thodrik

Ah you've got a Will Lee? Nice! Yes, when I got my Metro back in 2009, I pretty much found the sound that was in my head. 9 years of gigging and I'm still impressed with it. I have generally not touched the VTC, it is generally on full. I have an old Fender Precision that can do an old Fender sound and I have Vigier Excess for a 'big modern sound'. The Sadowsky sound kind of sits in between the two which is why I love it.

Just tried this the other night with my Metro and my NYC five string through my old V6. Works really well! Makes the bass sound more like a vintage Fender and doesn't overload the pre-amp with heavy bass. I love the Sadowsky pre-amp, though my default position is the pre-amp turned on but with treble fully off and the bass EQ barely turned up past 0. Wouldn't mind a black pick guard for my sunburst MV4 with a maple neck...

Quite a deal, even for a non-US. I'm surprised it hasn't gone!

It did, but on reflection I am okay with that. i think that the tagline of the show was 'Tina Weymouth on Bass'. So if the show was a documentary detailing Tina Weymouth's thoughts on the bass in popular music that was important to her then I think the documentary was pretty great. If the show was meant to be 'the history of bass guitar presented by Tina Weymouth' then it left a lot to be desired.

Good episode. The distinct way in which the invention of the Fender Precision was completely ignored did irk me though. Also, no Jaco or any focus on bass guitar virtuoso talents like Jaco, Marcus Miller or Wooten seemed a bit strange. All in all though, a very good show.

I think you could piece it together from bits of every other BBC rock documentary. Save the Royal Blood guy, might not have so much stock BBC footage of him.

Not grunge but similar time period and some cool bass lines (if you don't mind tuning a bit lower): Kyuss, Sleep, Monster Magnet.

Outside of the most obvious ones (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana), you could check out stuff like Melvins, Green River, Mudhoney, Tad, Screaming Trees which to me are far more of an example of 'Sub Pop' grunge than Pearl Jam or Alice in Chains. You won't necessarily get great imaginative bass lines but you will get cool songs that are fun to play. 'Grunge' was a generic term to encapsulate a bunch of rock bands from the same geographic area. Some were way more or less 'punk' sounding than the other. There is so much Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath influences in parts of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains that I would probably recommend that you listen to them if you are not already.

Decent sound. Heavy as hell. Good low range extension. Probably a two man lift unless you are Thor.

If it is already on the floor, it can't be knocked over! I have been guilty of that. The overhang is ridiculous. It looks a bit like what my waistband would look like if I started wearing skinny jeans,

Hi, for that tuning I use a set of D'Addario EXL160BT. The gauges are 120, 90, 67, 50. They are my go-to strings from any kind of D Standard/Drop C or C# Standard/Drop B. The best bit is that a full set can be bought for under £20. The equivalent prices for DR DDT strings, Circle K or Newtone strings 'optimised for downtuning' are usually double the price. As said you can also build your own set to your own preferred tension using the D'Addario guide. I am lazy and a cheapskate so prefer buying full sets. Also I have tried the DRs and ordered a set of Newtones and ended up preferring the D'Addarios anyway so I'm very happy so long as D'Addario never ever discontinue this set.

I do. Bought it on the BC marketplace back in 2016. It is a fantastic amp but I prefer my Walkabout to be honest, just because I love the slightly gritty tone I can dial in that I can only get in the M6 via use of a pedal. I have been tempted of selling the M6 just because I don’t need that much clean headroom. The volume the M6 is capable of is just ridiculous!

Agedhorse will know more than me, I am pretty sure that the Trans-class Mesas (the M3, M6 and M9) have a single tube in the Pre amp section and the power amp is entirely MOSFET based. This is opposed to the 'Simul-state' Mesa's like the original Walkabout and M-Pulse Line which I believe used valves along with MOSFETS as part of the power section. The Simul-states like the Wakabout were designed to behave similar to an all valve amp. I think that the voicing of the Carbine series was designed to be a lot cleaner with lots of articulation with a more immediate response. This means that the M6 will have huge amounts of clean headroom and you won't lose any definition while you turn up the Master volume. The M6 also puts out a hell of a lot of low end grunt, especially if you pull out the 'Deep' switch which adds deep lows and adds a bit of sparkle up top. So basically, the amp delivers 'heft'.

Okay, that is actually pretty damn cool! What is it?

Another ‘I don’t like single cut basses’ vote here. Of course I love single cut guitars and own a Les Paul. I wouldn’t play a headless bass either. I like modern approaches to instrument making but those are my only two exceptions. A headless single cut bass is bound to exist right?

I really enjoyed the show last night. I was fearing it would the usual BBC rock music documentary full of Keith Moon and John Bonham anecdotes, but I really enjoyed the look into the evolution of the drum kit and the coverage of drummers in the era before rock and roll. I love Stanton Moore as well so glad to see him on TV. My fear for the bass show is that it would be a bunch of stories about McCartney, Entwistle, Flea, Sid Vicious, Mark King and the guy from Royal Blood as the ‘new’ bass hero, with 20 seconds on Marcus Miller and Peter Hook. The drum show has convinced me that I don’t need to worry. Nice to see the BBC doing a music show with a bit of depth.

