thodrik

I own an S9 series Precision (so could have been made any time from 1978-80). Got it for under £400 in 1999 (I was 13 and it seemed like a good deal compared to a new US Standard that would have been £700 or so). Now, basses from that era are going for £1300-£1500. If I had bought a US Standard when I was 14 it would probably only be worth £600 or so now. The reality though is that either instrument would still be a passive Fender that I have been using for a period of 20 years. After using the bass for twenty years, I have probably ruined my bass as a potential 'investment' purchase for someone else. What a bloody shame. I have always wanted to buy a seventies Jazz to match the Precision I have. When I was last properly looking for a four string Jazz in 2009, I played a few 60s Jazzes, along with a Sandberg and Sadowsky Metro. Mojo aside, the 60s Jazzes were nowhere near the Sandberg or the Sadowsky Metro in terms of fit, finish or sound. I love old basses, but if/when I have thousands to spend on a Fender Jazz-style bass I am much more likely to consider a Sadowsky, Mike Lull or even a new Fender Custom shop, where there less fear of 'will I get a good one?'

A decent octave pedal would get you a decent low C with a minimum of fuss. I am very much a 'just tune down if you need to'. Back in the day if I needed to use a low C for 40 seconds of a song, I would just tune the E to C for that song and rework the fingering to suit. It wasn't as ideal as having a five string or a separate bass for a particular song, but the solution was free rather than find a solution that would cost me more money like another pedal. Now I have a five string which makes things a lot easier. For anything lower than drop D, which involves tuning all of the strings to E flat standard or below, I use the D'Addario 120-50 Balanced Tension set. Usually less than 20 quid a set compared to the far more unbalanced DR DDT set of 115-55 set at £30 plus quid and to me the work just as well. ideal for D standard/drop C but good for drop C sharp (a bit high tension for my liking) and decent enough for C standard (albeit with lower tension). Anything lower than C standard is five string territory.

Really like those. A Fender with a drop D extender as standard is also pretty cool. Personally I think more basses should come with this feature. I say that as someone who owns five basses and none of them have an extender!

No headstock signing on my NYC either. I don't think that the headstock signatures are standard on Sadowskys, but I might be wrong. Stuart Spector signs all of the main US Spectors, must have sore wrists at this point.

It’s getting bloody worse! I got a phone call from the student loans company on Friday afternoon. Apparently I’m due a refund because I finally paid my loan off in April 2018 without knowing, so I’m due a refund of 9 months worth of payments. It is like the universe wants me to buy stuff! I think I will manage to hold off. Played my Walkabout again today, it is still awesome.

Just bought a Darklgass Alpha Omega from Gavin. Posted to Orkney with no issues. Item was well packed, complete with box and manual. Super easy Basschatter to deal with. I even got some extra insight into some amps to consider in the future. As detailed in all the feedback above, I would also recommend him without hesitation. Cheers also to @Al Krow for managing to essentially broker two deals for me in as many weeks!

Definitely B3K into Duality. I use the B3K on very low gain to set up a thick ‘cleanish’ sound and feed that into the Duality for some utterly over the top filth. Feeding the Duality into the B3K is cool, but it takes away some of rough edges of the Duality, which to me is entire reason that I use the Duality in the first place. Obviously some people may prefer it the other way round!

Sold an M6 Carbine the other week, and without really trying have now sold a bass cabinet and a guitar. This means I have enough spare cash lying around to consider buying the WD800 without it eating into 'building a garage' savings. However, I have now seen two people in Glasgow selling a 400+ and Big Block 750 respectively on eBay, just to coincide with me going to Glasgow next week. So two of my dream amps on sale at the same time in the one city I happen to be visiting next week. Can some other Basschatters do me a favour please buy the 400+ or Big Block quickly? Otherwise I will probably do something really silly.

Sounds like the Prodigy pre amp is voiced a bit more along the lines of the Carbine I sold. The Carbine was a terrific amp, but the voicing of the upper mids was far too pronounced for me. The Voice settings on that amp either cut out too much mids for my liking or just added far too much mids! The weights of the Prodigy and Strategy amps really do amaze me given the type of amps they are and how much technology and components are squeezed into such a small space. I love the character of the Walkabout. Ten years in and I'm still impressed with it.

Walkabout owner and (as of last week) former M6 Carbine owner here. How does the preamp of the Prodigy compare to the Walkabout? Is the Prodigy more aggressively voiced than the Walkabout? I'm torn in terms of my next amp being an all valve job ( a more flexible EQ than my old Trace V6) or the new WD-800 to get close to the sound of my favourite amp (Walkabout) but louder.

Nice!

So far I have failed Tier 1, because I bought a pedal. I have however sold an amp, a cab and a guitar so in terms of gear I have significantly less gear now than on January 1.

Congratulations! Love the blue top on that bass. Getting to go to Bass Direct and trying out a load of high end basses for me would be about the best day out you could have as a bassist. I would love to go Bass Direct sometime, but location has prevented me from doing so. However as soon as I saw this second hand Sadowsky in second hand section a couple of years ago I was on the phone saying 'I AM BUYING THAT' Don't really clean it that often so it really doesn't look that shiny anymore.

No, I have never named my basses, unless 'the heavy bloody thing that won't stay in tune' counts, which is the long form name for my Gibson EB3.

I have the B3K and the Duality. B3K for me is fine for low gain levels but I don't like the higher gain settings. It has replaced my Aguilar Agro which I used for nearly ten years and loved dearly but fell apart through use at so many gigs. Much as I loved the Agro, while it didn't so much have low end loss, it just doesn't have the girth that the 'grunt' switch on the B3K provides. Duality is great but only for fuzzed out passages or bass solos where I want the bass to sound like a guitar. It is great for that but not great as an always on fuzz.I am in the process of buying an Alpha Omega which will hopefully cover the middle ground between the duality and the B3K. This will mean that despite not being a Darkglass fanboi that I will own three Darkglass pedals... Can't say I was that impressed with the X7 demos I have heard. The drive sounds a bit high and fizzy to me, which almost reminds me of my EBS Billy Sheehan drive I have been meaning to sell for the last year or so but can't be bothered to go up in my attic to find...

