Now..also add in ALL the things (stings, files, etc) you had to buy plus your time doing all of this. And the cost is....????
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Now..also add in ALL the things (stings, files, etc) you had to buy plus your time doing all of this. And the cost is....????
Oh my!
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EDIT: kslight, how did I miss your post about this earlier??? haha it is a very pretty beasty!!!
Link Removed
EDIT: kslight, how did I miss your post about this earlier??? haha it is a very pretty beasty!!!
Files can be used for other nut slot work in the future. And many people like to put on new strings when they get a bass... and they all will need new strings eventually anyway!
All true. Still...looks like the Rondo has a multitude of "hidden" costs. The cost differential between a Rondo and one of the competitors (Hellcat VI, etc.) isn't as much as meets the eye if you just look solely at the list price of the Rondo. From all the posts I have read here it seems that one common theme is that a "stock" Rondo really needs more than the usual array of "extras" to get it ready for prime-time. IMHO, that needs to be added in to the cost (in your head) if someone is thinking of getting one.
I still haven't seen, outside of 2 mentions, anything about that piece of Burmese driftwood called the "dead on 67" danelectro Bass VI baritone whatever. Having obtained one for the current cost of an original thumbscrew from a "vintage" 70's fender product, hawked by two dubious fellas named Frog and Snake, on ebay ($225), I thought I'd throw in a word or two for all of you who have decided to buy from ummm err...elsewhere.
As was almost definitively decided here about 5980 posts ago, the thing is a 30" scale. Body is made out of basswood, more probably some Mystery Wood pool of glue and left over take out cartons. Mine is finished in a soothing yet oddly disturbing "colbalt blue" which actually contains two toxic grams of colbalt..it reminds me of an Earle Schiebb paint job my dad had on a 1963 Rambler product he owned. the "retro swirl" pickguard..is..
It came from the "factory" strung with JA know what strings, but obviously it was to be used as a baritone, so I immediately supplied some used strings from my stash of short scale Daddario flats that I use on my real instrument, a Rick Turner 30" scale tenor bass. I "set it up" as well as inhumanly possible, and lo and beholt, the damn thing sounded pretty ok...I "plugged it up" (chicago blues speak for plugged it in) to a Silvertone twin 12, turned the awful verb up, flipped on my Seymour Shapeshifter trem.and ...not all that different from my first dano long horn six, a real one from Nate in Neptune NJ..hint for yews all: Compressors are a bass VI's best buddy. And if you like the sound of single coils (I know you do!) and use one to actually play BASS as opposed to whatever that kid in the Cure does he said hiding behind my dead on 67, then.. then plug it up into a Roland Oc-3 the one with a cutoff for the octaver frequency..I have startled many a bluesboy at a fairly big name Chicago fancy pants blues club where I toiled in the house band by whipping that sucker on in the middle of what they thought was their big moment...HA! needless to say, I no longer toil there.
Over the last 40 years, I have always owned and played a VI, alongside my usual P 4 bangers..RT built me a combo of a VI (in this case a V, but why confuse you anymore?) and a "conventional" bass, but that's another thread.. I've had 3 pre CBS Fender's, a few dano's both from NJ and not, and several JJ bari's and VI's as well (which are still my fav's for that single coil/with a pick thing) If you like the real O Skool tone of a wooden slab bridge, kinda bad single coil pickups, a sorta trem bar that works sort of, etc...it's really a good little noisemaker. I had to drill the two tuning pegs out to get a flatwound 100 and 80 in there, and I am waiting to see if those LaBella HC flats will fit, but really..these things cannot be any worse than the rondo VI's and maybe for some things, like Maxwell Street Blues, noise rawk, banging a trance line on a 12/8 West African poly riddim, doing a bubble up line on old school reggae, or surf's up, they might be better..and they are ridiculously inexpensive, just like Nate's originals. take that $200 you'll save from consuming an Agile product,, invest it in some credit swap derivatives, and who knows, maybe someday you will be the lucky one to be able to buy a genuine 1976 fender nickel screw for $42,300 on "the 'bay".
