Al Krow

Interesting and totally not surprising about the Ibanez Barts! I guess Delanos next... 😄 Your point about cost / not what you had in mind goes to exactly why it's great to have shared experience (for both good and ill) and recommendations from fellow BCers. We obviously don't need to take stuff as gospel, but it does provide a very useful pointer. You know exactly which two makes of pup I steer clear of Without BC I would still be playing Fender basses through a Peavey amp.

If you can't post on BC when pisshed what's the world coming to? 😁 But on a more serious note, no one is suggesting a retailer do this while taking a financial hit by having to replace unwanted Delano pups themselves. It's more that some of them with decent relationships with suppliers may be able to add value by facilitating a degree of customisation. To add to service / set up / repair and advice. Otherwise in an online world, they are going to struggle. For me (and a few others) I won't ever be buying a Berg with Delanos again and I'm not prepared to pay for those pups only to have to replace them. Berg custom shop prices are OTT for me (btw the same point for Warwick, Spector etc). What I would be willing to spend around £1k on is a new Berg with Black Labels and 3 band EQ already in place. But I don't think that currently exists or would be an option. So I'd best make my way back to the Yammy thread and leave you good chaps to it on this one...

You say the line is in its early days, I thought the TRB series had been around for a while, or are you just referring to the 600 series? The EQ seems to be the same unit as in the BB 735A ie 3 band EQ, pup selector + blend, volume and a switch to go from passive to active? And pups are both MM style humbuckers? I agree the natural finish looks good!

Ok boss, you've made a half decent sales pitch. Fun for messing about with - fair do's. But which serious bassists in pro bands are using one as part of their live act?

I don't get it. It's an octave-down ukele, so pitched like a normal guitar. This will be next to useless in any band as a bass. So why not get a guitar (or a ukele) if you want to play one? Won't cost you £1,500 either. Right, back to basses for me... 😁

@Grangur is your man!

Appreciate it's not a BB, but I've not seen much in the way of recent Yammy TRB threads, so I'm just gonna leave this here. Is it just me - or does this bass sound pretty darned good (and it's not bad looking either!)? For £600 new it seems to be yet another LOTTA bass from Yammy.

+1^^ 😀 Just sold Harry a pedal. The guy is a complete gent.

AndyT and I will disagree on this but, whilst they are both likely to be great instruments, personally I would go for an almost new BBP34 over a 30 year old BB3000 every time if they were similarly priced. YMMV etc.

I'm always up for a special BC deal Mark! But isn't @P-T-P already after yours (just needs to get his BBP34 away)... My only hesitation is that one of my 'whites' (BB1025) is just playing really sweetly right now and I'm not sure whether I would notice / appreciate the step up to your luverly bass.

Thoughts on pricing chaps? About right, given the ding in the headstock? I'm about to pm the seller, so views welcome!

Dave - excellent that the discussion has been useful / interesting (and not just a case of me and Cuzzie sounding off!) FWIW my own view is that the pups are perhaps the single biggest driver of tone (together with strings) on any given bass. Keep us updated on where you get to with your P bass.

Cool. Does seem to be the consensus to have the Thumpinator right at the start of the pedal board signal chain (and in fact that's also Thumpinator own recommendation on this). As mentioned above, I've got mine set up Thumpinator --> Spectracomp-->rest of board, with those first two pedals 'always on'. For the first time, I've been actually able to hear a discernible improvement to my tone from a compressor and have finally (believe me it's been a skeptical journey! 😂) convinced myself that compression could add value.

Yup and back in the real world, retailers are going bust quicker than you can say "Debenhams". If that was positive, I hate to think what your bad experiences of retailers must have been, then.

Appreciate you aren't suggesting otherwise, but it will obviously depend on where the HPF is set to cut from. If you set it to cut in the audio frequencies (and many folk will set their variable HPFs to start cutting at e.g. 80 kHz) it's clearly going to impact what you hear. Makes sense - you would hopefully expect a tighter sound from your speaker with the sub muck removed resulting in significantly reduced 'unnecessary' speaker excursion. And optimise by putting the HPF before the compressor - agreed?

Fair enough. But if you follow that through to its logical conclusion you don't steer anyone away from or to anything, whatsoever. Because "we all play differently and through different rigs".

$1,400 retail in the US will work out pretty close to £1,400 in the UK once you've add transport, Customs duties and 20% VAT.

I've certainly not spent any time at all with Black Labels our Haüssel's, that's certainty true. But all the comments about them seem to be positive, which definitely can't be said for Delano's. I have spent about 4 years with Delanos on my goto Sandberg TM4. They're not bad at all but are indeed hi-fi / polite / tame, whatever adjective you prefer. If I was buying again, I'd want more. I very much prefer the Nord big singles on my Ibbys and the Yammy pups on my Yammys to the Delano's on my Berg. No question. That's been my A/B. There does seem to be a bit of one way journey for Berg owners and it is: Delano's --> Black Labels / Haüssel's. I don't hear about anyone going in the opposite direction? There's actually a very similar thing with Ibby basses (and folk don't seem to get quite so hung about it, 'cos it's just accepted as being what it is): the Barts on the Standard range are pretty universally regarded as being bland / tame in comparison to the 'throaty' Nord big singles on the SR premium range. It's a one way street with those pups too with no one going back to the standard Barts when they've experienced the Nords. Hey - this for me is just about sharing experience and honest best practice, between us. Just as I would say to anyone thinking about getting an Ibby for the first time: I recommend steering clear of the Barts on the SR Standard range, I would say the same about the Delano's on Bergs. YMMV etc.

Haha - mine was actually a genuine Q. It's always good to see where folk have voted with their feet. I take it from your response you have zero Delanos in your herd? Häussel and Black Label seem to be the aficionados choice for Bergs. Wish they came as 'standard' in basses costing > £1k.

That is a very interesting insight indeed, thanks dB. (And completely not wood related either).

You've currently got several(?) Bergs, what pups have you got on each of yours?

May just have got lost in translation? adjective 1. (= fundamental) Grund- [problem also, reason, issue] Haupt- [points] wesentlich [intention, purpose] eigentlich [indifference, problem] grundsätzlich there’s no basic difference es besteht kein grundlegender Unterschied the basic thing to remember is ... woran man vor allem denken muss, ist ... his knowledge is rather basic er hat nur ziemlich elementare Kenntnisse the furniture is rather basic die Möbel sind ziemlich primitiv basic salary/working hours Grundgehalt nt/-arbeitszeit f basic vocabulary Grundwortschatz m 2. (= essential) notwendig plural the basics das Wesentliche to get down to (the) basics zum Kern der Sache kommen to get back to basics sich auf das Wesentliche besinnen

Hmmm...wonder what's driving this 'bargain basement' approach on pricing? I guess the simple answer is in the statement: "LOADS of stock too...." Must be annoying for anyone who has paid a 'full fat' price for their Berg and maybe also explains the relatively 'good value' pricing for used ones? If you want to charge a premium price for your product, you can't have half your potential customer base thinking "oh, if only the pups weren't so polite / hi-fi / tame / lifeless**, I'd definitely be up for spending > £1k on one of those". Maybe time for Berg to up their game? Appreciate this is just one former owner's opinion of course, and should be treated accordingly! **delete as applicable

Well that's certainly been my view, but there's clearly another school of thought which says pretty much the opposite. Are they essentially pushing a gospel of snake oil which is not based on science? Are we saying that the wood of a bass is mostly about: - look, feel, finish, durability and weight and sustain (all important factors, for sure) - but has little impact on tone? Oh dear, I seem to have side tracked my own thread within 5 posts...😂😂😂