NBD - Triad 5

[LowB_FTW]

I only went and bloody did it!

After this post in the NAMM ’25 thread, and my reply, I waited, and pondered. Then, once I’d seen that Merchant City Music had the Natural version in stock, I hmm’d and ahh’d a bit more, then sent off an email enquiring about the Silver Burst version.

As per this status update of mine, I went ahead with the order.

 

Enough words, here’s the PoiDH …

 

 

 

 

There's more images in this Flickr album … Reverend Triad 5

 

Mark

[LowB_FTW]

A few observations … The pickups have this odd (to me) looking lip on the top of them. This is neither good nor bad, just something I never expected.

 

 

The volume level from the bridge pickup (soloed) is pants. Very different to either the middle or neck pickups.

^^ Ignore the above, stupid person alert ^^

This isn’t really a big deal to me as I’d never be soloing that pickup anyway - I never run bridge pickups solo - but may be useful information for someone else reading this. I’d be much happier if, instead of solo bridge pickup, I could have all three pickups instead.

The neck/middle pickups sound great though, and the bridge with middle pickup works very well too, so there’s absolutely zero complaints about the voicing of pickups in the available combinations.

 

 

 

Da fuq is up with the fretboard overhang?!? I just don’t get it. It looks, I want to say vulnerable, or fragile, but I guess I just don’t understand why it was left like that and they didn’t have the neck go all the way under the fretboard.

 

 

Speaking of the neck, it’s absolutely gorgeous to play this bass. It’s effortless to travel up and down the neck whilst playing.

I was almost able to play it straight out of the box, there were very minor tuning adjustments needed, no issue with neck relief though, just tuner tweaks.

 

 

For the people wanting numbers, it’s a 34” scale, 19mm string spacing and 47mm nut.

 

Mark

Edited Saturday at 23:22 by LowB_FTW
Stupid Person Edit

[HeadlessBassist]

That looks really nice. I've been hanging my nose over Reverends for a while. Congrats on your lovely new bass

 

 

[tom.android]

Raising the bridge pickup closer to the strings or lowering the other two should help level out the volumes a bit?

[neepheid]

11 hours ago, LowB_FTW said:

A few observations … The pickups have this odd (to me) looking lip on the top of them. This is neither good nor bad, just something I never expected.

 

 

The volume level from the bridge pickup (soloed) is pants. Very different to either the middle or neck pickups.

This isn’t really a big deal to me as I’d never be soloing that pickup anyway - I never run bridge pickups solo - but may be useful information for someone else reading this. I’d be much happier if, instead of solo bridge pickup, I could have all three pickups instead.

The neck/middle pickups sound great though, and the bridge with middle pickup works very well too, so there’s absolutely zero complaints about the voicing of pickups in the available combinations.

 

 

 

Da fuq is up with the fretboard overhang?!? I just don’t get it. It looks, I want to say vulnerable, or fragile, but I guess I just don’t understand why it was left like that and they didn’t have the neck go all the way under the fretboard.

 

 

Speaking of the neck, it’s absolutely gorgeous to play this bass. It’s effortless to travel up and down the neck whilst playing.

I was almost able to play it straight out of the box, there were very minor tuning adjustments needed, no issue with neck relief though, just tuner tweaks.

 

 

For the people wanting numbers, it’s a 34” scale, 19mm string spacing and 47mm nut.

 

Mark

 

As a long-ish term owner of a 4 string Triad (almost 3 years now), let me put your mind at ease on a few points:

 

The fretboard overhang beyond the heel of the neck is not vulnerable - mine's still attached fine.  The overhang is probably so they can make 20 and 21 fret necks using the same neck dimensions and therefore have them be interchangeable depending upon what they need.  I've seen this done on some necks intended for Fender Shaped Objects to give them 21 frets also.

 

I've not noticed any weakness in my bridge pickup (in fact I remember remarking that it's one of the few bridge pickups I've actually enjoyed the sound of), hopefully you can adjust it out.