As was almost definitively decided here about 5980 posts ago, the thing is a 30" scale. Body is made out of basswood, more probably some Mystery Wood pool of glue and left over take out cartons. Mine is finished in a soothing yet oddly disturbing "colbalt blue" which actually contains two toxic grams of colbalt..it reminds me of an Earle Schiebb paint job my dad had on a 1963 Rambler product he owned. the "retro swirl" pickguard..is..
It came from the "factory" strung with JA know what strings, but obviously it was to be used as a baritone, so I immediately supplied some used strings from my stash of short scale Daddario flats that I use on my real instrument, a Rick Turner 30" scale tenor bass. I "set it up" as well as inhumanly possible, and lo and beholt, the damn thing sounded pretty ok...I "plugged it up" (chicago blues speak for plugged it in) to a Silvertone twin 12, turned the awful verb up, flipped on my Seymour Shapeshifter trem.and ...not all that different from my first dano long horn six, a real one from Nate in Neptune NJ..hint for yews all: Compressors are a bass VI's best buddy. And if you like the sound of single coils (I know you do!) and use one to actually play BASS as opposed to whatever that kid in the Cure does he said hiding behind my dead on 67, then.. then plug it up into a Roland Oc-3 the one with a cutoff for the octaver frequency..I have startled many a bluesboy at a fairly big name Chicago fancy pants blues club where I toiled in the house band by whipping that sucker on in the middle of what they thought was their big moment...HA! needless to say, I no longer toil there.
Over the last 40 years, I have always owned and played a VI, alongside my usual P 4 bangers..RT built me a combo of a VI (in this case a V, but why confuse you anymore?) and a "conventional" bass, but that's another thread.. I've had 3 pre CBS Fender's, a few dano's both from NJ and not, and several JJ bari's and VI's as well (which are still my fav's for that single coil/with a pick thing) If you like the real O Skool tone of a wooden slab bridge, kinda bad single coil pickups, a sorta trem bar that works sort of, etc...it's really a good little noisemaker. I had to drill the two tuning pegs out to get a flatwound 100 and 80 in there, and I am waiting to see if those LaBella HC flats will fit, but really..these things cannot be any worse than the rondo VI's and maybe for some things, like Maxwell Street Blues, noise rawk, banging a trance line on a 12/8 West African poly riddim, doing a bubble up line on old school reggae, or surf's up, they might be better..and they are ridiculously inexpensive, just like Nate's originals. take that $200 you'll save from consuming an Agile product,, invest it in some credit swap derivatives, and who knows, maybe someday you will be the lucky one to be able to buy a genuine 1976 fender nickel screw for $42,300 on "the 'bay".
If I had to pick only one though, I think my Argus plays better than my Hellcat, not to mention sounds better for what I do (Hellcat more BASS guitar, Argus more bass GUITAR)...and I think it looks better. I am not nearly as wowed as to what comes out of the Schecter...sure I could upgrade the pickups but that adds to the COST of the thing... The pickups on the Argus are no doubt cheap but sound much better than the "Duncan Designed" garbage.
Competition/choice is good, IMHO.
You always do a nice job of defending Rondo! If someone likes cheap and doesn't mind fragile instruments that apparently fall apart as well as require work, time and additional money to make them playable I guess that's a good choice.
I'll tell you what we'll see...
Yeah, that's right. The nut on my Argus just cracked off under the low E! What the crap?! The E wasn't even up to tension! It just snapped off!
I purchased the bass on the 18'th of last month and received it on either the 22nd or 23rd. It's now 30 days from the initial purchase and this happens.
You always do a nice job of defending Rondo! If someone likes cheap and doesn't mind fragile instruments that apparently fall apart as well as require work, time and additional money to make them playable I guess that's a good choice.
