Annoying Twit

DEKOS! PB-Shorty. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_pb_shorty_bk_standarddeko.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...tandarddeko.htm[/url] Progressive 4-string Bass: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_b_450lh_bk_progressive_deko.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...essive_deko.htm[/url] EDIT: LEFT HANDED! Black acoustic 5 string Deko [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_b_35bk_acoustic_bass_s_deko.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...bass_s_deko.htm[/url] All basses this time? EDIT: All still there, it seems. Both progressive and acoustic bass 'Available Immediately' which suggests that there are a few in stock, not just one or two.

I'm not going to be buying one of these, but I was curious about the Zeta Crossover after seeing one on eBay today. From the blurb, it has a curved fingerboard and can be bowed. But, wouldn't the standard 34" scale change ... something?

DEKOS! Loads of them!!!! EDIT: They are showing as available on the main page, but are all sold out. Can't see any basses, but there were loads of guitars. Les Paul Copies - Goldtop with P90s. Lemon Drop. Black. Honey Burst. Semi-hollows. ES335 copy. 'Manhattan' Jazz box. Left handed strat. Left and right handed acoustics. Round back acoustics. White cheap classical. Nothing that I would have bought myself, but certainly a field day for deko-wanting guitar players. EDIT: The jazz box is still available. But, £90 for a deko? [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_custom_line_manhattandeko_2.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...attandeko_2.htm[/url]

I am told that he expects a bid in the high hundreds or something over a thousand quid for this.

Some years ago VMJ fretless basses used to sell in the low £100 and something all the time, but recently their prices have seemed much higher, often nearing £200. Here's the first cheap one I've seen for ages. Someone got a bargain, IMHO. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181734365926?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1431682408' post='2773875'] Might it be a finer thread pitch than normal? [/quote] That sounds very plausible. Whatever it is, I wish all of my basses had truss rods like that. And Just-a-nuts too.

I haven't heard one in real life, but the clips of the JB-20 on Thomas's site sound nice and warm to me. Interesting to hear that the same applies in real life. @Leonardobass - I wouldn't say that the truss rod feels like there's no friction at all. But, it does feel very easy to turn.

[quote name='leonardobass' timestamp='1431618010' post='2773290'] My PB-20 has been playing great so far. The one thing I noticed is that the truss rod is very light to turn,it still adjusts the neck but I'm not sure if it's suppose to feel that light. Has anybody had the same issue? [/quote] My PJ5-HTR truss rod seems to turn quite easily, and adjusts the neck properly. I thought this was a plus. [quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1431636637' post='2773578'] I was showing Mrs Psychosis the Mosrite-style baritone when she let slip "thats pretty". I'm sure you can guess the rest. [/quote] They've sold out, so you must have had one of the last ones. However, they have come and gone before. The 5 string acoustic bass has also sold out this evening. We have a particularly uninteresting set of dekos available right now, but it's always darkest before the dawn.

With a fitted case, this looks to be a bargain for anyone who can pick up in Swansea. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Epiphone-Thunderbird-Pro-5-Bass-Guitar-/311358886744?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item487e6f9358 However, the request to phone someone on a mobile number rather than ask questions on eBay is a bit off-putting. Is it an attempt to get around eBay fees? Or could it be something more ominous?

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1431533489' post='2772331'] A new pickup is on order but will take a few weeks to arrive. I'll also replace the preamp with one of Prostheta's reproduction boxes. There's not much I can do to it in the meantime [/quote] Solely out of curiosity where did you get the replacement pickup from?

KB Did you see the T20 on eBay?

Roundback, not soundtrack!

D e k o s. Damn s autocorrect

Baritone guitar and soundtrack guitar demos

Mark_88MPH, how would you describe the accuracy of the HB [size=4]TB70-VS sound sample on Thomann's product page?[/size]

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1431358495' post='2770434'] I wish I'd taken photos with the old strings on. You can probably tell how bad they were from the state of the case lid. They were twice the normal gauge from all the rust. What you probably can't see on the photos are the cracks that had to be glued. Mainly around the knobs, switch and socket, but also quite a nasty one on the top half of the body where it had started splitting along the grain of the wood. [/quote] Generally it didn't look too bad. Except for those frets! It's looking fabulous now. Ditto on old classics being brought back to life.

