dclaassen

Probably nothing to you, but someone else may value that manufacture year. You are both entitled to your opinion.

I don’t believe we have the perspective to predict this trend. In the 80’s, I unloaded several “classic” basses because, at that time, they were just old. Now, I wish I had all of them. Right now, I am planning to use a nice Jazz that I stumbled across instead of my fancy boutique bass for the pub band…it just seems to fit better. Value will always be in the eye of the beholder.

After making the transition from 4 to 5 strings, and having had a chance to play a bunch of other 5’s, I would say that neck feel and balance are the most important considerations. After that, a lot of 5’s just don’t have a good low B string. Some sound bad below the 5th fret, and some get fuzzy above the 7th. These things will drive you crazy if they are not right. Think about what you can live with. My fretless Spector is wonderful, strung with low tension flats. However, the B sounds very tubby below the fifth fret. I work around it. I am not sure you can find a perfect bass for all styles in your price range, but certainly, don’t buy anything based on someone’s recommendation alone.You have to play them.

How rare is that Performer? I have never seen one in the wild…

Certainly wasn’t my intention…

Yup…I ran into the same issue here…too bad, really

Love AATW and western swing! I saw them twice in Dallas years ago. Wish there was a way to perform this amazing music here..,

I have enjoyed his videos for some time. Not my thing, but I really can appreciate the technical brilliance.

I could tell you stories… I actually like the p/j as long as you don’t expect the world from the bridge pickup.

Do you still have the pentabuzz?

Hard to find though…(the radio station)…what scares me is that young ones think that’s how music is supposed to sound

Sounds a bit extreme to me…I’ve never had a complaint.

Kinda my point…most consumers are listening through some pretty crappy gear…so crank up the kick bass and forget about everything else.

But almost everyone ends up with the same uninspiring mix

Actually, I prefer tape….

Okay…granted. However, we also listened to a huge amount of music through a mono am radio speaker. we have an amazing capacity to record and produce music…why do we accept tone production that is worse than the 1960’s?

I would respectfully disagree. The modern bass tone is very midrange dominant and three are a lot of folks on this site that own and use a compression pedal. We used an eq light on mids and with boosted treble and bass. I guess what started all this is messing about with vintage tube amps…felt and sounded like home. I learned sound mixing from the guys who mixed the Greek Theater (Stanel Sound) Start with the bass tone and work your way up. So, bass tone fundamentally impacts total sound.

Okay, but I also hear the same mid-heavy and compressed sound when listening to anything streamed at home on my desktop studio monitors or the main room 15’s. I have a pretty good tonal memory, having been a band and choir director for 41 years. One example…you hear the guitar riff in Mr. Robinson…in no way would you equate this with the live sound. I vividly remember my musician buddies when we listened to our first CD…everyone had the same reaction…clean but thin. Add now the modern trend of mixing the vocal and kick drum twice as loud as everything else, and it’s almost unlistenable. Surely we can reproduce sound more evenly and realistically….

Old guy rant warning… So, I was listening to some older music on Prime Music in the car. “Superstition “ came up, and I was really struck by how thin the sound was. I remember the depth of sound on the vinyl original…and this was not that. All compression and lots of midrange. So, I started listening to other tracks with an ear out for what was missing, and the results were grim. Then, I reflected on how some you fine folks set your sound…all midrange and compression. Is that really the sound you want? It’s definitely not the sound I am after….what am I missing?

Luxury! We had our whole family, aunts, uncles, distant relatives living in a wah-wah pedal…

I like to use my gigging amp when running through gig music. Other times, it’s just the bass, which is really easy to hear unplugged. I find I can hear different things this way.

Isn’t that the same stage as was used for the Euro semi?

I’d love to get a pentabuzz, but don’t play enough fretless to justify it. It’s hard to explain, but Pedulla just keep getting better the more you play them

Totally agree about getting a fretless that sounds different than your fretted bass