EBMM Joe Dart 2 is here

[warwickhunt]

12 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

 

In terms of the value of basses, I believe the Joe Dart signature basses have some level of higher quality materials and given the manner of Musicman production probably exceed the standard of a Fender team-built Custom Shop instrument - such as the Pino Precision - a very standard instrument with an upgraded neck which retails for significantly more than a JD signature. 
 

 

 

What are they?  I'm a firm MM/EB fan and I've yet to see a sub standard/Friday afternoon bass (unlike Fender) but I fail to see what is 'superior' on this model over a stock USA bass.  

[Sibob]

3 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

For instance I very much doubt that many people here in Denmark know who they are, unless specifically musically interested or specifically interested in bass, and I dare claim that then more would know Tony Levin is, or at least King Crimson or Peter Gabriel, and that regardless of age.

This is so funny.

 

So many responses here which are essentially “I don’t like a band which proves NO-ONE else has heard of them”.

 

I’m not even young anymore (40 next year because you care), but I at least understand that my tastes do not dictate what is popular 😂.

 

Come on, y’all are better than this surely?

 

I’ll state it again just for those at the back. Vulfpeck have 1.3million different people listening to their songs on a monthly basis, JUST on Spotify, ignoring all other platforms.

No that’s not as much as Peter Gabriel, who’s probably been around for, what? 40 years longer probably?!

But it is half a million more people than King Crimson. So it’s official that KC are no longer ‘legendary’.

 

Si

[drTStingray]

9 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

 

What are they?  I'm a firm MM/EB fan and I've yet to see a sub standard/Friday afternoon bass (unlike Fender) but I fail to see what is 'superior' on this model over a stock USA bass.  

I believe select swamp ash body (they do virtually no basses in this material as it’s now a scarce wood); Select flamed maple neck with matched fretboard. 

[drTStingray]

22 minutes ago, Russ said:

I think they're right to keep their signature basses to a minimum. 

 

Apparently a big part of the reason Flea jumped from MM to Modulus back in the day because EBMM wouldn't make him a signature bass. And he's far, far more visible than Dart, Myung, Commerford, etc. 

 

Although, if they're considering it, I'll have a Bongo 6 in red and black.

The reason for the Flea departure, I believe is his ‘advisers/lawyers’ wanted the bass (Stingray) renamed Flea. Although I’ve also heard it was because he wanted a graphite neck version - (which Musicman have only done once since the 80s - the NAMM 100 bass (100 made) - I’m still waiting patiently to get one of those - nearly happened once or twice but not yet 😀)

[lemmywinks]

36 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

I thought Low End Lobster’s Joe Dart 11 had to be returned for rectification of the pick up output (I must say I haven’t followed this tbh so didn’t hear the outcome). 
 

 

I think it was returned and they said it was within spec.

[Baloney Balderdash]

5 hours ago, Sibob said:

This is so funny.

 

So many responses here which are essentially “I don’t like a band which proves NO-ONE else has heard of them”.

 

I’m not even young anymore (40 next year because you care), but I at least understand that my tastes do not dictate what is popular 😂.

 

Come on, y’all are better than this surely?

 

I’ll state it again just for those at the back. Vulfpeck have 1.3million different people listening to their songs on a monthly basis, JUST on Spotify, ignoring all other platforms.

No that’s not as much as Peter Gabriel, who’s probably been around for, what? 40 years longer probably?!

But it is half a million more people than King Crimson. So it’s official that KC are no longer ‘legendary’.

 

Si

 

Yes, cause as we all know popularity (read quantity) equals quality, just look at Top 40, absolute gold, cream of the cream of music, the true avantgarde, pure genuine genius, all classics that will be listened to for decades to come by true music lovers, one only has to listen to Kanye Wests version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", which is at least 100 times better than Freddie Mercury's, to know this is for a fact true, and that Kanye West is indeed the greatest legendary rock star who ever lived, and that Queen should be stripped from all they ever achieved and instead have all the respect and space in music history that they've earned given to Kanye West, as he rightfully truly deserves.

 

Just like Joe Dart's "Dean Town" displays a musicianship at least a thousand times greater than Jaco Pastorius's "Teen Town", the number of real teenage listeners of the respective songs here should speak for them self, not only as to which is the better song and which holds the greatest musical qualities of the two, but also as to which of them truly deserves it's place in music history and which do most definitely not.

