OutToPlayJazz

Okay, I pulled the trigger. A/B'd the Road Worn against a new Am.Std, a new Mex.Std & a Marcus Miller Japan. The RW flattened them all in terms of tone, output, playability, etc. I'm not a fan of the relic jobs on these, but you can't argue with how they play. They must have a significant pickup upgrade as well as the nitro finish. Amazing sounding bass. Pics later.

Brother Doctor_of_the_bass commented that the RW jazz in particular played and sounded just as good as a custom shop. It may be partially the nitro finish - My new 62 RI Precision has the nitro finish and it sounds totally unlike every other Precision I've played, but the RW may have some other upgrades they aren't mentioning, such as the pickups. I haven't had a chance to play one myself yet, but I am very curious about these.

Congrats ......... But stop it! I'm sitting here wondering whether to pull the trigger on a RW fiesta red jazz at this very moment. You're not helping my resolve one little bit, LOL!

Looks like the one advertised at GuitarGuitar.

The Squier is the one to go for. It plays like butter and sounds great. The Vintage lacks something in playability. I played a couple of them and put them straight down again. Nasty things.

[quote name='thedontcarebear' post='805676' date='Apr 14 2010, 08:26 AM']Few hours after saying here job security isn't great, I get told in a meeting that I'm being made redundant, haha.[/quote] Sorry to hear that Hopefully someone will buy your Finn soon & that will ease things a little.

Coming early next week - 62 RI American Vintage Precision

Yes, you're correct Gareth. The Stingray 5 is 17.5mm. The Warwick 5's are usually very narrow spacing - Something like 15mm. Not nice, anyway.

[quote name='discreet' post='804895' date='Apr 13 2010, 02:12 PM']Nice! So... you're getting one, then? [/quote] Still hanging in the balance on this one. Thinking about it...

I know the Road Worn Jazz has had some rave reviews, but you don't hear a lot about the Precision version. Ezbass on here has one with an extra split coil added & he seems to rate it well enough. As far as the Highway One Precision goes, the last couple I played were dogs with poor output & nastily finsihed necks. Personally, I'd go for the RoadWorn for the neck lacquer, but that's just me. Apart from that, they're both nitro finished and there's only a badass bridge between them - Something that again, can be easily remedied. RoadWorn for me.

Nice review - And great sound samples, too. Another win for the Classic Vibe series!

I prefer this guy's sound on the RW...

Just goes to show how far speaker technology has moved on since! I always liked the Quo "Wall of Death" and "Death Row". There's a joke in there somewhere, I'm sure!

[i][b]If you strike me down with your dark basses, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...[/b][/i]

[quote name='JTUK' post='804591' date='Apr 13 2010, 09:41 AM']Agree... I have an ultra thin neck on a 5 string Sei and you have to respect movement and changes I hang basses on a Herecules stand rather than a floor stand for any lenght of time. I support the bases from the body when lying flat. I found only the blocky thicker necks...which I don't like, are the most stable. The only bass that I had with a rock solid neck was a 70's MM... that would always come out of the case rock solid but I feel that was freakishly stable over the years. Also used 40's gauge on that...but use 45-130 now. I don't know why I prefer the heavier gauge play-wise after my lay-off...??[/quote] Yes, my MM (which is now sold) has an amazingly stable neck, too. Also, my TRB-6 neck never moved either, but that may have been something to do with the twin truss rods! By far the most stable necks I've had have been the graphite ones on Status basses. Barely any movement, ever.

Hector made some very good points on this in the post above. In addition, you very rarely use the thumb for an actual stopped note, so you don't need to press it down most of the time. Thumb position is usually used for maintaining the hand shape (usually the thumb will sit about an inch behind the index finger and that distance will be maintained as you move the hand around). One good practise item is the bass solo from the start of the slow movement of Mahler I. You'll find it in "Double Bass Solo 2." You can touch the thumb on the harmonics where the octave is and use it to play the harmonic D & A octaves. The best advice I've heard on this thread so far is that of keeping the elbow up. Nothing maintains hand shape and intonation like keeping the elbow up when you're playing either cello or double bass. Rich.

