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The Official MTD USA Thread

#11,641
Vic said:
i've had several MTDs over the years, and while they've all been incredible instruments, they've all also eventually found new homes. they've all been 535s, except most recently a USA Saratoga 5. this past NAMM show i picked up a new 635 from mike. ash body/neck, maple board, walnut top. i've been battling with 6 strings over the years, and am trying again. i'll still primarily be a 5 guy, and plan to spec a new bass with Mike this year (probably a 534.

but especially for worship music (not so much for the cover band) the 635 is mind blowingly good. it's mix-forward mids slice through anything, it's punch is super dynamic, and the b string tight and very focused. it takes a super low setup too. trying to develop a lighter touch these days too. i do find myself boosting the bass a little bit sometimes, but the clarity is just typical off-the-charts MTD. holy crap.
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Vic,

With your general preference leaning more towards j basses you really need to try my 34” Norm Stockton with PTC. Best MTD I have owned. Mike, Daniel and crew knocked it out of the park!
 
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#11,646
ThisYouCanTrust said:
Sure. It was more a general question I suppose, I seem to often see MTDs with a one-piece neck .. ?
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yep. all the mtds i’ve owned (several) had one piece flat sawn necks. there is no problem at all with that design. it just happened to be a piece of maple or ebony that was a little less stable than usual.

laminated necks are not stricly/simply a way to get a stiffer neck. they have many and in some cases potentially complex impacts on tone.

i don’t want to blow this out of proportion. it wasn’t a huge issue at all.
 
#11,647
Can anyone go into specifics on the differences between the MTD spec'd Super dual coils and Bartolini's Classic Bass duals? The Supers don't use a buffer, right? So I'm assuming they're not low wound/low impedance like the non-super MTD USA's.
 
#11,648
Vic said:
yep. all the mtds i’ve owned (several) had one piece flat sawn necks. there is no problem at all with that design. it just happened to be a piece of maple or ebony that was a little less stable than usual.

laminated necks are not stricly/simply a way to get a stiffer neck. they have many and in some cases potentially complex impacts on tone.

i don’t want to blow this out of proportion. it wasn’t a huge issue at all.
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I asked because I'm under the impression that I like laminated necks better myself but I'm not sure, not to insist on any way that what you had could have been an issue :)

I had a couple of graphite/carbon neck basses in the past (still have one in fact), so to me wood lives and always moves a little, and that's just normal :)
 
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#11,649
Combinator said:
Can anyone go into specifics on the differences between the MTD spec'd Super dual coils and Bartolini's Classic Bass duals? The Supers don't use a buffer, right? So I'm assuming they're not low wound/low impedance like the non-super MTD USA's.
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Anyone have info on this without me having to bug Messrs. Tobias? I actually wouldn't bother them with this, but you know me - gear geek.
 
#11,650
Hi guys have another question on woods... Does anyone have any experience on whether the top wood has any difference on the tone? I'm currently choosing between a walnut or maple top over an ash body and was wondering if the top will create any major tonal difference.
 
#11,652
Bassface92 said:
Hi guys have another question on woods... Does anyone have any experience on whether the top wood has any difference on the tone? I'm currently choosing between a walnut or maple top over an ash body and was wondering if the top will create any major tonal difference.
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i'd augment what rodneyat said with this...

in some (non-MTD) cases, the answer is generally no, because the topwood is pretty thin and mostly just for aesthetics. however, in Mike's case, it's thick enough to matter, and yes, discuss that with him directly... because as the wood alchemist he is, the topwood is only one element of a multi-component equation he solves with every build. in other words, what and how much it'll do may depend a lot on what body wood it's sitting on, bridge type, etc.

short answer tho... what rodneyat said. :)
 
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#11,653
Just read that evidently as of NAMM this year, there's a new preamp for the USA models that's a seemingly more typical +18v instead of a - 9/+9v. Anyone know if the new one is still direct coupled? Maybe being D.C. as a value point was determined to be less important than the potential for active/passive switching and greater modular options, if not.
 
#11,654
Combinator said:
Just read that evidently as of NAMM this year, there's a new preamp for the USA models that's a seemingly more typical +18v instead of a - 9/+9v. Anyone know if the new one is still direct coupled? Maybe being D.C. as a value point was determined to be less important than the potential for active/passive switching and greater modular options, if not.
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Mike was telling me he was having issues with the “power switch” (not sure what the technical name is) not switching off when jacks were unplugged and killing batteries fast. He had Bartolini delete something from the system. I have been running a prototype for a few weeks. And I haven’t noticed any tonal difference. The last thing he wants to do is have a customer have to send a bass into him for a failure in the preamp. He has had good luck with the new system in that regard. As far as voltage goes I am under the impression that everything is the same as with the 535 family of preamps. The supers are of course a different story.
 
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#11,655
bassgrackle said:
Mike was telling me he was having issues with the “power switch” (not sure what the technical name is) not switching off when jacks were unplugged and killing batteries fast. He had Bartolini delete something from the system. I have been running a prototype for a few weeks. And I haven’t noticed any tonal difference. The last thing he wants to do is have a customer have to send a bass into him for a failure in the preamp. He has had good luck with the new system in that regard. As far as voltage goes I am under the impression that everything is the same as with the 535 family of preamps. The supers are of course a different story.
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Cool, thanks for the feedback! In fact, I think I've run into that issue with the switching on one of my MTDs at one point. I can't say conclusively that was the problem, but I did think so at the time. With the +/- system, the voltage offset isn't offset at all, with 0 volts for the pre being at ground level. That's why the pre and stereo jack are grounded full time instead of having a bridged connection when a plug is inserted. Then one battery supplies the + rail for the pre, the other supplies the - rail. In other words, there's still 18v of total variance from one side of the waveform to the other, but the neutral middle point is at ground level. It doesn't use any caps to decouple the signal as it enters the buffer or preamp, taking those tonally out of the equation and removing another obstacle to the pickup signal's transmission. But in a +18v system, the signal "ground"/neutral point is just offset to about +9v from true ground, so true ground represents a kind of -9v and going up to 18v represents the +9v in function - same amount of headroom. I'd think the DC caps would be needed here though, but that's like 98% of bass preamps available anyway. I'm just interested on exactly what they changed and what they kept, but of course the sound is the important part, and if you say it's the same, that's a big gold star !
 
#11,656
Anybody here ever get to hear the Byron Miller signature bass? It’s a PBass, I think maybe a Saratoga with EMG pickups and preamp. It seems like it might be one hell of PBass! I talked to Mike at NAMM about them and he mentioned the hadn’t sold very many probably because of how plain jane it looks - all white. I think Byron more frequently plays a Fender 5 these days, but from what I gather, the PBass was a staple of his during his George Duke days.

JayT
 
#11,657
Sirfishalot said:
Anybody here ever get to hear the Byron Miller signature bass? It’s a PBass, I think maybe a Saratoga with EMG pickups and preamp. It seems like it might be one hell of PBass! I talked to Mike at NAMM about them and he mentioned the hadn’t sold very many probably because of how plain jane it looks - all white. I think Byron more frequently plays a Fender 5 these days, but from what I gather, the PBass was a staple of his during his George Duke days.

JayT
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I am extremely interested in having an MTD P someday, but not with Byron's specs. Norm Stockton's is much more my style.
 

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