 

It is time for "Dean Time" to be declared legendary at the expense of "Teen Town", which from this day on shall be declared no longer legendary, along with Jaco Pastorius, in favor of Joe Dart! 

 

No doubt Vulfpeck if any has the power needed to rewrite music history.

 

From scratch!

 

Mozart have had a central role in music history for way longer than plenty, way overdue time to erase his contribution to music history for good and for his spot in it to be passed on to OneRepublic!

 

You see, there is in fact such a thing as a limit to just how long you can be legendary before your contribution to history is no longer legendary but just boring old news that only boring people wants to listen to/read, and who wants to be boring?

 

I'd say burn all the history books, they are just full of old boring news anyway, and write some new ones with a more modern and action packed story involving some reality stars and YouTube/Instagram influencers, and just watch the amount of readers sky rocket in no time!

 

For instance I'd suggest replacing the story about Napoleon and Waterloo with a "most popular YouTube influencer Vs most popular Instagram influencer" kind of story, like same concept as the "Alien Vs Predator" movie sort of thing, though the latest season of Paradise Hotel I think probably might work well for this too, cause honestly who wants to read some old boring story about some old boring dead megalomanic French guy, hello, sooo boooring!

 

 

Yes, I see now clearly what you are saying Sideshow Bob, very acute and insightful point, thank you for granting me this pricelessly unique insight to the inner workings of a hipster Vulfpeck fan's mind. 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Baloney Balderdash

[Doctor J]

Why must it be one bassist vs another? Can't they both be appreciated?

[Guest]

There’s only one way to solve this. FIGHT!

[Russ]

Most King Crimson fans are older, and still listen to their music on physical media (not to mention that KC only permitted their music to become available on streaming services less than two years ago). Same with Gabriel. Older demographic who still listen to CDs and vinyl, and who probably listen to Radio 4 in the car rather than music. 

 

Dream Theater have a rabid fanbase who buy physical media, and lots and lots of merch, whose age ranges from teens to sixty-somethings. Same thing with RATM. Remember when they had the Christmas no.1 a few years back? 

 

So I can't really take a statement that a band has had a large number of listens on Spotify as evidence of their "relevance" particularly seriously. 

 

Vulfpeck are a fun band. I like their live performances - they have a lot of energy and I like their staging. Joe Dart is a good bass player who deserves a signature instrument. But, if the instrument isn't very good, it makes the people who make it look bad. I don't think it was a good business decision for EBMM to work with him (or, more likely, the band's drummer who is in charge of all their business dealings). 

 

Commerford's signature Stingray is a regular Stingray with a built-in retractable ramp. Myung's Bongo is relatively close to the regular 6-string Bongo, but with passive electronics and a narrower neck (borrowed from the 5-string) with a funky dual-wood fretboard. Neither are as much of a departure from their stock instruments as Joe Dart's bass. When you start taking features away, you limit your audience. Instead of going so barebones, they could have just had a regular, natural finish MM Sterling with no scratchplate, but retaining the electronics and maybe adding active/passive switching. 

 

I dunno. The whole thing just seems hugely ill-conceived to me. 

[Russ]

(dupe, sorry)

Edited July 28, 2022 by Russ

[Russ]

3 hours ago, drTStingray said:

The reason for the Flea departure, I believe is his ‘advisers/lawyers’ wanted the bass (Stingray) renamed Flea. Although I’ve also heard it was because he wanted a graphite neck version - (which Musicman have only done once since the 80s - the NAMM 100 bass (100 made) - I’m still waiting patiently to get one of those - nearly happened once or twice but not yet 😀)

I don't think the graphite neck thing would have been a dealbreaker. Up until very recently, Status made replacement MM necks - the ones on the old 1980s Cutlass basses were made by Modulus, so I'm sure EBMM could have just paid Status to make some if it would have made a graphite Flea Bass possible. And wasn't it Status who made the necks for the NAMM 100 basses? 

 

I do remember hearing the stories about him wanting the whole Stingray line renamed to "Flea Basses", but I think even he isn't quite that arrogant! At the time, EBMM didn't do signature basses for anybody and they didn't want to start doing them, even though they'd been doing signature guitars for a while for Steve Lukather, Albert Lee, EVH and so on. 

 

[drTStingray]

56 minutes ago, Russ said:

Commerford's signature Stingray is a regular Stingray with a built-in retractable ramp.

