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The Reverend Club (part 8)

I ended up going with a Bartolini Quad Coil... not excatly what I wanted, but still good. I measure it all out and the pickup will be further forward than a typical Music Man.. I wanted the split brick to get a revers P with a clean route, and to keep it all Rev parts, but I still think this is going to be cool. I will post pics when it's all done
 
CV115505,

I just scored a red top rev. decision that I plan on painting alpine green, with a tort guard from rev. I may or may not change to bridge pickup to a delano MM slug type series wind. Show us pics of when you get your bass off the ground. How much does yours weigh?
 
Will do. I am still waiting on the pickup right now... Not too sure on the weight. I only have an inaccurate bathroom scale at my disposal right now. I'll see if I can find the shipping weight.
 
So I bought a Rev. Decision in red top from Reverb.com. Excellent weight, probably 7.5 Lbs. no dead spots on the neck. Bridge pickup was completely dead, only the neck pickup worked. Not a problem, but man oh man! I couldn't stand the sound of that pickup after a while, it started to sound honky! Probably a combo of the big slugs and the ceramic magnets. I put a darkstar on top of the bass to see if I was crazy or if the pickup was the problem. The dark star was fatter and clearer, the Rev. pickup sounds bass but I think lacks low mids, it sounds midrangey leaning toward honky in comparison. I don't think it's anything to do with the wiring, I think that's the way it's meant to sound. Probably a big reason Mike Watt and Michelle Ndegeocello went with a dual bladed P instead for their Sig. Rev. basses. I took it to a jam last night and traded between the decision and my Mexican Roadwork Dirnt with SGD P pickups wired in parallel. I found myself going back to the P every other song, I think the pickup just isn't for me, too bad, because I really like the bass otherwise. Can't comment on the j bridge since it was DOA, but I suspect it would have sounded good judging from the web videos.
Be
Below is a shot of the bass with what I would put in it if I kept it. I removed the top of my dark star and was thinking of cutting around a music man cover in order to install the pickup using existing style casing for the bass, and hopefully get a replacement bridge pickup from Rev. or maybe something else in the bridge position.

IMG_0226.JPG
from the web videos.
 
I have a BH5 coming in that should look nice with my two RL5s:)
This one apparently has a Nordstrand 2 band pre.
The last RL5 I got a couple of months ago, had an OBP1

I really love Nordy stuff as well, but what is it with people that makes them put a preamp into a Rev?
 
I have no decent photos of my Mercalli 5, but here's some videos I've made with it

this is the first one, with stock strings. There was no youtube demos of Mercalli at the time so I decided to make my own

After playing on roundwound strings for a while I've decided to try flats. And that's where the character of this bass really opened up!

 
I'm thinking of getting a Reverend as a second bass. I'm unsure of the neck and won't have the chance to try it first. The music shops near me don't carry Reverend.

I use a Rebop right now and really dig the neck, but see that my bass's radius is different than the Rev.

If I wanted to go with something different than the Spector, would you go with the Justice? I'm trying to decide between that and the Mercalli.
 
I think the neck dimensions are the same on both... If it were me. I'd go with the Mercalli. The justice has a typical jazz sound. The Mercalli has a really full sound. Solo the neck for a P sound, or the bridge for an mm sound
 
I'm thinking of getting a Reverend as a second bass. I'm unsure of the neck and won't have the chance to try it first. The music shops near me don't carry Reverend.

I use a Rebop right now and really dig the neck, but see that my bass's radius is different than the Rev.

If I wanted to go with something different than the Spector, would you go with the Justice? I'm trying to decide between that and the Mercalli.

I have the now-discontinued USA Brad Houser 5 Reverend's and love them. Only electric bass guitar I play. I have no doubt the current Reverend's are great basses but I have not played one. I read in a thread here where Brad said he plays a BH5 body with a Mercalli neck now if that helps.
 
I'd go for the mercali 4 in alpine green, if you get the justice it's basically just another jazz bass. If you don't like the pickups on the mercali there are some great choices for replacement like Nordstrand Bigman or the Lace Sensor Man O' War, which you can get a 3 position switch to go from series/parallel/single. The basic tone of the reverend unplugged reminds me of a thunderbird, maybe because of the hog body. As far as the neck the width will be the same more or less, but the radius, 16 on your bass is probably close to flat. I don't think you will notice much difference from 12 to 16, but I have never played a bass with that radius. Another thing, you will probably not have to worry about getting a bass with dead spots, since the 5 piece neck reduces the likelihood of that. Good luck!
 
I'm thinking of getting a Reverend as a second bass. I'm unsure of the neck and won't have the chance to try it first. The music shops near me don't carry Reverend.

I use a Rebop right now and really dig the neck, but see that my bass's radius is different than the Rev.

If I wanted to go with something different than the Spector, would you go with the Justice? I'm trying to decide between that and the Mercalli.
I'm hoping to get a Mercalli.