I have one (or had one, it went through some wars on the road and needs a new valve and some TLC) and it is 12v AC. It is good for adding a bit or tube warmth to the front end of an amp. I used it with the EBS Fafner so that I could make it sound like the amp had two preamp valves rather than one. I pretty much stopped using it after I bought my all valve V6, which coincided with my Valvedrive starting to fall apart/crackle in any event. A 9v version with a dedicated DI though looks cool.

Really enjoyed the guitar show. I would have liked a bit of focus on the role of alternative tunings and the development of heavy rock and metal via Black Sabbath, but honestly for an hour long show it managed to pack a lot in. Great stuff. I find it strange that the guitar and drum shows really focused on the actual instruments but the bass show was more a look at the concept of bass in popular music. Given that the other shows were so instrument focused it does make me feel like the bass guitar itself was a bit short changed in comparison. Anyhoo, it was a cool three part documentary.

It might be later in the year, maybe even next year. Building a new garage/jam room, redoing the bathroom and first baby being due in late June means bass amps are low on the agenda! Might treat myself to a pedal though from the M6 proceeds. Thinking about one of either Darkglass Alpha-Omicron or the Alpha Omega. I have the B3K but I’m wanting to get something a bit more raw and dirty.

Great stuff! I’m back to using my Walkabout for my gigging needs. Though I will definitely by buying another Mesa in the future, probably the new WD 800.

I think that the Berg is sealed and is designed in to be a modern approach to a vintage sealed 8x10 cab. You won't have the big sub lows of a ported cab but it should have a tighter response than a ported cab. The Mesa Powerhouse cabs are ported, but the less often seen Vintage Powerhouse cabs are not. There are massive subs available on my Powerhouse cab. It definitely isn't a 'flat' response, I would say slightly scooped but not in a 'scooped = bad' way that you often see on bass forums. The Mesa 610 is pretty a much an 'it can do anything' type of cab, well apart from being easily moved! No idea in terms of Barefaced, there are so many Barefaced fans on the Basschat though that someone will bound to have some experience.

I'm not that bad with 'new amp' GAS. It is 'second hand hand GAS' on the BC marketplace that I struggle with! The price of £1,069 isn't too bad in the current climate. I have a garage to build first though so must I pull myself away from looking at amps as I currently have nowhere to put them!

A 'super intelligent' footswitch that won't be included with the amp but will be available as an 'optional' extra for £75. Seriously, I am intrigued by these amps. It would be the Alpha Omega 900 or the new Mesa WD-800 in terms of new amps I would be keen to try if I was looking for a new amp (which I'm not).

Trace Elliot V6 owner here. Pros: tone for days, loud as hell, heft by the buckets. Cons: re-valve costs which can run into the hundreds, needing to be careful with speaker inputs (mine works 4 ohms and 2 ohms, so I'm not risking an 8 ohm loud), the fear for something just going wrong at a gig, heavy (mine isn't SVT heavy but it is too heavy for the one carry handle it has!), limited EQ (on this Trace, the passive EQ takes a while to operate, particularly with an active bass). An Ampeg SVT though is an absolute classic of an amp. What model did you get? At the moment I am torn between getting another all valve head or going the 'modern' route of getting either the new Mesa WD800 or a Darkglass Alpha Omega 900. My concern though is that now matter how clever modern designs are, nothing beats just waiting for your valve amp to heat up, flicking the standby switch and just playing a low E (or better, a low B) at high volume.

I bought a Mesa Powerhouse 6x10. If you want lightweight definitely look elsewhere. However in terms sound projection and clarity it is the best cab I have ever played through. Okay it isn't saying much since I played through the same Trace Elliot speakers for most of my 20 years of playing and I'm 'only' 32, but it also includes all the hire or backline gear, which includes all manner of Ashdown, Hartke, Marshall, Peavey, Eden, Ampeg and EBS cabs I have played through over the years. For the combination of portability, sound projection and general awesomeness though I think that the Bergantino NV610 would be pretty tough to beat. My two cents from my 6x10 experience: In some ways it is actually more difficult to load a 6x10 into the back of a van or a car than an 8x10. The height of an 8x10 allowed me to kind of lean it back and just slide it in (no innuendo intended) with a bit of leverage. My 6x10 doesn't really have the height to allow me to do this, which means I have to lift it up into the car, which is a bit of a struggle for me on my own because it weighs nearly ten stone. I'm not very strong to begin with so it is pretty much at my limit of physical feats, but I'm happy do it just now for the short term while I am young enough to still do it. In time though, yeah, definitely something more portable!

For £3000? Well, the first thing I would do is to find a bass worth £8000 and ask why the bass for £8000 costs so much more than the basses I can find for £3000... Apologies. Seriously, I think that the best idea for the original poster would be to head to Bass Direct or the Bass Gallery and try out a number of the modern non-Fender builds and seeing which one he likes the best. Each bass player has different likes and dislikes so buying a really expensive instrument without trying it first is pretty risky unless you know exactly what you are getting and you have complete faith that the chosen bass is 'the one'. Walking into Bass Direct and 'stating, "Hi there, I am looking for a new bass and I have £3000 to spend' would surely result in a pretty awesome day. I love the process of looking for basses and trying them out. My bass buying days are done for the foreseeable future though. Okay, maybe a Mike Lull T-Bird...