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I still have my Thumb. It was the first bass I bought and while I owned 'better' basses, I never owned one that felt or sounded as right to me as that one does. Still, probably sell it as I don't play it these days. Regarding the importance of all of the elements of the Thumb sound, particularly the insane growl the 5 strings have, to me, the most important part is the double J bars, slanted right up against the bridge. Different woods and neck-thru or bolt-on seem less important, they can offer some nuances, but IMO the sound comes from the instrument being a slab of hardwood with that unique pickup combination.

Ah, MXtabs, those were the days. Esp Griffyn here.

Awesome bass. One of the models I wish I'd owned before I moved back to my rightful place playing electric guitar.

I think this bass passed through the hands of @Chris2112 at one point. Nice instrument.

It's a shame that happened, Mark's Jaydee tone simply isn't on the same level and he was by far their best and biggest name endorser. Chris and Alex aren't players in anywhere near the same league as Mark, but they would have had some brand pull. Well, maybe not Alex, who is like a nobody dep in a band with 9 members, who released their last good album 20 years ago. I would be surprised if anyone listened to Slipknot and then went out and bought a Status off the back of the endorsement. That said, I'm sure Alex is more valuable to the Fender corporation, who have Mick Thomson and Jim Root, with their signature guitars with Jackson and Fender respectively. They can give Alex a signature bass and the put some cheap import models out, or just give him a bass and put his face on their endorser list. I think Slipknot's listener demographic probably fits better with a black, pointy headstock bass for £800 a pop rather than a handbuilt £3500 bass. I'm surprised it took as long for FMIC to get Alex as it did, as FMIC have been very aggressive in recent years with buying off as many name musicians as they can across the metal genre. I remember the days when Jonas Hellborg played Status, even having a signature bass with them. What a boon that was, there was a guy that could add some real credibility to the brand. It was sad that Jonas moved onto Warwick as clearly he had ideas about this big semi-hollow bass kicking around for a while and Warwick made it for him, but his tone was nowhere near as good with the Warwick in comparison to his Status days. A shame too that Jonas seems to have lost his way after the death of Shawn Lane, releasing two more good albums and then doing nothing of any real note for the last 15 years. Has it really been 15 years since Art Metal?! Crazy how time flies. When I listen to Hellborg's stuff where he was using a Status, the tone is just awesome. That said, on the overall subject of losing endorsers and how it would affect the brand, I'm not sure it would have hurt Status too much. Mark has dabbled over the years but always came back to Status, but I think even if they cut all ties with their endorsers, they could still make the Kingbass and the core Status customers would still place orders. A blow on a personal level to Rob perhaps, but I doubt it would have spelled financial ruin for the company, or even moved the needle on their finances tbh.

It's a shame for those who wanted a new one, I know my brother was looking to put an order down on a new Kingbass. I guess for Rob, he's leaving money on the table; it's hard to image a time when Status doesn't have a group of players that will always want one and his order book would be full forever more if he hadn't made the decision to stop, but for all of us, there comes a point when time becomes more important than money, particularly when you're in your late 60s and have had a cancer diagnosis. I said the same for the recent retirements of Mike Pedulla and the pending retirement of Patrice Vigier who is now clearing his build queue before shuttering his business. A lot of the old legendary brands are shutting down and frankly I don't see much of anything coming to replace them, particularly for a brand like Status who really never had an equal or even pretenders to their throne. Vigier moved away from carbon fibre necks and went with their 90/10 wood to carbon system a long time ago, Enfield would make a bass with a carbon wrap over the wood (so not a real carbon neck), Modulus seem to play to a different crowd. Schack and Bogart were in a similar vein to Status but were much more niche and let's be honest, Status were a niche company even in bass circles. I think of Status as being like the McLaren of the bass guitar world. Forward-thinking, innovative and at a time, they were the cutting edge. You could argue that the lack of innovations in bass construction since the advent of carbon fibre is testament to how good the material is and how good Status were at using it. For the kind of bass they wanted to make, there was no better material and no better construction method. While some other British brands continue pumping out hoary old dinosaurs for sky-rocketing prices, Status would make you a bass that really was unrivaled in many ways and they would do it for an exceptionally reasonable price. I looked at the price of a top of the line bass from their pricelist not that long ago, and my dream bass, all-options ticked kind of thing was only about £3500. Madness really, for something of that quality, made in the UK. We didn't know how good we had it. Will the basses continue, being built under a new team? Maybe. The wording of the statement is very open. The talk of the end of the "current" range, who knows what the future may hold etc. However, based on the tenures of staff Rob names in the statement, unless they started with Status from a young age, they probably aren't spring chickens either and without the main man at the helm, could they carry on without him, albeit under his supervision to a degree? Who knows. It would be really cool if they could take their knowledge and start a new brand to continue on the legacy. This all seems like such a shame because without anything else to take their place, Status are leaving a hole in the bass world that really isn't filled by any other brand. I would say though, that the time to buy a used Status is surely now, if you wanted one, before people start hoarding them and boosting prices because of Rob's retirement.

