LeftyBassist.com

http://www.sadowsky.com/stock/view/5905.html

Sexy . . .

Deeeeeewwwwwwwwd....



If that was a fiver, I'd be scrambling right now.

Ditto. If that was a fiver I wouldn't be scrambling ($4K+ is just too rich for me), but I would be having daytime fantasies all day long. . . Sigh. . .

Lefty007, not sure what you mean by $4K+

the auto generated email from Sadowsky quoted me $5025. Well, i guess 5K is greater than 4K ....

LOL. . . I didn't even know the price, just knew it was more than $4K. . . I don't think I would ever be comfortable paying more than $2500-$3000 for a bass. More than that and you are just paying for pretty woods, exclusivity or collectivity, not tone or playability. But that's another conversation altogether.

My god, that is absolutely stunning.

I agree, anything over $2500-$3000 and I start questioning value to return. Which is why the likelihood of me ever owning a Pre-CBS Fender is pretty nil.

I saw this this morning.. I had GAS for a moment... then it wore off. Its missing a string. If this were a 5er, I would have a problem too... Glad it's not. None the less, very nice....but 5100? If so, its the fingerboard and Nitro upcharge, along with 10-20% for left handed (ridiculous IMO). I sent email to see if it will be at NAMM. Under 8LBs is crazy light. Not my thing but Roger builds some good basses...

I have its sibling (with a Brazilian rosewood board instead of BEM). I bought mine in 2008. Arrived in early 2009. Prices have gone up a lot since then.

What you are paying more for on this one:
- spalted maple top
- master grade fingerboard wood
- black hardware
- lefty

The nitro finish on the neck is standard and is no upgrade. If the body were nitro as well, or even in a vintiquity finish (only on vintage-style instruments), those would be upgrades as well, with vintiquity being the more expensive one of those two.

The lefty upgrade is not even near 10-20%. I don't like it when companies / builders charge lefties in percent. Sadowsky doesn't do this (yet). The up charge for lefty is $300. I know there are companies who don't charge extra for lefties, but in my opinion, $300 is still okay.
Other high-end builders like Mike Lull and Fodera charge more (both in percent if I recall correctly). On the other hand, Jens Ritter and Alleva-Coppolo don't charge extra...

Among a few other basses, I currently have 2 Sadowsky basses (had 3, will have 3 again in a few weeks) and I find their price well worth it. At this moment, I play about 70 gigs a year and I truly believe the Sadowsky basses have contributed to giving me a few extra gigs. They just sit so good in the mix. Oh, and the customer service is to die for! I should note that I am studying music in the conservatory - my teachers there are also very pleased with the tone of my Sadowsky basses - no way I would spend such a fortune on basses and gear as I did now if I wouldn't pursuit a music career.

Regardless of specs (tops, hw color. fingerboard, etc) $5k+ is a hell of a lot of $$$ for a jazz bass. All those upgrades here are eye candy and don't make that much difference on tone. Now, I am not ripping Sadowsky basses whatsoever, they "are" great basses but Roger should seriously consider offering these in the Metro series if enough orders were placed. Some builders do charge 10%> on their builds because there is more work involved. Very few dont. I made a mistake on my estimate on Sadowsky upcharges. I just cant justify that bass being $5k+.... Glad my arsenal is covered and paid off.

I agree. None of my Sadowsky basses ever hit $5k. The one that's on its way does, but if I wouldn't have gone with a matching headstock, it would've been under 5k as well. On the other hand, all my equipment is paying itself back, so apart from studying music, I can justify having it 'cause I make money with them, they're my tools.
You of course also pay for his name, reputation of the brand, their NYC location, the fact that the work gets done over there,... Supply and demand I guess.

Furthermore, while I don't have that much experience with maple fingerboards, I will add that, in my opinion, the upgrade to a more boutique rosewood is usually well worth it. Brazilian is my favorite, followed by Amazon and Madagascar. This of course is only one factor of the build. A poorly made bass with expensive woods won't sound well either.

Not only is there more work for left-handed instruments, it often requires reprogramming a CNC machine, which slows down the production of instruments. Some of the manufacturers / builders that don't charge more for lefties that come to my mind are, like I said, Ritter, Alleva-Coppolo. I did a search and also found Warwick, Carvin, G&L, MTD, Benavente, Lakland, Skjold, Nordstrand, Alembic, Pedulla, Kinal, Conklin, ... to not charge more for lefties. Some of them may be charging by now, since this is old info.
Anyway, it all depends... If you add 15% to a Fodera, you could buy a new bass from that alone.

Sadowsky did, actually, open a window for ordering lefty metros a few years back. There wasn't enough response to justify them producing a run so they closed it.

Hey, let's not forget that Sadowsky is located in N.Y.C. that alone adds significant overhead to the pricing structure. Rent and taxes and doing business in general is not cheap in the Big Apple.

- he probably has to pay some union guy scale to flush his toilet!

I remember that. I was one of the few that did sign up for that, though. What a bummer that was.

Let me be the first to say that this practice is incredibly stupid and I really wish builders would stop dangling carrots like this.

"Hey lefties... if we can find two-hundred of you on the internet who are interested in outright purchasing one of our import basses, without US investing ANY marketing dollars to find enough of you to actually get it off the ground, and without YOU ever having had a chance to play one before, then we'll make them for you! No problem!"



How about you just make the friggin' basses in a few colors and get them to dealers and we'll BUY THEM... it might not happen overnight, but eventually they will all sell because they are Sadowsky basses and those basses don't stick around for very long.

The only lefty basses I ever see hanging around in music stores very long are the ones you can get EVERYWHERE like Ibanez GSR200's or Jay Turser or something... quality lefties never last very long, IF you can ever find a music store to actually stock them.

+1

What he said.

I completely agree!

I work in a very high end segment of the bicycle industry, where CNC machining is employed for a wide variety of products. My understanding - having spent some time with the engineers who do the "programming" - is that once a program is written for a particular part - say a left hand brake lever - the process of writing the mirror image - right hand lever - is quite simple. The time consuming part of the CNC process is getting the program right in the first place.

Furthermore, the excuse of "setup" and "reprogramming" for lefty instruments is ridiculous. There is no "reprogramming" needed if you've ever made one of these units in the past. It's not a 1920's printing press where you have to painstakingly setup each page and when it's done it's lost forever. It's 2012. Once a program is written, you can magically save it in these wizard boxes called computers. In fact, I'm using one of these magic boxes right now to communicate with all of you. Maybe they purge the entire left handed "program" when they are done building one or two of them so that it's more "authentic". (insert sarcasm smiley face here)

I guess what I'm saying is, I call BS on this excuse. "Reprogramming" - in this day and age - is more like loading a different program. A minimal amount of setup for an opposite orientation might be necessary but it wouldn't put a shop down for a day.

Rant concluded.

Rod from Regenerate has already informed us through his CNC-machine updates that the initial time is spent in the programming.... once done, it's easy to "flip" the code. And I agree, a high-quality builder will always be able to sell his basses, whether it's in a box store, or the builders own site. Any builder that excludes left handed players is missing out on a good percentage of the bass-playing market.

To me, this subject is right up there with sellers who think shipping to my state - Hawaii - is like shipping to a foreign country....

Actually Rod has to reprogram his CNC to make right-handed basses and charges 10% more for them.

1+ !!! Same with Fender

...but this will never happen