Hey y'all,
I'm pretty new around here, and haven't posted much. Haven't had a lot goin' on either, but I did make it down to the Lakland factory to check out the Namm prototype basses today. Dan and the guys have been working on more pickups to build in house to go with the J neck, and MM bridge pickup that they recently introduced. The new pickups are going to be standard in the Decade and Hollowbody basses ( these were outfitted with Hammon Engineering Dark Star pickups previously.
As an added bonus, the inhouse production allows Lakland to make these in a five string version. So there will be a USA FIVE STRING DECADE AND HOLLOWBODY MODEL available. And this will be followed shortly thereafter by the Skyline five string versions.
Dan also states that the new pickups will be in neodymium, AND alnico! At least that's the plan for now.
I played all of the basses through a new Ampeg SVT VR reissue w/ an Ampeg 6X10, and Epifani 2X12
All pickups were in the newer Lakland plastic humbucker MM style cover ( the bridge cover, and these are just for the proto's).
And the active preamps were the new Lakland/ Hansen model.
- First up, a protype of a single coil alnico 4 string ( built up from a 44-02) with one passive pickup. It had the neck pickup only, slightly closer to the neck than the neck pickup on a Decade. It is one of the finest sounding single coil pickups I have ever used in the neck position. Although it is in a different position than the Decade, it's sound is more focused and refined than a DS in the neck position. I compared this side by side with a recent DS Decade. As good as this was, out of the four protos I played, this was my least favorite.
- Up second a proto dual single coil neodymium 4 string ( again a 44-02 build ). Passive like the first, w/ pickups in the Decade position. Way more variety in tone than the regular Decade w/ Dark Stars, with huge bottom no matter where I set the knobs! Again, a more focused and for lack of a better term "produced tone". Reminded me of a fine Jazz run through high quality studio processing. But fatter. Tremendous variation in tone with just V-V-T, more so than many active basses. My #3 pick out of 4.
- Next a five string ( 55-02 proto), with a regular Lakland ( not the Bartolini) J - neck pickup. And a Neo humbucker in the bridge. I really started to get excited and lose focus once I soloed the bridge 'bucker. This is a heavy metal wet dream through an SVT. I started playing Monster Magnet & Queens of the Stone Age riffs, Hawkwind you name it. After I settled down, I realized it was capable of much more. It extends the frequency response of your favorite bridge humbucker by a hell of a stretch in both low and high frequencies. More headroom and more dynamically forgiving than the Dark Stars as well. Not what I expected, I thought it wouldn't cut like the single coils. I didn't think you could have both, but there you are. And for what it's worth I'm not hyping this because I'm an endorsee ( I'm not), or because Dan shared a pizza with me for lunch. This is the real deal folks. My #2 pick out of the 4 prototypes. And then it gets infinitely better....
- A four string prototype, with two Neo 'buckers. One in the regular bridge 44-02 position, and a neck 'bucker slightly to the neck side of the regular J pickup.I'll cut right to the chase with this model. This is the bass that is going to vault this company into another solar system IMHO.
I am by no means a genius, or BMF player. But about five minutes into tweaking the controls on this bass, I had a tone that was the hi-fi processed tone I used to get in the studio out of a killer 1976 'Ray I once owned. Not the '76 'Ray tone through the SVT. But the studio tone that I could never get on stage, because I didn't have the studio processors with me. A couple minutes later I got it to sound like my buddies old '64 T-Bird. And then a little more fiddling and it sounded like my '82 G&L L-2000.Just when you think it can't get better, I pulled up the volume knob, defeated the preamp, and got killer passive tones. Not weak anemic passive tones. Full, fat tones. Very much like the G&L active vs. passive. Both highly useable. Killer. I could go on and on. And I know this sounds to good to be true, and your results will vary. But I haven't had this much fun in a long time. I didn't want to adjust, change alter or jack with this bass in any way! That's a first for me.
And I haven't even scratched the surface as to what this bass is capable of. A great bass player is going to make jaws drop with this bass. Hell, the guys at Lakland haven't even run this through all the paces. And they have tried I'm sure! There are way more sounds in this bass than I could pull out in the limited time I had today. If the production version is anything like this at all, it's my next bass. It's as simple as that. If you are going to Namm, make a bee line to Lakland before someone steals this bass. No joke!!!
Thanks for listening!
Update from Dan Lakin - 01/13
"We added a passive tone control (where the coil tap switch is)- a mini knob. Rolls off treble like a normal tone control in both active and passive modes."
This is in the active circuit, which only applies to the new humbuckers as the single coil basses are passive.
