chrisdesign's Reviews

They just work!

I used Schaller for years until they failed me at a gig. The cup rotated so only the pin held the bass on. A terrible design flaw. Switching to Dunlops I’ve been delighted since. Their design is just more robust and less likely to fail.

Targets the wrong frequencies

This is a preamp designed for five string metal.

The bass is low, peaking at 30 hz, better suited for a low B (or lower) than an E. The is high, peaking at 3k or 5k depending on the switch selection, bringing out the metal clank tones. This is great for Korn, inappropriate for Elvis. Overall, I much prefer the Darkglass Tone Capsule, which is the most usable and versatile onboard preamp I’ve tried.

Nevertheless, I’ve found one way this preamp shines. In my duel active humbucking bass, solo the bridge pickup. Second bring the bass up from zero until it sounds good. Last, bring the treble up from zero until it sounds good. This gives me stingray tones, perfect for Linkin Park etc.

Incredible!

This is the bridge Fender should include with every Jazzmaster/ Jaguar. Well made, simple, and effective. I installed one within two weeks of buying my first jazzmaster and I’ve been delighted since.

It’s a pretty transparent boost

I haven’t played a Klon (real) so I have no idea how close it is to the original. However, it does the job of boosting and adding a little dirt very well. For the money it’s incredible!

Solid and works

This power supply just works. It comes with a silly amount of connections so you’ll always be able to power every pedal.

Having 500 mA per socket is great as it powers pretty much every pedal on current.

The downside is no 18v socket.

It’s ok

I’ve installed JBs in a Les Paul and a jazzmaster. I was never satisfied. My tone just sounded kind of flat. I replaced the les Paul JB with some £55 a set random pickups and my jazzmaster JB with some Railhammer Humcutters. They both outperformed the JB. Seymour Duncan has solid marketing, but I jus the sound it created.

I just don’t like Les Pauls

Well, I learnt I didn’t like Les Pauls.

• the neck broke (so I know it’s a ‘real’ Les Paul)
• the pickups sounded flat (but this was 2004, and I’ve heard Epiphone now shippers better pickups)
• the tuners fell art after 10 years
• the bridge never intimated the low e properly (again, 2004 quality)

Worst of all, I just don’t like the feel. That’s nothing against the guitar, it’s just personal al preference.

Nevertheless, I have played Gibson’s and I prefer my Epiphone, and I don’t even like it that much. I’ll never sell it because it was my University guitar, so it’s sentimental, but I never reach for it!

A good mod platform…

I love my Jazzmaster… now it’s modded. New Railhammer humcutter pickups, new pots, new capacitor, new switch, new string tree, new saddle (Staytrem), new tremolo (Japanese fender), new collet (Staytrem), new tuners (fender locking), new nut (bone), a 1 degree shim (stew mac), and a fret level.

Out of the box the saddle is terrible! The thread screws are too long so the ends either buzz on the strings or the strings buzz on the saddle tray. When it’s not buzzing it’s dropping down. Within a week of buying this jazzmaster I threw a Staytrem bridge on and have been happy ever since. Except I needed a shim to get the action right. Then the nut broke and I needed a replacement. While the Luther was fitting a new nut, I got him to run a fret dress as the frets were very uneaven. The pickups were fine, but the Railhammers changed up the tone significantly! The pots were a disaster from the factory: a 250k tone pot with a 1uF cap just makes everything dark! The stock tremolo is terrible. The lock button is essential for floating the unit right: slide lock in, tighten screw to ‘lock’, tune, unscrew until tapping up on the tremolo arm starts to tap, then release the slide. That gives perfect tuning stability. Yet the stock version lacks a lock so proper floating is impossible. The arm is also too long. Fender moved the tremolo unit forward (I don’t know why) but shipped with a standard length arm which puts your picking hand at the fretboard! When I replaced my arm with a Staytrem arm and collet unit (needed because the standard collet clangs and wobbles) I ordered the arm 1cm shorter to put my hand in the ‘correct’ position. Finally, the poly finish feels ‘resistant’ to my skin compared with my partscaster with a nitro neck and stained body (which feels PERFECT). This is a mute point because American Fenders have a similar feeling, but it’s worth mentioning.

While I adore my guitar now, I feel the effort wasn’t worth the cost. I wish I had just built this guitar from parts or saved up and bought a more expensive model. The next guitar I owned I built from a reject body and parts. It is better and £600 cheaper! Nevertheless, modding this jazzmaster was simple and I learnt a lot about guitar building in the process.

The end result is a guitar I adore and I will pass onto my children in decades to come. But the design decisions in the factory are, to me, unforgivable.

Fantastic!

These are some of my favourite pickups ever! They have power similar to a humbucker yet articulation similar to a single coil. They’re a really unique tone that I adore in my jazzmaster. They also look beautiful, which is a nice addition.

