Apparently my conversations about banjo tuners for the octaves have been well recieved....although I suggested Steinbergers and have a few sets stashed for a custom order of a different brand I'd been working on.
I'm afraid of Waterstones after I bought a MOT 12ver and sent it back after ONE day because I hated it....felt cheap/Asian (yes, there IS some good Asian-made stuff.) The hardware, especially, was lacking but overall it felt closer to a Galveston than a Hamer USA. The one I bought came from a name player and his bass tech had gone over it and set it up/tweaked it, so I would assume it was supposed to even be one of the better ones....still hated it. The only thing I liked was the MOT finish. After playing the thing and considering Petersson had been endorsing them for a few years, all I could think was "WTF?!?!" The ones he plays HAVE to be completely different, custom or totally modded/reworked.
If someone tries out one of these new TBirds that are half the price of the 12vers, I'd love to hear a review.
That green one looks to have a FOUR-saddle bridge, so it is impossible to intonate correctly...and the three pot knobs are crooked to the body bevel by a hair, so look wrong. I also don't think mounting all 8-tuners on one side is such a good idea...gonna need a really long G octave string too. Guess they must make those in some special hut in China