I think I am the same. My MV4 was £1500 or so back in 2009. The same bass was £1200 or so when I started lusting after it in about 2006. The rising prices are a similar theme for lots of brand though so it really isn’t just a Sadowsky issue. At £2500 or so now, I don’t think I could justify buying a new Metro if the Metro Express quality is really good. That is saying something because the MV4 has been my main gigging and recording bass for nearly 10 years and will probably still be my main bass in ten years time. The Xotic basses look really good value for money as well. Though wooden pick up covers are not a deal breaker for me. It’s a great option though for folk looking for a sub £1500 bass. The fit and finish on my Metro is exceptional. The only thing that lets it down is that the wood neck and fingerboard is pretty plain and doesn’t have any fancy figuring or flame that you would expect on a ‘boutique’ jazz bass. I have seen NYCs with necks like these though, so I think it might be a design choice by Sadowsky to go for a very ‘clean’ look. The main thing that keeps me going back to Sadowsky is the Sadowsky preamp. It isn’t for everyone but I love it.

Okay, bringing this thread back to life as it seems Guitar Guitar have received their first shipment. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/180206322275007--sadowsky-metro-express-mv4-tobacco-burst https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/180206322274007--sadowsky-metro-express-mv4-candy-apple-red Well, they look pretty much indistinguishable from the Metro MV4 I have, which is great. I guess the real question is what they are like to play and what they sound like. It seems that they are located in the Birmingham store. I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of anybody lucky enough to try one, as the chances of me getting to Birmingham is slim to none at the moment!

Bass Gallery in London as well: https://thebassgallery.com/ Along with Bass Direct they would be the main two ones that come to mind.

I may be wrong, (in that I writing this from memory of reading other threads from years back and without checking or verifying anything) but my understanding is that: Part of the reason was cost efficiency. The new Series IV basses could be produced more quickly. This resulted in the Series IV Arpeges being available for a much lower price than the Series III basses. I also understand that the equipment that was being used to create the neck through models were getting old, so it was becoming more difficult and time consuming for Vigier to produce the neck through models. Also, I think that part of it is that Patrice Vigier doesn't see in any tonal advantages/disadvantages between bolt on vs set neck vs neck through. This could explain why the GV Guitars (the Vigier equivalent of a set neck single cut Les Paul or neck through PRS) are all bolt on designs. None of my basses have neck though designs and I don't think I am missing anything in terms of tone. However, I will accept that a high quality neck through bass like a Vigier (or Spector or Warwick or Fodera or equivalent) is real work of art in terms of design and gives the instrument a real bit of 'Je ne sais quoi'... I'll get my coat....

I have a Series IV (when they started to go bolt on). I love the shape, but in my opinion the shape of the Series IV models are slightly more mainstream and bit less 'uniquely' Vigier like the Series 1 and 2 models. The fit and finish to Vigier is generally top notch whatever the time period or model (I have an Excess as well and my brother has an Excalibur).

Calling @ped!

Possibly. I have had one for nearly ten years now. That perhaps gives a clue as to why it was discontinued. The people that love them bought them years ago and mostly haven't needed to buy another. The people that didn't fancy the Walkabout in the first place, because they wanted more clean headroom or they wanted an even smaller class D solid state head, were never going to buy a Walkabout. That gives a limited market for Mesa to sell 'new Walkabouts'. This is particularly the case when the head has been on sale for 15 years or so, so it isn't difficult to find a Walkabout in the used market for less than what a new one would cost. So yeah, I understand the reason the original amp was discontinued. In terms of feature set though, the WD-800 seems to have a lot more going for it. I'm hoping though that Mesa haven't abandoned their big valve/simul-state bass amp designs for good. I have always wanted a 400+ or the Big Block 750.

Thanks for the clarification. From owning both a Walkabout and M6, my preference is definitely in the Walkabout camp in terms of how the pre-amp operates. I will probably be trying the WD-800 at some point as I'm intrigued in how the power amp dambing control operates.

Given how long the Talkbass Walkabout thread has been running, trying to redesign an updated version of the same preamp would be a tricky task! I would agree that most of the improvements can be seen as a positive, especially a quieter fan! Admittedly I am a massive fan of the original Walkabout and of Mesa products in general. My only query to the current Mesa bass line is whether there is enough differences between the D800, D800+ and the new WD800 as to warrant them all existing in the same product line at the same time? Three different 800 watt bass heads, all with similar features, all within the same general price bracket, all three of them released within the last couple of years. I have read that the D800 series was designed to sit somewhere in between the Walkabout and the Carbine spectrum in terms of tone. However, if the WD800 is designed to have benefits of the Walkabout pre-amp but with far more clean headroom and tonal flexibility, would this not mean that the new WD800 also sits in pretty much the same tonal spectrum as the D800 and D800+? The differences between the various models seem very subtle compared to Mesa's guitar line (say like the Rectifier Series as compared to the Lone Star series). I don't mean this as a criticism, more that I would just be interested in trying the different heads and seeing the differences and subtleties between the heads.