Muzz

Just to extend the metaphor slightly, I've got an ABZ4 (don't like 5s at all, despite owning a couple) and it fixes an issue I hadn't been aware existed much at all, or rather it improved something I'd taken for granted for all my bass-playing life. The multi-scale design benefits string tension across the strings - it plays beautifully, and switching back to my 'traditional' basses, excellent as they are, is a step backward. It's a good job Sheldon doesn't make many maple-boarded 4s, or else my bass GAS, which my ABZ has killed off almost completely, would be back with a vengeance. I'd recommend everyone try one, even a 4, even just the once.

While we're on about tonewoods, I've previously seen on the Warmoth site two P-bodies of the same size and wood (Black Korina IIRC) which were wildly different weights, I'm talking 40% heavier (and therefore denser), not just a bit. Taking the earlier points about good luthiers and wood selection, they'd obviously take this into account, but it does rather kibosh the generalised tonewood descriptions we see so much of.

As far as playing them goes, the first couple of frets are a little further apart, and the top half a dozen frets make chording, erm, a new experience, but everyone who's tried mine (and that's just about everyone who's seen it, it's the ultimate "Can I have a go mate?" bass) has been surprised at how unnoticeable the 'wonky' frets are when you're playing.

Fanned frets allow the 'thicker' strings to have a longer scale length, and therefore better tension. My Dingwall has been a revelation; I love it, in fact my other basses get played much less these days. The E is IIRC, 36.25", while the G is a standard 34". I'd recommend everyone try them, you may or may not get on with them (although they look much more unusual than they are to play), but they're certainly extraordinary. It may have something to do with the banjo frets and compound radius of the fretboard, whatever it is, it works for me.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1339676989' post='1692481'] Michael Tobias states his view very clearly. Break out your biggest megaphone. He can't be shouted down as easily. [/quote] You mean a man whose earnings are in part dependent on him using premium, exotic, allegedly tone-changing woods and charging accordingly? Imagine how many more basses he'd sell if he said "Pick a nice colour and pattern guys, the tone's mostly in the electrics"... Yeah, right: no ulterior motives there...

Maple is a harder wood than rosewood? Really? I know it's Wikipedia, but... [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test[/url] - Rosewood 1780, Hard Maple 1450, Silver Maple 700, Red Maple 950 Makes you wonder about all that "maple is a brighter sounding board" hoohah, too...

Maple all the way. But then I like a maple board on anything.

[quote name='kevin_lindsay' timestamp='1339255815' post='1685985'] Jean-Jacques Burnel from The Stranglers!!!!! I heard that fabulously grungy bass sound and thought "I want to do THAT"!!! [/quote] This, plus a little while earlier me and my mate (we were 13) decided we wanted to form a band, and he said "I want to play guitar, how about you be the bassist?". Yes folks, I was [i]that[/i] close to becoming a guitard...

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1339241662' post='1685746'] Wealthy tin-ears, and there are lots of them about. [/quote] Wasn't he in Noddy?

I think this lot are good for another three or four pages, easy. I managed about half a minute of each one, and apart from the arse-clenching awfulness, the main thing I've come away with is 'Blimey, they've got some money...'

The Supertone is a great bridge, I fitted one to my Epi bird in about 5 minutes, again, EBay from the US worked out about £75. I've got a pair of Seymour Duncan SSB4 pickups in mine, but I'm thinking of going the whole hog and putting some Lulls in there. Still got the original Epi black pups kicking around, too. 'Modify the hell out of it' you say? How about my list: new neck, new nut, new tuners, new wiring, new pots, new straplocks, new knobs, new pickups, new bridge. The wood of the body and the neck plate are original though...

[quote name='Rasta' timestamp='1338581985' post='1676902'] Another 94 slim necked green machine here... Love my Fortress, especially now it's passive with wizards ....great basses [/quote] Yep, the Fortress really suits the Wizards (or maybe I just don't like MECs). I'd say it'll be at least as good as a modern German made one, if not better. The secondhand prices of Warwicks are way below their quality. Dunno why.

My 93 Fortress has the best neck and lowest action of anything I've ever played, period. They're very slim necks, not like any other Warwick I've played. IMHO, YMMV, etc, etc. I should add that mine's an early one, with the non-volute headstock and the odd chamfers in the front of the body either side of the neck joint. It's still a bloody awful colour, mind...

