NBD(S)! ESP LTD Surveyor 414

[marnold]

I like the full bridge pickup sound the best, but some of the other positions would probably sound great to me if adjusted on the bass and amp and maybe with a pedal.

Yeah, I just wanted to give a quick rundown of the basic tones. Having fiddled with the EQ a bit, it is very clear that the mid control and I will be good friends. Talk about growl. The tonal possibilities are considerably greater than my old bass.

Definitely looks great though. Better than the pictures on line by far.

The irony is that I'm not sure how I like the looks. The neck is great. The pickups and preamp are beyond what I hoped for. Even the bridge is cool. Just not sure about how the body looks . . .

Do you get more volume out of your amp because of the active pre amped pickups? Seems like you are hitting the amps preamp with a much stronger signal than with a passive rig. It seems like that should make any amp volume setting sound louder than with a passive bass. Maybe your other bass was active too.

In general it is hotter. The full MM pickup is REALLY loud. Cranking the preamp, of course, makes it even louder. My Spector has passive EMG HZs with no preamp. I was never that fond of the tone nor the output of the pickups.

 

[Duffy]

I like it when people do audio samples with the exact same guitar and amp settings and just play the guitar, or bass in this case, straight up, just adjusting the pickup selections. With my new Ibanez SR500 it would be hard to do that because it has an active preamp with a pickup blend knob instead of a three way switch. I guess I could do a full neck, both at the indent on the knob, and a full bridge; and maybe even half way between on each side of the indent. It is a very great sounding bass with lots of growl. The growl will be greatly diminished when I put on the flatwound Ernie Ball strings I bought, but I like a mellow bass tone. Right now it can be mellow or really growl and I'm starting to like the growl; but it is so light and the neck is so thin that I play it a lot and I think I'm going to want to put the flats on it. I just seem to gravitate toward flats when it comes to bass but I don't care much for them on guitars.

I think I would adapt to the color with no problem. It really is a cool looking bass.

 

[stingx]

Hmm. I linked to my Picasa account. That's the same way I've posted pictures on here before. Try this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/sempri...&authkey=Gv1sRgCKSMg9S2466MWQ&feat=directlink

Ooh...that's purty! Nice bass, enjoy!

 

[marnold]

Now that I think of it, the body/color looks somewhat like this talented gentleman's basses. I found a couple of shots where his look very yellow in certain lighting too. He is one of my top bass heroes.

 

[NWBasser]

FWIW, I rather like the bass.

I noticed that it has a Musicman style truss rod wheel adjuster. That's a very cool feature.

The body looks like a Carvin LB series to me.

I'm with you on the EMG Hz series pup's. I've tried them and found the tone to be a bit lifeless and lacking in dynamics.

 

[marnold]

FWIW, I rather like the bass.

I noticed that it has a Musicman style truss rod wheel adjuster. That's a very cool feature.

Agreed. It makes tweaking much easier. It's got round holes on it so I had to use a small Philips head screw driver to tweak it today. I noticed that they gave me the "standard" ESP allen wrench set. Of the three wrenches only one actually is usable on my bass--that's the smallest one for height adjustments at the bridge. I guess you can always use extras

I'm really digging playing the P/J combo with a pick and the mids turned up. Growl city. I've also been trying to relearn slapping and popping. The latter is a problem with no index fingertip. I've been trying to use my pinkie. It seems to work decently anyway. I've also been trying to see how many of my old repertoire of bluegrass licks I remember. It's been 20 years.

 

[Tig]

Thanks for the bass GAS. :drool
That's all need... :thwap

 

[marnold]

OK, I think I'm falling in love. There's just so many tone options it's ridiculous. The P pickup sounds fantastic no matter what technique I use. The aforementioned P/J combo sounds great with a pick. The J alone can do that bridge J bass solo kind of thing. I'm learning to tame the monster that is the MM. It has a tendency to be a bit muddy but a little EQing goes a long way. It definitely wouldn't work as a neck pickup. It needs to be near the bridge. My slapping and popping is getting better. I decided to try my short index finger for popping. I'm way more accurate that way. It hurts a bit. If I build up a callous I think I'll be OK.

With my Spector's pickups I had to work to get _a_ tone I liked. The LTD has a myriad of tones--all of which are varying degrees of good. Apparently I am an active EMG man when it comes to bass pickups. My little Acoustic amph is really getting a workout. The color is even growing on my in its yellowishness.

