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Posts: 45
Location: Santa Cruz, CA | Howdy everyone,
I just got back from playing a fantastically fun show in Orlando with an old band of mine that last played together 9 years ago. We hadn't kept in touch very well, as there were some bad feelings surrounding the breakup and the following years, but as soon as we set foot in the practice studio all was forgiven and we got along better than ever. We rehearsed 10+ hours a day for 3 days, did a final run through sound check, and played 2 hours to a really appreciative crowd. It was like a rock and roll fantasy camp. Any way, I had my trusty Magnum II and my newer Mag I (thanks again Miles!) and they were PERFECT for the gig: giant low end, solid intonation, and they photographed fantastically! Here's an almost embarrassingly flattering review:
http://www.retrolowfi.com/
I used to swap out my basses every 2 years or so, but I don't think these are going anywhere. Best instruments I've ever owned.
Joshua |
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December 2004
Posts: 2150
Location: Orlando, FL | Joshua, great review. Where did you guys play? Sounds like a great show. Nice picture of you and the Magnum. |
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January 2005
Posts: 45
Location: Santa Cruz, CA | The show was at the Universal Theater at the Orlando Rep. (next to the Science Center.) It was a GREAT show. One in a million.
Joshua |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | The sound clip of "Enough Already" is outstanding. |
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Posts: 45
Location: Santa Cruz, CA | Thanks! If anyone is interested, I put the collection of songs we used as a rehearsal guide up at http://homepage.mac.com/jchiet/Sites/heronymus_set.zip . It's a pretty good mix of some old studio recordings and live stuff from various venues from the House of Blues to a bed and breakfast in Fernandina Beach. Funny enough that version of Enough Already was recorded when I was 19, and im 30 now. It was played on a Lake Placid Blue Mexican Fender jazz bass. Our guitarist however was playing a UKII. I expected him to bring the UKII to this gig, but he threw us a curveball with the strat. He still plays the UKII in the band he's now in with his wife (http://www.beforedawnband.com) |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Downloaded and preparing to listen. :D
Thanks! |
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January 2005
Posts: 45
Location: Santa Cruz, CA | Incidentally, since this is information I struggled to find myself, the Gator brand GPE-ATA bass flight cases fit the Magnum I and II *perfectly*. I was extremely worried buying them sight unseen, and flying across the U.S. with these beasts and they made it through 4 flights without a single problem. At about $120 each, i consider them to be an amazing bargain for Magnum owners. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Josh, I am listening to "Two Sides TO Every Hole" as I type this and I can honestly say THIS IS GREAT STUFF!
Any prog fans on the OFC board owe it to yourself to download the "heronymous_set" that Josh was kind enough to post.
It is an albums worth of kick ass tunes and jams! I am burning it to a CD and it will be in rotation in my cars CD player. (I am afraid to listen on my main stereo system....it might melt my mind!) ;) |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Excellent!
(Now... I'm gonna have to break-out my Guadalcanal Diary Discs too) |
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Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
Excellent!
(Now... I'm gonna have to break-out my Guadalcanal Diary Discs too) .
...as in alternative jangle pop :eek: ? |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | yup....
great stuff |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | I agree. Never got the recognition they deserved. |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | As I was listening to Heronymus I was having flashbacks to GD...
both deserved more recognition....
Kudos, Josh- AKA Plexicube |
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Location: Santa Cruz, CA | Wow guys, thanks a lot! I'll have to make a point of checking out Guadalcanal Diaries now. Heronymus was the last band I ever really tried to "make it" with (ha!). We were lunched by a few labels who told us in no uncertain terms that while they thought we were very talented young men, we had absolutely no chance of commercial success. No single. In response, we just decided to get weirder. Hence, theres a pretty big shift between the later live recordings and the earlier studio recordings (swapping out our commercially driven drummer for a more experimental one helped too.) That experience shaped me into the self indulgent musician I am today. :) I have yet to be in another band that was half as much fun. Glad you're enjoying it. |
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Posts: 302
Location: Buffalo,NY | plexicube
June 05, 2007 10:59 PM
Howdy everyone,
I just got back from playing a fantastically fun show in Orlando with an old band of mine that last played together 9 years ago. We hadn't kept in touch very well, as there were some bad feelings surrounding the breakup and the following years, but as soon as we set foot in the practice studio all was forgiven and we got along better than ever. We rehearsed 10+ hours a day for 3 days, did a final run through sound check, and played 2 hours to a really appreciative crowd. It was like a rock and roll fantasy camp. Any way, I had my trusty Magnum II and my newer Mag I (thanks again Miles! ) and they were PERFECT for the gig: giant low end, solid intonation, and they photographed fantastically! Here's an almost embarrassingly flattering review:
http://www.retrolowfi.com/
I used to swap out my basses every 2 years or so, but I don't think these are going anywhere. Best instruments I've ever owned.
