thodrik

Thanks for the insight. That will probably save me some cash!

I was the same. I used D'Addario for years but the amount of money I was spending on strings was insane when I had two bands using two completely different tunings. I have switched to Elixir now and I have had the same strings on my Vigier for over 18 months, when before I was changing strings every 6 weeks. So while one Elixir five string set was expensive, it is much cheaper than a £25 set of strings every couple of months! I might try the D'Addario coated strings next. To the OP, yes, the packaging on the Elixir sets are a bit inconsistent and not the best.

Rackmount effects and preamps are certainly not very prevalent now. Not so much a fad as a sign of changing times. I still want to play a gig with 12 stacked Trace Elliot brightboxes powered by a Trace Elliot rackmounted preamp and separate Trace Elliot poweramp.

I cost me £300 to revalve and bias a Trace Elliot V6 in 2014 with new power amp tubs and that was with 6x6550s power amp tubes. The VBA has 8 power amp tubes and 4 pre-amp tubes. The VBA heads are great, though impractically powerful if you require power amp distortion

I would say Tool, but given that rounds out to three purchases in twenty years it is hardly a big commitment. At the moment: - High on Fire; - Mastodon - Inter Arma - Yob - Karnivool (though on the basis of the Tool comment above) - Metallica, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, The Cult, Baroness (out of habit rather than devotion); - Red Fang - Summoner - Graveyard - Lowrider - Truckfighters (though now on hiatus-ish)

Thanks, that is brilliant. I was really wondering about the differences in neck profile and feel of the frets from 34'' to 35 '' scale, so you have pretty much covered everything I am looking for. I love the look of the dual soapbar pickups on the Thumb 6. The dual j-style pickups on the 5 string Thumbs don't do anything for me personally. I am guessing that the Spector feels a bit more balanced? I have heard that Thumbs can suffer from a bit of neck dive. My current 5 strings are a Vigier and a Sadowsky neither of whom offer a 6 string (Vigier used to but not for well over 10 years). A Spector Forte is probably the most likely as I like the stripped down finish compared to the 'bling' of the glossed finishes on the Euro or full on US made NS series. I do love the 'woody' look of the Thumbs though so I keep coming back to them, as well as the fact that the GPS bolt on 6 string Thumb can be bout for just over £2000-£2,300 new which seems respectable in the current market. Luckily I just built a patio so the funds for the six string are no longer there. However, this is something I will be continuing to consider for the next couple of years so many thanks!

This is pretty irrelevant to the thread @Paulhauser, but could you be kind enough to provide a brief comparison between the Warwick Thumb 6 and your Spector Forte 6? The reason I ask is that both Spector and Warwick are options I am considering as a first six string in the future and it is highly unlikely that I will find them in a shop to try out side by side! Cheers!

This is a real shame. Particularly considering Mesa had left their previous distributor and it appeared that prices for Mesa gear were going to be considerably more affordable. Alas, while it appears that the the gear is going to be more affordable it appears that the gear is not being made for anyone outside of the US for the foreseeable future. I'm conscious that there are supply problems, however there are several other US manufacturers who are still exporting products and Mesa are presently the only company I am aware of who are deciding to simply not fulfil any international orders whatsoever. However, the position taken isn't actually as bad as the complete lack of communication to Andertons until such time that Andertons had probably secured a whole host of orders worth presumably tens of thousands of pounds going back the previous 6-7 months since the new distribution model was launched (amid a certain degree of fanfare). It appears that there has been a complete lack of transparency to international dealers like Andertons. I'm conscious that we are still in the process of coming out of a massive global pandemic with shortages to all manner of materials (I struggled to find concrete and sand to build a patio!) but the approach by Mesa is particularly poor. I am sure that Mesa have underlying reasons and that the parts shortages issue is a real issue, but the way in which the reasons were communicated (or rather not communicated) is disappointing and frankly, a bit Gibson-esque.

