I have made a purchase that is not fulfilling the plan and looking for advice.
Facts: Last year I bought a Tanatos Claymore 7 from Japan and since then have used it quite a bit. It doesn't have the most well-rounded tone but it cuts through the mix and I really like the mids on it. It is SUPER hot output and opening up the tone knobs pushes the amp into distortion, so I tend to keep them set around 'half' or on '6'.
The band I use it in plays in multiple tunings with the kind of riffs that sound better with open strings, so I tend to switch basses during a set. The problem is that my other basses don't match the tone of the Claymore so I keep wanting to use that instead.
My solution was to buy another Claymore. When it arrived, it looked even better than my last one, but the tone is weaksauce in comparison. According to the serial numbers, my last bass was built in 2011 and this one is from 2014 and in the meantime they switched pickup suppliers to Kent Armstrong (previous pups are a mystery manufacturer that was probably supplying them on the dl). Supposedly the pre-amp on both basses are the same so that should not be the issue BUT the tone knobs are doing absolutely nothing so I have a possibility of bad wiring. I should clarify that the bass does not sound bad through an amp, just very quiet compared to my other basses rather than the louder that I was aiming for.
I'm not interested in shipping the bass all the way back to Japan, so I brought both basses to a local shop to get a comparison and a verdict.
Questions for this community:
1) Does anyone here use Kent Armstrongs? Are they lower output than other pickups? The claim I got from Japan is that they switched manufacturers to fix a tone deficiency in the older pups, so is it possible that the tone knobs aren't hooked up right and the pots are set in a "rolled off" position?
2) Have anyone here upgraded from Kent Armstrongs? What did you choose as alternatives and why? I got the bass at a decent price and will consider a pickup upgrade as a solution if the tone knob fix doesn't solve the volume discrepancy.
Thanks all for reading! The bass is even more awesome-looking than the pic so this is a bit frustrating.
Facts: Last year I bought a Tanatos Claymore 7 from Japan and since then have used it quite a bit. It doesn't have the most well-rounded tone but it cuts through the mix and I really like the mids on it. It is SUPER hot output and opening up the tone knobs pushes the amp into distortion, so I tend to keep them set around 'half' or on '6'.
The band I use it in plays in multiple tunings with the kind of riffs that sound better with open strings, so I tend to switch basses during a set. The problem is that my other basses don't match the tone of the Claymore so I keep wanting to use that instead.
My solution was to buy another Claymore. When it arrived, it looked even better than my last one, but the tone is weaksauce in comparison. According to the serial numbers, my last bass was built in 2011 and this one is from 2014 and in the meantime they switched pickup suppliers to Kent Armstrong (previous pups are a mystery manufacturer that was probably supplying them on the dl). Supposedly the pre-amp on both basses are the same so that should not be the issue BUT the tone knobs are doing absolutely nothing so I have a possibility of bad wiring. I should clarify that the bass does not sound bad through an amp, just very quiet compared to my other basses rather than the louder that I was aiming for.
I'm not interested in shipping the bass all the way back to Japan, so I brought both basses to a local shop to get a comparison and a verdict.
Questions for this community:
1) Does anyone here use Kent Armstrongs? Are they lower output than other pickups? The claim I got from Japan is that they switched manufacturers to fix a tone deficiency in the older pups, so is it possible that the tone knobs aren't hooked up right and the pots are set in a "rolled off" position?
2) Have anyone here upgraded from Kent Armstrongs? What did you choose as alternatives and why? I got the bass at a decent price and will consider a pickup upgrade as a solution if the tone knob fix doesn't solve the volume discrepancy.
Thanks all for reading! The bass is even more awesome-looking than the pic so this is a bit frustrating.