Game over for anyone hoping to get a new Status bass. They had a good run.

Has this bloke had an unexpected brown letter from the HMRC or something? 😂

I found the "Metal musician sucks at jazz" video to be quite amusing too. Adam has Rob play just about the most dusty, boring and old-fashioned jazz going 😂

They stopped taking orders in March 2022 but don't expect to clear the build queue until the end of 2023. Sounds like a lack of demand isn't an issue in the slightest. As Chris mentioned, I have a deposit down on the final Shawn Lane signature Excalibur in natural matte alder that will come from their workshop. When I spoke to their customer service guy in France he confirmed that they weren't taking new orders and once the current orders were fulfilled, they were closing down. Thankfully, this rather helpful chap was able to point me towards a retailer who had ordered a matte alder Lane model and from there I put a deposit down on it. I am expecting a superb instrument. I respect Patrice's decision to retire and not continue the brand. It would be a good retirement plan in some respects to let someone else carry on with it, but at the same time I'm sure he can just enjoy a stress-free existence once the company is shuttered.

I understand not wanting to change strings before the gig, just use Fast Fret throughout the show and after the gig is done, throw the flats in the bin and put some rounds on.

I recently pretty much quit bass guitar and returned to electric guitar (my true home), though I kept some bass gear for recording or jamming purposes. I'm in a fortunate position of not needing to sell gear to purchase more in terms of finances or space, but I do feel a degree of guilt in owning something that I don't use. When I decided recently to get a new guitar rig, I looked at my bass collection and decided to sell a lot of it. I didn't need to, but it seemed a shame to not let them be used. Of course, I miss them but I don't regret selling them at all. I'd only hold onto an instrument in the most extreme cases of sentimentality. I still own my Ibanez K-7, the first really nice guitar I bought myself, back when I was 17 or so - back when you could get a Presitge level, made in Japan Ibanez signature model in a sale for £850. That will be sent to a tech at some point for a total clean, fret job, new pickups etc. Before I quit guitar and sold all my gear a few years back I had some really cool guitars; Fender Jim Root Tele, Richie Kotzen Strat, an early Strandberg OS7 etc, but I knew selling them at the time was the right thing to do. I guess I always knew I was only taking a temporary break from guitar, but I never doubted for a second my decision to sell them and move on.

In the ultra-conservative world of bass guitar, you're more likely to face snobbery if you're playing something high-end. More than 4 strings, exotic woods, luxury appointments etc, the more you have the more likely you'll be to draw the ire of the "P Bass is all you need" crowd.

GuitarGuitar posted this on their Facebook yesterday. I've never seen a guitar age like this. Even famous Teles dragged around the road for years on end didn't age so harshly. I think with these sort of things, they get a "more is more" mentality and end up with something that looks totally unrealistic. That said, I don't mind a relic job when done right. These EVH Frankie replicas are incredible guitars for the price. In particular, whatever they did to age the neck is amazing. Based on the way the grain of the wood looks, I think it must have been some sort of oil finish over the raw maple with some dark additive in the oil. And yes, I wouldn't feel too badly about adding more dings to it, whereas I'd be gutted if I didn that to my other guitars that I keep pristine.