I have a background in playing baseball bat Precision basses, wide necked Sadowsky five strings and double basses with neck dimensions akin to a trunk of a small tree. I would have thought that the narrower string spacing on standard Warwicks would make the 6 string necks more manageable? I know Warwick do broadneck options as well though, which might be a struggle to navigate.

Non-Warwick owner here, but if I ever buy another bass it is likely to be a five or six string Thumb. Stunning basses.

Damn it, I knew I had forgot something!

I would probably obtain one of the 1980s Trace Elliot 'recommended setups' comprising 8 different 4x10s for the 'highs' and 8 different 2x18s for the 'lows', then send just a DI from a Sansamp to FOH.

I love them but never got round to buying one. I love the sound of them, particularly when driven through a big hefty valve amp.

If I could provide a comparison, playing with an M6 was like driving a high powered sports car on a motorway, playing the Big Block is like driving a JCB digger through a muddy field. Both highly entertaining activities.

Bass Direct have a Mesa Big Block 750 with the matching headcase for a grand. I bought one a while ago and it is my favourite amp bar none. Very much a 'rock' amp though and the EQ is fairly basic compared to modern offerings but it does big 'rock' tones with a bit of grit with ease. Also, the matching headcase is brilliant but adds significantly to the weight. The Mesa M6 and M9 amps have a much more flexible EQ but they are too 'clean' for my tastes. I prefer the feel of the M-Pulse line of Big Block and Walkabout amps. Ashdown ABM stuff is great. Hartke LH500/1000 is great for the price and great if your core tone comes from an external preamp or pedal. EBS HD350/TD650/Fafner are great amps too if you can find them used. I'm a big fan of the Fafner Mk I (apart from the damn cosmetic lightbulb which constantly blows). Gallien Kreuger RB heads are great too. You could also pick up an old Trace Elliot SMX head for about £300 as well. There is actually not that many 'new' Mosfet/hybrid heads on the market since class D has taken over. Also, despite owning several 'Big Iron' amps, I have no doubts that the modern top of the range class D amps will deliver pretty much everything I would be looking for in a new amp.

I saw Lomenzo playing with Megadeth and he was using a Passion at the time. Sounded great. I own an Arpege and Excess. They both cover all manner of rock and metal playing, or funk or pretty much any genre you fancy. They are also brilliant for alternate tunings as the stability of the neck means that set ups are easy. The Vigiers however in my opinion don’t really do authentic ‘vintage’ tones so if you are looking for something that gives you that tone then maybe look at something else. Given the placement of the pick up on the Passion it won’t really give you a traditional ‘jazz’ or ‘P-Bass’ tone, primarily because it wasn’t designed to do so in the first place. However, no vintage bass will give you the tone of a Vigier so it is really a case of whether the Vigier is what the OP is looking for. For a Passion I think that the closest comparisons would be a cross between a Warwick Thumb and a Spector but even then that doesn’t really give an accurate description. There are plenty of YouTube demos as well. I would buy a Passion without hesitation for use in a rock/metal context.

If it is sorted out in advance I am generally fine with it. Bands walking up just expecting to get gear handed to them without so much as a heads up is a no-no but even then I am more likely to just give them a 'why didn't you ask in advance?' query. Much like Steve Browning above, the chances of damaging my gear via excessive volume is much less than my gear damaging ears via excessive volume (in both cases I think the gear is a Mesa amp and cab...). However, in these days of ultra-lightweight amps which can be bought for a pretty economical price, I think that it is reasonable to expect most bassists to bring their own amp heads. It isn't like the old days when I generally had to liaise with three different bassists on a bill in terms of deciding which one of us was going to lug their heavy Trace/GK/Ashdown/Ampeg rig to the gig, though it would sometimes lead to some truly amusing shared set ups we would throw together for a laugh, with a combined Hartke 4x10, Trace Elliot 1x15 and old WEM PA head being my all time favourite combined bitsa rig.

I got into Graveyard by their third album, so that is pretty late for me. I got into Isis (the band, not the terrorist group) pretty much right after they split. I got really into the Joshua Tree era U2 material a few years ago, despite really not liking anything else they have released. Recently, despite having a 'if it isn't Peter Green era or Rumours it isn't Fleetwood Mac' attitude, I have really started to appreciate the 1980s Fleetwood Mac stuff.

