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Sandberg or what?

#41
ZuluFunk said:
I've had both Maruszczyk and Sandberg.

My Sandberg is better quality in terms of fit and finish.
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Having had my Sandberg for a couple of weeks now, I'd agree.

I still own one Maruszczyk, and it's a very nice bass... I owned another two, which were good. But the Sandberg is better in my opinion. It was also a bit more expensive, to be fair. Two of my Maruszczyk basses were under £1000 (not much under), and the third was £1200. The Sandberg was £1600. But I'd happily pay the difference now.
 
#43
I love Sandberg but I don't understand why they can't include different pickup options and a passive only option in their online configurator. It's such a hassle to have to communicate these extra options when Sandberg won't deal directly with customers. Trying to order something passive ONLY with different pickups means communicating through a dealer > distributor > Sandberg > distributor > dealer... That's a couple of weeks of emails just to confirm they will build it and then to place the order.

I'm a P-bass guy so I wanted a VS but personally I don't like the stock Sandberg split coil P pickups at all. Far too bright for me. Not a classic P-bass vibe at all, even when run passive. I also have a strong dislike for battery compartments in P-style basses so even if the active electronics can be bypassed I would still want a 100% passive bass. And I honestly don't understand how people are willing to pay a fortune for relics with battery compartments??? But hey, that's just me and I'm not really into relics either.

But anyway, except for the stock pickups/electronics I absolutely LOVE Sandberg. I've got a custom built passive only VS with a Kloppmann PB63 pickup and it completely destroys any current Fender production models. The Sandberg is in a completely different league to be honest. Even Fender Custom Shop would be a matter of personal preference IMO. The Sandbergs are easily as good as Fender Custom Shop when looking objectively at craftsmanship and quality of wood. Just a lot less expensive.
 
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#44
Deleted member 271037 said:
I love Sandberg but I don't understand why they can't include different pickup options and a passive only option in their online configurator. It's such a hassle to have to communicate these extra options when Sandberg won't deal directly with customers. Trying to order something passive ONLY with different pickups means communicating through a dealer > distributor > Sandberg > distributor > dealer... That's a couple of weeks of emails just to confirm they will build it and then to place the order.

I'm a P-bass guy so I wanted a VS but personally I don't like the stock Sandberg split coil P pickups at all. Far too bright for me. Not a classic P-bass vibe at all, even when run passive. I also have a strong dislike for battery compartments in P-style basses so even if the active electronics can be bypassed I would still want a 100% passive bass. And I honestly don't understand how people are willing to pay a fortune for relics with battery compartments??? But hey, that's just me and I'm not really into relics either.

But anyway, except for the stock pickups/electronics I absolutely LOVE Sandberg. I've got a custom built passive only VS with a Kloppmann PB63 pickup and it completely destroys any current Fender production models. The Sandberg is in a completely different league to be honest. Even Fender Custom Shop would be a matter of personal preference IMO. The Sandbergs are easily as good as Fender Custom Shop when looking objectively at craftsmanship and quality of wood. Just a lot less expensive.
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How is it a hassle? Several weeks of emails? I specced mine and was confirmed within 48 hours. Sandberg were very fast to reply to the dealer I was ordering from, without a doubt. If the dealer takes their time... it's on them, not Sandberg.

To give you an idea: I was at the shop trying basses (I was interested in the model 48 at the time). I decided to get a VM4 instead, but really liked the neck of one of the 48s in particular. The shop assistant took a note of the serial number and said he'd contact Sandberg. Then asked me to get the details as close as possible with the available options in the configurator, and just list any differences/options etc that were not in the configurator.

I went home, and before I sent them the configurator details with the other specs, the shop had contacted me to say that yes, Sandberg replied and they have the records of that bass I liked and they'll try to get close to that (being hand finished it's never going to be exact). I sent my specs, they sent them to Sandberg, and got the confirmation with the final quote the next day. The following day I went in and placed the order.

It's really that easy.
 
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#45
mcnach said:
How is it a hassle? Several weeks of emails? I specced mine and was confirmed within 48 hours. Sandberg were very fast to reply to the dealer I was ordering from, without a doubt. If the dealer takes their time... it's on them, not Sandberg.

To give you an idea: I was at the shop trying basses (I was interested in the model 48 at the time). I decided to get a VM4 instead, but really liked the neck of one of the 48s in particular. The shop assistant took a note of the serial number and said he'd contact Sandberg. Then asked me to get the details as close as possible with the available options in the configurator, and just list any differences/options etc that were not in the configurator.

