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Club Sadowsky!!!

#60,901
Sadowsky said:
Let me reply to the entire "Midrange" discussion. The area where my treble and bass bands do not overlap is around 400-500 Hz. As you boost treble and bass, you are attenuating the mids. So the less boost on both bands, the more midrange is present.

While I have always said less is more on the pre, I continue to get extraordinary compliments from recording engineers and front-of-house sound people that with Sadowsky basses, they do not have to touch a thing on the board. They are virtually "plug and play," and I consider these the best compliments I could receive. After 40+ years, I am also convinced that the attenuated mids contribute to how well the bass sits and the mix, both recorded and live.

This does not mean that more mids might not sound better to the player. Many years ago, Will Lee requested "more punch" from his basses. I tried everything I knew to give him that....woods, pickups, pickup locations, but I could never satisfy him. One day I told him to get a parametric EQ and tell me what frequencies matched the sound he heard in his head. He replied with 500 Hz. So that is exactly the "mid scoop" that my preamp creates.

Now the main reason I never had a mid control was that with a JFET circuit, you cannot change the mids without affecting the bass and treble. So I began prototyping 3 band op-amp preamps. However, with everyone I gave Will to try, he would reply, "It doesn't sound like my bass". The lesson here was that it is impossible to duplicate the sound of my JFET preamp with an op-amp circuit. So back to the drawing board and the way we created the mid boost for the Will Lee preamp was to piggyback a mid circuit on top of my JFET circuit.

Will tells me that he never uses the mid-boost in the studio. He only uses it for live playing.

So my suggestion, if you want more mids, is to adjust this on your amp or get a pedal that will boost the mids. I would hope you would not replace the preamp, as nothing else will sound like a Sadowsky.
Click to expand...

That's explain briefly what happened to me after I learned how to use two band preamp and particularly Roger tone stack. Now when I use bass preamps I usually have the tendency to cut the mids leaving the other frequencies more neutral possible, even when I don't user Sadowsky preamps. Since then I hardly had problems to get the right presence in the mix :)
 
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#60,902
Sadowsky said:
While I have always said less is more on the pre, I continue to get extraordinary compliments from recording engineers and front-of-house sound people that with Sadowsky basses, they do not have to touch a thing on the board. They are virtually "plug and play," and I consider these the best compliments I could receive. After 40+ years, I am also convinced that the attenuated mids contribute to how well the bass sits and the mix, both recorded and live.
Click to expand...

Great info. Thanks.
So, you’re saying…boost away!..Lol
 
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#60,903
Re: the “midrange” discussion….

Possibly, a given player’s prefs will depend on the room and the material being played? I dunno; IME, I get precisely the sound I am looking for by boosting the Treble and Bass about 25% -30% on the dial. that gives me pretty much brain dead tone; about which sound engineers have often gushed the compliments. Here are a couple of my VERY old vids shown purely for the sense of sound in the mix. I couldn’t possibly ask for better.



 
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#60,905
I noticed our new musical director checking out my gear after our early sound check run-through this past Sunday morning. I walked over to him and he asked, what kind of bass do you have, sounds great? Sadowsky, I explained. Playing my Japan metro MV-5 string jazz with SCs.

M4168 Shop Photo.jpg
 
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#60,907
MikeBass said:
View attachment 5000611

Man, there IS something a little different about the singlecut.
Not sure how to describe it. The whole thing just feels a little different, a little more solid and overall connected.
Click to expand...
Totally agree…the closest feeling (non-SC) Sadowsky I could recall was a Modern 5-24…but the SC’s really in its own lane, imo.
 
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#60,908
MikeBass said:
View attachment 5000611

Man, there IS something a little different about the singlecut.
Not sure how to describe it. The whole thing just feels a little different, a little more solid and overall connected.
Click to expand...

The look is just not my cup of tea. At all. I'm not sure I could get past that to even pick one up to try - maybe I can arrange a "blindfolded play test" to try a SC out and see if there's enough magic in the function to pull me into the fold. After all, when I started playing the only colors I liked were 3TSB and black, and now most of my basses are blue, so maybe I can leave FSO-land as well!
 
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#60,910
nickpc said:
The look is just not my cup of tea. At all. I'm not sure I could get past that to even pick one up to try - maybe I can arrange a "blindfolded play test" to try a SC out and see if there's enough magic in the function to pull me into the fold. After all, when I started playing the only colors I liked were 3TSB and black, and now most of my basses are blue, so maybe I can leave FSO-land as well!
Click to expand...

I don’t prefer the SC look more than a traditional look, or vise versa.
And maybe I should be a little more clear and say that the SC definitely has a different feel than traditional body basses.
Is that better? Subjective I’m sure, but this is significant enough that to notice right away.

BUT!!!! Even with basses of the same model/specs, there have been different feel to the overall instrument. Well, because it’s wood and each piece has its own unique characteristics.

So take my observations as just a point of reference. Roger stated himself that there is a difference as well, I can’t seem to find the article off hand.
 
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#60,913
MikeBass said:
BUT!!!! Even with basses of the same model/specs, there have been different feel to the overall instrument. Well, because it’s wood and each piece has its own unique characteristics.
Click to expand...

I've experienced this multiple times with "identical" basses, including boutiques. Even when all else is equal (brand, electronics, etc): body wood A matched with fingerboard wood B doesn't guarantee a specific tone C. It's more like a range, C thru E, with one of them being more likely.
 
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#60,919
kobass said:
Congrats! Let us know how you like it!
Click to expand...
Early returns are excellent. I also have a Lakland 5 string and they are different enough but similar enough to make it a fairly easy transition. Fit and finish wise it is superb. Action gets really low and even with almost no relief. I am still learning the preamp (a little goes a long way!). Overall I am very impressed and excited to see how it performs in a mix.
 
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