so I just got my skb 3006 from Keith (Alder/Cocobolo/Rosewood). He has improved so much from my last Roscoe build I received last year. I think the pandemic really impacted the flow of production, but now I see that he is clearly back on track and even better than ever. A few things I noticed: besides checking off every custom request I made (which was many), everything is glued super tight, wood is evenly cut, weight was distributed evenly, finish was spot on, and none of the production issues I saw back in 2021-2023 were present. He is using definitely better quality wood that is older, drier, and less prone to humidity changes (not to say that my first bass had bad wood or anything, just that this time around its much more higher quality). Perhaps the pandemic made the wood drier because no one bought custom basses during that time and it sat in his warehouse for an extra 1-3 years that helped with stability. I think what happened during the pandemic years was that he probably had to slow down due to this and quality control was not the best because he did not have enough personnel or the right personnel, but whom ever he has passed on his knowledge to today, they took very good notes and are fully capable of building very nice custom basses in a timely fashion. My first custom was ordered in Feb 2023 and I got it Oct 2023. This one I ordered May 2024 and got it Nov 2024. Shorter build time and better results, what can I say more about Keith. Simply amazing. And no, he is not in bankruptcy anymore thats a false rumor as he successfully emerged from that a while back. As everyone said here, if you get paranoid like me, just email a few times, come back here if there is no response, then just call Keith direct. Hopefully he can make a few more wonderful pieces for everyone here before he retires. We all know all his pre-retirement/legacy instruments will shoot up in value just like ken smiths one he retires. I am never selling my Roscoe to anyone until Keith retires LOL, and even if he does, I'm probably keeping these two.
Maybe. I just don't want to loose all my treble. It's not really noticeable when everyone is playing, and it's worse in our IEM's of course than FOH. Just frustrating is all. I don't want to keep swapping stuff out - especially when it apparently didn't need it. I am just used to a high level os silence and dependability and now I am apprehensive about using the bass.
