1979 RD Artist (or the luckiest so-and-so in the world)

[clankenstein]

very cool indeed and a fine specimen.i got blisters on me fingers!

[Barklessdog]

My most insincerest apologies for blowing on about this but I've just finished playing my Gibson RD Artist until the sweat was pooling in my headphones and I smell a bit funky. I have a big grin on my face. I've had mud, I've had some crazy fuzzy distortion from my bass trainer because the compression setting turns 10 volume in approximately 13 (given that 7 with compression is like 10 without) and I've had some mad, zingy stuff with expansion and bright mode together. It does everything in between as well. I played some Madness, some Selecter, some Rancid and some Charlatans. I played a bit of band stuff. Then I just messed about for the hell of it - because this is the kind of bass which invites you to just flick some switches and have a go.

I absolutely love this bass. It's as mad as a box of frogs, can be sublime and ridiculous simultaneously and probably the best bass Gibson ever made. I doubt we will ever see its like again, not properly anyway.

Agreed, I'm still discovering new sounds out of mine & I bought mine new in 78. Still going strong after all these years. I put on extra heavy gauge roundwounds & drop tuned mine to low C.

[uwe]

I'm happy that you two like your RD Artist sounds, but don't you miss the wood component? Whenever I play my two Artists I think, yes, the sounds are versatile, but they are all without wood, the old clichée about active electronics, "you hear the electronics, not the bass". I hear more wood with the passive RD Standard and certainly with the G-3, IV and even the Victory Artist Neepheid mentions as also owned by him (nice collection btw, not just the usual stuff!).

Or is it just the nature of the Moog beast that I can't really appreciate and is wood overrated? I guess I would have to hear one of the few mahogany RD Artists side by side with the maple ones to validate my theory.

Uwe

[Barklessdog]

I'm happy that you two like your RD Artist sounds, but don't you miss the wood component?

Not really because of this-



No bass can be all things, each has a role or color in the spectrum.

[neepheid]

I don't wish to be controversial, and more power to you if you can hear the wood, but I never have given it much consideration.  To me most of the sound comes from the pickups/electronics and the different woods and construction methods influence my ears very little.  I'd estimate that it's less than 10% of the sound of any solid bodied electric bass, it's little more than a statistical anomaly to me.  Pickup types, electronics, pickup placement, pickup height, string material are all more important to me than types of wood.

I will freely admit that I would not be able to do anything other than guess the wood type if I was to listen to different basses while blindfolded.  Maybe that's my lack of experience and knowledge but to be honest I see far too much of this "maple fingerboards are brighter sounding than rosewood ones" and other completely unquantifiable statements which people love to cyclically argue around again and again to lead me to believe that ignorance is bliss.

Having said all that your vast collection probably qualifies you to speak pretty authoritatively on the subject though, Uwe

[uwe]

I hopefully would be able to tell a mahogany P Bass from an alder/maple one or a maple TBird from a maho one if everything else is equal and I heard them side by side, but I'm not saying that I would be able to tell the wood of any bass just by listening to it all by itself. Pups certainly play a part as do other components and traits, but with active vs passive I get the impression that the active sound is even more removed from the wood than the passive one. And with the RD Artist I find the signal - even without compression and expansion mode - very processed and not as direct as on a passive bass. Perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me, but for an all maple bass I find the RD Signal even a bit sluggish/delayed, to my ears it is not as snappy and "immediately there" as your G-3 (and that snappiness has a lot to do with the maple board of that bass too even though its bolt-on construction plays a role too).

But then, if you play through effects, you are already sacrificing some directness and the RD Artist with its vast array of modulating possibilities for the signal it emits might then be in its true element.

I really like RDs for their concept and their looks, I just wish they had more dirty mids. That might be the electronics and it is probably safe to guess that an active RD these days would feature a separate mid control knob.

[Pilgrim]

Neepheid, you're an honest man.  I'll join you.

I haven't a clue what woods sound like, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell a P-bass from a pickup, strings and tuners mounted on a 2x6.  

But it doesn't matter to me, as I don't hear much difference between most basses.  If I do hear a difference, I just consider it to be part of the character of that bass, and I don't concern myself with what causes the difference....could be strings, could be lots of stuff.  If it sounds good to me, I'm happy and I don't investigate farther than that.

[EvilLordJuju]

It may not just be about audible sound, but maybe more subtle vibrations too.

When playing, I can hear and feel the difference between maple and mahogany.

I'm not 100% sure I could tell the difference just listening to a CD, especially after all the amps, effects, eq'ing and processing, in fact i'm fairly sure I couldn't with any particular degree of accuracy - but I know I can tell the difference for a guitar or bass in my hand.

A Rickenbacker feels like a Ripper, and an RD - they all vibrate the same way in your hand. Rock maple seems to have brittle vibrations. Almost like a ball bearing bouncing on marble floor? The rock name seems appropriate - that sound is pretty characteristic to me. I play an L-6S guitar too - another all maple guitar, in the same vein.

Mahogany doesn't have such crispness, everything is much more rounded. More woody sounding.

[Dave W]

Everything matters to some extent. How much depends on several factors. I'm pretty sure a P-Bass with a particle board body would still sound pretty much like a P.  An EB-0 type Kalamazoo with a bolt-on maple neck on a chipboard body sounds somewhat like a Gibson EB-0. As Jules said, you might not be able to tell them apart on a recording with all the processing. But if you compared them personally, playing clean, you would be able to tell the difference, assuming you're not tone deaf.

