thodrik

I can't think of any 'off the shelf' type designs. Sandberg do produce 35 inch scale basses that might be worth a shout if you can live with the string spacing. Also with any kind of 24 fret design, be wary as whether the design of the bass allows the upper frets to actually be playable. I like having 24 frets, but only if the frets are playable, otherwise I am fine with a standard 21 fret Fender design. A second hand Mike Lull PJ5 would probably be my recommendation, if you can find one though second hand I think that they go for about £2k or more. I nearly bought one but ended up with a Sadowsky NYC 5.

I have been really enjoying the new Green Lung album, Black Harvest. They have been picking up quite a bit of mainstream attention, The Guardian even did an article about them. Critics could call them Sabbath clones, but there is enough of a twist for me to stop them being too derivative of other bands. The guitar work for a start has loads of Brian May influences which I really like. I also love the way that they have a lot of old school English folk music influences and despite not being a massive fan of organs, I think that the addition of a full time organ player really helps the band. I really like the production too. Sometimes they remind me of what would happen if you mixed Black Sabbath and Boston. Between that an Boss Keloid, both of my favourite 'heavier' albums this year have been released by bands from England, which is a nice change. There is of course the new Mastodon album out this week which I am looking forward to as well. https://greenlung.bandcamp.com/album/black-harvest

Good to hear the positive reviews. I have seen a few nice basses they have advertised on Reverb and Ebay. Good to know that they are a good outfit.

If you are getting choking on the first fret then it potentially calls into question the initial set up. Without seeing the bass, the choking could relate to the neck relief (or lack thereof) or the string height not being high enough, both of which can be cured by a revised set up. Failing that it might be a high fret rather than a badly cut nut. It might be the nut but I definitely wouldn't buy a new nut until I absolutely thought it was required. I would initially try raising the string height slightly to see if that cures the choking problem. If if does then you will have solved the problem without it costing you any money.

A five string Sadowsky but with a zero fret and a neck constructed with the Vigier 10-90 carbon system in the neck. The pickups will feature a single J in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge that can be coil tapped (like the Sandberg TM line). preamp will be the standard Sadowsky. Bridge will be the big hulk of metal they use in the Excess. Roger Sadowsky and Patrice Vigier can then licence Warwick to manufacture the instrument at a cost of £30,000 and then the design will be amended against my wishes to include the Just a Nut iii and be made of solid bubinga and will weigh 13lbs.

Pretty much word for word exactly what I was going to say!

Generally any old Mosfet or valve amp can be repaired by a qualified tech provided that they can source the correct parts. However a lot of those amps are now 20+ years old and parts can be scarce and in many cases the cost of repair will be greater than the actual market value of the amp. Class D amps are so high tech in comparison they are not capable or any kind repair if the power module fails so if they go wrong it is usually more economical to buy a new amp if it is out of warranty. Buying new, I would say Ashdown or Orange would be a good bet as they are large companies with probably a big lot of capacity for parts. I mean, you could also buy a Matamp and I am pretty sure they would repair the amp if it went wrong. Generally I find EBS good in terms of sourcing parts, but I think I have sourced about 4 lightbulbs from them over a 13 year period on the Fafner.

True. For my own current situation (live band, heavy rock loud drummer, two guitarists with valve amps, often minimal on stage monitoring) having an amp and cab (or just a combo) on stage at least gives me a chance of enabling the rest of the band on stage to hear what I am playing even if the onstage monitoring is non-existent and/or useless. I generally set up according to the rest of band. If the rest of the band want to go the IEM route then I would be up for it. If the guitarist wants to use an old 100 watt Marshall valve amp (hopefully with an attenuator) then I am game for that too. After the last 18 months of the pandemic I am pretty much game for anything!

The Eden model on the original Bass Pod was my favourite setting when I was a teenager. I always wanted to try a proper World Tour amp as a result. I still never have though!

For smaller venues when I'm on tour and have no idea of what the provided PA and monitor system is like (or what the local soundperson operating the PA system is like), I like to have an amp and cab so that I can at least be sure that I will be able to hear myself. If I was a megastar playing larger venues with a top level PA or if I was in a function band that owned its own PA then I would certainly consider going the 'in ears' route. However, I am not so I don't. I do love the mechanics of amps in general, so I do own a massive valve amp and a 6x10. However, for practical gigging purposes it is an entirely unnecessary set up.

I only tried an ‘original’ Japanese MetroExpress one. I didn’t try any of the newer Warwick made MetroExpress ones that come in at a much lower price. I have heard though that the new versions of that are much better than the initial production run.

Well, in terms of the fit and finish and generally level of the fretwork, the Japanese MetroExpress was pretty much on par with my Metro. It was just the volume knob that was the issue, though that should not be an issue on a £1600 bass. I also don't think that the Metroexpress line were done in the same workshop by the same people as the original Metro line. It was designed to be a factory 'production line' bass to be manufactured in far greater numbers than the original Metros, but I don't think many actually got made because of various issues in terms of actually getting the basses produced. From playing one however, I would probably opt for a German Metro or a Sandberg at that price point.

