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Regardless of how Roger's insight is digested by the TalkBass family, we should pause to appreciate a builder of his stature being willing to take the time to repeatedly share his experiences, respond to the average Joe's questions and clear up all the bad intel floating around. How many other elite builders do this? Roger, I thank you.
Think about it, folks -- Roger doesn't need to post here. He's been in the upper echelon of bass building for many years. For anyone to say his posts are only a method to sell certain species of wood is laughable. In reality, he worked his butt off and created a brand of instruments that sound and play wonderful and are recognized as such across the planet.
I'll let the fact that many ads for high-end basses on this site include some sort of wording that reads, "Will trade for Sadowsky NYC" speak for itself.
I usually reserve my time on Talkbass to answer questions or correct mis-information. This reply is so cynical and odious, I am compelled to reply. My FET preamp circuit has stood the test of time for 40 years, as well as some of my pickup designs. I have never promoted my fancier woods and have never implied it makes a better instrument. A large portion of our production are simple ash or alder bodies without any fancy neck woods or fingerboards. I have always said that our beautiful lam tops or roasted flame maple necks, are for cosmetic reasons only. There is something lurking behind this comment that goes way beyond cynicism.
I have always dug listening to Roger talk in his videos and interviews and it never occurred to me that he might be disingenuous in any way. We have lost a lot of experience and knowledge over the years here on talk bass because of, well, talk bass.
Which expensive woods are you talking about? The video in question has Roger commenting on the difference between maple and rosewood fingerboards - with a a brief mention of ebony at the end. Rosewood and maple have been the most common options for fingerboard woods for ages, across any number of brands - from "budget" to high end. Same goes for ash and alder where bodies are concerned. Are we talking about the quality of the wood? Well then sure, any top-tier luthier is going to pride him/herself on providing carefully selected wood, whatever the species. But it doesn't take a very high level of perception to see that Roger could be favouring much more expensive options for body and fingerboard woods than he does if it was all about duping the customer. He has explicitly stated in interviews that he does not believe the tops on his basses (being as thin as they are) have a significant impact on tone. If his intention was to push expensive wood on his customers for the sake of making a buck don't you think claiming the opposite might be a good way to go?
The beauty of the internet. You're always going to find people who use it as an outlet for their frustrations (I guess I can be guilty of that at times myself). The thing is, there's a way to disagree while remaining civil.
A luthier might make it in the instrument business by conning a segment of the population, but I have a very difficult time believing that a luthier would be able to develop the kind of reputation Roger has by conducting himself in such a way. Geez, I'd like to think that bassists on the whole aren't that stupid.
Hey Roger; Illegetimi non Carborundum.
Good thing Michael Tobias isn’t posting, he’d be raked over the coals by the “experts”.
The only NYC I’ve played was a Precision model. It sounded like a P Bass. Nothing stood really stood out to me. But that’s just one bass.
