This is really more of a funny travel story with a bit of bass-related stuff to make it relevant. I just spent a couple of weeks in Poland, visiting my Ukrainian girlfriend. We chose Poland because for some reason it's difficult to fly into Ukraine at the moment. One of the things I wanted to do while in Poland was visit a guitar store and try out some Mayones basses (especially, hopefully, their Viking model -- see photo). I already have a Maruszczyk bass, and absolutely love it, so I wanted to see what another Polish bass builder could produce. But I couldn't find anything online, so I contacted Mayones and asked them where I could find such a guitar store. The person who responded, Matt, explained there would probably be no Mayones instruments in any local guitar store since they are all built to order.
Dammit.
So then I got this idea -- why not travel to visit Mayones? Then I had the same thought about Maruszczyk. They're both about the same distance from Warsaw, but it turns out the difference is that I could take a high speed train directly to Gdansk (Mayones), whereas going to Waksmund (Maruszczyk) would take more transfers and coordination and considerably more time. PITA. Pity. I would have really liked to visit the people and facilities at Maruszczyk/Mensinger. Oh well, Mayones it is.
Assuming, of course, me visiting Mayones was viable from Mayones' perspective. So I asked. It was Thursday, and I asked about visiting the following Tuesday, between about 11:00 and 5:00. Matt, the guy who answered and with whom I corresponded, said "That sounds like a perfect plan with plenty of time!" Great! I talked my girlfriend into making the trip with me, since it would be the first experience for both of us on a high speed European train. And who doesn't want to see Gdansk? (She was persuaded by the probability of a good shopping mall.) So on Monday, I got the tickets and emailed Matt. "Unfortunately I won't be present in the office tomorrow by my colleague Artur will take care of you. He is responsible for all bass related affairs in our company, so I'm sure you both will get along perfectly." Oh, OK.
So Tuesday morning, we went to the Warsaw central train station that wasn't more than a couple hundred meters from our hotel. First impression: that high speed train is really cool looking. After it got past the first several stops in Warsaw, my second impression was that it was really smooth. But it didn't really feel like anything, so there was no sensation of moving really fast, which was mildly disappointing. Third impression: Poland is mostly really flat. At least the part I saw was.
And so we arrived in Gdansk, and our first thought was "now what?" We decided to get a cab, have it deliver me to Mayones, then take her to the best shopping center Gdansk has to offer, then come back to Mayones after an hour to get me, and take me to where he dropped her off. Mind you, neither of us speak Polish. My Russian is decent, her English could be described as a little beyond basic, and between the two we manage to communicate about anything. But communicating with the cab driver was... challenging. Nonetheless, we were on our way.
Mayones is a little off the beaten path. The cab driver had the address just as it was given to my by Matt, but I wasn't seeing anything that looked like a guitar facility, and we were getting near the end of the road. Then suddenly, there it was, the scrolling M logo. Whew! This is actually where we figured out the shopping-drop-off-and-retrieval plan, which took a few minutes to make sure everyone was on the same page. With that, the cab took off to take my girlfriend shopping, and I went into the Mayones building.
They weren't expecting me, and the lights weren't on. (Power was on to their computers, but the overheads weren't on.) A couple of guys were there talking. They seemed pretty involved in their conversation, so I occupied myself by looking at the guitars and basses on the wall. A few of them had been autographed, so I got the impression that they were all there for display purposes only, no touchy. (It turns out I was right, that wall was basically a museum.) After a while one of the guys left, and the other (Martin) greeted me, and asked me what I wanted. I asked if Artur was available. Martin looked a bit confused, and said they could get him, but it would be about ten minutes or so. He offered me some coffee.
Artur showed up, looking confused. I told him that I had spoken with Matt, and had arranged to visit Mayones between 11:00 and 12:00 today, and then Matt told me to speak with Artur since he was the bass guitar guy. This was all news to Artur, as apparently Matt had forgotten to mention anything about me. Poor Artur suddenly had his workload for the day increased by my being there, and I felt bad about that, so I wanted to minimize my footprint there. He said they had three bass guitars at the moment that were available to play. One of them was a FSO that he said was designed to get both a vintage and a modern sound with their pickups and preamp, so I played it.
It was a tad on the heavy side, but not by much. The neck felt fine. It didn't strike me as wide like many P basses or narrow like a jazz, so I'm guessing the nut was somewhere around 40mm. It was easy to play, so nicely set up. The pickups sounded quite nice when played in passive mode. I think they were single coil, which I typically try to avoid because I don't like dealing with non-musical noise, but I didn't get any extra noise when singling either pickup, and their tone was excellent. The preamp, for me, was very unwieldy. The controls seemed extreme, and I just could not easily dial in a sound I liked. This bit of information alone was worth making the trip for me.