I think you are talking about the pickup blend pot. I was talking about the volume pot. For reference I have an NYC and Metro. In the Metro Express the volume pot worked the other way round from the two I have. So unless the Metro Expresses were specifically designed to have the volume pot going the other way then it was an error in the production process. Fit and finish was really good though.

I tried one in the Glasgow shop. Really nice fit and finish, however the volume pot worked the wrong way round, which was something that definitely would not have happened with a Japanese full fat Metro of the time.

I actually didn't mind Stadium Arcadium and thought it was a return to form after By The Way, which I found to be entirely boring apart from a couple of tracks (I think Don't Forget Me is one of their best songs, even though it is very similar in structure to Other Side) Honestly, I haven't really listened to them after seeing them on the Stadium Arcadium tour. It was the most uninspiring, phoned in performance I had ever seen at the time, which was an impressive achievement on account that I had seen Van Morrison a few months prior. I probably will give this one a miss too.

It happened with a guitar to me but has never happened with a bass. I bought an American Deluxe Fender Toronado as my guitar in 2006 and really liked it. However, when I tried a Les Paul for the first time in 2016 my mind went 'my guitar feels like a toy' by comparison. I ended up buying a different Les Paul in 2018 and sold the Toronado to fund a Mesa Big Block 750 six months later. That was the first time I sold a decent instrument as I normally keep them, however I needed the cash, never played the Toronado and I really really wanted that Big Block!

Got a set of D’addarios with no E string. They suggested I contact the retailer, which was Stringbusters who went belly up the week after I bought the strings. D’addario promptly sent me two free sets of strings.

For me, for the purposes my location theses, my main query is 'do they deliver?' or 'will they cooperate with me making arrangements for a courier to collect?'. Generally however my main concerns are: - what can I afford? - what amp am I using it with? - what is the impedance rating? - what is the watts rating? - if it is used, have any drivers been replaced? - can I lift it? - do I actually need it? As a result I have bought exactly one cabinet in the last 12 years.

The Mesa BB 750 is my 'big' amp of choice and I generally use that over a Trace Elliot V6 or EBS Fafner. However, once you put the amp in a rack case (in particular the Mesa branded wooden case which weighs a lot) you are not really saving that much weight over an all valve amp. It is a bit lighter, but it is still a lump to move around. The Mesa Walkabout however is much lighter, has a more flexible EQ than the Big Block and can deliver a great tone. The Walkabout has been my main 'day to day' rehearsal or gigging amp for the last decade. It is 'only' 300 watts but through a 4 ohm 2x12 it should have plenty enough headroom for gigging.

True, though I would have thought a shop selling them would have a 'well the first batch were rubbish but they are sorting things out now and the batch we have hanging on the wall are really good,' rather than a 'the partnership hasn't worked and the new RSD ones don't feel like Sadowskys' view that was given to me. Still, I personally think that the partnership will work eventually once the teething issues are resolved (and 2020 was a hell of bad time to launch anything). If anything I think that the made in Germany Metros look nicer than the old MIJ Metros in terms of range of finishes. I have always fancied carrying out a Sadowsky pre into a Sire as well! My nephew has a Sire and I was really impressed with the build quality.

When I went to Guitar Guitar in Glasgow to try out preamps a couple of weeks back, I said that my main bass was a Sadowsky Metro I bought from the shop ten years previously and I wanted something similar-ish for a comparison. They gave me a Japanese made Metro Express and told me not to even bother with the new line of RSD Metro Expresses. To be fair, a Japanese Metro retailing at £1500 ten years ago is not a fair comparison to a RSD design at nearly 50% of that price, but from what I was told they were far from impressed from the initial run of RSD instruments As it was the Japanese Metro Express was very very nice, apart from the fact the volume knob was positioned incorrectly so that it looked like the volume was turned off when it was actually turned 100% on. Fretwork, preamp and general fit and finish was otherwise 100% on point. Essentially, it sounded and felt like a Sadowsky. I would love to try a German made Metro, but frankly if I had the cash I would probably buy a five string Streamer or Thumb just for something different.

New provisional board. New addition is the Sansamp Bass Driver V2. I had the V1 for over a decade before selling it last year after not using it for years. Picked up the V2 after doing a shoot out with the VT DI, Darkglass B7K Ultra and the Markbass Vintage Pre. Being able to dial in mids at 1k on the V2 is a great addition and I find the V2 to have a great range of gain and overall the sound is a lot more ‘refined’ compared to the V1. I didn’t really like the B7K ultra and thought that the Bass Driver delivered a nicer low gain aggressive tone, though admittedly the B7K nailed it in terms of higher gain stuff. I was going to ditch the B3K but it sounds tremendous on low gain driving the Alpha Omega which in turn runs through the Sansamp at the end. Favourite pedal is my mate’s homemade clone of a Earthquaker Hummingbird (the green one). Need to actually Velcro everything down now!

Okay, I will be controversial and say that this is not my least favourite Guns ‘n’ Roses song. There is stuff on Lies, Use Your Illusion and Chinese Democracy that I consider to be more unlistenable. After reading the thread before listening I was expecting much worse!

I will give it a listen after work, which will either give me something to look forward to after a difficult week, or something to give me a good laugh after a difficult week.

Problem has now been fixed. Cheers to whoever sorted it out.