The Warwick pricing means that their Sadowsky Masterbuilt 'limited run' production basses are in many cases more expensive than one off, custom built NYC single cut basses which are still being built by Roger Sadowsky and his team. A look on the 'recently sold' section of the Sadowsky site reveals a number of single cut basses which were on average about $1,000 cheaper than the Warwick limited edition. For example, just on the Sadowsky site is this single cut for the price of $6,950: Granted, the woods on the above NYC are not as exotic as the Warwick Masterbuilt basses, however, when it is possible to order/buy a Sadowsky built by Roger Sadowsky for a lower price point (and a considerably lower price point compared to the $10k plus models), it does raise a few eyebrows. It is a tricky one for Warwick, as if one of their craftsmen/women spends the same amount of hours on a Sadowsky Masterbuilt as they do on a Masterbuilt Thumb or Streamer, (which generally are sold at similar prices to the Sadowsky Masterbuilt line) then the prices will need to be charged by Warwick accordingly for the time spent on them by the craftsmen involved. The prices are eye-watering, but Warwick have been charging similar fees for their limited Masterbuilt runs of Warwick basses every year, so I would guess there is a market for them. As it is, I love Les Paul guitars but I just don't like single cut basses.

Wes Scantlin has had personal problems for well over a decade. Having seen videos of previous meltdowns, on stage rants, bad lip-syncing and heard first hand stories of disastrous behaviour on their UK tour in 2016, I have never been able to watch the video as I felt like making fun of it would be just kicking a guy when he is already down. In terms of the band, a few tracks on the first album were alright, but it was very much safe, highly polished post-grunge stuff and didn't leave much of a lasting impression on me as a teenager.

However, in many cases the more expensive Masterbuilt by Warwick basses are actually more expensive than the Sadowsky's built by Roger Sadowsky in NYC. I think that this is a short term anomaly, on account I think that the general ideas is for the the Masterbuilt by Warwick line tofully replace the NYC Sadowsky range when Roger Sadowsky himself actually retires.

I have the Ditto X2. It is fine and is fairly transparent. The new plus version is really good. The X2 though takes up quite a lot of pedal board real estate, but to me it is worth it for a designated 'start' and 'stop' buttons! I did a loop on a recent album where I had a bass tuned to drop C and there was no issues in terms of transparency or loss of bass signal when I was recording and the signal chain for that was just bass - Flashback X4 - Ditto - interface. Sounded great, apart from the actual playing.

Exactly, I am a hypocrite! Apologies, I had a half finished thought that I posted before finishing because I was called away on my lunch break at work. Essentially, while it is nice to receive an instrument that has been given a full set up before being shipped, I think that this should be considered as a bit of an 'unexpected bonus' rather than an expectation from a retailer. This is entirely correct.

It really is disappointing to hear. The two Sadowskys I have (2009 Metro, 2009 NYC) are exceptional. I understand that the Metro Express basses are made to a lower price point. However, for £700+ there have been far more QC issues than you would expect for a bass at that price point. The concerning thing however is the variety of different QC issues, weight, standard of finishing, electronics, set up etc. The fault of the set up might be partly down to the retailer. However, we cannot expect a retailer to give every instrument they receive a full set up. Particularly, Guitar Guitar, who probably would need about a dozen members of staff just to do set ups of the Gibsons they receive, let alone the basses they get. In comparison, my nephew bought entry level 5 string Sire from Andertons that was 'B- Stock' but was delivered fully set up in with a new set of strings. Needless to say I tried it and considered the bass to utterly exceptional for the price point. I think that someone at Andertons at twigged that this was a 'first bass' purchase by a 12 year old and had gone above and beyond to get the bass ready from the get go, despite it being a low value purchase.

Both gorgeous but I am very biased towards Sadowsky and both my Sadowskys are sunburst with maple necks... The figuring on the Fodera neck is very nice too though...