Author Topic: I've been checking out the competition. :-) (Read 161 times)

jazzyvee · « **on:** March 02, 2013, 03:14:28 PM »

Today I went down to the London bass show at Olympia and got to check out a few high end basses. Ritter roya , fodera, marleaux.
I must admit they all sounded very good, though quite similar tonally. however none made me feel like i wanted to dip into my pocket and buy. The marleaux had the most comfortable neck even though it was a six string and the others were fivers. The Ritter was the lightest at 3.6kg also had the lightest sound and i felt a bit bass shy. the neck was also surprisingly chunky too. Overall I'd say the fodera was the one that to me had the most versatile tone and that was around ?6500.

Maybe it's the bolt on aspect that gave them all a fender type sound but whilst I like to hear that sound in others it's not what I want for myself. So my alembic collection is pretty safe.

I also checked outa1978 series 1 medium scale pointy bass that was on commission sale for ?2750. I tried it out in one of those old style ampeg amps that look like an old valve tv sets without he screen. :-) Unfortunately there was no psu so only output the neck pickup which with the old strings didn't sound very impressive all.

Jazzyvee

(Message edited by Jazzyvee on March 02, 2013)

that_sustain · « **Reply #1 on:** March 02, 2013, 06:23:57 PM »

None of the bass companies have come up with a better bolt on design since the 2nd generation Fender Precision. I still think Fender is making the best passive pickups, also.

I've never played a Ritter. They look kinda fragile.

One other high end company I do like is Spector...which would sound much better with Alembic pickups and preamp.

JuancarlinBass · « **Reply #2 on:** March 02, 2013, 06:42:28 PM »

Speaking of fragile, the comment made me remember the Pedulla Buzz bass. I've always thought the thing could broke if one rocked it hard. Remember the tiny upper horn?

sonicus · « **Reply #3 on:** March 02, 2013, 06:51:13 PM »

Bartolini makes the the best Passive Bass Guitar pickups in my opinion and in my opinion Alembic make the best Active Bass Guitar pickups and electronics. .I replaced the stock Fender pickups from a USA Fender Jazz Bass with Bartolini 9W4 pickups and everyone that heard it liked the sound, although most folks prefer my Alembic Sound .Everyone has a different set of EARS , so Best is really quite subjective terminology in my opinion. I also have a Fretless Pedulla Buzz 4 that has active Bartolini PJ configuration that I may very likely replace with Alembic PJ Activators . As far as the upper horn on the BUZZ BASS , I once thought the same but after owning one the fear of breaking demised providing one handles the instrument with Care. (not for bashing about)

(Message edited by sonicus on March 02, 2013)

JuancarlinBass · « **Reply #4 on:** March 02, 2013, 08:08:33 PM »

Absolutely agreed. I've switched pups with Barts on 3 of my passive basses already, and it's a new life for them, and have put EMGs on another couple and it's... well, not bad, but DEFINITELY not Alembic. So... Barts for passive, Alembic for Active, period. I'm still curious about the Audere preamp for a Jazz, tho... been thinking about it for some time and every time I get back to the idea of keeping the Jazzes passive...

jazzyvee · « **Reply #5 on:** March 03, 2013, 06:21:34 AM »

My girlfriend came to the show with me and whilst I was trying the Ritter basses she got into a conversation with Jens Ritter which turned out to be very interesting as he reiterated the same thing that the seller of my most recent alembic bass was telling me about. In Germany at the moment there are a lot of collectors buying and having custom high end basses and guitars made as investments. He has had a lot of these collectors ordering highly specified custom instruments from him. When she asked what he thought about it, he said he was not sure how he felt about it because on the one hand he would rather they were being used to make music, but on the other hand, his bank account is very happy.

Jazzyvee

811952 · « **Reply #6 on:** March 04, 2013, 01:13:52 PM »

A friend of mine from high school builds the Fodera preamps with Mike Pope (marketed also as the Mike Pope FlexCore Preamp), and I've got one in one of my Lakland basses. It's a fantastic piece of kit that I'm very happy with, but for all the eq possibilities it's still not as flexible as the filter/Q combination. The filter/Q per pickup is the thing that really sets the Alembics apart, to my ear, because you can independently dial-in completely different tonality per pickup. The Fodera/Pope system is really really nice, but the Alembic gives me more choices.

John