Joshua
Congrats ! Very nice. Very nice review; something to be very proud of !!
How do the Magnums compare to other basses you may have played?
Regards,
Tom |
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January 2005
Posts: 45
Location: Santa Cruz, CA | Tom,
I started playing on a Hondo P-Bass copy my father bought for me on my 15th birthday (I had requested the year before that my birthday present "roll-over" to the next year so they could afford it.) It had a Jackson type heavy metal headstock, a silver and black Van Halen paint job along with a mirror pickguard, and was strung with D'adarrio XL Reds, the worst string known to man (they'd make your hands smell like pennies for weeks.) We found it at one of those hole in the wall seedy instrument stores that existed before Guitar Center destroyed the market, and after figuring out Owner of a Lonely Heart right there in the store I had to have it. Suffice it to say, the Magnums rise head and shoulders above that bass for obvious reasons.
I moved to a Peavey Foundation about 2 years later. At the time I was really into the thin neck, but I made the mistake of using some ultra heavy strings on it and it never recovered. I honestly don't think my playing was at all advanced enough at the time I owned this bass to have made any worthwile observations about it, but my hands quickly outgrew the string spacing (I'm 6'2" and a pretty big guy) and I found the output to be fairly weak. I held onto that bass for a few years, but was mostly playing with an Emax sampler and an Alesis MMT-8 until I got to college and joined Heronymus. I purchased a Fender Mexican Jazz bass that year with some scholarship money, and used that for our first studio recordings. I was doing a lot more slapping at the time, as was required by law, and was very concerned with proving to everyone that I was a competant bassist, so I liked to play as many notes as possible. I liked the Jazz neck, and always was a sucker for the classiness that instrument just exudes, but hated the hum and relatively plonky sound I felt I was getting (at this time, I was playing only with my fingers, quite religiously.) I traded up to a '76 Jazz I found in a pawnshop, with a bound fingerboard and better shielding. That was my touring bass for about a year, when I realized I was just beating the crap out of a classic bass and started to feel guilty. We had also recently switched drummers for a guy who was a lot more into fusion stuff, so I traded the Fender for a Spector 5 string (neck through) which was my first bass with active electronics (active preamp, passive pickups.) I was in love with that bass for a while. I thought it had fantastic string spacing and really dug playing on the neck-through heel (because I was still doing the occaisional "wheedly-whee" on the top frets.) The Spector had a really fretless-like tone that was perfect for the more jazzy gigs we were leaning towards at the time, but I found the low B to be fairly useless (it never sat well with the other strings no matter the eq) and definitely started to miss a lot of the definition of my Fender. When Heronymus broke up, I started playing more guitar and eventually ended up as the guitarist/synth player in a math rock/prog band called Landing on Land (http://www.myspace.com/landingonland). For that gig, I was playing exclusively on a Breadwinner that had been almost completely destroyed by the time it got to me (stripped finish, gutted electronics, rusted hardware.) I loved the neck and the way the Breadwinner played, and eventually picked up a Deacon on this board to suppliment it. After Landing on Land called it quits I wanted to return to the bass, but was completely sold on the Ovation solidbodies, so I traded the Deacon to Miles for a Magnum bass. Having been a guitar player, I approach the Bass a lot more like a guitar these days then I ever would have before (I play with a pick now, use a lot of double stops, stomp boxes, etc) and so no longer feel comfortable with really narrow necks. I love the beefyness of the Magnums, and the graphite reinforcement realy does an amazing job keeping everything in tune and solid. I have had to do less setup work on my Magnums than any other basses. Im a big fan of long scale lengths too. Now that I play less notes and think more about tone, I like having the different sounds from the humbucker and single coil available to me. I also have a particular love for extremely heavy basses (no idea why) so there's that too. My only real critique of the Magnums is that though it looks cool, the mute system is not only useless (changes pitches by a half step) but I find it sometimes gets in the way of my palm when I'm playing close to the bridge. I would also be overjoyed if they had ever made some wth bound necks. They definitely have the most substantial and solid feel of any of my instruments, and I'd be lying if I said their stunning good looks don't contribute to my affection for 'em.
How's that for way too much info?
-Joshua |
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March 2007
Posts: 302
Location: Buffalo,NY | Joshua,
Not too much information at all ! Thank you for spending the time to answer ; your review of the Magnum is heads and tails beyond what I can get out of Harmony Central.
Thank you for all of the comparisons to other basses and guitars, that kind of insight is very helpful.
I don't play bass however I do own a '68 Vox Sidewinder and a '69 Tele Bass. It looks like I'm going to get to play bass in a couple of songs where we need to have our bass player play keys . So i'm always looking for different ideas for adding another bass. Our bass player plays a Rickenbacker and it sounds fantastic but it doesn't seem to have quite the low end of the Tele bass.Maybe a Magnum would be a good fit.
Regards,
Tom |
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Magnums in concert