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Sterling by MusicMan Joe Dart Vision

#41
I think it looks great and I'm not normally a fan of Oly White or a gold pickguard.

Price-wise, I think it has crept past the "it's cheap, I'll give it a spin" mark. To me, that was part of the appeal of the first one and even the short scale P of the last crop.

So I'll give it a pass this year and see what happens next year!
 
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#42
Thumpin6string said:
I don't know why, but I find him to be an annoying egotistical guy. You would think that in an introduction video that they could at least get it to sound better than a farty cell phone recording. I'll stick with my 5 knob preamp.
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That's Joe's tone and it has been since he switched from the Jazz to his signature models but in this video they purposely overloaded the board at the beginning so the sound engineer could ask Joe to turn his bass down. It's just an exaggerated version of Jamerson's tone, which last I checked is quite a popular tone.

Anyway don't expect a serious video from the Vulfpeck guys.
 
#43
ninjatanzen said:
I haven't gotten his cool factor either, but I do enjoy his bass playing. Sometimes it's like that. Needing to separate the person from their music and enjoy it for what it is. I do agree the video doesn't make the bass sound great... Looking forward to hearing samples from members here who buy it!
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He seems like an incredibly down to earth guy and a killer bassist.

 
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#44
His short scale bass came with no knobs and it was a flop but I guess due to the short scale and low tuning. I'm sure this will sell just as well as the knobbed version.

I often thought of replacing the volume knob on my P bass with an on/off switch because it seems like a liability on stage and nothing else (on stage I only ever play with the volume all the way up) but then I started playing in a band where I have to use a pick on some songs and I have to turn down a bit to match volumes.
The volume knob is also useful when rehearsing if you want to show something to your bandmatyes while speaking, and when practicing at home to match volumes with the songs.
You already knew that, of course.

I will absolutely make fun of anybody who buys this bass and then adds a volume pedal to their board.
 
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#46
Plinkerton said:
He seems like an incredibly down to earth guy and a killer bassist.

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He is an amazing bassist for sure, and I don't think he is a bad person or anything like that.

I have seen that video before, and thought the $400 price point he mentioned was great for what you get on the I, II, and III models. I don't know why the "cool" factor doesn't click with me in regards to him, but I still appreciate his work. Maybe I'm being dumb and need to stand a little more corrected/should watch what I say. Thankfully he seems to be doing well, and my viewpoint on a subjective "cool bassist" factor is more or less irrelevant.

Appreciate the video link for reference.
 
#50
andare said:
His short scale bass came with no knobs and it was a flop but I guess due to the short scale and low tuning. I'm sure this will sell just as well as the knobbed version.
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Are you talking about the Joe Dart Jr? They only made 50 of them - worldwide, and all of them sold. You also don't see any of them EVER come up used. I'm not sure how much of a flop that is.
 
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#51
singlemalt said:
I'm playing the "put it in my cart, wait for a discount" game. It's a yearly thing.

Hasn't worked yet, but maybe I'll shake a used one out of the trees.
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That won't work here. It's only available for preorder for one month (until 5/31), then sales are closed and they'll only make how ever many were ordered. They did end up selling blemished models at a discount after the 1-year warranty ended for the first crop, but those blend sold out in minutes. (EDIT: I just saw that you said it's a yearly thing. Sorry I missed you already know all this!)
andare said:
Not the first one. The short scale they made a few years ago was white.
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That was an expensive Ernie Ball Music Man bass, and this is the first white model of Dart's much cheaper Sterling by Music Man basses.
ModuMan said:
I think it looks great and I'm not normally a fan of Oly White or a gold pickguard.

Price-wise, I think it has crept past the "it's cheap, I'll give it a spin" mark. To me, that was part of the appeal of the first one and even the short scale P of the last crop.

So I'll give it a pass this year and see what happens next year!
Click to expand...
After owning the SBMM Joe Dart 1 for about 8 months, I think it's still a good value for $550. But I agree it's approaching that point. (Can't speak to value of the new no-knob model)
 
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#54
ninjatanzen said:
He is an amazing bassist for sure, and I don't think he is a bad person or anything like that.

I have seen that video before, and thought the $400 price point he mentioned was great for what you get on the I, II, and III models. I don't know why the "cool" factor doesn't click with me in regards to him, but I still appreciate his work. Maybe I'm being dumb and need to stand a little more corrected/should watch what I say. Thankfully he seems to be doing well, and my viewpoint on a subjective "cool bassist" factor is more or less irrelevant.

Appreciate the video link for reference.
Click to expand...
I don't know him personally or anything, but he's always just seems to be a proponent of music of all kinds, and shares a child-like passion with everyone about it. Always smiling, always friendly, etc.

Him being "cool" is whatever. I'm not that cool either. 😂 But I do appreciate passion and enthusiasm and kindness and wanting to spread the love of music.

That said, I don't own a Joe Dart bass and probably never will, but I do have a Ray34 with flats on it.
 
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#58
Every time a Joe Dart bass gets announced, it's a great time to sit back and appreciate how pretentious the community can be.

Like, Good Lord, people, it's a bass. If you don't like it, don't buy it. And contrary to popular belief, you don't actually have to comment on every single thing that comes up when you're scrolling your internets. I assure you, your quality of life will improve significantly if you recognize that sometimes, you don't have a horse in the race.

I don't have a Joe Dart bass, and I'm not sure I would purchase one unless I had a lot more discretionary income. But I also deeply appreciate that they're willing to put out something different that actually tries to appeal to different sensibilities than the norm.

Believe it or not, some of us are a little sick that the bass making world has become so homogenized that everything either needs to be either as traditional and un-interesting as possible, or as feature-packed and complicated as possible. It's my biggest gripe with the industry of production-model bass manufacturers. Simply giving us two paradigms to drift toward doesn't actually constitute variety.

And frankly, I find it hilarious that they don't take themselves too seriously in these marketing videos. They're not here to make you want to buy the bass. They're here to offer it to people who want it. Hence the "we'll build as many as you order" model, which is actually a really good compromise as far as semi-collectible gear goes.
 
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#59
lowplaces said:
No load volume pot would be my design. They would likely sell more if they offered the option.
(But they didn't ask)
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BassicJazzy said:
At least a kill switch.
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The thing I have on a few of my basses, which I think does both things rather well, is a bypass switch. When engaged, it routes the signal straight to the output jack. It's like a no-load pot that you can turn on or off. Does the same for the tone knob, so it's a little bit like having a passive treble boost on the bass itself.
 
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