When ordering a Maruszczyk or other such bass, my approach is usually to stick with what the builder likes or makes. For my Maruszczyk, that meant getting the Maruszczyk Toneformer preamp, which I really like. With my Adamovic, Nikola raved about the Bassbar pickups, so that's what I went with. With Mayones, I really like the look of their Viking bass, and I could see myself ordering one in the future. But I would most likely have ordered it with the Mayones preamp, and that would have been a disaster for me. Note, I speak only for myself. I'm quite sure many people have had brilliant success with Mayones preamps, but for me, based on my limited experience, it's just not a fit. And I'm glad I know that now, rather than finding out after spending a few thousand dollars on a bass.
So after about 15-20 minutes of playing sequestered in the little room they had off the main office, I emerged. I spoke a bit with Martin, who asked if I wanted to speak with Artur. I told him it's not necessary and that I'm sure Artur was otherwise busy. We chatted for a bit, and then my cab showed up. Perfect timing. He took me to a rather large mall where he'd dropped off my girlfriend, then commenced the search for her. We connected after about 45 minutes, and it turned out the trip was productive for her. She'd been looking for a very particular set of cutting boards from a company that apparently has gone out of business. She'd been looking for them in Odessa and Warsaw, and she found them in Gdansk. Serendipity.
So, back to the train station. We were some distance from the central station -- probably not more than ten minutes by car, but more than I wanted to walk. She wanted to take the tram. I was a little nervous about that, primarily because we couldn't find a tram map. (Schedule, yes -- map, no.) Turns out we couldn't find where to buy tram tickets either, so she agreed to a cab. We got to the station in plenty of time. If we'd gotten a cab initially instead of walking around trying to figure out how to use the tram system, we might have gotten to the station early enough to exchange tickets for an earlier train. That became relevant when there was apparently an accident somewhere on the tracks ahead of us, and we had to get off our high speed train after only 20-25% of the way back to Warsaw. The next train to Warsaw was definitely not the high speed variety. But with the passengers it already had, along with all the passengers from the now-not-continuing high speed train, our new train looked to be close to overflowing. Fortunately we got seats in a compartment. Our new problem, besides taking a lot longer to get to Warsaw, was anxiety. In the high speed train, they spoke some English. In this train, not so much. If something happened again, the announcements wouldn't do us any good. But after another delay of 40 minutes, the train continued, eventually taking us to Warsaw. The kicker? It didn't even go to the central station in Warsaw, so we ended up taking an Uber to get the rest of the way. I'm glad we did that, though, because that lady was the best Uber driver I've ever experienced. Then back to the hotel to have some wine, laugh about the adventure, and celebrate the cutting boards.
Mods, if you think this belongs in the Miscellaneous forum, please move it. Thanks.
P.S. The Mayones Viking.
Dammit.
So then I got this idea -- why not travel to visit Mayones? Then I had the same thought about Maruszczyk. They're both about the same distance from Warsaw, but it turns out the difference is that I could take a high speed train directly to Gdansk (Mayones), whereas going to Waksmund (Maruszczyk) would take more transfers and coordination and considerably more time. PITA. Pity. I would have really liked to visit the people and facilities at Maruszczyk/Mensinger. Oh well, Mayones it is.
Assuming, of course, me visiting Mayones was viable from Mayones' perspective. So I asked. It was Thursday, and I asked about visiting the following Tuesday, between about 11:00 and 5:00. Matt, the guy who answered and with whom I corresponded, said "That sounds like a perfect plan with plenty of time!" Great! I talked my girlfriend into making the trip with me, since it would be the first experience for both of us on a high speed European train. And who doesn't want to see Gdansk? (She was persuaded by the probability of a good shopping mall.) So on Monday, I got the tickets and emailed Matt. "Unfortunately I won't be present in the office tomorrow by my colleague Artur will take care of you. He is responsible for all bass related affairs in our company, so I'm sure you both will get along perfectly." Oh, OK.
So Tuesday morning, we went to the Warsaw central train station that wasn't more than a couple hundred meters from our hotel. First impression: that high speed train is really cool looking. After it got past the first several stops in Warsaw, my second impression was that it was really smooth. But it didn't really feel like anything, so there was no sensation of moving really fast, which was mildly disappointing. Third impression: Poland is mostly really flat. At least the part I saw was.
And so we arrived in Gdansk, and our first thought was "now what?" We decided to get a cab, have it deliver me to Mayones, then take her to the best shopping center Gdansk has to offer, then come back to Mayones after an hour to get me, and take me to where he dropped her off. Mind you, neither of us speak Polish. My Russian is decent, her English could be described as a little beyond basic, and between the two we manage to communicate about anything. But communicating with the cab driver was... challenging. Nonetheless, we were on our way.
