Russ

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.

Oasis were always more of an overarching cultural thing than a music thing anyway. There were many bands in that Britpop era that were far, far better than them, but they were the ones that got the column inches, the NME/Melody Maker covers and the tabloid scandals. Basically Oasis - the brand - was the big seller, and the music was only a smallish part of all that. The whole cocky swagger of the Gallaghers was a reflection of the era of Cool Britannia and the national zeitgeist at the time. The sad thing is, if you put together a supertour featuring a bunch of other contemporary British pop-rock bands who musically left Oasis in the dust (Radiohead, Blur, Pulp, Suede, Supergrass, the Manics, The Verve, Mansun, Ocean Colour Scene, Sleeper, Feeder, Elastica, etc) they probably wouldn't sell as many tickets as Oasis have.

That's not how I read it, but could be wrong. Higher-end basses seem to be having a moment again right now - was at an all-day show this past Saturday, and there was one Fender, all day, out of ten bands. Three bands in a row had bass players with Spectors! And there was a now-ubiquitous Dingwall NG3, a couple of MMs and an Ibby or two. Status could be well-placed to take advantage of this if they could get production back up to speed, but that would require them to have a production partner. I've noticed some of their name players drifting off to other brands too, which is a bit sad. Obviously Mark King is back on his Jaydees these days, Venturella still plays his, but he's increasingly seen playing others, and the latest I've seen is German pickmeister Hellmut Hattler, who is now playing a Warwick (white, PJ, Kahler trem, just like his Status). Just waiting for Wolstenholme to jump ship, at this point.

Yep. They've been acquired by Ruf Guitars from Poland, but, from what I understand, they're going to keep manufacturing in the UK. Ruf might be a good candidate to get involved with Status too, since Ruf's thing is carbon fibre guitars. They currently don't have a bass range, so....¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've got EZDrummer, never really got the hang of it since it seems you do all the arranging in the plugin's little window, not directly in the DAW and I don't like that. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. The sounds themselves are great though. This is more to help me come up with ideas based on rhythms that I might not have thought of, or that might be a little out of my comfort zone, to help prompt creativity.

I love writing bass parts to fit interesting drum/percussion patterns, but I'm not the greatest when it comes to drum programming, so it'd be nice to have something that can just throw drum grooves at me and that I can react to. So I was wondering, is there such a thing as a drum plugin or other piece of software that can generate patterns and grooves that change over time, that you can jam along to, and that your DAW can record so you can pick bits out of later and assemble into songs? Any suggestions welcome!

And so they should, and they deserve every happy second of it. I'd like to think they could find good partners to work with for the continuation of the Status brand though. Hiscox Cases has just been given a new lease of life, and I'd like to see the same for Status.

There’s an alternate arrangement of Love Rears Its Ugly Head on Stain, that I think I prefer to the arrangement from Time’s Up. But they’re both fantastic. Stain is a ridiculously good album, and as a statement of intent from Doug Wimbish about what he intended to do in the band, it’s spectacular. The greasy fretless on Nothingness, the whammy-and-delay goodness of Wall, the deep groove of Leave It Alone, the angular heaviness of Auslander… Doug is peerless at what he does.

I have a herniated disc between my C5 and C6 vertebrae, so upper backache is a thing. I had physiotherapy, and luckily I got a guy who was experienced with musicians and explained some of how the weight of an instrument is distributed. Based on his suggestions, I raised my bass up from just above waist height to mid-belly height and it's made a big difference. In terms of the biomechanics, it's now sitting in a spot where the muscles in the middle of your back are compensating your balance instead of the muscles higher up your back and in your shoulders. Also, the lower you have your bass, the more work your shoulders and upper back have to do because of the position of your arms. You have to raise your elbows a little to keep your wrists straight, but not a lot, and it becomes second nature after a while. Conversely, if you have lower back pain, wear the bass lower as it moves the distribution of the weight upwards, which sounds counter-intuitive, but it works. There's a "sweet spot" there that you'll find. Setlists - bigger font and use more sheets of paper? Screen on pedalboard - if you're a Zoom guy, consider an upgrade to the B6. The screen is bigger, brighter and, most importantly, in colour - there's different colours for the different blocks, which makes differentiating them without having to necessarily read them much easier. Love my B6. Just wish it was a full steel chassis and had a built-in expression pedal. It has all the same stuff in it as your one, so recreating your patches will be easy.

I still want them to put the guts of the current HX Stomp into the case of the POD Go Wireless, so you have a proper, small one-box gigging solution that's more usable than the current HX Stomp and less of a compromise than the current POD Go, and has the built-in expression pedal, wireless system, etc. They could rename it the HX Go. It could stand to gain an XLR output too, perhaps.

It looks awesome, but not £2k awesome. I love me some effects, but even I don't need something that extensive. Was hoping for an updated HX Stomp or POD Go.

I dropped you an email the other day about it - hopefully you saw it. I'm looking for something that basically apes the MM Bongo preamp, with those particular frequency centres, so if the Flexcore can have its frequencies adjusted to match the MM ones, then it could be a goer.

Glad to hear it, John. Going to drop you an email about possibly ordering a couple of custom preamps - ever done a 4-band (with low/high mids)?

Just a note of caution... beware if you have a sensitivity to silicone. I had no idea I had one, but then I decided to buy a U-Bass, and started getting rashes on my fingers when I played it. So it ended up getting returned. Great sound with a proper upright "thud", weighs nothing, but is not hypoallergenic!

Hoping John is OK. I know he's had some health issues over the past couple of years but he's always bounced back. I did notice Maruszczyk have taken his preamps off their options list.

My mistake then. I think, at some point, they did drop the switch. Might have been when they "soft-rebooted" the Sterling line a few years back.

The old SB14s (the original Sterling series) were very close to the US Sterlings - all they were missing was the coil selector switch. I'm actually still looking for a CAR one! Most MM replacement pickups are made to replicate the Stingray pickup - the Sterling pickup is more like a 4-string version of the pickup in the Stingray 5, with alnico magnets and a phantom noise-cancelling coil. Delano do an alnico MM pickup that'd probably a closer match to the Sterling than the Nordstrand. As for a replacement EQ, the Retrovibe one gets very close to the original Stingray preamp and it's stupid cheap. I'd actually leave the stock circuit alone as it's close enough to the original and maybe just upgrade the pickup.