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The Official MTD USA Thread

#14,801
I have had a 435 with ash neck, birdseye maple fretboard, ash body but maple top.
I found it thin sounding in the low mids / lows and I ended up selling it...
Not sure it was this particular bass or the wood combo that is not for me.
Though when I contacted Mike once and described my tonal goals, he spec'ed these woods.
My current 535 that I like a lot more has a mahogany body, maple neck and ebony fretboard.

27804452398_b394d29da0_h.jpg
 
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#14,802
Eneade said:
I have had a 435 with ash neck, birdseye maple fretboard, ash body but maple top.
I found it thin sounding in the low mids / lows and I ended up selling it...
Not sure it was this particular bass or the wood combo that is not for me.
Though when I contacted Mike once and described my tonal goals, he spec'ed these woods.
My current 535 that I like a lot more has a mahogany body, maple neck and ebony fretboard.

View attachment 5456501
Click to expand...
Yet another ash/ash/maple bass that didn't stick around lol. It's a pretty common theme around here...
 
#14,803
iplay5strings said:
Yet another ash/ash/maple bass that didn't stick around lol. It's a pretty common theme around here...
Click to expand...
Before doing something drastic, I'm shocked more of you don't try a different preamp or pickups. I put in a Uni-Pre and it made a world of difference.
 
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#14,808
I owned two different 535's with ash/ash and a maple board (slighly different tops). Combo may be heaven for some but it wasn't for me. One sounded slightly warmer than the other but totally agree with the lacking in the lows/low mids. Currenlty have a 535 with mahogany body, spalted maple top and rosewood board (maple neck), freaking love it.

iplay5strings said:
Yet another ash/ash/maple bass that didn't stick around lol. It's a pretty common theme around here...
Click to expand...
 
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#14,811
evilgus said:
LOL, that's exactly why I've been playing old Tobiases (and Roscoes, Warwicks, Spectors) for the last 10 years... the ash/ash/maple 535s always needed major low-end EQing for "regular" gigs....

EG
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And yet they keep recommending this combo to people...I'd even venture to say that it is one of their top selling combinations :eek:
 
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#14,812
Eneade said:
Changing pickups or preamp is more drastic than selling it, in my opinion.
If I do not like it for what it is, someone else may will.

So I changed for this one and I do not have to tweak the preamp to have a sound I like :)

52921805843_c076b045e8_c.jpg
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Apparently we differ greatly on the word 'drastic', although our basses are very similar structurally. My has makore instead of mahogany core, sandwiched between flamed Redwood top and back. Neck and fingerboard appears the same. The low end of my bass was flubby and lacked definition. Something I've experienced with Bartolini preamps on certain basses, no amount of string changes fixed it. Lower bass frequencies on the Uni-Pre is adjustable from 20Hz - 80Hz. You can also adjust the upper bass frequencies. Mid control with sweep, adjustable treble freq of 1kHz - 7.5kHz. I found my sweet spot, flubby no more. All for the price of $271.68 plus shipping from John East himself.
 
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#14,813
Funkinthetrunk said:
Apparently we differ greatly on the word 'drastic', although our basses are very similar structurally. My has makore instead of mahogany core, sandwiched between flamed Redwood top and back. Neck and fingerboard appears the same. The low end of my bass was flubby and lacked definition. Something I've experienced with Bartolini preamps on certain basses, no amount of string changes fixed it. Lower bass frequencies on the Uni-Pre is adjustable from 20Hz - 80Hz. You can also adjust the upper bass frequencies. Mid control with sweep, adjustable treble freq of 1kHz - 7.5kHz. I found my sweet spot, flubby no more. All for the price of $271.68 plus shipping from John East himself.
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I bought a bass (not an MTD) in 2012 and almost sold it several months later because it was getting lost in the mix. Figured I might as well try changing the preamp and that bass has now done more gigs than any other I own. :)
 
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#14,814
iplay5strings said:
And yet they keep recommending this combo to people...I'd even venture to say that it is one of their top selling combinations :eek:
Click to expand...

Both my 435s have an ash body and ash neck with a birdseye maple board. One has a walnut top, one a myrtle. They both sound amazing, I wouldn’t change a thing about them. Slightly prefer the walnut to the myrtle, so that‘s what I chose for my custom 535.
 
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#14,815
Taustin Powers said:
Both my 435s have an ash body and ash neck with a birdseye maple board. One has a walnut top, one a myrtle. They both sound amazing, I wouldn’t change a thing about them. Slightly prefer the walnut to the myrtle, so that‘s what I chose for my custom 535.
Click to expand...

My 535 is also ash/ash/BEM and anyone that knows me outside of here knows that I've had quite a journey with it :thumbsdown:. This may be a bit long winded, but I think it's worth it for anyone that buys this wood combo and isn't too keen on a taking a loss by selling it and trying to get into another one...

IME The ash/ash combo really doubles down on the growl factor, which can translate into a lack of focus when put in a band context. The notes purr when you attack them instead of having a clean transient spike, which makes it harder to hear the begining of your notes when competing with drums and guitar. This is where the "my bass is getting lost in the mix" affect starts to happen. The thing that helped mine the most was ditching the aluminum tray and putting a brass one on. While other wood combinations may benefit from the more open sound of an aluminum tray, ash needs the higher mass of the brass (IMO) to focus its growl up into more of a poke and get that low mid everyone keeps mentioning is "missing". This really isn't all that surprising since one of the most infamous ash/maple basses (Marcus Miller) uses a high mass bridge as well (and is kind of a gold standard as far as bass sitting well in a mix IMO).

The other changes I made really came down to personal preference as far as function (preamp swap) and that I already have a great sounding jazz bass via my Czech made Beast, and the stock MTD pickups were just too close to that same vibe for me (pickup swap).

Anyone wanting to get an ash/ash/BEM bass, I recommend springing for a brass bridge from the get-go and either getting the titanium bars in the neck or laminating the neck to help focus the overly abundant growl that all that ash will naturally have.
 
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#14,817
For anyone interested, here was Daniel's explanation as far as tonewood from when I started the process of having my 535 built.

Screenshot_20240524-221021.png


Now having experience with this build, I think the maple neck would'be been the better choice for me. What I was hoping would happen is that the "focus" he mentions from going with the ash neck would somewhat compensate for not having a top (as I love the look of the trans stain on ash), but that really wasn't the case in my (and it seems like many other) situation(s). Growl, yes this build definitely has that. With the stock electronics though, it was in a more polite/warm/vintage p bass kind of way...not the "in your face" modern punch with sizzle way I was expecting (and am also used to from my Beast).
 
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#14,818
Eneade said:
I have had a 435 with ash neck, birdseye maple fretboard, ash body but maple top.
I found it thin sounding in the low mids / lows and I ended up selling it...
Not sure it was this particular bass or the wood combo that is not for me.
Though when I contacted Mike once and described my tonal goals, he spec'ed these woods.
My current 535 that I like a lot more has a mahogany body, maple neck and ebony fretboard.

View attachment 5456501
Click to expand...

Dang.
 

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