I'd say there's a couple of issues: first, a change in tension will very probably need a tweak of the truss rod on the acoustic, so it depends whether you're happy with this sort of thing, and secondly, if you didn't like the tension on your electric, you won't like it on your acoustic. I just didn't like the response and sound of flats on my electrics, but I do on the acoustic. I'd recommend the flats to you, but I've no idea what they are as they came to me second-hand. One thing which put me off about the phosphor bronzes is the smell when they get older. Ew.

Now this may have been done to death, but not for a while, at least, so here we (possibly) go again... Just restrung my Michael Kelley Dragonfly, now the good weather's here and I can get out into the garden and play a bit for fun, and, tightarse that I am, couldn't face paying out for another set of strings, so I had a delve around and tried a few options - Warwick stainless rounds (ok, but a bit too zingy), some oldish nickels of dubious vintage (bit too dead, tbh), and then I found a set of flats I had lying around which I'd taken off a trade bass. I'm on record on here as disliking flats completely, but on the acoustic - wow. They suddenly make sense, tension and everything. Very nice indeed. I'd recommend trying flats on an acoustic to anyone, no matter how flatphobic.

Dingwall, a major improvement on the basic design, my go-to bass... oh, and my Fenderbird and FrankenP, because they're pretty much unique, and I built them. And my early Warwick Fortress has the best neck I've ever played. That's it for now, but I reserve the right to change my mind, although in the case of the Dingwall, I seriously doubt it...

[quote name='TRBboy' timestamp='1338357579' post='1673114'] Are your cabs the same brand, power handling and impedance? I would be quite surprised to hear a difference like that if they are. You're right though, the cab construction, type of drivers, etc, etc does all make a difference. But if you do have two "matching" cabs by the same manufacturer with different size drivers in, they will sound different. Mark at Bass Direct is a great guy, (and I know I'll get shot down for this!) but I think some people on here think that his opinion is gospel and is 100% right all the time. Don't forget he is a business man and is there to sell what's in his shop too. [/quote] Nope, they weren't, but then power handling and impedance refers to just the speakers, not the cab. Another way to illustrate this would be the Schroeders: the 1210 and the 1515 will sound more like each other than they will compared with other cabs, not because they have similar drivers (10", 12" and 15"), but because the cabs have similar designs. Put the two Celestion 15s in my Schroeder into a different cab, and they will sound very different. Even talking purely about speaker size, there's clearly a huge marketing influence, because, as has been thrashed out many times on here by people who know tons more about it than me, the DIAMETER of a modern speaker does not dictate the frequency of the sound it produces - 15s do not always produce more lows than 10s, so why would the mantra about 15s (bottom) and 10s (top) persist, if the manufacturers didn't keep making them for people who know what they like and like what they know? It's a conspiracy, I tell ya... As far as Mark at bass Direct is concerned, he talks more sense (and knows how to listen, a much under-regarded skill) than a lot of people I've met in music shops, but I don't think anyone is suggesting he knows everything. That's our job here on forums . For the record, he's never sold me a cab - I like Schroeders. As far as the OP is concerned, though, his shop is a great resource worth investigating. As an example, I'd never tried a Dingwall before I went there, but I also never realised how much I don't like the Shuttle series, or the Mark Bass Tubes, either. That saved me a few quid finding out. Lord knows, he might even suggest to the OP a 1x15, 4x10 stack...

Lord, that was awful.

[quote name='MrTaff' timestamp='1338221499' post='1671041'] They go back in their cases after soundcheck, when we're playing I use the same Hercules stands I use at home. [/quote] This ^

If that was being played in my garden, I'd shut the curtains.

[quote name='TRBboy' timestamp='1338250246' post='1671764'] I'm genuinely amazed that so many people can't get their heads around mixing 10's and 15's! People have been doing it for decades! You get the get the gut rumbling lows from the 15 and more punch and focus from the 10's. I've always had both! Used to have a Trace 4x10" and 1x15" stack for about 10 years, and now I've got a 2x10" markbass combo and 1x15" ext cab. [/quote] I've got a 2x15 which is punchier and has less lows than my last 4x10. It's much, much less to do with the speaker sizes and much, much more to do with the cabs. A visit to Bass Direct will demonstrate this admirably.

+1 for an afternoon (actually, with your budget go for the day) at Bass Direct. You'll learn an awful lot about what you like, what you don't like, and what you thought you liked but actually don't and what you thought you didn't like, but.... well, you see where I'm going here. Mark's a great guy, knows his onions, and with respect it sounds like you could use some very knowledgeable advice.