Well I've had a bit more experience with another MTD over the past month so I thought that I'd add another 2 cents worth.
The spec's of the MTD 635 I picked was as follows:
Tulipwood body
burled maple top
maple one piece neck
madagascar rosewood finger board
Bart p/u's
Bart pre
This was a much warmer instrument than the wenge/wenge neck/FB 535 that I previously owned. It still had that clear MTD tone but not nearly as harsh sounding. You could actually turn down the treble and the tone really smoothed out.
The workmanship was really good and the action on this bass was as low without fret buzz as I've seen.
I really liked the 3-position switch for the mid's (250/500/1000) and the MTD Bart system really had a nice sound.
The bass almost swayed me into keeping it but in the end I was contacted my one of the previous owners, got weak and sold it back to him (I'm such a nice guy!
).
I sold it just in time to pickup Sonny/radmin/Sonny's SKB 3006 (
don't feel sorry for this bass having been passed around a bit in it's early life. It's found a permanent home!!! ).
Having just finshed a gig with it this morning I also got chance to really compare the sound and playabiltiy of both instruments (while the MTD was still fresh in my head; also both also had a fresh set of Roscoe D'addario nickle strings installed).
The Roscoe 3006 setup with equally awesome action. Lowest that I've ever been able to get on a Roscoe without buzz (yeah I shimmed it. So what?
). Playability wasn't significantly different although it felt like the MTD might utilize a larger radius (resulting in a slightly flatter feeling FB). Both really felt good playing finger style and with a pick.
The tone on the other hand is significantly different. Even though this MTD was much warmer sounding than the previous wenge/wenge, it still had a very clear bright tone. The Roscoe is so much thicker sounding. I really liked the tone of the MTD in the lower register but in the upper register the MTD could get a bit thin sounding. Quite frankly, it wasn't until I played the Roscoe 3006 this morning that this really hit home. We played some tunes this morning that had quite a few licks above the 12th fret and the Roscoe really just sounded so thick. The sound man came up after the sound check this morning and commented on the phatness of the bass tone.
I think that it was XavidmanX that mentioned in a thread that he was surprised when I picked up the MTD 635. He said that if I got cut I'd probably bled Roscoe. I guess that he was right...
All in all I'd say while the MTD was sure a nice sounding and playing instrument, so is the Roscoe. And the bottom line is that I just like a thicker sounding tone.
As for me and my house, we play Roscoes!