My 12-year-old son was amazed at the size of the tuning pegs. They are massive and seem to hold tune very nicely. Actually, the Jazz-sized nut width makes the headstock look ginormous. A friend of mine and I compared the LTD and the Spector side-by-side. The LTD looks really big next to the Spector. Because the LTD has 21 frets as opposed to the Spector's 24, the neck pickup can be much closer to the neck and the bridge can be a bit further from the bridge. I think those are both "good things" especially when it comes to the tone of the two pickups together. P-bass purists would probably complain that it pushes the P pickup too close to the neck (both the p-bass and the j-bass neck pickups are about half-way in between the neck and the bridge). The only disadvantage that I can see is that it limits my "window" for popping a little bit.

The fit and finish overall seem to be very good. The neck pickup isn't perfectly parallel to the body because the treble-side screw seems to be at a very slight angle. Also there seem to be minor marks slightly above the spot in between the neck pickup and the neck itself. It looks like someone was a bit careless with a screwdriver or something before it was clear-coated. You can't see it except at certain angles when you are right next to it. The neck fits snugly in the pocket. The strings do not bind at the nut at all. The nut is also the proper height so that the lowest frets are in tune. Sustain is very good. I like the Wilkinson bridge. Adjustments can be made very easily. The only setup things I've had to do have been for my personal preferences and playing style.

If I had paid $699 for it (the original sale price), I would have been happy with what I got for the money, although the whole "made in Indonesia" thing probably would have annoyed me. That wouldn't have been as annoying as having my wife shoot me for spending $700 on a bass. For $299, it's highway robbery. The pickups and preamp cost that much by themselves. I see no difference between this one and the Surveyor-400 that MF is currently selling for $769. The only change with the Surveyor-4 (which is selling for $649) is that it has block inlays and neck binding. Whoopee. With that one if you want a maple fretboard you can get it in any color you like as long as it's white.

 

[NWBasser]

This is really great to hear Marnold.

Did it come with a case or gig bag for that price?

Now, if only a certain someone would give us a full report on a certain Prestige bass....oke

 

[marnold]

Did it come with a case or gig bag for that price?

No, but I've already got a nicely padded Access gig bag, so that's no biggie.

 

[marnold]

One month later . . .

One clarification: I must've been on crack when I said that this bass weighs the same as my Spector. It's really not close. The LTD is substantially heavier. Still trying to find a postage scale so I can find out just how heavy it is. Now that the DR Fat Beams I put on there have settled down, I like this bass a lot. The stainless strings were an excellent addition. I really want to play this bass. I had to pick up my guitar the other day so it didn't feel lonely. I think playing bass is actually helping with my guitar skills. The flexibility of the pickup/preamp combo is something I really need if I'm only going to have one bass. I've also gotten over whatever qualms I had about the finish.

My only complaint is with the string tree. The windings in the strings get caught on it, making it harder to tune the D and G strings. I'm going to look for an alternative. I guess if my biggest gripe is with the string tree, that's a pretty good thing, eh?

 

[marnold]

One final update (probably):

I finally got a strap on it today. Despite its heft, it doesn't _feel_ heavy, at least not for the time I was playing it. The relatively heavy body and Jazz-style neck means no neck dive at all, which is great. All in all it seems well-balanced, at least for my tastes.

 

[NWBasser]

Unless it's Warwick sort of heavy (+12 lb.), a well-balanced bass will still be very comfortable even if it's on the portly side.

My G&L is a bit heavy, but well-balanced and comfortable.

Yes sir, that's one heckuva deal you got.

 

[progrmr]

Man that looks nice! have you put it through some paces yet? How's it play/sound?

 

[marnold]

Man that looks nice! have you put it through some paces yet? How's it play/sound?

I posted some clips and initial impressions on the first page of this thread. It plays really nicely and the variety of tones I can get with a P + MM/J combo and an active preamp is pretty remarkable. As much as I enjoy passive basses, I think that EMG is the way for me. It makes me want to play--can't come up with higher praise than that.

 

[marnold]

Sold my Spector yesterday, so I'm back down to one guitar and one bass. I got roughly what I hoped for from it. Thankfully I had gotten a good deal on it originally.

 

[Eric]

So I guess that means you like the new bass, eh?

 

[marnold]

Yep, no question about that!

The purchase of the LTD was contingent on me selling the Spector. Took a bit longer than I wanted, but a couple of people who were interested in it took a bit of time getting back to me about it.