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The Mike Lull Club

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#961
Scott,

I have to agree with everything you've said about your Lull.

Mine is passive so I can't comment on the preamp, but the B string,
the nut, the balance, the weight, the spacing, all match my experience.

I have yet to play a "34 scale B string that sounds as good a "35.

I play a lot of open strings and my Lull sounds perfect.

This bass is more responsive than any bass I've owned.

This is the first bass that I like as much (dare I say more) than my Laklands.
I could probably swap my Laklands for Lulls and be very happy.

Not that I would, but I'm just saying...
 
#962
I thought I'd been going crazy there for a while. I'm glad someone else has had the same experience!

Took the bass in to Mike today and talked about what we might do on it. Re-doing the clearcoat isn't an option because the "damage" is too extensive going into the paint. No big deal. I may get her refinished or I may just live with it. It really depends on whether my motorcycle sells here in the next couple months probably.

This bass was made for Earl South, a studio player down south, back in January of '02 (which is basically who I bought it from with Atlanta Bass Gallery being the intermediate seller). She's just about to have her 8th birthday, same month as me! Though I'm a little older than that...

Some pics to come. Nothin fancy; I've only got an iPhone.
 
#963
These pictures are proof I'm no photographer, but it's something anyway!

Lull_Back.jpg

Lull_Body.jpg

Lull_Front.jpg

Lull_Side.jpg

Lull_Top.jpg

And here's one where you can kinda see the clearcoat cracking on the back
Rear_Damage.jpg

Lull_Full.jpg
 
#964
Fun catching up on this thread. I'm glad you're digging the sound, Scott! The color looks terrific, even if the finish leaves a bit to be desired. FWIW, my opinion: if you dig the sound, leave it as-is. It's definitely a 'player' and those dings add to the mojo. From a few feet away it looks great (or at least it sure seems to look great in the pics), and if it feels good and makes you're ears happy, spend that money elsewhere.
 
#967
I'm glad for you as well Scott. That's a very nice catch! The red with the black hardware is smokin':bassist:

You're right - from the pics you really can't see much of any "damage". If you feel you HAVE to get it refinished, just take Mike's lead on that. You may even want to call Carey Nordstrand and get a second opinion.

My Lull has a couple dings in it but after a while I didn't even think about it.
 
#968
I've been spending some more time with it and have some gripes with the sound. For reference, Seymour Duncan pickups (singles or HC??) and Aggie OBP-1 pre.

Fingerstyle, it sounds really clean, a bit cold, has very little mid complexity and thickness that I like. With the Aggi pre engaged the high end is really bright, and that's without any highend boost.

It sounds tremendous for slap! Very aggressive when slapped, lot's of highs, barky, scooped sounding, but needs a little bass boost in there to add some bottom.

I'd probably recommend this bass for a rock player. I don't play rock. Mostly R&B, soul, funk, neo soul, some jazz, etc. Great picking sound and slap sound. I'm not too keen on the fingerstyle. And of course that's about 90% of what I do. :hmm:

So here's where my old Sadowsky really wins. I loved the tone of that bass. To me, it was almost perfect for what I'm looking for: thick, and pretty warm, good complex mids. The Lull feels right in my hands and looks pretty sweet as well, but I'm not digging the tone as much as I thought I would.
Suggestions?

My idea is to go with the DiMarzio Ultrajazz pickups. Relatively inexpensive and have a similar tone to the Sadowsky pickups. Maybe that would get me a thicker tone with meatier mids?
 
#970
Sorry to hear that you're not digging the sound. FWIW, my Lull (pics below - alder body/BEM board, bart single coils (I think), Aggie OBP3 pre) sounds a lot like what you're describing. My opinion is that it's the BEM board. EVERY bass with a BEM board that I've played (I'm assuming yours has a BEM board...maybe I should have looked through previous posts to make sure) sounds way too bright and really harsh and shrill up top. I don't think that the Aggie pre helps that since it tends to showcase the natural highs in the bass (again, IME and IMO).

If the bass feels good in your hands, then it might be worth it to try and change up the electronics. Try a different preamp. Maybe a 3-band that will allow you to change up the mids a bit. I'm not sure that a Sadowsky pre would help matters since it might really accentuate the highs. You might want to try some Nordstrand pickups. To my ear they sound a bit warmer than other J pickups.