PS: I bounced my compressed version of the HB-TB70 track so that I could see what it looked like. It still wasn't anywhere near as compressed as the Epi Pro, even though I thought I'd added loads.

The through neck ones tend to not go for nothing. Depending on your cutoff for 'nothing' I suppose. I checked There was one that went for £185, which might be an older model given the bridge (or is that a replacement): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Epiphone-Thunderbird-Pro-IV-Bass-Guitar-/221749254171?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item33a149181b&nma=true&si=UEbu3RV8N%252BSvp64yMZ6DUAI42ts%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 and quite a few that failed to sell for a starting bid of £230 or so. I was curious about one of these, for the sound not for the look. But, I suspect that with sufficient work I'll be able to dial in a similar sound either from my Rockbass Streamer Standard or Ibby SR760, with external eq and other processing.

The Harley Benton and one of the Jacksons are also active. Given what I saw in the waveforms pictured above, I find it very difficult to believe that the highly compressed sound of the Epiphone isn't due to outboard compression of some sort. Which the other basses appear to have less of, if they are compressed at all. Hence I agree with you the Thomann sound samples lead to a very unfair comparison. Personally I believe that the only way to create sound samples for comparison is to upload completely dry samples digitised direct from the bass. Potential buyers can then put those samples through their amps/recording/live setups, and see what they will sound like in real life. But, I'd expect that most online punters wouldn't do this, and what they would hear would be basses that don't sound particularly good. What I really want right now is a pedal compressor so that I can experiment using it with my graphic eq pedal. I know that I have various types of compression on my Zoom B1xon and also built into Logic/ProTools/etc., but I'd like a standalone compressor for instantaneous experimentation. The cheap HB and Joyo (etc.) compression pedals seem to have mixed reviews, so I don't know what would be a good option.

@TheBassMonsta - do you think you could process the Gibson to be as punchy as the Epi? Would you say that the Gibson has its' own sonic advantages over the Gibson? @HappyJack On this youtube video, the Mike Lull bass [s]definitely[/s] IMHO has that solid 'bassy' sound. It also seems to have a bridge similar to the original T'bird bridge. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyHTxlW2FLQ[/media]

I've found reviews of the Epiphone Pro that claims that it sounds better than the Gibson. But Norris's Gibson is I presume not too old as it has the current three point bridge, if I remember that correctly. I did plug my PJ, as a known not wonderful sounding bass, into his amp to see what the contribution of the amp was, and the Gibson was clearly much better sounding through the same amp and settings. To my ears, the Epiphone Pro in the samples has that kind of sound, but the Gibson itself doesn't. It could be that something has changed between Norris's model and the current Gibson. Has it? In which case the sound samples might show the true sounds of those instruments. Or it could be that the sounds are misleading. The Harley Benton one is a cheapie, but I find it unlikely that with Wilkinson pickups and active EQ that it will really sound quite as thin as it does. This youtube video of the current Gibson sounds closer to what I remember of what I heard yesterday. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBtwbzsO7Fw"]https://www.youtube....h?v=QBtwbzsO7Fw[/url] I wanted to look into this further. So, I captured the sample audio from Thoman's site so that I could look into it further. I think that their Epiphone Pro IV sample has had much more compression, and some post-bass EQ applied. When I got both into Logic Pro X, let alone hearing the difference, I could see it! (See attached image). Visually, a much more compressed sound. BTW: Yes, I was lazy and didn't un-stereoise the sounds I captured from Thomann. I added some EQ and compression to the Harley Benton sound (I chose that one as IMHO being the worst of the Gibson/Epiphone/HB t'bird samples). While it doesn't now sound identical to the Epiphone (chosen as the best of the Gibson/Epiphone/HB t'bird samples), IMHO much of the difference has disappeared. If I fiddled around more, I think I could get them even closer sounding. (I'm not saying that I think that the Epi sounds better than the Gibson, just that the Thomann Epi samples IMHO sound better, and my fiddling is to try to work out why this might be). Here's the Epi T'bird sound from Thomann: [url="https://soundcloud.com/annoyingtwit/epi-t-pro"]https://soundcloud.c...gtwit/epi-t-pro[/url] Here's the Harley Benton T'bird sound from Thomann: [url="https://soundcloud.com/annoyingtwit/hb-t70"]https://soundcloud.c...yingtwit/hb-t70[/url] Here's my modified version of the HB T'bird with more compression and some EQ changes: [url="https://soundcloud.com/annoyingtwit/hb-tb70-vs-changed-1"]https://soundcloud.c...70-vs-changed-1[/url] I think more fiddling with the multi-band compression and EQ on the HB T'bird could probably bridge the sound quality gap between the HB and the Epi even further. The fundamental sound of the HB pickups doesn't seem bad, even if the signal is unimpressive dry. It raises the question of whether I actually need better sounding basses, or whether the only thing I really need to do is learn how to coax better sounds out of what I have.

