thodrik

‘World’s Okayest Bass Player’ Christmas present from my brother.

A shame. Cool stage presence and personality. Most importantly though, a great taste in hats and sunglasses.

That is a poor sales person that doesn’t know their products. Surprising from Guitar Guitar as their staff usually know their stuff. Sorry to hear that they gave you false information, I would be annoyed as well.

None of the new VRs are made in the USA. Only the Heritage stuff is made in the USA and the cost for them is about two grand. Still, that is a top of the line valve bass head for a grand. It is a great deal. If you want a made in USA VR you will have to look used, probably have to pay more and have no warranty.

I don’t hate it, but I have owned a a 1974 Gibson EB3 since 2000. I don’t like the three point bridge design. It is very difficult to set it up to achieve are decent action and intonation. Only two of the four pick up selections deliver a workable tone. It is heavy and neck heavy. Due to the tiny space between the string entry point and the string saddle and the short scale neck, it is very difficult to find strings that work well with the bass. I have been thinking of selling it for ten years but have been too lazy to do anything about it, as part of my brain thinks it is cool to have such a unique bass and a bit of history as part of my collection. Also my brother thinks it is cool.

I have had this dilemma for ten years or more. I generally hit mute on my Boss tuner and then retune. It generally takes about 3-5 seconds and I never have needed to switch tunings in the middle of a song. Even if I had an extender I would still probably stop and check the tuning anyway so I don’t think an extender would save me any time in practical terms. I don’t do any session stuff, pit work, open mic nights or blues jams that require me to have access to standard tuning, drop D or songs in e flat tuning on the fly. If I did, an extender would probably be very handy, if just playing a five string is not an option. I have generally been in bands where the guitarists are checking tuning every other song and take far longer to switch to drop D (or equivalent) than it does for me to do the same on the bass, particularly if the guitarist is playing a Les Paul.

I have a 5 string tuned to A flat on the B string with a set of DR DDTs. It is fun, but in my opinion once I start playing stuff below a low A, I find it easier to play a note an octave up. I have played with guitars going as low down as F sharp, it is a tough push for me to set up a bass to accommodate that, so I just use the note an octave up. Even the bassist in Meshuggah doesn't drop down to the level of the guitars. I do like downtuning but I am more of a stoner/doom bass player when it comes to downtuning rather than the modern djent stuff that needs a really fast attack and precise definition.

No problem! At least it isn’t a certain other bass forum where every other thread has a passive aggressive first response of ‘Do a search before you post buddy because we already covered this in a sub-discussion in random other thread 36 1/2 months ago’.

I think you did a very similar topic to this a few months ago, except looking at Sadowsky as a price comparison point rather than Alleva, etc. You aren’t really going to find anything new other than you still really like your bass and that you can buy a Sei bass for less than another version of a high end Jazz bass made by a different manufacturer in a different country.

In the current market, the price for a boutique made in the USA head is pretty good. My Walkabout 1x15 combo was about £1300 new back in 2008 (the head alone I think was £1100 or so back then). The price of the cabs are silly. Just ridiculous. You would think with the lighter weight they would be easier and cheaper to ship than the old Powerhouse cabinets (which are/were really expensive as well). I see that Mesa have deleted links on their sites to the Powerhouse cabs and any non-Subway amps, such as their all valve Prodigy/Strategy heads. It looks like Mesa are really committing to lightweight gear, which is cool. Probably a wise move, despite being great, the Powerhouse cabs are really heavy and are only really 'easy to move' if you are used to moving those old Diesel or Roadready cabs about. I wonder if they will make a classic Powerhouse 1000 lightweight cab, fitting a 4x10 and 1x15 into a 'lightweight' box. Keep the mix of old and new cabs.

My solution for a louder Walkabout was playing it through a Powerhouse 6x10! No volume issues anymore. I need to hit weights more before I can really be able to lift the cab in and out my car unaided. Hence a portable 2x15 has me excited.

I own a Walkabout and M6 Carbine. I much prefer the tone of the Walkabout. I would be tempted of getting rid of the M6 for a new higher power equivalent of the Walkabout. My concern is that part of the 'magic' of the original Walkabout that the tubes are used at the driver stage with the Mosfets. I'm interested to see how Mesa have approached this with a class D preamp. The cabs look great. A portable 2x15 would be something!

Me too thanks to this thread! Really digging their stuff.

So many great bassists are in bands that do not lend themselves to a pub rock cover set, as they are not in mainstream ‘everybody knows the songs’ type bands. The bassist in Karnivool is one of the most most talented bassists in semi-mainstream rock, but Karnivool material is not really stuff that that will fit in with a set of Foo Fighters, Oasis and Strokes songs. You could tweak a couple of Royal Blood or Death From Above 1979 songs for a full band. Some of the trippy, less heavy Deftones or Queens of the Stone Age stuff might work as well as the basslines but they are hardly new and a lot of the songs are in lower than standard tuning. Also, I might be on the verge of losing my ‘stoner/doom fan’ credibility but I absolutely love the early We Are Scientists albums. With Love and Squalir is such a cool pop/rock album. Not a great bassist but the songs are so catchy and fun to listen to, with added bonus that the album sold quite well so any of the songs would fit in with a popular modern rock/covers set. I also don’t mind some of the Kasabian basslines. The basslines in some Elbow songs are pretty cool. Not new bands, but newer than Oasis.

