Acinonyx from Nordstrand

[yorks5stringer]

Anyone tried flats on these and if so which brand/type?

[Obrienp]

3 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

Anyone tried flats on these and if so which brand/type?

There seems to be a lot of love over on TalkBass for Low Tension Flats. I assume they mean LaBella for the LTFs. Personally the idea of LTFs on a short scale sounds like a recipe for lots of rattle but there you go. I have also seen a few pics of Acinonyx fitted with black nylon flats but I have no idea what make.

 

I haven’t got my Acinonyx yet, so I can’t vouch for these suggestions. I would be interested to hear what you try and how they work.

 

[yorks5stringer]

3 hours ago, Obrienp said:

There seems to be a lot of love over on TalkBass for Low Tension Flats. I assume they mean LaBella for the LTFs. Personally the idea of LTFs on a short scale sounds like a recipe for lots of rattle but there you go. I have also seen a few pics of Acinonyx fitted with black nylon flats but I have no idea what make.

 

I haven’t got my Acinonyx yet, so I can’t vouch for these suggestions. I would be interested to hear what you try and how they work.

 

I asked Marcus at BDirect and he recommended any La Bella: but they do light, medium, and standard tension, like you am now unsure which may be best. I saw the pic on TB of the Nylons as well but did not want to go down that route even though Status do a very cheap set and have them in stock too!

[Obrienp]

10 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

I asked Marcus at BDirect and he recommended any La Bella: but they do light, medium, and standard tension, like you am now unsure which may be best. I saw the pic on TB of the Nylons as well but did not want to go down that route even though Status do a very cheap set and have them in stock too!

I don’t know. Instinct tells me light tension would not be ideal on a shortie but I have to admit I haven’t tried. I have Labella Black Nylon tapes on a fretless acoustic bass and they are a bit slappy compared to the original round wound bronze D’Addarios. I have LaBella standard tension flats on a solid bodied custom shortie and they feel quite stiff compared to the D’Addario Nickel round wounds I had on it before. Maybe medium tension might be worth a try but I guess not if you really dig in and like a super low action. The trouble is with LaBellas, if you get the wrong ones it’s quite an expensive mistake!

[yorks5stringer]

I'll jump continents and see what TB have to say, if I can remember my password and login.....! See ya over there!

[LukeFRC]

6 hours ago, Obrienp said:

I don’t know. Instinct tells me light tension would not be ideal on a shortie but I have to admit I haven’t tried. I have Labella Black Nylon tapes on a fretless acoustic bass and they are a bit slappy compared to the original round wound bronze D’Addarios. I have LaBella standard tension flats on a solid bodied custom shortie and they feel quite stiff compared to the D’Addario Nickel round wounds I had on it before. Maybe medium tension might be worth a try but I guess not if you really dig in and like a super low action. The trouble is with LaBellas, if you get the wrong ones it’s quite an expensive mistake!

low tension Labella aren't that much different than normal round wounds, and they aren't as flexible as something like TI jazz flats. I imagine you would be fine? 

[Stingray64]

On 12/04/2022 at 16:39, yorks5stringer said:

Anyone tried flats on these and if so which brand/type?

I put some Daddario Chromes on, 40-100, that I had lying around. A bit lighter than I would have chosen but man they work soo well! I don't normally like chromes too much but the way the work with this bass (maybe because shortscale maybe pickups) is you get all the frequencies that sound lovely in the mix and nothing else. I have to high and low pass it far less if at all than any of my other basses.

 

So ye definitely try flatwounds, and chromes are a good bet!

[GazWills]

I picked up one of these a few weeks back from bass direct, with flats. it's a fantastic sounding bass. Sadly, I'm struggling with the size of the thing, not the scale length, more the narrow neck, but hopefully I'll get used to it with time! 

[yorks5stringer]

8 minutes ago, GazWills said:

I picked up one of these a few weeks back from bass direct, with flats. it's a fantastic sounding bass. Sadly, I'm struggling with the size of the thing, not the scale length, more the narrow neck, but hopefully I'll get used to it with time! 

Interesting, in that I have huge hands and have no issues with the neck and have a variety of basses including a wide 5 string.  I did read of others who had issues with the transition on a Nordy, so you are not alone!

[lee650]

2 hours ago, GazWills said:

I picked up one of these a few weeks back from bass direct, with flats. it's a fantastic sounding bass. Sadly, I'm struggling with the size of the thing, not the scale length, more the narrow neck, but hopefully I'll get used to it with time! 

If you keep struggling let me know! I've developed wrist issues, so have been thinking of getting one.

[Obrienp]

On 13/04/2022 at 15:57, yorks5stringer said:

I'll jump continents and see what TB have to say, if I can remember my password and login.....! See ya over there!

How are you getting on with the LTFs on the Cat?
 

Fingers crossed I will be getting mine in the next few days; Bass Gallery got it yesterday and I paid the balance, so I am hoping they will send it before the Bank Holiday.

 

I’ll give it a run with the standard round wounds but I suspect I might be wanting to go down the flats route in the not too distant future.