They just sound great

No EQ needed to bring these pickups to life, they just sound great! Incredibly versatile with beautiful cleans and aggressive driven. Drop 12db of volume and your treble to make these sound passive.

The perfect preamp

The tone capsule saved my gig! The sound engineer refused to DI my Helix and insisted I run through a keyboard amp he mic’d up already. Short story shorter, I dialed in to a great tone with my tone capsule. The two mids and a bass are perfect, targeting the exact frequencies I need to modify on the fly. Also, the Q is wonderful. Cuts and boosts just sound right. I struggle to replicate them on a parametric EQ, and am thankful I have a tone capsule in my bass.

With these tones I can sculpt my sound really well, making my Thunderbird closer to a P-bass or Stingray. It will never be THE SAME, but it will be in close enough ball park for the audience not to care.

Solid metal tone!

This machine is incredible! Throw a tuner in front and you have a complete bass rig. The EQ works well to shape your tone, the distortion is the perfect kind of grind, and the Colour switch is a great speaker emulator. I love the gate so my signal is tight. While maybe less useful for jazz, funk, pop, or worship, this pedal is perfect for worshiping Satan!

It just works!

Before my experience was with the Line 6 Helix’s compressors. They work fine but I never felt any wow. I just don’t see what the obsession is about. Then I tried The Custard Factory.

I am a weekend warrior, gigging once every month or two in the local scene in an alternative rock band. I play a Thunderbird 5 string and need a solid foundation.

From the moment I turned on The Custard Factory my tone improved immensely! Compression is famously hard to describe, but for me turning the off is like dialling my tone knob back. It just sounds great! My first thought was “I wish I had brought this pedal as soon as it was released”. This is my always on pedal!

The controls are simple to use in a way that the Helix’s aren’t. I literally just messed around and found a great tone in seconds that trashed the more complex studio style compressors I’ve used before. Intuitive is the name of the game. I’m a chartered Human Factors Specialist, and I approve of the designer’s excellent work!

I love that the pedal has a high quality buffer of 1 Meg input, 100k output. It means I need not buy a buffer pedal. Yet the best feature for me is the presence knob. I can dial in a subtle setting to help me stand out in the mix while still fulfilling the bass role.

The construction is solid and the graphics are really nicely printed. I feel this pedal can take some beating, but frankly, it won’t because it’s an always on compressor that never gets stamped on in a gig. Anyway, I’m glad to feel it can withstand an onslaught night after night.

The pedal is also dead silent. There is zero noise even at high compression. The blend knob lets you tame the compression squish in an awesome way. Is a pedal that just works!

While The Custard Factory is pretty unknown in the bass world, I can imagine this being a forever pedal.

On a p bass it gives everything a thick smoothness that is very nice. The blend lets you dial this back to taste, and the presence cuts through. I love it!

If you want a walk of bass thickening your sound, then maybe something like the MXR M87 is better. The custard factory is more transparent like a tool than the MXR’s colouring. That’s not a bad thing at all, and both pedals have their place.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

A life long tank

This pedal has been on my board and in my life since 2008, and I cannot see myself replacing it any time soon. It just works great! Sure the new Peterson tuners are more accurate at 0.1 cents over 1 cent, but human hearing is limited to 2 cents, and guitars are imprecise instruments by nature, so I’m good.

Stunning!

This micro amp sounds incredible, is reliable, and is light. In tone, I put it head to head with any amp out there and it will find its niche. Just buy it!

Solid and probably all you need

What it does it does perfectly. It just sounds awesome, especially when you load impulse responses.

Issues. The wrong input impedance means I must run a buffer before this processor. That should never be necessary. The DSP is limited and the compressors have no gain reduction monitoring, so I must use external stomps before and in the loop. Again, this is unnecessary and something the bigger Helix’s don’t need to worry about.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Solid and reliable

This is a solid workhorse of an amp for modelling. It can just about keep up with a band for practice and works well as on stage monitor for live.

On the down side, the cab modelling sucks, so stick to FRFR.

Beautiful but terrible electronics

This bass is giant! It looks stunning, is solid as a rock, and can sound very good. However, mine can with too many issues.

The neck is 2” wide! The pickups are too narrow to capture the B and G properly. The preamp is forgettable and, according to some people, boost the wrong frequencies. On my model, an idiot in the factory wired the random red leads to ground creating hum. This is easy to fix by desoldering the red wires, but now I want to know what that red wire is for! There was so much potential.

To make this bass great: - ensure the red wire is desoldered from the ground - move neck strap button to behind the neck (reduce neck dive) - replace tuners with ultra light ones (reduce neck dive) - replace the preamp with a better designed one

What killed it for me is the weight. It’s too heavy to do a three your set.

Awesome potential

I love this bass... After added Seymour Duncan blackouts and a the matching two-band EQ. The tone is awesome. The bass plays and sounds better than my old deluxe fender p bass. I will never part with mine.