Chris2112

Exciting times! Which model did you go for?

My brother has an Attitide Ltd II that is just incredible. One of the most awesome rock and funk basses I've ever played. These basses all kick donkey.

That is very interesting Joe, and I shouldn't be surprised that Mr. Heß came up with such a process. I had always assumed those ones were finished by flicking the paint over the finished bass and then clear coating, but to add the colour to the mix before curing is a better solution indeed. I had often thought about sending my bass back down to Mansons in Exeter for a refinish in a flat, bright yellow, but I rather like blue paint and feel as though I should keep it in the fashion in which it was seen in Stuart Clayton's video. If anyone is interested in Bogart basses, please check out the Facebook owner's group started by Karl Clews. It has a number of owners onboard already and we hope that it could become a useful repository of experience and shared enjoyment of these basses. Indeed, I was reliant on the advice of another Bogart owner to successfully restring my headed five string, so clearly there is some benefit to sharing what we know.

@Joe Krus That is simply magnificent and the fact you've kept it so long is testament to your enjoyment of it. I absolutely adore that colour scheme. No matter how you finish a Bogart, they look great. I love these arty paint finishes though, they're really stylish and distinctive and I know that with those Barts, that bass will sound great! @itu I think regarding innovation, it feels like there is little left to be found or innovated with. Certainly the bass world is not in a good place with this at the moment. Even ten or fifteen years ago, when I first started reading Talkbass, the discussion was more interesting and people were excited about boutique basses and high tech instruments. Sadly, the pervasive interest in vintage tat has changed the tone of that forum and every other place where we can talk bass guitars. Now it's all 'which scratchplate to go with my muddy sounding P bass'. Frankly, we reached a peak of material development in the 80's and carbon fibre still hasn't been surpassed. Until race cars are made of something lighter and stronger, carbon fibre will continue to be the best neck material around (IMO). I like Bogart's Blackstone material though.

I'm not surprised to hear these getting good reviews, Basstheworld.de have made no secret of the fact that they like Cort basses and I think it's great that Cort are not only on the up, but these 'budget' level instruments are now very serious and worthwhile propositions. Between Cort and Sire, players shopping for £500 basses have some really great options. As mentioned earlier, Cort have long been a massive ghostbuilder for big brand names and over the past few years they've really started building their own reputation. I can remember playing an early second generation Artisan 6 string and being really impressed at what it offered for the price, and had kept my eye on Cort basses since then. The brand is also now getting the attention of some great players. Frank Gambale has a signature acoustic guitar with them that looks and sounds outrageous and Jeff Berlin is the leading light on the bass division. On the subject of the Cort Rithimic Jeff Berlin model, I have had one coming up two years now and I believe it's the best instrument I've ever owned or played. I regularly flip-flop between thinking which bass in my collection I like the most and that seems to change from day to day but the Rithimic is the one that I consistently come back to and it feels like home. The fittings are all top-spec, with the Babicz bridge being an absolute work of art and the matched topwoods being gorgeous to look at. Interestingly, it has a true, accurate recreation of the original pickups that Bill Bartolini wound for Jeff that ended up in the parts bass he was usually seen playing in the 80's. The original specification for those pickups had been thought lost and though Jeff had subsequently continued to use Bartolini pickups, they were not to that original specification. Fortuitously, the original diagram was recovered (IIRC from the back of a drawer, as it happens) and so the Cort Rithimic is fitted with 'Jeff Berlin signature' Barts. I absolute love the sound of these pickups though I rarely need to use anything other than just the bridge with the tone rolled off ever so slightly from open. There is something special in the midrange on these pickups that just makes them sing and punch through. Jeff used his Rithimic to record 'Joe Frazier Round 3' and I think it sounds tremendous.

I had one of the Zebrano topped Rebop DLX 4 models years ago, that I bought from Sound Control in Preston for £549 brand new. Yes, they were great value for money at the time and it was an exceptionally good bass in every respect. Amazing tone and so easy to play. Long since gone, but fondly remembered.

Jacp recorded it with a fretted bass. I don't think I've ever known him play the piece on a fretless bass.

He's 23. Basstheworld.de wished him a happy 17th birthday on Facebook in 2013.

Interesting scam, I haven't heard of this. I usually try to transcribe by ear and use Songsterr for the really tough stuff. I'll admit that I did use Songsterr to get some of Jeff Berlin's 'Tears In Heaven' down as it's pretty wild and complex.

Went down the wrong chute - bloody hell! There must be warehouses and warehouses stuffed with undelivered parcels around the country as stuff so frequently goes missing. I ordered two winter tyres for the rear wheels of my XJ8 a couple of years ago through Camskill, delivered by (I think) DHL. Only one turned up, so I queried the missing tyre and was told that it was missing so Camskill sent another FOC. Weeks later, a delivery driver turned up with the 'missing' tyre stating that it had been mislaid at the depot and found during clearup, so it had been sent on to the customer as per the delivery label. I did wonder how something as obvious and large as a brand new tyre with labels on it could just be mislaid and not get redirected for delivery for weeks.