Also, what kind of strings are you using? Maybe a warmer set will help out what you're hearing. (Not that you haven't though of all of this already...just thinking out loud).

All that said, I think the Lull sits very nicely in a mix. I tend to boost the bass to around just shy of 7 and the mids to about 6, and I usually cut the highs to about 4 or I'll leave it flat.

But, I think I'm more of an ash/RW guy (normally), which makes my bass the polar opposite of what I usually dig, but it still is a great sounding bass. I hope that you can find something you like.

DSC00200.gif


Scott McArron said:
I've been spending some more time with it and have some gripes with the sound. For reference, Seymour Duncan pickups (singles or HC??) and Aggie OBP-1 pre.

Fingerstyle, it sounds really clean, a bit cold, has very little mid complexity and thickness that I like. With the Aggi pre engaged the high end is really bright, and that's without any highend boost.

It sounds tremendous for slap! Very aggressive when slapped, lot's of highs, barky, scooped sounding, but needs a little bass boost in there to add some bottom.

I'd probably recommend this bass for a rock player. I don't play rock. Mostly R&B, soul, funk, neo soul, some jazz, etc. Great picking sound and slap sound. I'm not too keen on the fingerstyle. And of course that's about 90% of what I do. :hmm:

So here's where my old Sadowsky really wins. I loved the tone of that bass. To me, it was almost perfect for what I'm looking for: thick, and pretty warm, good complex mids. The Lull feels right in my hands and looks pretty sweet as well, but I'm not digging the tone as much as I thought I would.
Suggestions?

My idea is to go with the DiMarzio Ultrajazz pickups. Relatively inexpensive and have a similar tone to the Sadowsky pickups. Maybe that would get me a thicker tone with meatier mids?
Click to expand...
 
#971
XavidmanX said:
Sorry to hear that you're not digging the sound. FWIW, my Lull (pics below - alder body/BEM board, bart single coils (I think), Aggie OBP3 pre) sounds a lot like what you're describing. My opinion is that it's the BEM board. EVERY bass with a BEM board that I've played (I'm assuming yours has a BEM board...maybe I should have looked through previous posts to make sure) sounds way too bright and really harsh and shrill up top. I don't think that the Aggie pre helps that since it tends to showcase the natural highs in the bass (again, IME and IMO).

If the bass feels good in your hands, then it might be worth it to try and change up the electronics. Try a different preamp. Maybe a 3-band that will allow you to change up the mids a bit. I'm not sure that a Sadowsky pre would help matters since it might really accentuate the highs. You might want to try some Nordstrand pickups. To my ear they sound a bit warmer than other J pickups.

Also, what kind of strings are you using? Maybe a warmer set will help out what you're hearing. (Not that you haven't though of all of this already...just thinking out loud).

All that said, I think the Lull sits very nicely in a mix. I tend to boost the bass to around just shy of 7 and the mids to about 6, and I usually cut the highs to about 4 or I'll leave it flat.

But, I think I'm more of an ash/RW guy (normally), which makes my bass the polar opposite of what I usually dig, but it still is a great sounding bass. I hope that you can find something you like.

DSC00200.gif
Click to expand...

Nice bass! Mike was just telling me how much he digs red basses, and that's certainly a good one.

Yeah , I've got the BEM board. My last Lull had it too and it sounded really good. It's not that the tone is bad, it just seems to be geared towards a different genre of music. Maybe rock, but I don't know, I haven't really played rock in over a decade.

There's a lot of high mids in the tone, too, real electricy high mids not the grindy J-bass kind, and a hole in the low mids zone. It didn't really come to light until I was playing at full stage volume as opposed to bedroom volume. If I'm going tohave high mids I like the grindy kind, and I definitely need some good, warm, punchy low mids.

I'm going to give it some time and get a couple gigs on her before I change anything out. I'll probably keep the Aggie Pre; I like boost only 2-band pres. So I may experiment with the pickups. Now, I either better learn to use a soldering iron or be prepared to burn some cash by having Mike do it. I'll keep those Nordies in mind, sounds like it could be a good combo with the brighter Aggie pre.
 