Correction on this - the Tim C signature was four models, two with active electronics (a long and a short scale) and two with passive electronics, series/parallel/single coil selection, passive tone control and cut/boost (a long and a short scale) - all the models have the retractable ramp and through body stringing with mute assembly. There were fifty of each made. 
 

I have a passive long scale from the series (that variant sold out within two or three days) it is natural ash with an ebony board - it’s sufficiently different from any other Stingray available, and also sounds great - it’s also very light (8 lbs). 
 

I quite like the original Joe Dart signature bass - which is a stripped down Sterling with select woods (conceived by Vulfpeck as a posh version of the cheap Robelli copy Musicman which Joe Dart used on a couple of recordings). 

[tegs07]

Is this 8 pages of bickering about whether some bass player is good enough/popular enough to have a signature bass? I would hazard a guess that as EB have released a second Joe Dart signature bass that they got enough publicity/money from the first one so that answers the questions for you all. As for whether Vulfpeck or Dart are legends or if the Signature basses are worth the money I will leave that up to the people who buy them and listen to the band. 

[Sibob]

31 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

Is this 8 pages of bickering about whether some bass player is good enough/popular enough to have a signature bass? I would hazard a guess that as EB have released a second Joe Dart signature bass that they got enough publicity/money from the first one so that answers the questions for you all. As for whether Vulfpeck or Dart are legends or if the Signature basses are worth the money I will leave that up to the people who buy them and listen to the band. 

100% this!

 

Si

[ezbass]

9 hours ago, Doctor J said:

Why must it be one bassist vs another? Can't they both be appreciated?

Indeed. This has descended into the bass equivalent of ‘my dad’s bigger than your dad’ territory.

 

6 hours ago, Russ said:

At the time, EBMM didn't do signature basses for anybody and they didn't want to start doing them, even though they'd been doing signature guitars for a while for Steve Lukather, Albert Lee, EVH and so on. 

 

This has puzzled me for years. Given we’ve been mentioning popularity, the likes of Albert Lee and Steve Morse (both of whom I admire greatly) are pretty niche, yet their signature models exist; go figure. Going back to Tony Levin, it’s occurred to me that he’s been a MusicMan user for longer than most and perhaps, after the OLP model, he’s not comfortable with a signature model for some reason.

 

[tegs07]

23 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Indeed. This has descended into the bass equivalent of ‘my dad’s bigger than your dad’ territory.

 

This has puzzled me for years. Given we’ve been mentioning popularity, the likes of Albert Lee and Steve Morse (both of whom I admire greatly) are pretty niche, yet their signature models exist; go figure. Going back to Tony Levin, it’s occurred to me that he’s been a MusicMan user for longer than most and perhaps, after the OLP model, he’s not comfortable with a signature model for some reason.

 

Tony Levin always strikes me as someone happy enough making a decent living without all the stress and drawbacks that being centre stage brings. I would imagine that having a signature model involves some element of pimping yourself out and dealing with media types. Perhaps at his stage of career he can’t be bothered with all that guff. 

[ossyrocks]

I’m new to bass, having only picked it up late last year. What I do know is that sticking Vulfpeck on YouTube, through my TV and hifi, and jamming along in the lounge is probably the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on for a while.

Sure, I can’t play like JD, but…….. I can do my own thing alongside, and it makes me grin ear to ear.

Just sayin.

[Eldon Tyrell]

6 hours ago, drTStingray said:

Correction on this - the Tim C signature was four models, two with active electronics (a long and a short scale) and two with passive electronics, series/parallel/single coil selection, passive tone control and cut/boost (a long and a short scale) - all the models have the retractable ramp and through body stringing with mute assembly. There were fifty of each made. 
 

I have a passive long scale from the series (that variant sold out within two or three days) it is natural ash with an ebony board - it’s sufficiently different from any other Stingray available, and also sounds great - it’s also very light (8 lbs). 

The Timmy C signature basses are truly special. I also have the long scale and passive version. Killer bass. How many passive Stingrays are out there? Further, the natural one has black hardware. Again, how many natural stingrays with black hardware are out there? So, passive SR, natural/black combo, height adjustable finger ramp, strings-thru bridge with mutes and old school logo (ok, only a little thing, but every little helps, right? ; -) - quite a lot of features for a signature bass. 

 

[ped]

I’ve never really understood signature basses. The player goes and makes a reputation with a ‘standard’ bass, gets ‘legendary’(!) then designs one that’s similar but different to the one they used 🤔

[4000]

1 hour ago, ezbass said:

Indeed. This has descended into the bass equivalent of ‘my dad’s bigger than your dad’ territory.

