Russ

Meet Scarlett - my Maruszczyk Frog 6-string fretless: She sounds as good as she looks... if you go to the BC Bands thread, there's a live video of my band in there, and I play it on a couple of the tunes. You can see a bit of her sister, Skye, next to her there - same, but fretted and with a blue colour scheme. I was the first person to specify a Frog with the ceruse-stained quilted ash, Delano Xtenders and coloured hardware. Based on what I've seen on their FB page, Adrian & co have made quite a few other ones since - I need to have a word and get him to call a Frog with that combination of features the Frog RW or something. Make it a signature bass.

I'm intrigued by the idea of some kind of modular setup - the neck itself could be full graphite, and you could have a P, a J, and a couple of 5- and 6-string options with different widths, but then have neck pocket adapters enabling these necks to be bolted onto a range of bodies, and some way to make switchable headstocks or just go headless. The headstock and neck pocket adapter needn't be full carbon fibre, but could use some other strong but easier to mould composite that doesn't require all the same tooling and setup as making bespoke carbon fibre components. Something where the moulds could just be 3D-printed or easily CNC'd. Not sure about the feasibility of any of this, but it might be something worth exploring. EDIT: The other advantage of this sort of approach is it might make the neck "portable" - if you get another instrument with the same number of strings but with a different headstock or neck attachment, the neck could come with you, and all you'd need to get would be the new neck pocket adapter, and maybe a new headstock. There's also the possibility of switchable fingerboards - fretted/fretless. I know this has been tried before, with the old Novatone necks, but nobody's ever really progressed the idea since then, as far as I'm aware.

I'm wondering if someone has modelled it for one of the multi-FX units that's out there - Line 6 don't have it and Zoom don't have it, wondering if the likes of Fractal, Headrush, Neural DSP or one of the others out there might have tried.

They're kinda fragile things, and not something I'd want to be carting around with me, especially since I do the whole lightweight thing these days. It would be nice to have one for home though.

A few years back, I was very close to buying a graphite neck for one of my MM Bongos from Moses (complete with fibre-optic inlays), right before they made the decision to stop making graphite necks. Gutted I never followed through on that! So yeah, I voted MM necks, but *all* MM necks. Oh, and (this might sound a bit weird) Status necks, for those out there who have a wood-necked Status but who can no longer get a graphite upgrade directly from the source. Maybe it’s worth reaching out to some of our BC luthiers to see if they’d be interested in offering a graphite neck option for their instruments?

I was listening back to some old recordings from a couple of bands I was in back in the day, and the best bass sound I ever had was at one particular studio where the engineer always put the bass through an old Drawmer 1960 valve compressor. It added a lovely, valve-y, chewy resonance to the sound that I've never been able to get by any other means, including any other compressors. Has anyone come across a pedal, or a multi-FX that models the Drawmer 1960? I know there's a plugin for DAWs from Softube, but I haven't come across anything in a pedal...

Juan can definitely still play, and he still is, although it's all studio stuff now and at his own pace. It's pretty much everything else around playing and being in a band that he struggles with now after his accident, and his life has had to slow down considerably. It sounds like a lot of the money he's hoping to raise will be going to various charities, and I'm sure he'll be hanging on to a few favourite bits of gear (noting that none of his Nordstrand Cats, his old Racer X Ibanezes or any of his vintage Fenders are among the mentioned items).

Earthbound AD. Female-fronted original metal. Based in NY/NJ, USA. Been playing with them for 6-odd years at this point, we put out an album a couple of years back and have been recording tracks for a new EP. We're pretty much a band consisting of immigrants - I'm from the UK, Mark, our drummer, is Indian, and Joe, our guitarist, is Guatemalan! Only Jackie, our vocalist, was born in the US! Haven't done much gigging as of late due to one thing and another, but hopefully going to throw ourselves back into it on the back of this EP release. Here's a live vid from a gig we did at the end of last year. EDIT: New track, "Ashes Of Paradise", now out on Bandcamp - will be out on Spotify, Apple, Tidal, etc in the next day or two: https://earthboundad.bandcamp.com/track/ashes-of-paradise

If you put the RM heads into their little woolly gig bag, that switch inevitably gets pressed. I love my RM800, but that's a definite design flaw!

Obviously you could hear Rob during the For Whom The Bell Tolls intro, etc, but otherwise I found his tone a bit indistinct... kinda blurred into the guitars. Rex was playing his fretless Spector during Planet Caravan, and it had a nice deep tone. The Pantera set was spoiled by Wylde's frankly horrendous guitar sound though - sounded like it was being played through a crappy Bluetooth speaker. I forgot about Mike Inez - he always sounds good, although he was using maybe a little more distortion than was necessary. That Would? intro sounded fuzzy.

Frank's bass was one of the few you could actually hear, apart from Geezer's (with his massive purple Ashdown rig, which I now really want ) and Josh from Halestorm. Poor Rudy Sarzo deserved better in the all-star segments, he was completely buried in the mix.

Been working my way through videos of the show. Haven't watched it all yet, but Gojira slayed, Tool smashed it (loving Justin's "bohemian caveman" look these days), Halestorm were fantastic, loved Jack Black's video contribution with Scott Ian and Tom Morello's sons, Metallica were, well, Metallica. Good, but you know exactly what you're going to get, and the two superstar jams were probably the highlight outside of Ozzy and Sabbath - Nuno Bettencourt didn't miss a note the whole day. There's a man who's done his homework. Sammy Hagar and Steven Tyler both sound amazing for 77, and the tune with Whitfield Crane, Nuno, Scott Ian, Frank Bello and II from Sleep Token was probably my highlight from the whole thing (Frank's new Spector sounds the b0llocks). That Yungblood bloke was pretty bloody good too. The only set I couldn't get through was G'n'R's - was not impressed. More to watch, but what an event. Jealous of those of you who got to go.

Just went and watched some vids of the show on YT. I guess the pictures I saw must have been old, Andy was definitely playing a sunburst P (and had shorter hair than the pics where he was playing the Burns). Andy's actually a bloody good musician, his guitar work in Ride was excellent, and, frankly, he's a bit wasted in Oasis. But the pay is probably far, far better!

Those newer Bisons have a certain bite that's quite distinctive. Could barely hear him in the footage I've seen though. There was bass, but it was kinda mushy. Nobody goes to an Oasis show to watch the bass player though.

He used to be fond of old Burns and Eko basses, as well as sometimes playing a Fender P. From the limited number of non-Liam-and-Noel pics I've seen of the Cardiff show, he was playing his black Burns Bison.