I'm sorry to inform you that Schecter and Agile are made by the same manufacturing company in South Korea...when you get down to it they are both cheap brands that occasionally have flaws. I really wouldn't pick either brand to get elitist about. I have never owned a guitar that hasn't required a good setup to get the most out of it. And I have owned 4 Schecter guitars/basses and 4 Agile guitars over the past 8 years...both brands made it on stage dozens of times.
I have only seen one person with any Agile guitar with a nut breaking...I don't think it's something to expect to happen, and even if it does happen, it's not like Kurt won't take care of you. For the record my Hellcat came with wiring and hum problems that I still haven't resolved completely...Schecter offered to take it back but at the time I didn't have
a backup and now that I do I probably will do so but haven't had time in my schedule.
Anyone that's a professional player should always have a backup at a gig, you'd be a fool not to, I don't care what brand you play.
If you don't like Agile then don't buy one, but I don't think my personal preference would come from bad experiences with Agile.
still less than a hellcat
i always buy new strings for every bass i get, regardless of what factory bore it. as for the files.. yea i wasn't expecting that, but they seem to go for about 50 bucks or so, which isn't too bad if i can get more than one use out of them.
seems like you have a personal vendetta against cheap instruments?
i've owned 3 previous rondo basses (2 SXs and a Brice) and they've been fine, no problems at all. i expect the same from this agile.
Nah. Just a personal gripe against people who come on here (not you) and slam some equipment as "garbage" while ignoring the shortcomings of their own stuff. Best just to live and let live, wouldn't you agree?
And, I love cheap! Especially good bargains! I'm a regular poster on "Hot Deals."
And, I love cheap! Especially good bargains! I'm a regular poster on "Hot Deals."
of course!
i always buy cheap basses.. or rather look for deals/buy used. allows me to sample a greater number of basses/sounds without breaking the bank, and i don't mind it if i have to fix them up or alter them (to a certain extent). that just adds valuable experience that will come in handy down the road.
damn, i was going to get an argus too, now im not so sure....
they do look nice...
new here, well new to posting, have been lurking for a while, just found this thread.
aside from the 4strings, play a jaguar baritone custom (aka jag vi custom), and also have the black jaguar baritone special that i just picked up recently when i saw they were discontinued!
vi's are my fav stringed instrument by far! nice to find this thread.
they do look nice...
new here, well new to posting, have been lurking for a while, just found this thread.
aside from the 4strings, play a jaguar baritone custom (aka jag vi custom), and also have the black jaguar baritone special that i just picked up recently when i saw they were discontinued!
vi's are my fav stringed instrument by far! nice to find this thread.
Ha that was a great review!! I tried out the Dead On 67 guitar at GC and didn't like it at all. They didn't have any baritones or bass VI's but I presume I wouldn't like them either. But I've tried other Danelectro stuff in the past that I did like very much. It just seems that this particular model may not be my cup of tea.
I really like my Schecter Hellcat VI - it's very comfortable to play, the workmanship is flawless, it has a TonePros locking bridge and graphite nut, and (while the Teisco Del Ray headstock could be better) I think it looks pretty damn cool, with kind of a sharper, more aggressive take on the Jaguar body. However, I was never happy with the pickups: personally I find the Duncan Designed mini-humbuckers are muddy and dull, and if you split them they sound better (brighter, twangier), but they're also thin and underpowered, and in either setting they have a bit of a harsh edge to them. I'm not sure why Schecter decided to use minihums on a bass VI instrument, unless it was simply because they'd already been using them on the standard scale Hellcat, but they don't work well in the bass range, in my opinion, and there's a good reason why most people don't bother to split minis.
So after thinking about it for years I finally went for it and changed out the pickups. I got the guitar back from the shop on Thursday and here's what it looks like:
The neck and middle pickups are Curtis Novak Bass VI repros (you can see the shop got the teeth backwards, but I don't know that it makes much difference). They're in the same positions as the pickups on a Bass VI and are RWRP with each other.