I think I'm about to put on my "Hypocrite" t-shirt! I'm seriously thinking of ordering a RW Jazz... Help! But then again, I'd still never take a belt sander to my own bass.

[quote name='budget bassist' post='803578' date='Apr 12 2010, 12:02 PM']Awww, so cute On a serious note - How is that little giant?[/quote] [quote name='eude' post='803986' date='Apr 12 2010, 06:38 PM']+1 Yup, interested to hear your opinions too. I'm looking to move up from my LittleMark250 to something with more wattage, but it needs to sound good, or at least be very transparent, and be cheap. Currently thinking about a Terror Bass, or perhaps a MB F1 if I can get one cheap enough, but hadn't considered the Little Giant... Cheers, Eude[/quote] So far, the LG1000 comes highly recommended. I'm using it live all this week in a 12 piece band, so it's getting a workout. I'm only using it with one 8ohm Genz cabinet at the moment, so I'm only pulling something like 320w, but it's very clean and hifi like the old Trace amps. I actually tested both (350 & 1000) Little Giants in the shop and the 350 sounded a little drier. I guess the added "fruitiness" comes from the increased headroom on the 1000, but it sounds great with one cab or two. In essence, I'm getting virtually the same power with two 8ohm cabs as I would with the Genz Benz, so it's no loss not running with 4ohm cabinets. That is unless you're desperate to hear what 1000w of heart-stopping bass power sounds like! The other thing is the price. Dave Ryan at Electro is doing these new for £249. I'm really impressed with it.

I think there are a couple of old wives tales going on there. Firstly, "popping and slapping" will not lead to a bowed neck. The Geddy is manufactured with a very thin shaved neck to start with, so it's prone to the neck changing shape, anyway. My advice, having owned one in the past is to keep the string guages at either 45-105 or 40-100. Anything thinner causes the neck to be almost unadjustable on these basses. Sometimes 45-105 strings have too much tension for a neck this thin, so try changing to 40-100 and the neck will naturally go a little straighter. Otherwise, perhaps it needs a little truss rod adjustment. I found that mine would change shape within weather changes, due to the extreme thinness. The thing to avoid to make sure your neck stays as stable as possible is never leave the bass leaning against a wall with the strings facing you. If you have to lean the bass, place it strings facing the wall, so the weight is pulling against the neck. But leaving in the case or on a stand is always the best method. You should check out this guide. There should be a very slight curve to the neck to provide some relief for the strings to operate. If you have a huge curve in the neck, the action will be all over the place and the bass will be more difficult to play. The ideal is to have just the slightest curve from totally flat. Hope this helps.

Here's the pic from the earlier post with the full Genz Benz stack... And now with the backup Little Giant 1000, it can split into two smaller rigs...

For the brightest tone in the woods themselves you want to go for a glossed maple fingerboard. Think in terms of Fender Jazz Marcus Miller Signature. The other thing you can do is go for a bright sounding wood. Walnut and maple are the brightest sounding usually. The one thing we haven't thought to ask you is how much you're planning to spend on your bass of harshness?

I started a week of the musical "Chess" yesterday & although it's the hardest musical score I've tackled to date, I came out grinning from ear to ear last night. I'm using the Status S2 bolt-on 5-string with the phenowood board, an Ashdown Little Giant 1000 and one of my Genz cabs. When we get to the point of "One night in Bangkok" and I really dig in hard, the bass gives out that snappy howl - Cue big beaming smile from bass player! So what do you all love about your bass/your sound?

Never really gone for the "clones". Always wanted a Sadowsky, but they've all disappointed me bar one Metro model I played recently. In a Fender clone, I'd be looking for a combination of the classic tones of the original with some added adaptability and modern overtones. Most of them cost significantly more than the real thing, so I'd be expecting something literally twice as good. Am I being overly optimistic here? I've had a few Fenders and ended up selling them all, whether because they weren't gigged or they just didn't fit. All either Standard, American Standard or Artist series. So I'm upping the ante now and picking up a 62 RI American Vintage Precision next weekend. This particular bass is the only P that's ever made me go "Wow!" when I played it. We'll see how it fares...