cool pic Mike!
just thought I'd check in after playing a few gigs and rehearsals with my new TB LM5. This thing is quite an instrument. I was worried the weight of an LM would be too much for me but the weight is RIGHT where i would want it on a heavier ash bass. I spent several hours swapping out bridges and strings and making setup adjustments but I'm pretty happy where it is right now. So I first threw a set of Black Diamond coated black rounds (40-120) on it and went to Church on Sunday. The bass felt pretty great but I had a difficult time fighting with the knobs. If I set it like my RA5 it sounded horrible, and I kept having to settle for somewhere in between clanky and too muddy to hear any articulation. I realized those strings are pretty dead and figured I should put whatever rounds came on it back on (even though they're a thicker gauge than I prefer). I then got the idea to see what a badass V sounds like on there so I did the swap (including putting the black diamonds back on) and set it up. BAM! felt and sounded killer! nice little thumpy punch but with tons of clarity. Mind you, the spacing at this point was no longer 18mm hence the BA bridge. However, the smaller nut width still kept a similar tight feel which I really liked. Ultimately, I kept running into setup issues with it just not being able to find that sweet spot between the tension of the truss and the height of the bridge saddles. I find with those strings, they generally prefer a very tight truss with a little bit of height in the saddles but on this bass they just felt like stiff cables. When I loosened the truss though, they started to feel better but now the action was too high for me and the saddles were as low as possible. I just said screw it let's not ruin a good thing here.
So with the original bridge and strings back on both basses, I went to a rehearsal in Jersey playing with a female Swedish singer songwriter who used to be in Coheed and Cambria and the drummer of Coheed is now in this band. This was my first time playing with him. They had an SVT and 8x10 there for me and I know it's hard to sound bad out of a rig like that but the LM sounded SO GOOD! I didn't have to fight with the controls at all! I also realized that the natural tone of the bass can be very thick so I don't need as much bass knob action as I usually would use on my RA (AHH I can't believe I'm saying that!). The slap tone on this thing is insane. Just like every LM I've ever played, if you close your eyes, it's Marcus. Seriously, just effortless classic Marcus Miller slap tone. Jimmy literally has it down to a science at this point.
Now the big test: open mic hip-hop Tuesdays in Brooklyn! I was nervous (especially with the newer rounds on) that the LM wasn't going to be bassy enough to fill all that space so I brought both basses in my cute little IGig double bag (thanks Miko!) and the RA didn't come out once. Huge fat low end with just a small kick on the bass knob and the tone pot rolled back about 60%-70%. Still, super clear and articulate. I didn't want to put it down!
So at this point I think it's safe to say this bass is a sure thing. I'm still getting used to the 18mm spacing which I find only kind of bothers me on the low B string (?) and it still has that "new bass" feel which I'm trying to break in. Also, the back pickup was set SO low I had to take the pickup out and put a folded up paper towel in there to make it higher. It still isn't quite there but the pole pieces jut out of the casing which kind of hurts my fingers and i can't figure out how to fix that yet. But other than that I couldn't be happier! And for all you haters who called my bass ugly
, I've already gotten more compliments and questions about this bass in a week than both my other ACs combined! Could be cause it's an unusual looking Fender-style bass, or maybe they're just humoring me....:scowl:
