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NS Design Club
- Thread starter Danny O Danny
- Start date
Very nice, especially the one on the left... and how nice of Kokopelli to cover an outlet of necessity.
Hey, y'all. I just bought a used WAV4 today off Reverb. Hopefully, it ships out on Monday. Can I join the club? I've played four different Steinbergers over the years, but fell in love with this white WAV4. Just the simple understated elegance of it makes it as much a sculpture as an instrument. I'm glad the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Here it is:
Congrats! NS Design is an amazing company and are very helpful in customer service. Welcome to the club!
Good to know. I emailed back & forth with Gary there yesterday with some questions & he was very helpful. I even sent a message in the evening figuring he wouldn't get back to me til today, but he answered right back.
I was happy to score this WAV4 since Gary told me they're out of production.
Yeah that is unfortunate about the WAV from what I heard this year but they're really great starter basses to the NS Design family
The control setup is similar to a Steinberger Synapse. I've had a 4-string and a 5-string version of those in the past. From what I've read, the tone controls are different, with passive tone controls, one for each pickup, on the WAV and active master treble and active master bass on the Synapse. I like that the WAV has a master volume with a blend control rather than individual volumes. I've favored that type setup for years.
My WAV4 is on its way from the shore of Lake Ontario to the Chihuahuan Desert of Arizona. That'll be a culture shock for it. I wonder how it will like the 7% humidity? A question: Is the EMG pickup on the WAV4 active or passive? I've asked the seller and also asked Gary at NS Design (a very helpful fella). The answer I get is "The bass has active electronics." But I'm looking for info on the EMG pickup itself. Can anybody tell me if it's active or passive? The owner's manual says passive, but Gary seemed to hint it was active. I'll be honest, my single experience with EMG passive was with their HZ pickups, and I didn't like them at all, so I'm hoping it's active. I love their active pickups.
The pickup is passive, and the electronics is active. The EMG HZ was newly developed in the late 1980s, and the WAV pickup was specifically developed for the Radius bass. So don't worry, it's not the same…
I don't know that I've ever had mine at quite that low of humidity, but it does fine with the swings up here with 80% humidity in summer and around 15% humidity in the depths of winter. I need to tweak the setup maybe once a year. I gotta say though, at least for me my WAV4 is the golden standard of action for all my basses. When I was building my custom (which is somewhat based on my WAV4) I specifically requested my luthier make the neck profile and action identical to it. It is such a sweet playing bass.
Great to know! And yes, we actually do have 7% humidity and even lower in the summertime. It's not so bad other times of the year. This morning, for example, it's 36%. Not all basses or guitars do well here. The ones that seem to do the best are the ones with dual action truss rods, which I understand the WAV4 has. My G&Ls have DATRs, and their necks are as solid as a rock. One thing you can never overlook here is, when you change strings, make sure to treat the fretboard. Even between changes it's good to take the strings loose and treat that fretboard. And always store instruments in their cases or gig bags. Okay, children, that's it for Mr. G's low humidity bass care lessons. Recess is over. Back to work.
But not that unusual here in the summer. I've actually seen it hit 3%, but that is unusual. 7% - 12% is about a normal summer day. When monsoon season hits in mid July, the humidity usually picks up a little. If a fella opened a store in town selling nothing but Chapstick, he could make a pretty good living.
Jesus, that's low. Even in winter it never drops below 25%ish over here in central europe. And that's already a challenge for double basses. May be graphite necks are the best way to go in Arizona.