I went home, and before I sent them the configurator details with the other specs, the shop had contacted me to say that yes, Sandberg replied and they have the records of that bass I liked and they'll try to get close to that (being hand finished it's never going to be exact). I sent my specs, they sent them to Sandberg, and got the confirmation with the final quote the next day. The following day I went in and placed the order.

It's really that easy.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm glad it went smoothly for you but for me it was a huge hassle. It took about 5-6 weeks from I contacted the dealer until the order was actually placed. First emails through dealer>distributor>Sandberg to get a confirmation that they could build it the way I wanted it. Then waiting for a reply going back through the same channels. Then placing the order (which they didn't actually do the first time around!) and waiting for the confirmation. I tried contacting Sandberg directly when things slowed down but they insisted all contact should be through an authorized dealer. If the passive&pickup options had been available in the configurator I could have just pdf-printed the specs from the clipalator, sent it to my dealer and the order would have been sent immediately. To add to the misery the bass was considerably delayed with no information whatsoever until I contacted Sandberg directly and said I wanted to cancel the order unless someone would tell me what was going on. But even then they did not answer me directly but went through the useless distributor.

You're right of course that the cause of the problem wasn't specifically with Sandberg but with a distributor who didn't follow up my order properly. But it's Sandberg's choice of business model and distributor. It's also Sandbergs's decision to leave these options out of the clipalator and it was also Sandberg's choice to deliberately only give vague answers to the question I asked them directly because their policy was everything had to go through a dealer. I mean, if they can build a passive version why not include it in the clipalator and save all the completely uneccesary emails back and forth, first to confirm that they can build it (which I already knew) and then to confirm the actual order. And when they actually recommend certain pickups as alternatives (they suggested Kloppman or Häussel to me but Delano seems like a Sandberg "standard" too) why not include them as an option too? I mean, the pickup is probably the ONE thing most people would want see some alternatives for.

Still, it was worth the wait. Possibly the best bass I've ever owned.
 
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#46
Deleted member 271037 said:
Well, I'm glad it went smoothly for you but for me it was a huge hassle. It took about 5-6 weeks from I contacted the dealer until the order was actually placed. First emails through dealer>distributor>Sandberg to get a confirmation that they could build it the way I wanted it. Then waiting for a reply going back through the same channels. Then placing the order (which they didn't actually do the first time around!) and waiting for the confirmation. I tried contacting Sandberg directly when things slowed down but they insisted all contact should be through an authorized dealer. If the passive&pickup options had been available in the configurator I could have just pdf-printed the specs from the clipalator, sent it to my dealer and the order would have been sent immediately. To add to the misery the bass was considerably delayed with no information whatsoever until I contacted Sandberg directly and said I wanted to cancel the order unless someone would tell me what was going on. But even then they did not answer me directly but went through the useless distributor.

You're right of course that the cause of the problem wasn't specifically with Sandberg but with a distributor who didn't follow up my order properly. But it's Sandberg's choice of business model and distributor. It's also Sandbergs's decision to leave these options out of the clipalator and it was also Sandberg's choice to deliberately only give vague answers to the question I asked them directly because their policy was everything had to go through a dealer. I mean, if they can build a passive version why not include it in the clipalator and save all the completely uneccesary emails back and forth, first to confirm that they can build it (which I already knew) and then to confirm the actual order. And when they actually recommend certain pickups as alternatives (they suggested Kloppman or Häussel to me but Delano seems like a Sandberg "standard" too) why not include them as an option too? I mean, the pickup is probably the ONE thing most people would want see some alternatives for.

Still, it was worth the wait. Possibly the best bass I've ever owned.
Click to expand...

That doesn't sound like a good experience at all!

It does help (in general, with any custom order, of which I have some experience with other companies) to know exactly what you want, and spell it out clearly to them. Sometimes they may give you a form to fill in. Sometimes there's this configurator thingy. But it's difficult to have every option possible, so there's often a need to add or clarify some aspects of the order. When I ordered a bass with a pickup in a non-standard position, I made a diagram with measurements and attached it to my initial enquiry.
Doing things like that generally helps speed up things, and avoids confusion.
Sometimes they may suggest alternative hardware/electronics, but I have something in mind to start with, which I indicate.

However, you can be as careful as you like, if the person you need to go through is not very good, you'll get stuck.

Glad that you got your bass in the end and ended up being as good as you hoped for. If I had had your experience, I would have been tempted to abort too. I'm glad I didn't get to be in that position because I *love* this VM4. It gets better each time I play it.
 
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