When I was 22 my band at the time were asked play a charity evening gig in aid of breast cancer and testicular cancer awareness at a school that was close to where our singer grew up. Sounded innocent enough. Unfortunately when we got there we discovered that the ‘breast cancer awareness’ aspect consisted of 15-17 girls wearing only their bra and pants and 15-17 year old boys in their underwear. The adult supervisors were off duty police officers and parents of the children. None of them seemed to think that any of this was remotely weird or inappropriate. I was fairly disgusted and couldn’t wait to leave.

Have owned the Duality for a few years. It is very much a 'over the top' and raw fuzz. I don't think it is great for an 'always on' overdrive or slight fuzz effect. However for bass solos or for moments you want things to go all out of control or make your bass sound like a big distorted guitar it is so much fun. If you are happy with the amount of gain on offer, the pedal is actually fairly flexible as you can tailor the tone of the fuzz to your liking. you can't get less gain, you can only get less of the fuzz in the signal via the blend control. The Alpha Omega will offer more flexibility, but I don't need it. I use my B3K more, but I have more fun with the Duality.

I think I can agree with that.

If the auditioning singers are available on the same night then that is a fairly sensible idea. if you have the flexibility I would probably go for one singer per night, to allow for (a) more time to try out the singer if you are initially impressed or (b) more time to discuss the awfulness of the singer if they are terrible. Good luck!

I am left handed but just learned to play bass right handed. I am fairly ambidextrous in that my hand writing is equally illegible with either hand and that I am crap at golf irrespective of trying to play left handed or right handed. One of my absolute favourite players, Scott Reeder, plays left handed but with right handed bass turned upside down. I suppose this approach makes it easier for him to shop for basses.

Wal bass through a Gallien Krueger heads and massive cabs. I would if I could. Add in a few effects and Martin could get himself a gig in a Tool tribute band to earn a bit more money.

The GK1001RBii is a beast of an amp. I played a few shows with one. It is strange that it is so difficult to try Mesa bass gear in Scotland, considering that their UK distributors are in Glasgow (Westside Distribution), but there you go. I have seen a couple of Big Blocks in Scotland in the classifieds over the last few months, that is the only Mesa amp I would sell my Carbine for. Edit: by 'classifieds I also include Facebook 'Buy/sell forums'.

I think that the guy I bought my Carbine from (Largo) on here, ended up with D800, so you could try him. If you have any concerns on weight and want a valvey preamp sound I would probably avoid the Carbine range. The Walkabout is only 13 lbs or so, the rest are a good bit heavier. If you want valve preamp tone in a light-ish package I would recommend that over the D800. The Walkabout has limited headroom unless you run it through a bigger, more efficient cab though. In terms of the cabs, the Powerhouse cabs are heavy beasts, so if you have any concerns of weight whatsoever, I would suggest just getting the Subway range. The tone will be great and the added benefit will be that you can actually lift them. I have a Powerhouse 6x10 which I have no doubts will deliver more heft than a couple of Subway cabs stacked, but it is equally a pain to lift and move (it weighs 110lbs or so). These days nobody should ever need a 6x10, I don’t either I just wanted to own a big cab at least once in my life.

As a Carbine and Walkabout owner, my understanding is that the preamp of the D800 series is a similar design to the Carbine series: big, clean, fast attack, easy to dial in a good tone and with tonnes of headroom. This is different from the MPulse and Walkabout range which are trying to capture the sound of an all valve amp. I would doubt that the D800 will lack anything in terms of tone, heft or volume. It just won’t sound like the MPulse or a Walkabout, most likely because it wasn’t designed to sound like them.

In terms of sound very similar. The Metro has the hum cancelling pick ups, the NYC has true single coils. In the mix there isn’t much difference (other than the NYC has a low B). To my ears Metro is a bit more aggressive and modern sounding, though this is probably because whoever originally ordered my NYC wanted a more vintage sounding bass. The NYC is a bit more ‘bling’ with more flame and figuring. In terms of general fit and finish they are the same, other than my NYC has smaller lower profile vintage frets, the Metro has fairly chunky higher profile frets. I wouldn’t sell either of them! The Metro gets played more, simply because it has been my main bass since 2009 and I only got the NYC in 2016 and haven’t used it in my bands yet.

I own a non chambered Metro four string and a chambered NYC five string. The Metro is not a heavy bass by any means. I literally cannot imagine a situation where I would need a lighter four string bass. My NYC is 2009 or so and it is chambered. I think that the clambering started in the mid to late 2000s. Join Talkbass and ask a question on Sadowsky thread and you will get an answer, perhaps even from Roger Sadowsky himself. There are usually a few NYCs on the BC marketplace, so keep an eye out and you can get a used NYC at the cost of a new Metro.