NAMM News

[Chris P.]

I put all the NAMM news I saw in Dutch at our site, so here's a summary of thinks I though't you'd might like. It's not all the news. I'll be short about everything, but google or shoot if you need more info or pics.

No new Epi's yet (see Gibson thread), Fender had a lot of great Custom Shops and I saw the Mustang PJ and the Professionals for the first time.


John Page
30 years ago, Page was one of the Fender Custom Shop Founders. Now he makes Tele and Strat style guitars. The all passive Nikki Bass Custom is his first bass and because of the pickguard is not a 1 on 1 Fender Clone. It's an expensive (4000$) bass, but interesting. 32" and a double J pickup. This pickup can be switched in five ways: Front J coil, both J coils, back J coils and here it comes: P or reversed P.


Tech21
Tech21NY made a powder blue Geddy Lee preamp. I guess it will sound good, but you can't here it on a fair. It's a 1HE 19" rack amp.


Aguilar
The AG700 is a well sounding Aquilar amp. No effects or strange stuff, just a good amp. Light weight and in size it sits between the small Tonehammer 500 and the regular big Aguilars


Trace Elliot
I saw the TE news on the last hour of the last day, So I have to dive into it. The Elf is a 200W amp, which fits in the palm of your hand (!) and the preamp is a floor effect kinda unit with everything a bass player needs.


Markbass
I'm not a big Markbass fan, but this could be interesting. The Casa is the Michael League sig. At first it looks tube amp-ish, but it's solid state. I spent some time with Michael (I went with him to Höfner to get him in touch with Höfner US and Germany, get him on the site (he plays a lot with a '67 violin) and maybe get him a deal. Did the same with Paz L.) Mike League told me he didn't wanted a tube amp, not a modern class D or digital amp but a good solid state amp like in the seventies. He and his studio guys did some A/B blindfold test with the Casa, an SVT, a Fliptop and some other digital and tube amps. Two amps 'won' all the test: the fliptop and the Casa. A new trend coming up?
The Evo1 is a two channel digital thing.


Warwick
Warwick had two interesting basses. It has a Corvette 8 string now in the affordable Rockbass Series. It's Chinese, but not cheap Chinese. Those are very well made and almost as good as German ones. The 34" 8-string will cost under 1000 euros in Europe. I think this is the only affordable production 34" 8-string, next to the 30" Hagstrom HB8.
Lee Sklar's prototype Star Bass had a producers switch aka a switch that does nothing at all. The final Sklar Bass has a six way producer's switch and it does nothing again, haha! Well. it's off, green light, yellow light, orange light, red light and and in position 6 a middle finger is lighting up!


Ibanez
Some interesting Ibanez basses. The Talman is there with sparkle finishes and matching headstocks. I think with Nordstrands and with a good 500 dollar price tag.
The SR was there as a semisolid with round soundholes (nice!) and Nordstrand pickups and hollow with piezo only.
The new Ashula has three fretless strings first (ADG), followed by EADG fretted. The old Ashula had two fretless strings (DG) and on the treble side.


Ashdown
The Origin is a compact 300W head, for their 20th anniversary some amps are made in tweed and Bentley car upholstery kinda leather-ish cloth. The expensive preamp has a tube wich works and sounds great and the Stuart Zender SZ fuzz has a tube too.


Reverend
After six prototypes, a record according to the guys, the Mike Watt Wattplower (or something like that) is ready. Mike is a bit picky. They made a green one and an orange one. Three weeks before the fair, Mike came in the Reverend office and he told the guy the colour had to be the same as his Swatch watch. Reverend send his bass to China and the bass was back right in time for the NAMM. The all Korina bass is short scale and very, very light with a comfy neck. Sparkle-ish, but almost matte-ish sparke. Double coil Split P. The input echoes his Gibson with the big metal ring. A very nice bass. I think 1400 dollar, so not very cheap, but very well made. Did I say it was light?


Ampeg
I think Ampeg just split the SCLR-pedal in two. The SCLR is a DI/preamp with Scrambler overdrive and now they have a seperate DI/preamp pedal and a seperate overdrive, named Scrambler.


Supro and Shergold
Both are back into guitar making bizz and Supro said a bass is coming.


I invited Paz Lenchantin to the fair to go to Höfner which was nice. I visited Scott Reeder (Kyuss, ..) at his ranch, saw a metal band (Entombed, I know their bass player) in the Hollywood Roxy and drank beer backstage, stood in Lemmy's place in the Rainbow and I saw a million of great vintage basses in the Hollywood GC. Great week!

[Dave W]

Thanks, Chris. I laughed at the lighted middle finger on the Leland Sklar Warwick.

I posted Reverb's video of Watt's bass in the Other Bass Brands section. I also noticed that a store on Reverb was selling them for $1400. Are you sure it's Chinese? I thought they were all Korean made.

[Chris P.]

Yep. Oops. Asia. All the same;)