[yorks5stringer]

11 hours ago, Obrienp said:

How are you getting on with the LTFs on the Cat?
 

Fingers crossed I will be getting mine in the next few days; Bass Gallery got it yesterday and I paid the balance, so I am hoping they will send it before the Bank Holiday.

 

I’ll give it a run with the standard round wounds but I suspect I might be wanting to go down the flats route in the not too distant future.

Fine, they just seem like normal flats to me, keep on meaning to compare them to the ones on my Telecaster Bass although one could argue it's not a valid comparison due to scale length differences...

Good luck on getting your Cat, not sure if the whole country will grind to a halt on Thursday or is it more likely Friday?

[Obrienp]

10 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

Fine, they just seem like normal flats to me, keep on meaning to compare them to the ones on my Telecaster Bass although one could argue it's not a valid comparison due to scale length differences...

Good luck on getting your Cat, not sure if the whole country will grind to a halt on Thursday or is it more likely Friday?

How about tone wise? Is the Cat better with flats? Difficult to answer I guess because tone is subjective.

 

UPS are meant to be delivering some time today🤞 But I have to be out for a fair chunk, unfortunately. Sod’s law!

[yorks5stringer]

Just now, Obrienp said:

How about tone wise? Is the Cat better with flats? Difficult to answer I guess because tone is subjective.

 

UPS are meant to be delivering some time today🤞 But I have to be out for a fair chunk, unfortunately. Sod’s law!

Smoother sound, not as edgy as rounds..my subjective opinion!

[Obrienp]

NBD. Well finally, here it is, still with the protective plastic. It’s in Lake Placid Blue that turns out to be a bit lighter than I was expecting but still looks good IMO. It got the thumbs up from the other half, so it must be good.
 

After a very quick plug in, I am pleased to report that it seems pretty quiet for dual single coils. Lots of useful tones, although I can’t imagine wanting to use the deep treble cut that often but I’ve only tried it through my practice rig: Warwick Gnome and a Barefaced One10, so it might be more useful at gig volumes. I was surprised to find it pretty much in tune: did it come all the way from the USA without going out of tune? The only QA issue I have spotted is that the jack socket retaining nut was loose.

[Obrienp]

So, I have had my Acononyx for a bit over a week now and have been able to give it a reasonable try out, although not with either of the bands I play in. It really has got a good range of useful tones available from those buttons. That bridge pickup is really usable on its own too. At the moment I think I am going to keep the round wounds on it. I feel it would be too dark with tapes or flats and I like that bit of growl they are giving. All in all, I am very pleased with it so far.

[nordygrrl]

Just poppin in to say hey! I spend more time over on TB but would like to get aquainted over here.

[Mykesbass]

51 minutes ago, nordygrrl said:

Just poppin in to say hey! I spend more time over on TB but would like to get aquainted over here.

Welcome to this thread and to the site.

[Obrienp]

Wow, quite a while since this thread was active. Just thought I would post a pic of the guts of my Nordstrand, which may be of interest to owners who haven’t opened their bass up yet. I decided to change the strings on mine after over two years! The original D’Addarios were still going strong but I had a set of Labella flats lying around, which I wanted to try.

 

I decided to augment the shielding with some copper tape, as there was a bit of hum (not that bad). There was a small piece of copper tape already, which was bridging the graphite paint shielding to the foil on the pickguard. My efforts haven’t really made it perceptibly quieter TBH. I probably should have covered the whole cavity but I was about to run out of tape.

 

A few points to note: the wheel to adjust the truss rod at the bottom of the neck is retained by a cross head screw. I didn’t know it at the time I had the guard off but there was no movement left to tighten the neck, which became necessary with the extra tension of the flats. When I reassembled everything and put the flats on, I thought the rod had jammed. This led me to take it to my local luthier who discovered that by loosening the retaining screw, you can get loads more adjustment in the rod (phew, relief) but you have to remove the pickguard to do it, which is a pain. There isn’t enough room to get a cross head driver in there without damaging the pickguard and the front pickup cover. Unfortunately, the StewMac Tele neck adjustment wrench won’t work because it’s for straight slot screws.

 

Point two: the luthier told me he has had a number of Acinonyx in because the pickup height adjustment would no longer work. If you look at the picture you can clearly see the underside of the pickups. The screws go directly into the metal base of the pickups. This quickly loses its thread apparently and in the worst cases, the pickups just drop down under pressure from the springs. It hasn’t happened to mine but I have hardly touched them. Larger screws could work as a fix for a while, before the fault repeats itself. A permanent fix involves attaching captive nuts to the base plate, which is very fiddly, or rebuilding the pickup with a new base plate. The luthier makes his own pickups and he was not very complimentary about the build quality of the Acinonyx examples. That said, I like the way they sound and touch wood, I haven’t had any issues with mine. 
 

BTW, said luthier has also had one case of the switches failing. Again I’ve been lucky so far but I think, if it did happen, I would be inclined to replace the pickup selector with a 4 position Strat/Tele style switch (I don’t need a mute) and the tone with a rotary Varitone switch but of course, I would need a custom pickguard to be made.