small, closed group of (mostly) hobbyists with narrow opinions based on little more than window-shopping and some experience of a few instruments over the years. We might 'know our Fenders' but we know next to nothing about the industry or the company which puts them in our hands. And - as recent IPSOS surveys have shown - what we [i]think[/i] we know about [i]anything[/i] is almost always wrong. [/quote] Well that pretty much sums it up really...

[quote name='Bass_Guardian' timestamp='1414584062' post='2590906'] Hope you didn't help assemble any in that case [/quote] naah it was "work experience" basically just free labour for three weeks, I mostly put stuff in boxes whilst the guys that usually did that stood around smoking.

[quote name='BassBus' timestamp='1414583629' post='2590897'] ..made somewhere outside UK... [/quote] I'n no expert but I did a some work experience at the trace factory in Witham, Essex when I was 15 back in 1997 and I'm pretty sure the commando and boxer models were manufactured there at that time... Then again I did do an awful lot of drugs in those days so my memory may not be entirly reliable....

[quote name='Ashdown Engineering' timestamp='1414527823' post='2590353'] We have also said we will build you one the same as your existing cab so there's nothing to be disappointed by really... [/quote] Yet another example of excellent customer service.

I know absolutely nothing about the science and may well be wrong, but it sounds feisable to me that different frequencies could have a physiological effect on certain people.

Also if you ever needed to move it on I'm not convinced there is a huge market for £3k seven string fretless basses....

I had a go on this last time I was in there, it's an astonishing instrument... I'd have to change that gold hardware though!

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1414541660' post='2590587'] Pseudo intellectual pretentious bollox... [/quote] In a guardian artical? surely not...

Forgive my intrusion here but with the amp test - that many amps looks a little unwieldy... 10+ amps though several cabs and no-one will be able to remember one sound from another... Perhaps just two amps from each catagory through two different cabs or something similar? Also how the EQ is set etc will make a massive difference to the tone unless they are all to be set flat? I can't make this years event unfortunately, which is a shame as this sounds like an interesting test... but for me there are too many variables to discern anything useful from it.

I'd just like to have control local to me like using an onboard preamp... just being lazy I guess I could quite easilly bend down and adjust a pedal instead.

Waiting for stuff is the curse of custom builds... it's painful...

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1414504712' post='2589924'] I wonder if that's because they no longer get into the habit of going to live gigs? The decline of record sales and the rise in concert ticket prices might be a big factor in this. [/quote] I think it's a little bit of that... also several venues I've played should really just give up on the live music. Played The Finsbury a few weeks back up at manor park and it was a huge pub litrally heaving with 20 somethings, hundreds of them. Decent stage, decent sound but when the music started a partition wall was drawn across from the stage area and the rest of the pub... not to keep the noise out of the music area but to keep the music out of the main pub... the kids simply didn't want the music, they had come out for a chat with their mates.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1414502551' post='2589895'] You could have somebody box up your onboard preamp of choice. Sadowsky, Aguilar, EMG... Or any 9v pedal design you fancy... The world is your mollusc of choice... [/quote] Now that really is a good idea...

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1414500992' post='2589842'] Vox Amplug? Just hand out of your jack socket rather than the belt clip. [/quote] I thought they were just a headphone amp? I was more looking for a Sansamp style unit in a belt clipable, battery powered package.