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1431282861' post='2769601'] (It was my bass - tauzero had the lovely Warwick Buzzard ) [/quote] When I saw you had followed up, I immediately realised my mistake. Where is the highly embarrassed smiley?

As in some threads in the ebay forum, there have been quite a few attempts to sell HB instruments at more than their new price. Generally they don't sell, but they do sometimes. Selling dekos at more than new price does seem to work, however.

I'm not likely to be buying anything soon, but my interest has been piqued by the very nice sound of Norris's Thunderbird as in the bass bash yesterday. I thought I'd have a listen to some thunderbirds online. Thomann have sound samples of a wide variety of Thunderbirds. However, I've been very surprised by what I've heard. The only one that I've heard that seems to have the warm, solid, bass that Norris's Gibson has is the Epiphone Pro IV. All of the others sound, to my ears, considerably worse sounding, including Thomann's sample of the Gibson itself! Epiphone Pro IV - the winner? Really round powerful bass sound? [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/epiphone_thunderbird_proiv_na.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...rd_proiv_na.htm[/url] Jackson Kelly David E. Thunderbird. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/jackson_david_ellefson_kelly_bird_bass.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...y_bird_bass.htm[/url] Nowhere near as much rich bass. Harley Benton T'bird. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_tb_70vs.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...ton_tb_70vs.htm[/url] Not odd sounding, just not a very bassy sound. Jackson JS2. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/jackson_js2_kelly_bird_iv_bcsb.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...ird_iv_bcsb.htm[/url] Lacks bass. Epiphone Thunderbird IV (bolt on). [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/epiphone_thunderbird_iv_ebass.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...rd_iv_ebass.htm[/url] A bit more bass than some others, but not as much as the Pro IV and a bit of an odd sound in the midrange. Gibson. Not a bad sound here, but not as warm and bassy as the Epiphone Pro IV. But, this is the Gibson? [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/gibson_thunderbird_2014_hc.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...ird_2014_hc.htm[/url] Just curious here. I'm aware of how much online samples can be misleading, as a long time ago I decided against ever having a Yamaha BEX4 as the online samples didn't sound nice to me. Being able to try a real one (Len Derby's) in real life yesterday shows me that I was mistaken in that. Also, it could be that the recording for the Epiphone has had the bass boosted or some compression along the line at some point. If anyone has the time & interest, I'd be very interested to hear what people say about the sounds of these t'birds. In particular the comparison between the sounds of the Epiphone Pro IV versus the actual Gibson. Does the Epiphone sounds better to others, as it does to me? I even tried cranking the volume of the Gibson when comparing, as people tend to prefer louder sounds. But even then the Epiphone sounds better to me. After yesterday, I was thinking that if the sound was somewhere in the ballpark, that I might try a Harley Benton deko t'bird. But, the sound IMHO isn't in the same league as the Epi, unless these samples are misleading. Which they could easily be. I don't want something that looks the part, but doesn't have the sound. Particularly since I'm very happy with the active double humbucker sounds I get from my Ibanez SR760. EDIT: For name confusion!

Is there a familiar mark on the heel of this guitar? [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Harley-Benton-Hybrid-Resonator-guitar-with-humbucker-pickup-/111666900181?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item19ffddacd5"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item19ffddacd5[/url]