Plek a Jack Casady?

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a Plek treatment? In any case, congratulations on getting that bass! I'd love to get my hands on one.

 

I have a Casady w/flats and love it. It's not my main player (my mains are US Laklands) so I'm not worried about it being perfect. I myself probably would not get it plek'd...but than again if I played one that was, might be a different story. It'd be cool to hear some input on this one from anyone who has a plek'd Casady or any other mid-level instrument for that matter...

 

Are you sure that it has fret problems? Take it to a pro (or do it yourself) and have them/you evaluate the condition of the frets. A good setup isn't always the same thing as a computer doing a fret job.

If it needs a fret job, go for it. If it doesn't, well....don't.

 

Personally, I'd forgo the Plek. There are a bunch of really great luthiers here in the city who can do a basic fret-level for you for much less cash and still get that thing playing like a total monster.

Just curious; who offers Plek here in NYC? I've never even asked around.

 

@NightTripper

You can read up on plek here. It's basically a computer and machine aided setup job.

PLEK / A+D Gitarrentechnologie GmbH - Welcome to plek

I've had a Pbass of mine plek'ed and the setup was very very nice. I'd probably consider doing it again to another bass in the future, if I had the money.

 

Plek does take the nut into consideration, I believe (if computers can 'consider' anything).

Paul at Peekamoose, Matt at 30th Street, Mas Hino on Orchard St. and Jeremy at Rudy's all do very nice fret work. I wouldn't think you'd have to go for the Plek at a full half the value of the bass.

I'm sure I'm leaving a lot of good guys out, too. I've done my own frets for the past few years so I'm out of the loop, to some extent.

 

I agree. The PLEK is nice but IMO there is a whole lot of hype around it. A good tech can do an equally amazing job for way less than the cost of getting it PLEK'd.

 

This PLEK stuff sounds like a big load of excrement that can be covered instead for about half that with a decent guitar tech who knows what he's doing for an hour or two.

 

Not excrement. But it is right that a DECENT, and I mean DECENT, guitar tech is needed, not some setup jockey. The guy HAS to know how to level, and crown frets and get a fretboard playing right. The guy from the local "string changing day fair" won't do.

That said let me say I had my Conklin 7 string pleked because it had a couple of high frets. Around here price was $200. And bass came back positively amazing. The machine recut the nut as well. It made the best looking nut I've ever seen! Clearly WORTH the money. But the machine isn't magic. The operator has to program the fret curvature and there is quite a bit of operator intervention to make it all work. So any stories of the computer doing is all, are simply wrong.

and that said, let me say that I had a local luthier rework the frets on the used Ken Smith 6er I bought. It cost me $100. He didn't do the nut. And I must say the job I got was every bit as amazing as the job the Plek machine did. Of course that was a while back and his prices are higher now but still not quite as high as the Pleking. And I also had him do another bass for me and it didn't come back nearly as nice as the Smith. But that's people. They have good and bad days.

The bottom line here is that either way can work and either way can be a disappointment if the human is having a bad day. But I am sure that if you go the luthier route , you do want to make sure the guy knows his stuff. At least on the Plek machine if the operator tries to do the wrong thing that will mess up the bass, the computer squawks at you and refuses to go on!

 

I think all Fodera basses just recently made PLEKKing as a standard in their basses.