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Lakland- the great imitator

#27
Baird6869 said:
The Lakland didn't sound as good as the Fenders IMO although I guess they are really trying to show versatility.
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I think that is the point. To me, the Lakland is pretty close in those clips, but not dead on for any of those basses. However, try getting that P tone out of the Jazz. The Lakland will come way closer.

Some players want as many sounds as possible in one bass, a swiss army knife so to speak. I think the Lakland is very good at that. You do sacrifice a degree of authenticity(meaning it doesn't sound exactly like the basses it is imitating), but how much of that will be audible in the mix? For me, I prefer the real deal. But, I can definitely see the appeal of having all those tones available at your fingertips.

Of course, you can also probably get some really nice tones out of the 55-02 without trying to imitate those classic designs.
 
#28
I get the point. The Lakland seems to get extremely close to the J bass sounds, and it does an admirable (but not exact) job copying the P and SR.

I agree with the consensus - it's a very versatile bass, indeed. It's not gonna make me give up my SR and my P, though. But if I wanted to play ONE bass that was capable of nailing J sounds and could approximate P and/or SR, I would be very impressed.
 
#31
Jim Carr said:
However, I was bothered by the harshness in the highs that surfaced now and then, and noticed a shift of low-mid girth downward from the where it was in the models.
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It's a Youtube video. The audio has been squashed into oblivion and is only relevant as it compares to the other basses.

I guarantee that if you were sitting in the same room with this guy, you wouldn't have heard any harshness in the highs. You'd probably also hear a lot more subtle differences between the basses than the audio track of this thing is capable of conveying. Even the difference between a Lakland 55-94 and the DJ/JO fivers is noticeable if you're A/Bing them in person. It's close, but not the exact match that you're hearing on here if you close your eyes and listen hard.
 
#32
It's an impressive demo. It seems everyone hears different things, so there's quite a bit of subjectivity involved. They all sound like decent approximations to me, though I hear the high end harshness. Some of that could just be difference in strings. Whatever it's all moot until you hear it in the mix.
 
#33
Jim Carr said:
I liked all the approximations and think yes, they probably are close enough for all but studio work.

However, I was bothered by the harshness in the highs that surfaced now and then, and noticed a shift of low-mid girth downward from the where it was in the models.

Don't get me wrong, I have ALWAYS wanted a 5-94, and still do. Nice demo!
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msquared said:
It's a Youtube video. The audio has been squashed into oblivion and is only relevant as it compares to the other basses.

I guarantee that if you were sitting in the same room with this guy, you wouldn't have heard any harshness in the highs. You'd probably also hear a lot more subtle differences between the basses than the audio track of this thing is capable of conveying. Even the difference between a Lakland 55-94 and the DJ/JO fivers is noticeable if you're A/Bing them in person. It's close, but not the exact match that you're hearing on here if you close your eyes and listen hard.
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+1

However, I might note the P, Jazz, SR, and 5-94 were all subject to the same youtube bandwidth, and the aforesaid shortcomings were in the Lakland versions of the models but not in the models...:hiding:
 
#36
Jim Carr said:
However, I might note the P, Jazz, SR, and 5-94 were all subject to the same youtube bandwidth, and the aforesaid shortcomings were in the Lakland versions of the models but not in the models...:hiding:
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Sure, but that could just as easily indicate that there isn't as much top end content in the sound of the P, J, and SR. I'm guessing that those basses weren't restrung right before the video with the same strings, for instance, which could be one of several reasons for that. Compare a nice bass with broken in strings to a nice bass with new strings and that zingy top end is going to be obnoxious.

I'd hope that if Lakland was serious about demoing sound clips of these basses, they'd have recorded that track straight to disk with no compression and put a URL for a downloadable .wav version in the video description.

In any case, I don't think that this is an entirely accurate demonstration of what these basses really sound like. Because as a previous Lakland owner I can say with certainty that they sound a hell of a lot better than that video does.

Sadly, I do not play a hell of a lot better than that dude in the video does.
 

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