The bridge pickup is a Novak custom wound based on his Electric XII reconstruction pickup. I wanted a noisefree single-pickup option that didn't sound like a dual-coil humbucker (see my comments above regarding dullness) and always liked the way a Precision bass sounded, so I thought the split-pickup approach might work. I reversed it to tighten the bass and sweeten the top end (my Yamaha BB1200S does the same thing). Curtis wound it to match the other two pickups and really outdid himself - all three sound beautiful, but the bridge pickup is just gorgeous.
The five-way switch gives the normal Strat pickup combos in "normal" mode; the mini-toggle flips it into an alternate mode (like a shift button) to give me the other two combinations from the Bass VI (neck+bridge in parallel, or all three in parallel), plus each of the series pairings. I should have been more explicit about the locations of the knobs and switches, because the layout ended up a little cramped, but using these small knobs actually works fine.
In addition to the volume and tone controls there's a bass cut knob (very handy for thinning out the sound, especially on the series settings), which works pretty well but will probably need some further tweaking to dial it in just right. It's basically just a variable strangle switch.
How does it sound? I'll try to post some clips soon, but I'm going to have to tear myself away from playing it, because I love how it sounds. The Novaks are much clearer, more detailed, and more dynamic than the stock pickups. The neck pickup has the classic Bass VI hollow twang, the middle pickup is nice and woody, and the bridge pickup actually does a very good imitation of a Shergold six-string bass. The pickups are all really well matched, so flipping between them feels like I'm just shifting the distribution of the harmonics. The ten different pickup combinations might be a bit of overkill, but all of the positions suggest different uses (the series options are bit nasal but ensure that I have plenty of low end grunt on tap), so I'm going to enjoy exploring them for some time.
Verdict: big, big improvement that makes this already very playable guitar sound like a million bucks.
So after thinking about it for years I finally went for it and changed out the pickups. I got the guitar back from the shop on Thursday and here's what it looks like:
The neck and middle pickups are Curtis Novak Bass VI repros (you can see the shop got the teeth backwards, but I don't know that it makes much difference). They're in the same positions as the pickups on a Bass VI and are RWRP with each other.
The bridge pickup is a Novak custom wound based on his Electric XII reconstruction pickup. I wanted a noisefree single-pickup option that didn't sound like a dual-coil humbucker (see my comments above regarding dullness) and always liked the way a Precision bass sounded, so I thought the split-pickup approach might work. I reversed it to tighten the bass and sweeten the top end (my Yamaha BB1200S does the same thing). Curtis wound it to match the other two pickups and really outdid himself - all three sound beautiful, but the bridge pickup is just gorgeous.
The five-way switch gives the normal Strat pickup combos in "normal" mode; the mini-toggle flips it into an alternate mode (like a shift button) to give me the other two combinations from the Bass VI (neck+bridge in parallel, or all three in parallel), plus each of the series pairings. I should have been more explicit about the locations of the knobs and switches, because the layout ended up a little cramped, but using these small knobs actually works fine.
In addition to the volume and tone controls there's a bass cut knob (very handy for thinning out the sound, especially on the series settings), which works pretty well but will probably need some further tweaking to dial it in just right. It's basically just a variable strangle switch.
How does it sound? I'll try to post some clips soon, but I'm going to have to tear myself away from playing it, because I love how it sounds. The Novaks are much clearer, more detailed, and more dynamic than the stock pickups. The neck pickup has the classic Bass VI hollow twang, the middle pickup is nice and woody, and the bridge pickup actually does a very good imitation of a Shergold six-string bass. The pickups are all really well matched, so flipping between them feels like I'm just shifting the distribution of the harmonics. The ten different pickup combinations might be a bit of overkill, but all of the positions suggest different uses (the series options are bit nasal but ensure that I have plenty of low end grunt on tap), so I'm going to enjoy exploring them for some time.
Verdict: big, big improvement that makes this already very playable guitar sound like a million bucks.