Mayones is a little off the beaten path. The cab driver had the address just as it was given to my by Matt, but I wasn't seeing anything that looked like a guitar facility, and we were getting near the end of the road. Then suddenly, there it was, the scrolling M logo. Whew! This is actually where we figured out the shopping-drop-off-and-retrieval plan, which took a few minutes to make sure everyone was on the same page. With that, the cab took off to take my girlfriend shopping, and I went into the Mayones building.
They weren't expecting me, and the lights weren't on. (Power was on to their computers, but the overheads weren't on.) A couple of guys were there talking. They seemed pretty involved in their conversation, so I occupied myself by looking at the guitars and basses on the wall. A few of them had been autographed, so I got the impression that they were all there for display purposes only, no touchy. (It turns out I was right, that wall was basically a museum.) After a while one of the guys left, and the other (Martin) greeted me, and asked me what I wanted. I asked if Artur was available. Martin looked a bit confused, and said they could get him, but it would be about ten minutes or so. He offered me some coffee.
Artur showed up, looking confused. I told him that I had spoken with Matt, and had arranged to visit Mayones between 11:00 and 12:00 today, and then Matt told me to speak with Artur since he was the bass guitar guy. This was all news to Artur, as apparently Matt had forgotten to mention anything about me. Poor Artur suddenly had his workload for the day increased by my being there, and I felt bad about that, so I wanted to minimize my footprint there. He said they had three bass guitars at the moment that were available to play. One of them was a FSO that he said was designed to get both a vintage and a modern sound with their pickups and preamp, so I played it.
It was a tad on the heavy side, but not by much. The neck felt fine. It didn't strike me as wide like many P basses or narrow like a jazz, so I'm guessing the nut was somewhere around 40mm. It was easy to play, so nicely set up. The pickups sounded quite nice when played in passive mode. I think they were single coil, which I typically try to avoid because I don't like dealing with non-musical noise, but I didn't get any extra noise when singling either pickup, and their tone was excellent. The preamp, for me, was very unwieldy. The controls seemed extreme, and I just could not easily dial in a sound I liked. This bit of information alone was worth making the trip for me.
When ordering a Maruszczyk or other such bass, my approach is usually to stick with what the builder likes or makes. For my Maruszczyk, that meant getting the Maruszczyk Toneformer preamp, which I really like. With my Adamovic, Nikola raved about the Bassbar pickups, so that's what I went with. With Mayones, I really like the look of their Viking bass, and I could see myself ordering one in the future. But I would most likely have ordered it with the Mayones preamp, and that would have been a disaster for me. Note, I speak only for myself. I'm quite sure many people have had brilliant success with Mayones preamps, but for me, based on my limited experience, it's just not a fit. And I'm glad I know that now, rather than finding out after spending a few thousand dollars on a bass.
So after about 15-20 minutes of playing sequestered in the little room they had off the main office, I emerged. I spoke a bit with Martin, who asked if I wanted to speak with Artur. I told him it's not necessary and that I'm sure Artur was otherwise busy. We chatted for a bit, and then my cab showed up. Perfect timing. He took me to a rather large mall where he'd dropped off my girlfriend, then commenced the search for her. We connected after about 45 minutes, and it turned out the trip was productive for her. She'd been looking for a very particular set of cutting boards from a company that apparently has gone out of business. She'd been looking for them in Odessa and Warsaw, and she found them in Gdansk. Serendipity.
So, back to the train station. We were some distance from the central station -- probably not more than ten minutes by car, but more than I wanted to walk. She wanted to take the tram. I was a little nervous about that, primarily because we couldn't find a tram map. (Schedule, yes -- map, no.) Turns out we couldn't find where to buy tram tickets either, so she agreed to a cab. We got to the station in plenty of time. If we'd gotten a cab initially instead of walking around trying to figure out how to use the tram system, we might have gotten to the station early enough to exchange tickets for an earlier train. That became relevant when there was apparently an accident somewhere on the tracks ahead of us, and we had to get off our high speed train after only 20-25% of the way back to Warsaw. The next train to Warsaw was definitely not the high speed variety. But with the passengers it already had, along with all the passengers from the now-not-continuing high speed train, our new train looked to be close to overflowing. Fortunately we got seats in a compartment. Our new problem, besides taking a lot longer to get to Warsaw, was anxiety. In the high speed train, they spoke some English. In this train, not so much. If something happened again, the announcements wouldn't do us any good. But after another delay of 40 minutes, the train continued, eventually taking us to Warsaw. The kicker? It didn't even go to the central station in Warsaw, so we ended up taking an Uber to get the rest of the way. I'm glad we did that, though, because that lady was the best Uber driver I've ever experienced. Then back to the hotel to have some wine, laugh about the adventure, and celebrate the cutting boards.
Mods, if you think this belongs in the Miscellaneous forum, please move it. Thanks.
P.S. The Mayones Viking.