#972
All this talk about Lull and I almost forgot what I am wearing today:

Shirt-1.gif


Sorry to hear about your troubles Aaron, a lot of basses look beautiful but they have to deliver in the sound department too.
Have you talked to Mike about options? I think this one is worth experimenting on, mine is also a 2002 model and IMHO there really is something about the older ones that I prefer... If mine was Plek'd it would be perfect but it works and I love it! I for one can't take super zingy highs so the Bart pre combined with the passive tone and Ash/Rosewood combo is a home run for me.
 
#973
I'm gonna wait till I get some gigs on her before I go back to Mike and talk about options.

You know, Mike only charges 125 on Pleks for his basses. And from my personal experience it is one of the most amazing things you can do for your bass! I've never had a bass that could get nearly as low of a setup without any fretbuzz.
 
#976
Scott McArron said:
...Great picking sound and slap sound. I'm not too keen on the fingerstyle. And of course that's about 90% of what I do....So here's where my old Sadowsky really wins. I loved the tone of that bass. To me, it was almost perfect for what I'm looking for: thick, and pretty warm, good complex mids. The Lull feels right in my hands and looks pretty sweet as well, but I'm not digging the tone as much as I thought I would.
Suggestions?........My idea is to go with the DiMarzio Ultrajazz pickups. Relatively inexpensive and have a similar tone to the Sadowsky pickups. Maybe that would get me a thicker tone with meatier mids?
Click to expand...

Hi Scott, I see that you live in close proximity to Mike's shop, which would be nice IMO :).

I think you're definitely making the right move by trying it out on a few gigs to get a better idea on what changes you'd like done to it.

I don't have any experience with a Sadowsky, but this ain't rocket science. :D I'm sure Mike knows which pickups/electronics combo will get the sound you're wanting to get out of the instrument. I'm confident he can make a few minor tweaks to that bass to get you the tone you want -and it shouldn't dig too deep into your wallet.

Mike suggested a set of split coil Bartolini pickups to me when I needed a fatter sound out of my M5V, which worked very well IMO. My Lull has an ash body, Duncan SC's (currently Barts), and an Aggie OBP-3 pre. It originally came with a BEM neck, but Mike was nice enough to swap that out with one of his RWFB necks at my request. IMO the rosewood FB warmed up it's tone nicely, but looking back, I should've bought an alder bodied Lull from the get-go. Ash typically has a bit of a mids scoop, which is opposite of the type of tone that I prefer. Luckily for me, the OBP-3 pre allows me to bump up the mids to where I like them.

From reading your posts, you've had good results with the woods combo that match your latest Lull. Once again, I'm confident that Mike will know how to get a sound you're happy with from it.

Please keep us posted on how things get sorted out.

Best regards, -Derwin
 
#978
Scott,
Since you have the OBP-3 preamp, do you have a push/pull mid? The thickness comes from low mids.

I have an Audere 4-band preamp (which is not even on Mike's radar as an option or to offer an opinion) but ALL tones are available from this bass since you can individually boost/cut 4 bands AND engage the Z-mode to suite you. Very versatile!

Another option would be to put Bart pickups back in. It won't have the top end of the Duncans but it will be phatter.
 
#980
Basso Gruvitas said:
Scott,
Since you have the OBP-3 preamp, do you have a push/pull mid? The thickness comes from low mids.

I have an Audere 4-band preamp (which is not even on Mike's radar as an option or to offer an opinion) but ALL tones are available from this bass since you can individually boost/cut 4 bands AND engage the Z-mode to suite you. Very versatile!

Another option would be to put Bart pickups back in. It won't have the top end of the Duncans but it will be phatter.
Click to expand...

I've got the OBP-1, so no mid controls. And I use a DB750, so that's pretty useless as well.

My experience with the Barts is that they are not very thick sounding, have a low output, and basically sound kind of bland to my ears. I definitely want something with similar thickness to the Sadowsky sound, but without going with Sadowsky. With that in mind, I'm leaning towards the DM UltraJazz pickups at the moment.

First, though, I'm going to Mike's shop today if it's open and will pick up a pack of strings to see if that makes any difference. Even acoustically, these strings on here, whatever they are, don't sound good to my ears. Harsh high end, ganky, zingy high mids, lacks low mid punch, and a real tight and agressive low end.
 
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