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What gave you serious G.A.S recently?

#163
ashiin said:
NewEBMMStingray-42006LEHH003.jpg


Got my eyes on this one, i REALLY want it, but i can't afford it :(
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Trade it with your 30th Anniversary Stingray :hiding: :p
 
#165
A warwick Corvette. Saw it, played it for about 2 hours in the shop, loved it, bought it. G.A.S. free, and I have a bass that can hold me for a few years until I have enough to get an Infinity Limited 2000.

-Ross
 
#168
ALiP BoB said:
I don't get darkstars. The description at the site was so brief!
Are they like, growly, mid rangey and gain-ish or clear and thumpy?
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This is what Bass Player Mag says about Darkstars:

Dark Star Pickups

Los Angeles mechanical designer and bass player Fred Hammon is a bona fide super fan. His qualification? An intense engineering effort to recreate the late-’60s sounds of legendary bassists Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. A rediscovery (or “nostalgic obsession,” as he puts it) with their tone found Hammon focused on the Hagstrom Bi-Sonic pickups that Casady and Lesh used in their Guild Starfire basses. These unusual single-coil pickups were discontinued in the late ’60s, and Guild’s Starfire reissue came with more mundane humbuckers. Craving the classic sound, Hammon reverse-engineered the original Hagstroms and came up with the Dark Star design, which made slight improvements with regard to durability and materials. He continues to tweak the design, so consider the Dark Stars a continual work in progress.

Lakland is the only company currently offering Dark Stars as a production option, but they’re available as a retrofit from Hammon Engineering. To test the pickups, I checked out a Lakland Bob Glaub Signature Series and Decade bass, each Dark Star-equipped.

Despite their huge size and humbucker-like look, Dark Stars are single-coil pickups. They have individually adjustable polepieces (the row of flat-head screws are the adjusters), an enormous steel core, and two big Alnico V bar magnets. According to frequency-response tests performed by Alembic’s Ron Wickersham in the late ’60s, the Hagstrom design has exceptionally broad frequency response. This wide and even response was one of Fred Hammon’s primary design goals.

The Dark Stars sound profoundly different from any other pickup I’ve encountered, in nothing but good ways. First and most obvious, they are loud. The tone is ridged with gleaming texture and complex mids. The oft-used descriptor “growl” seems to have been invented for the Dark Star. With the tone knob rolled up for maximum bandwidth, the Dark Stars are aggressive and stout, but with an authentically woody and natural-sounding timbre. The dual-pickup Decade sounded substantially different from the P-style Bob Glaub. With the far-forward neck pickup soloed on the Decade and the tone rolled off, the biggest and fattest reggae tone seeped out of the instrument like a murky London fog. Soloed, the bridge pickup was burpy and J-Bass like, but somehow different: The gurgle was there, but with a simultaneously furry and fat fundamental. Blending the two produced a solid, no-nonsense tone with the tone rolled off, and a gritty vintage-style slap sound with the tone up. The Glaub, by contrast, sounded much warmer and mellower than the Decade. Especially when strung with flatwounds, the Dark Star-equipped Glaub sounds like the burliest branch of the bass-tone tree: thick, powerful, and smooth. Playing through a juiced-up tube amp was a phenomenally fun experience, particularly when I’d glide into the high range for frilly little fills.

I loved the Dark Stars, but I wouldn’t use them for everything. Their iconoclastic, vintage-y sound just wouldn’t be right for modern pop and fusion. Regardless, if you can afford to throw them in one of your basses, you’ll be forever grateful. They’re like nothing else.

Hammon Engineering Dark Star
List $400 ($280 street), including installation, to add a single Dark Star to an appropriate Lakland bass; $800 list ($560 street) to add two pickups; for non-Lakland-installed direct pricing, contact Hammond
Engineering
Pros Uniquely fat and growly tone
Cons Not the best for everything, but great at classic tone

I haven't ever played a T-40 but I hear great things. I haven't ever played Dark Stars but I hear great things. I figure the two together have to be a great thing, if you're looking for a vintage tone. If I ever do the T-40/Dark Star thing I'll probably also install an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp so I can get more than just vintage tones.

You can hear some soundclips here: Dark Star Sound Clips.
 
#169
fourstringbliss said:
I haven't ever played a T-40 but I hear great things. I haven't ever played Dark Stars but I hear great things. I figure the two together have to be a great thing, if you're looking for a vintage tone.[/URL].
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Ditto. Only problem is so far two ebayers in the US have let me down wrt actually shipping the bass to me. I have T60, so I have 'a-bit-of-a-reference'. Maybe it's just not meant to be with me and the T40, and as I have a penchant for Steinberger type basses, I may buy some DS and add them to my Hohner B2ADB Steinie clone.

As for recent GAS, I've been bad, very, very bad and bought two new basses (and made an offer on a third, but sold 3 too). Pix and details when they arrive.

I'm so excited,
And I just can't hide it,
I'm about to lose control
And I think I like it.
 
#170
I want a Fender MIA Fretless Jazz to go with my MIA fretted Jazz that I'm getting for Christmas. Too bad it only comes in black and sunburst, my two least favorite finishes. And only with an Alder body, I prefer Ash. Maybe I should get another fretted jazz with Ash body like the one coming in for Christmas and get a fretless neck for it. A Tony Franklin sig P/J fretless would be nice too. Gosh, I want a nice fretless. Not that my MIM isn't nice, but you guys know what I mean.
 
#176
ALiP BoB said:
here ya go. fixed it.

body20front-1.gif

full20frontal-1.gif
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That dosen't look like this >
MarkhoppusLive3.jpg


Well, thanks alot for the trouble anyways...[/QUOTE]

haha. well, the first time, i took the color sample from mark hoppus' bass, and applied it, then you said it looked too purple. then i made it more pink, and you dont like that either... so.... yeah.. No problem, No trouble. quite easy. :)
 

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