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Genz Benz Streamliner-Pt 2

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#688
KJung said:
It's all about price point to the consumer, brand image, and not having one dealer extremely undercutting others. Marketing 101. Again, Genz profit is obviously the same no matter what a dealer does, but an extremely low price point, along with a pricing battle among retailers and a 'perception of low cost' in the market place can kind of undermine what a brand is trying to communicate.

And, no dealer 'sticks to the MSRP'... most stick to the 20-25% or so discount level.

Again, uber price cutting is great to the consumer in the short run, but can hurt the dealership (lower profits) and brand imagery in the long run.
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This. There are some manufacturers who strictly enforce not only MAP (minimum advertised price) but also the sale price (Bergantino comes to mind). As Ken said, the problem with a dealer selling for what amounts to little/no profit is that it is unsustainable. Now retailers do this all the time with "loss leaders," but I wouldn't think the Streamliner falls into this category. GB is a "high end" brand, and a dealer selling at "walmart" prices brings down the entire line. This is why high end brands have dealer agreements and try to enforce them.

My hunch is that the guy who got "the deal" either is a regular customer or hit the shop up on the right place/right time. At any rate, I give my money to small independent shops who provide great customer service. "Value" encompasses more than just price.
 
#689
nostatic said:
I give my money to small independent shops who provide great customer service. "Value" encompasses more than just price.
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Big plus 1! Could not agree more especially with customer service.
 
#690
as much as those deals are awesome when you can get them as a consumer, they seem to have a negative impact on manufacturers, other retailers, and the industry as a whole. the discount promo codes that one prominent online retailer uses (hint: they have a sponsored forum here) have supposedly angered quite a few manufacturers, which seems to be why they always seem to carry Laklands for a minute, then Fender, then neither, then something else... if it were actually good for the manufacturers and industry as a whole I suspect they wouldn't have an issue holding on to the brands they carry.
 
#695
kobass said:
Mine is scheduled to ship out on Monday (right after Ken's :D). My next gig is on 2/12. It will be powering a Berg AE410. :bassist:
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I'll be giving mine a pretty good test on the 11th, also with the AE410, and.... my new P Bass! It is amazing to me how many of these new pop/dance tunes have P Basses on the recordings (i.e., Katy Perry's California Girls, with an old school slapped P Bass line).

Holy cow, tubes and a P Bass. What the hell happened to me:p I tell you what, playing/doubling all these synth lines on all this new dance stuff (Blige, Gaga, Perry, etc., etc.) really works nicely with a P5.
 
#696
You lucky, lucky folks. I wish I had the dime to drop. I sold my SVT-II for enough to snag one of these if I felt a hole in my heart but I don't yet. I just feel GAS on my brain.
 
#697
KJung said:
I'll be giving mine a pretty good test on the 11th, also with the AE410, and.... my new P Bass! It is amazing to me how many of these new pop/dance tunes have P Basses on the recordings (i.e., Katy Perry's California Girls, with an old school slapped P Bass line).

Holy cow, tubes and a P Bass. What the hell happened to me:p I tell you what, playing/doubling all these synth lines on all this new dance stuff (Blige, Gaga, Perry, etc., etc.) really works nicely with a P5.
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I love playing pop. I don't love to admit that but I did a pop group for a while. It was so much fun!
 
#698
christw said:
I love playing pop. I don't love to admit that but I did a pop group for a while. It was so much fun!
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It is kind of my life, but I too dig it. Things have REALLY changed over the past few years, but I'm enjoying moving from the old funk and Motown type song list to a more 80's/90's rock thing, and also lots of the new pop stuff, that actually has some really nice, groovin' bass parts (again, the Timberlake, Beyonce, Blige, Perry and yes, even the Gaga stuff).

I'm getting a bit old and starting to wind the whole thing down (I seem to be surrounded by children on stage:D), but I still keep in relatively good shape, and try to keep my playing and tone 'with the times'. Who would have thought 'with the times' and 'P Bass' would have been spoken in the same sentence in the year 2011!

All fun though! The most challenging part of playing these tunes is the ridiculous song forms.... 128 bars, then a bar of 2, then an 8 bar bridge that makes very little musical sense for the tune, then vamp out. The hardest part is remembering/feeling where the darn bridges and choruses come in. What happened to AABA:D I guess I am getting old:hmm:
 
#699
Ha ha, all this talk about funk and pop gigs and I'm working a symphony gig all weekend. What I would give for some pop right now!

I understand the confusion about eq/tone control topics in general, this is probably because the terms are really the same and used interchangeably by some folks but not by others.

Eq and tone control is any process whereby filters of any type are used to alter the frequency response of an amplification circuit. Equalization consists of many possibly filter types, Baxandall is a particular type that was developed in the 1950's by British designer Peter Baxandall. The Baxandall filter is a specific high/low frequency shelving filter topology whose response is particularly suited and attributed to many of the classic audio circuits of the post war era and is particularly musical in bass amp applications.

Filters can be either passive or active, and within the active filter type, there are many possible approaches. Without going into a lot of technical geek-speak, all of the Streamliner's preamp functions including all gain stages as well as all eq (tone control) stages use tubes only for primary gain as well as any eq and make-up gain throughout the entire signal path.

In regard to the input impedance comments, most passive bass pickups are ideally suited to input impedances of between 500k and about 2M, the Shuttles are in the 850k range the Streamliner is about 1M.
 
#700
KJung said:
It is amazing to me how many of these new pop/dance tunes have P Basses on the recordings

Holy cow, tubes and a P Bass. What the hell happened to me:p I tell you what, playing/doubling all these synth lines on all this new dance stuff (Blige, Gaga, Perry, etc., etc.) really works nicely with a P5.
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Hell to the yeah! Ken, if you don't own it already, go to some online store right now and pickup jamiroquai's "Emergency on Planet Earth". It's all P bass, and some of the best, funkiest playing out there by Mr. Paul Turner. Here's a video of Jamiroquai/Turner at Abbey Road. His tone on a P bass just kills me.

 
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