[Roger Vaughan]

Well the value for me will be more related to the sound I can get out of it, but again, I may be looking at it too hard. Strings is a good point, I had a set of rounds on a beater bass and it sounded kind of sour and awful. I moved the set onto another bass I like quite a bit, and then that bass sounded awful too! So that was pretty defining for the scope of influence strings bring into the mix.

I played the Burner for a set last night at a low-rent bar gig, but without the active eq. I'd thought the bass was unplayable in passive mode, but was incorrect. Sweet player, but very honk-ish sounding. This may have been due to the fact I was playing through a small, cheep mixer for a pre into my Crest power amp! Nonetheless, I'm thinking it let me know the passive tone of the bass without the benefit of ''proper'' bass eq. Gonna have to do something for this, here, and I'm guessing I'll go ahead with the original plan of the replacement pre circuit. There is a reason I like Lesh's old sound so much- like the bass line on "Casey Jones"- and though he used a different Smith (with the pickguard and a hundred knobs and switches!) and different guts too, this is as close as I'm getting for now.

So just out of curiosity, what's the difference between these p'ups in here now- the J's with the Smith logo- and the ones in the previous models? Anything remarkable?