Brother Jones

We swapped a GK combo for an Eden head. Had a cuppa and some interesting bass discussions. I travelled quite a long way from home and he was exactly where he said he'd be, with exactly what he said he'd have. Hope that mouldy GK bag has dried out a bit...

I remember playing one of those in Music Ground in Leeds in about 1990. It had one of the nicest neck profiles ever, with a slight 'v'. Lovely.

I owned a couple of Rays about ten years ago and although they nailed one thing really well, I found them really limiting. Could never seem to get good harmonics out of them and they always seemed to end up sounding a bit treble-bass-nothing-in-between. Always liked Sterlings though - never played a bad one. Although I'm very much a Jazzer, might have to give a Sterling a try. Wish they made a 5 string Sterling....

I bought my Sadowsky UV70 about three months ago from the Gallery. The more I play it the more I love it, so decided to write a little reviewlet... I have spent a lot of time, and a helluva lot of money, trying to find a really good, genuine US 70s Jazz. Some people get lucky and find ones they like and which don't have issues. I did not get lucky ( ) so decided instead to try a Sado. The basic construction is absoutely perfect, with a genuine swamp ash body (you can apparently tell this from the swirls in the grain) and maple neck, with a maple fretboard. The frets themselves are relatively thin (which is how I like things). The board itself is unvarnished which is one of my only niggles with the bass. It means I have to clean the board every few weeks or it starts to look a bit manky. I have been told that Sadowsky necks and bodies are basically just Warmoth spares sightly reworked (eg the headstock shape). If that true, I don't hold it against Sadowsky. Warmoth must be doing something right... The neck is perfect for a Jazz. The first time you lay hands on it you thank 'ahhh...'. It's slim, but not insanely so, and nice and shallow. Truss rod adjustment is nice and easy at the body end, so you can get a near-perfect set-up. The neck has two graphite rods, a la US Fender, which help keep the neck stiff and also seem to help prevent dead spots. The neck joint is as perfect as I've ever seen, no moving around under pressure. The whole instrument feels very solid. That doesn't mean, though, that it weighs a ton. If anything it's one of the lightest Jazzes I've played. I can get the action down nice and low on the bass; a sure sign that the neck construction and fret job are first-class. The pickups are Sadowsky's own. Given the 'vintage' status of this bass, I'm guessing that they're single coils, but whatever the case they are very quiet in operation. Controls are volume, pan, bass and treble. The pan pot is a bit weird in that you push it forward for bridge pup and back for neck - the opposite of a traditional arrangement. This is common to Sadowsky Jazzes, because Roger apparently feels it's more intuitive. Not from my point of view it isn't, but I'm getting used to it... The bass and treble are boost-only and I tend to find that I only use them towards the lower end of their ranges, although going further might be useful for particular genres (eg reggae) or situations. You can bypass the active circuit by pulling up on the treble pot. While Sados are available with a vintage tone-control mod, they are not fitted as standard and mine doesn't have one. Whatever these control niceties, the bass sounds exactly as you'd expect - like a subtly hot-rodded 70s Jazz. I was ready to be slightly short-changed on this as many super-Jazzes these days sound a bit thin to my ears. But I need not have worried. There are two or perhaps three basic Jazz sounds - bridge, both, and both with neck rolled off just a smidgeon for fingerstyle. This nails them all perfectly. The bridge pup on it's own is a near-perfect Jaco tone, nice and burpy with loads of lower mids. Both pups together are very-Miller esque, but without the slightly glassy tone that Fender MMs have (at least to my ears). The treble control is very nicely judged for this and it's simple to range from a fruity vintage sound to something with lots of Larry Graham bite, or Marcus sparkle. Overall, this bass has the best fingerstyle and slap tones of any bass I've ever touched. There are several 'maple board, 70's reissue' Jazzes around at the moment - such as the Squier one and the various Fender options including the MM, and even Ken Smith now make one. But none of them can touch the Sadowsky. This is as it should be given the price of the thing (around £1600), but as well as being a great [i]Jazz [/i]bass, it can also hold its head up in more exalted company. For example, I own a Zon Sonus 4 (okay, it's sort of a Jazz...) which I used to swear was the best 4 string I'd ever played. Now I hardly even seem to pick it up because I'm enjoying Sadowsky life too much. Similarly, I'd almost certainly pick a Sadowsky against something like a Warwick Thumb or a Status. It just seems to have more soul and versatility... Jones

Are those...Mana tables under the cab? I've thought about using them once or twice, but such a pita to disassemble the hi-fi. Make much difference to things? Thanks Jones

The Bass Centre continues its slow suicide. The new website is R U B B I S H. Unless you want to buy, er, a Warwick amp. There's no way of simply accessing what they have in stock at the moment - which seems (at least to me) the most important role of a shop website. It's not wonder the Gallery is taking over. Their website isn't perfect, but it works. Or maybe I'm just not finding the right link on the BC one? Jones