 

If you feel like you're missing options (like the ability to use all three pickups simultaneously or neck and bridge minus the middle pickup) then you're going to have to mod the bass.  I believe you can replace one of the pots with a push/pull which switches one of the pickups into the circuit independently of the 5 way switch, but I fitted a Freeway 10 way switch to mine.  This practically invisible mod replaces the stock 5 way switch and gives you the missing options l alluded to above (as well as a few of them in series in addition to parallel).  Dunno if you saw my NBD thread about the Triad, but in case you missed it, here it is (documenting how I got on with it in the beginning and showing me part way through fitting the Freeway switch) - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/467579-nbd-reverend-triad

 

Enjoy your new bass, it looks lovely in that silverburst!

 

[LowB_FTW]

16 hours ago, tom.android said:

Raising the bridge pickup closer to the strings or lowering the other two should help level out the volumes a bit?

The bridge pickup is already higher than the other two.

I've come to the conclusion that this may be down to my preferred playing position. I like to play at the end of the neck, in the space between neck and neck pickup.

 

Mark

[LowB_FTW]

13 hours ago, neepheid said:

The fretboard overhang beyond the heel of the neck is not vulnerable - mine's still attached fine.  The overhang is probably so they can make 20 and 21 fret necks using the same neck dimensions and therefore have them be interchangeable depending upon what they need.  I've seen this done on some necks intended for Fender Shaped Objects to give them 21 frets also.

Deliberate manufacturing process to accommodate differing fret combinations but maintaining neck profile across different ranges.

Why did this not occur to me. I mean, it does make perfect sense.

 

13 hours ago, neepheid said:

I've not noticed any weakness in my bridge pickup (in fact I remember remarking that it's one of the few bridge pickups I've actually enjoyed the sound of), hopefully you can adjust it out.

This was just an observation of mine. The neck pickup soloed sounds just great, as does the middle pickup.

The middle + bridge sounds great too. I've not tested my theory yet, but I do think my playing position is what caused the sound imbalance.

I'll test this at some point and report back.

 

13 hours ago, neepheid said:

If you feel like you're missing options (like the ability to use all three pickups simultaneously or neck and bridge minus the middle pickup) then you're going to have to mod the bass.  I believe you can replace one of the pots with a push/pull which switches one of the pickups into the circuit independently of the 5 way switch, but I fitted a Freeway 10 way switch to mine.  This practically invisible mod replaces the stock 5 way switch and gives you the missing options l alluded to above (as well as a few of them in series in addition to parallel).  Dunno if you saw my NBD thread about the Triad, but in case you missed it, here it is (documenting how I got on with it in the beginning and showing me part way through fitting the Freeway switch) - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/467579-nbd-reverend-triad

In the month it took between me placing my order and the bass arriving, I tried to consume all things Triad 5 that I could. Sadly, there was very little, I guess because it was all mostly said for the Triad 4, so I consumed a lot of that material too.

I remember reading your thread right at the start, and it did provide ideas.

I don't know that I want to go modding this bass just yet (if ever), but it has provided me with ideas reading about your 10 way switch.

I'm not sure I'd need exactly all those options, but at least I now know there are there and available should the desire ever arise.

 

13 hours ago, neepheid said:

Enjoy your new bass, it looks lovely in that silverburst!

Thank you, and yes, I'm so happy I held out for this finish rather than go for the natural finish.

I've put my Yamaha 1025x back into its case for the time being and the Reverend is on the stand getting almost nightly use at the moment.

Such a joy to play.

 

Mark

[LowB_FTW]

I revisited my perceived issue with the bridge pickup.

It could have been the battery in my headphone amp, it could have been my headphones not plugged into the headphone amp properly, or the amp plugged into the bass properly, or my playing position, but after making the changes any volume issue I originally had is gone.

In my happiness to have this sorted out, I never checked which was the actual cause, but I guess that doesn't really matter, because it was definitely operator error and not manufacturer error.

I have edited the post I made complaint about the pickup.

 

Mark