I really like my Schecter Hellcat VI - it's very comfortable to play, the workmanship is flawless, it has a TonePros locking bridge and graphite nut, and (while the Teisco Del Ray headstock could be better) I think it looks pretty damn cool, with kind of a sharper, more aggressive take on the Jaguar body. However, I was never happy with the pickups: personally I find the Duncan Designed mini-humbuckers are muddy and dull, and if you split them they sound better (brighter, twangier), but they're also thin and underpowered, and in either setting they have a bit of a harsh edge to them. I'm not sure why Schecter decided to use minihums on a bass VI instrument, unless it was simply because they'd already been using them on the standard scale Hellcat, but they don't work well in the bass range, in my opinion, and there's a good reason why most people don't bother to split minis.
So after thinking about it for years I finally went for it and changed out the pickups. I got the guitar back from the shop on Thursday and here's what it looks like:
The neck and middle pickups are Curtis Novak Bass VI repros (you can see the shop got the teeth backwards, but I don't know that it makes much difference). They're in the same positions as the pickups on a Bass VI and are RWRP with each other.
The bridge pickup is a Novak custom wound based on his Electric XII reconstruction pickup. I wanted a noisefree single-pickup option that didn't sound like a dual-coil humbucker (see my comments above regarding dullness) and always liked the way a Precision bass sounded, so I thought the split-pickup approach might work. I reversed it to tighten the bass and sweeten the top end (my Yamaha BB1200S does the same thing). Curtis wound it to match the other two pickups and really outdid himself - all three sound beautiful, but the bridge pickup is just gorgeous.
The five-way switch gives the normal Strat pickup combos in "normal" mode; the mini-toggle flips it into an alternate mode (like a shift button) to give me the other two combinations from the Bass VI (neck+bridge in parallel, or all three in parallel), plus each of the series pairings. I should have been more explicit about the locations of the knobs and switches, because the layout ended up a little cramped, but using these small knobs actually works fine.
In addition to the volume and tone controls there's a bass cut knob (very handy for thinning out the sound, especially on the series settings), which works pretty well but will probably need some further tweaking to dial it in just right. It's basically just a variable strangle switch.
How does it sound? I'll try to post some clips soon, but I'm going to have to tear myself away from playing it, because I love how it sounds. The Novaks are much clearer, more detailed, and more dynamic than the stock pickups. The neck pickup has the classic Bass VI hollow twang, the middle pickup is nice and woody, and the bridge pickup actually does a very good imitation of a Shergold six-string bass. The pickups are all really well matched, so flipping between them feels like I'm just shifting the distribution of the harmonics. The ten different pickup combinations might be a bit of overkill, but all of the positions suggest different uses (the series options are bit nasal but ensure that I have plenty of low end grunt on tap), so I'm going to enjoy exploring them for some time.
Verdict: big, big improvement that makes this already very playable guitar sound like a million bucks.
Way
!!!Curtis Novak pickups have that addictive makes-ya-wanna-play tonality.
(The three Jag p/us he made for my MIJ pump, boom, skrack & twang with gusto!)
Good call on going for an Electric XII hum-cancelling single coil pickup.
Given the size of the pickup routs in the Hellcat VI, if I could justify the cost I'd buy a new 'Cat and have it shipped directly to Curtis for refitting with a trio of his Electric XII repros tailored to a Bass VI's needs.
From Schecter Hellcat VI Players member Mark Fenkner:
"Here's a good article showing how different pot values affect the tone:
Link Removed
And another article with more info:
http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/
Also, an Excel spreadsheet that allows you to calculate and graph the results of your own value of pots and caps:
Link Removed
Cheers!"
"Here's a good article showing how different pot values affect the tone:
Link Removed
And another article with more info:
http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/
Also, an Excel spreadsheet that allows you to calculate and graph the results of your own value of pots and caps:
Link Removed
Cheers!"
As the price of this cup of tea is my cuppa, i thought why not? Cheap electrics are fun..playing music is usually fun too, and for my ears a lot of the best music was played by good original players on crap instruments. The thing i was sorta trying to "suggest" was making this Stradivariously into a VI by putting on flats in a 95 and up e-e tuning. Also maybe a good mule for trying out things before you take a sawz all to your mint 1962 Firemist purple Bass VI. cheers!
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