I'm pretty new around here, and haven't posted much. Haven't had a lot goin' on either, but I did make it down to the Lakland factory to check out the Namm prototype basses today. Dan and the guys have been working on more pickups to build in house to go with the J neck, and MM bridge pickup that they recently introduced. The new pickups are going to be standard in the Decade and Hollowbody basses ( these were outfitted with Hammon Engineering Dark Star pickups previously.
As an added bonus, the inhouse production allows Lakland to make these in a five string version. So there will be a USA FIVE STRING DECADE AND HOLLOWBODY MODEL available. And this will be followed shortly thereafter by the Skyline five string versions.
Dan also states that the new pickups will be in neodymium, AND alnico! At least that's the plan for now.
I played all of the basses through a new Ampeg SVT VR reissue w/ an Ampeg 6X10, and Epifani 2X12
All pickups were in the newer Lakland plastic humbucker MM style cover ( the bridge cover, and these are just for the proto's).
And the active preamps were the new Lakland/ Hansen model.
- First up, a protype of a single coil alnico 4 string ( built up from a 44-02) with one passive pickup. It had the neck pickup only, slightly closer to the neck than the neck pickup on a Decade. It is one of the finest sounding single coil pickups I have ever used in the neck position. Although it is in a different position than the Decade, it's sound is more focused and refined than a DS in the neck position. I compared this side by side with a recent DS Decade. As good as this was, out of the four protos I played, this was my least favorite.
- Up second a proto dual single coil neodymium 4 string ( again a 44-02 build ). Passive like the first, w/ pickups in the Decade position. Way more variety in tone than the regular Decade w/ Dark Stars, with huge bottom no matter where I set the knobs! Again, a more focused and for lack of a better term "produced tone". Reminded me of a fine Jazz run through high quality studio processing. But fatter. Tremendous variation in tone with just V-V-T, more so than many active basses. My #3 pick out of 4.
- Next a five string ( 55-02 proto), with a regular Lakland ( not the Bartolini) J - neck pickup. And a Neo humbucker in the bridge. I really started to get excited and lose focus once I soloed the bridge 'bucker. This is a heavy metal wet dream through an SVT. I started playing Monster Magnet & Queens of the Stone Age riffs, Hawkwind you name it. After I settled down, I realized it was capable of much more. It extends the frequency response of your favorite bridge humbucker by a hell of a stretch in both low and high frequencies. More headroom and more dynamically forgiving than the Dark Stars as well. Not what I expected, I thought it wouldn't cut like the single coils. I didn't think you could have both, but there you are. And for what it's worth I'm not hyping this because I'm an endorsee ( I'm not), or because Dan shared a pizza with me for lunch. This is the real deal folks. My #2 pick out of the 4 prototypes. And then it gets infinitely better....
- A four string prototype, with two Neo 'buckers. One in the regular bridge 44-02 position, and a neck 'bucker slightly to the neck side of the regular J pickup.I'll cut right to the chase with this model. This is the bass that is going to vault this company into another solar system IMHO.
I am by no means a genius, or BMF player. But about five minutes into tweaking the controls on this bass, I had a tone that was the hi-fi processed tone I used to get in the studio out of a killer 1976 'Ray I once owned. Not the '76 'Ray tone through the SVT. But the studio tone that I could never get on stage, because I didn't have the studio processors with me. A couple minutes later I got it to sound like my buddies old '64 T-Bird. And then a little more fiddling and it sounded like my '82 G&L L-2000.Just when you think it can't get better, I pulled up the volume knob, defeated the preamp, and got killer passive tones. Not weak anemic passive tones. Full, fat tones. Very much like the G&L active vs. passive. Both highly useable. Killer. I could go on and on. And I know this sounds to good to be true, and your results will vary. But I haven't had this much fun in a long time. I didn't want to adjust, change alter or jack with this bass in any way! That's a first for me.
And I haven't even scratched the surface as to what this bass is capable of. A great bass player is going to make jaws drop with this bass. Hell, the guys at Lakland haven't even run this through all the paces. And they have tried I'm sure! There are way more sounds in this bass than I could pull out in the limited time I had today. If the production version is anything like this at all, it's my next bass. It's as simple as that. If you are going to Namm, make a bee line to Lakland before someone steals this bass. No joke!!!
Thanks for listening!
Update from Dan Lakin - 01/13
"We added a passive tone control (where the coil tap switch is)- a mini knob. Rolls off treble like a normal tone control in both active and passive modes."
This is in the active circuit, which only applies to the new humbuckers as the single coil basses are passive.