It sounds as though the issue was with the amp rather than the bass circuit, given that even after plugging a passive bass in you used it to adjust the equalization. I'd be hesitant to attribute the entire cause of your dissatisfaction to a 9v powered circuit in this case. There are so many variables at play.

It has an oddly dissonant and 'ugly' sound that doesn't sit well with my ear. It's also quite a chaotic sounding piece. Not to my taste.

I think you're getting your Fodera and Fedora confused too.

This may be something that they only found out about later - like after they'd built a load of basses only to find out they'd all warped and twisted after being shipped! Though it would suggest to me the wood wasn't properly dry and stable. Even a top builder can fall foul of bad materials.

I had an MX-5 back in the day (a 1998 NB model). As I remember, the boot was only fit for hold crisp packets. It wasn't very good. I had a Jaguar XJ that was much the same, it has a massive boot that was very low and shallow (X308 shape). On the other hand, I had an MR2 Turbo that had an amazing boot, right behind the engine bay. It was deeper than it was wide and could have probably taken a couple of PJB items. In short, buy a car with a bigger boot for load lugging!

Yes, you can see the quality in that. The well lit, high resolution images help the case too.

Whilst I must say that not all of their basses are for me (although I do really like the Sputnik), their configurator technology is great. It's a world class programme so far as I can see and the fact it is such a topic of conversation both here and on Talkbass proves it's worth. It's a great way of getting people to share builds and ideas and press on to make orders. Carvin/Kiesel should really get something like this on the go too. I'm surprised given Kiesel's 'ticky box custom' buisness model that they haven't already invested in a really great configurator tool like this.

Bass Direct are nothing if divisive. But I've never really had any complaints when dealing with them. The Ibanez SR3006 they shipped me a couple of years ago had very dead strings on it, which from a shop seems a bit of a blow. You'd expect that they could put fresh strings on and just charge a little more to the owner for the service, but then I suppose fresh strings mean nowt in the world of internet sales and it didn't stop me buying the bass - indeed, I usually wear out 'shop strings' pretty fast and get my own preferred sets on and the price was very reasonable to start with. I do wish they'd send an invoice with strings, though. It just feels 'right' to get a paper invoice with an internet order. I also 'bought' an EBS Billy Sheehan Overdrive pedal from them when I saw it on their used gear page. I got an email from Marcus the next day who immediately processed a refund, so no great loss - the disappointment of missing out on the pedal prompted me to do some proper research and I realised that the Deluxe version was a considerable uprgade for not much cash, so I bought one of those brand new instead. On the other hand, they sold my Pedulla Pentabuzz at some point in the past and I happened to stumble across the pictures of it on google images, which were still hosted by their website and searchable long after they had deleted the link to the advert from their website. So I was able to snatch those photos and later did a bit of colour correction to make up for the very dark photographs. I still have the originals on my phone - I can tell you that the metadata confirms they were taken with a Nikon camera! They also have an absolutely amazing selection of gear and a very healthy used gear page. They can easily shift used basses, which looks harder than ever judging by how slow the marketplace has been over the past year. Long may they continue to serve us.

I always knew it was Meshell but after so long I imagined he looked like that too!

Barts are easily my favourite pickups. Not strictly by choice, but three of my four basses have them in (and the Peavey Palaedium's pickups were obviously created to mimic Barts). They can be quite varied in sound depending on the bass they're in. My passive Cort Rithimic sounds nothing like my active Bogart. For my taste, the beauty of Bartolini pickups is that they sound great no matter what I try to do with them. On the subject of the big B string, I have never heard a low B with quite the impact or punch of my brother's Raro TM bass. It's an absolutely massive singlecut 35" bass, looks a bit like a Ken Lawrence. By god, that thing can shift some air but it really should do so as it's got more mass than some planets. It has some very trick active electronics that surely help it along. In terms of other basses with a great low B, the SKC Bogart Blackstone I have now is a high point for me. I've had graphite necked basses before but this really brings something else to the mix, more than just bright low B harmonics, it gives massive fundamental. The B string feels tonally incorporated, rather than being distinct from the rest of the bass in terms of timbre. Pedulla neck thru basses also always have an awesome low B, very smooth and present by dint of the neck-thru design. There are many ways to achieve a decent low B these days without having to resort to something like fanned frets. Some of the worst low B's I have ever heard have been on Fender basses. I don't know what it is that makes them so uniquely bad. Hollow, floppy sounding rubbish. I know this isn't the case with all Fender basses, mind.

Well, I didn't think you'd look like that! Points for staying with your profile picture.

I was laughing as I watched this the other day, as that buffoon rants about versatility before proceeding to show us several shades of mud.

I'd agree with your comments about final build quality. Sei are as good as it gets in that regard. Fit and finish to match any builder in the world on every bass they make.