[neepheid]

I guess ultimately I choose not to get that deeply into in the minutia of basses.  How far is too far?  Will every "identical" pickup have exactly the same amount of copper wound around the bobbin?  Are all pole pieces uniformly magnetic?  Every piece of the same species of wood will be subtly different.  The scientist in me says it all must an effect, but I'll freely admit that it's beyond both the capabilities of my ears to hear and my level of interest to care.

It boils down to a simple choice for me - do I like this bass or do I not?  The sweat I was wiping out of my headphones says yes to me

Uwe, your comment about "dirty mids" interests me - in my experience it's been harder to get an audible (never mind good) sound in the rehearsal room out of the Victory Artist - it's so refined sounding to me that I had to EQ the hell out of it just to hear myself properly over the band.  This spooked me out enough to take a spare with me to the first gig I played the Victory at in case I couldn't get a good sound but it performed great, probably because it was a nicer room and I was using my own amp (which is much better for me than the variable stuff you get in rehearsal rooms)

I realise the contentious comment was "probably the best bass Gibson ever made".  That was written in the heat of the moment and should have had opinion disclaimers on it.  It's certainly the best bass Gibson ever made in my collection, much as I love all the others

Jules, I'm still a tender novice.  I've only been playing properly for 4 years and I've only done 17 gigs.  Feeling vibrations while playing?  I'm barely remembering to look up now and again and I barely remember any of the time I'm on stage (and not through alcohol - I've got a strict "one pint before" limit).  Even in non-pressure playing situations I don't think I've built up enough playing time with enough basses to speak with authority on this matter.

Dave, despite my scoffs I would have a go at A/Bing two identical basses made of different woods.  While I'm sure I'd be able to hear a difference, whether or not I'd correctly identify the mahogany one is another matter.

[uwe]

"I realise the contentious comment was "probably the best bass Gibson ever made"."

Nonsense, you are perfectly entitled to love your RD above all other Gibson or other basses, RDs do need a few fans here!   Everyone may wave a flag for his preferred bass here, it makes this forum entertaining.   Who am I to tell you which bass to like or not like!

The RD was a brave and daring concept at the time and it looks great plus contrary to expectations its hi end electronics have proven durable and stood the test of time. If I played prog rock with a clanky bass sound the RD Artist might even be my weapon of choice because you can combine abrasive treble with deep subbass on it, something many other basses can't do.  

Re your Victory: Granted, the Artist version of it is no growl monster, but with the second toggle switch in the third position you do get some grit (high mids) that the RD - or should I say: at least my RDs - just don't have. It would probaly be interesting to see though how a Vic Artist would sound with Vic Standard pups as these haven been wound to be more middish than their siblings destined for the active circuit (see Jules' Fly Guitar site for details). I find the active electronics of the Vic Artist though they do not have the extreme reach of the RD electronics altogether "rockier", I've never had issues with the Vic Artist not cutting through even in the loudest band surroundings.

[Barklessdog]

The RD was a brave and daring concept at the time and it looks great plus contrary to expectations its hi end electronics have proven durable and stood the test of time. If I played prog rock with a clanky bass sound the RD Artist might even be my weapon of choice because you can combine abrasive treble with deep subbass on it, something many other basses can't do. 

Also works great for sludge, doom rock- Certianly the bass player from Bongripper gets a great warm abbrassive dirty sound from his RD Artist
.

Jules actually gets a nice warm tone from his RD Artist as well. Wood does make a big difference in my opinion- A& B test a LP Standard bass against a Tbird- The masple top & Ebony board give the LP a great cutting warm presence that the Tbird lacks, again in my opinion & findings with my basses. To me the LP is as far superior bass to the Tbird tone wise & versitility.

[EvilLordJuju]

Maybe some of my comments are not that clear. The trouble is the words required to describe what I mean are not that easy to find... and you may infer a different meaning than I intended

I have a rack of 16 guitars in my office, and a pile of amps. Just about all of them are set neck, completely maple, or set neck completely mahogany. Pretty much always with the same strings.-

I gig every couple of weeks, but play quietly at home on my own daily. I go from bass to bass, through the same amp (usually my Ampeg B15) or unplugged if the kids are in bed. Differences just leap out, but whatever pickups, there is an underlying commonality between woods.

I bought this the other day
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170722676408?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

And I can tell you that the neck humbucker sounded a world apart from an EB. And yes, it is just a stock EB humbucker. Just one note, and the unmistakeable zing of maple was everywhere. But i've put EB humbuckers in Rippers before, so I already knew that.

By the way this is a very old Ripper - one of the earliest (lowest serial numbers), even earlier than the supposed prototypes we have seen on ebay. (I don't think they are prototype Rippers - the guy who sold the first one we saw claimed it was a model to 'supercede' the Ripper, and I think that is correct)

[Pilgrim]

I admit that if I just swap basses in my practice room, I do hear differences between them.  However, I'm not very concerned about what causes the differences.  I usually don't do more than install flats on a bass and then play it.

The one bass that sounds nothing like ANY other bass I have ever owned is the '64 EB-0.  But if that mudbucker didn't sound radically different, it would be broken. 

[PhilT]

I bought this the other day
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170722676408?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I love the finish on that. Is this a project, or can you live with it as is?