 

 

 

Internet Forums. Nuff said. 😁 

[OliverBlackman]

2 hours ago, ped said:

I’ve never really understood signature basses. The player goes and makes a reputation with a ‘standard’ bass, gets ‘legendary’(!) then designs one that’s similar but different to the one they used 🤔

janek Gwizdala has given his take on having a signature bass in a recent podcast. He goes through potential benefits for a musician and benefits he experienced.

[ped]

1 minute ago, OliverBlackman said:

janek Gwizdala has given his take on having a signature bass in a recent podcast. He goes through potential benefits for a musician and benefits he experienced.

Yeah I'm sure these players aren't immune to GAS like any of us but if I idolised a player and wanted to sound like them I'd probably want to buy the bass they used to record the music that influenced me, rather than a new one they might use a bit from now on. Probably a simplistic view but I know what I mean in my own head anyway! Maybe that's why people like Tony Levin don't have one - they wouldn't change anything.

[Cuzzie]

I get what peeps mean about sig basses, and the comment about actually their original recording Bass would be the one to find for emulation, but it can be done well - maybe the sig bass has a specific pick up - you could get a standard P and drop in the pick up they like, some people don’t feel comfortable doing that.

 

I have a MarloweDK from Sandberg which is a sig Jazz - neck profile is different from the standard and suits me, similarly the pick ups are in the 70s position, which is not common now - so I could spend large amounts getting a 70s bass etc. and there were some dog years there ( a few boat anchors) and also have the problems of an older bass, or get the modern (but old) sig model - there will be other examples as such

[Sibob]

17 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

 

Yes, cause as we all know popularity (read quantity) equals quality, just look at Top 40, absolute gold, cream of the cream of music, the true avantgarde, pure genuine genius, all classics that will be listened to for decades to come by true music lovers, one only has to listen to Kanye Wests version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", which is at least 100 times better than Freddie Mercury's, to know this is for a fact true, and that Kanye West is indeed the greatest legendary rock star who ever lived, and that Queen should be stripped from all they ever achieved and instead have all the respect and space in music history that they've earned given to Kanye West, as he rightfully truly deserves.

 

Just like Joe Dart's "Dean Town" displays a musicianship at least a thousand times greater than Jaco Pastorius's "Teen Town", the number of real teenage listeners of the respective songs here should speak for them self, not only as to which is the better song and which holds the greatest musical qualities of the two, but also as to which of them truly deserves it's place in music history and which do most definitely not.

 

It is time for "Dean Time" to be declared legendary at the expense of "Teen Town", which from this day on shall be declared no longer legendary, along with Jaco Pastorius, in favor of Joe Dart! 

 

No doubt Vulfpeck if any has the power needed to rewrite music history.

 

From scratch!

 

Mozart have had a central role in music history for way longer than plenty, way overdue time to erase his contribution to music history for good and for his spot in it to be passed on to OneRepublic!

 

You see, there is in fact such a thing as a limit to just how long you can be legendary before your contribution to history is no longer legendary but just boring old news that only boring people wants to listen to/read, and who wants to be boring?

 

I'd say burn all the history books, they are just full of old boring news anyway, and write some new ones with a more modern and action packed story involving some reality stars and YouTube/Instagram influencers, and just watch the amount of readers sky rocket in no time!

 

For instance I'd suggest replacing the story about Napoleon and Waterloo with a "most popular YouTube influencer Vs most popular Instagram influencer" kind of story, like same concept as the "Alien Vs Predator" movie sort of thing, though the latest season of Paradise Hotel I think probably might work well for this too, cause honestly who wants to read some old boring story about some old boring dead megalomanic French guy, hello, sooo boooring!

 

 

Yes, I see now clearly what you are saying Sideshow Bob, very acute and insightful point, thank you for granting me this pricelessly unique insight to the inner workings of a hipster Vulfpeck fan's mind. 

 

So weird

 

 

[Sibob]

3 hours ago, ped said:

Yeah I'm sure these players aren't immune to GAS like any of us but if I idolised a player and wanted to sound like them I'd probably want to buy the bass they used to record the music that influenced me, rather than a new one they might use a bit from now on. Probably a simplistic view but I know what I mean in my own head anyway! Maybe that's why people like Tony Levin don't have one - they wouldn't change anything.

I’m exactly the same! What’s a given sig bass based on? I want that haha 

 

Si