Russ

I'd imagine the carbon fibre fabrication tooling, moulds, etc could be sold off to another company, with the aim of them continuing the brand. There's not many guitar companies in the UK who would be big enough to take that on though. Maybe Crimson - should we all be having a word with Ben Crowe? Who knows. Maybe Rob has suitors already.

That's pretty much the opposite of my experience with one. I found it hard to dial down the grit, it was always there to one degree or another. It's a great sound - it's that Ampeg sound - but sometimes I thought it would have been nice to have the ability to go a bit cleaner for some stuff.

Interesting idea. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to point out the flaws though. Personally I'm waiting for someone to revive the Novatone swappable fingerboard idea so I don't need to buy separate fretted and fretless basses!

Yet another vote for the G&Ls, plus a recommendation for the Ibanez ATK. The 300 series were great basses that nailed the MM tone. The 400/405 were my favourites though, with the extra Jazz pickup and downsized body. One of the best recorded tones I ever had was on an ATK405. They do show up for sale occasionally, but they're kinda rare. You could also get a Sterling or SUB and swap out the pickups and electronics for something that'll make them sound more like a proper Stingray. LowEndLobster on Youtube has a bunch of videos where he tries out replacement MM pickups and electronics in a Sterling SUB, so it might be worth giving those a watch. Here's one:

Nice amp. Gobs of power, versatile EQ and some nice extras. You've got to be into the "Ashdown sound" to appreciate it properly though. It's got that hint of "wooliness" that most Ashdown amps have, a bit soft around the edges. I decided I wanted something a little more modern sounding, so I replaced it with the Mesa, which does the slightly squishy, valve-y sound (since it has a valve in the preamp) but can also do punch and bite. I'll always recommend Ashdown stuff though, fantastic gear, and their support is excellent.

I've had an Ashdown Rootmaster RM-800, a Mesa Subway WD-800 and, most recently, a Trace Elliot TE-1200 since the Ampeg (still have the Mesa and the Trace), and they've all been great-sounding and bulletproof. These types of high-power Class D amps have no inherent flaws that makes them unreliable, I just think Ampeg messed up with the SVT-7. Still, I'm not likely to be buying another Ampeg anytime soon.

I had a SVT-7. Always loved the sound and power, but it crapped out in the middle of the first song on a gig and I've been soured on them ever since. I'd love to get another one, but I just simply don't trust them anymore. I'd love to be convinced otherwise.

A good bargain is the Revelation RPJ-77 - good build quality and excellent pickups. Unlined too. Can be had for £250-ish. https://www.revelationguitars.co.uk/guitar/rpj-77-fretless/

Had a Portamento a few years back. Nice bass, but I could never get it to "growl" or "mwah" in the way a good fretless should. The lack of a midrange EQ control was probably a big part of that. I'd be interested to hear one with upgraded electronics. The stock stuff just wasn't very good.

After six years over here, you appreciate what the UK has that other places don't. Right now, it's the fact that my kids won't get shot at school, have to do lockdown drills, and then have to say the pledge of allegiance to the place that permits all this to happen. I like Canada - have been there a couple of times. But we don't know anyone there and immigrating there is tricky. We are considering Ireland as well - I have family there and citizenship, but finding somewhere to live is nigh-on impossible. The housing shortage there is way worse than in the UK. It's a work in progress, we're in the "discovery" phase right now. Maybe I'll end up back over there with my TE-1200 before they show up in the shops!

I still speak the Queen's English. It'll take more than six years over here to knock that out of me. Seriously considering moving back at the moment. My (American) missus has finally cracked, all the recent gun stuff has pushed her over the edge.

They definitely exist - I have one in the cupboard. Going to gig it for the first time in a few weeks - will report back on it then.

Fair enough. I'm talking about Cyclefly - seems they used to support practically everyone when they came through London! I'm sure I saw them at least 8-10 times at The Water Rats, the Underworld, the Bull & Gate, the Barfly and the Dublin Castle! Good band, actually.

I think I was at that gig. Trying to remember who the support bands were so I can identify you! All the gigs from back then seem to blur into each other, mostly because (not naming the band, just in case, but they had an Irish singer with a Perry Farrell fixation and red dreads) always seemed to be involved... When I heard that Skunk Anansie's bass player was Cass Lewis, I was expecting to see the pink Warwick! But he sounded thunderous with the Cutlass - I think he sounded better then than has has more recently with the G&Ls and the Alusonics.

Cass is an absolutely lovely bloke. Had a few good chats with him whenever I'd run into him at The Gallery over the years. Regarding his time with Terence Trent D'Arby, he's got some stories... most of them not very flattering.

The Sonic Hammer was basically the Flea Bass. Flea asked for it with a scratchplate, a sparkly paint job and the Lane Poor pickup (the Sonic Hammer came with a Bartolini MMC), otherwise it's essentially the same instrument.

Only dial up the bass and treble to full if you’re going for a slap solo or something and you really, really want that scoopy thing. Otherwise, keep the treble flat and bump the bass a tiny bit. If you’re on a 3-band, bump the mids just a little bit too. That’s a good all-purpose tone right there. Personally, on my MMs, I go for the Levin tone, with lots of compression and the bass turned most of the way up, with just a little additional treble. Everyone, when they first get a Stingray, turns everything up to full, and then promptly forgets that there’s a ton of other tones in there!

I've played a few - an older, original one with the LP, and a couple of newer ones, one with the Seymour Duncan MM pickup, and a 5-string with Bartolini MM/J pickups. Only the old one sounded to my ears like the recorded tone on the RHCP records. The other two sounded great - the SD-equipped one had a little more of a high-mid bitey Stingray vibe, and the Bart-equipped MM/J 5-string was clear and warm, but didn't sound much like the others. It was probably my favourite one out of all of them, to be honest, it had the most "balanced" tone. I have yet to own one though, so I defer to your experience in terms of how they work in a band context. I'd love a 5-string, like the one I tried.

There is a "legacy" range of Lane Poor pickups (Lane Poor himself has long since retired - not even sure he's still alive), but they are only produced in small numbers and are quite sought-after and lead times are quite long. I think Modulus actually buys most of them. I believe Bartolini produce an MM pickup to the Lane Poor specs as well, but they're special order only.

The classic Flea Bass / Funk Unlimited sound is basically the sound of the Lane Poor MM pickup, which has a very distinctive punchy-yet-hollow tone, so this one won't sound like Flea on Californication or Kettle Whistle. Delano make great pickups, and I'd be interested in hearing what this one sounds like. Having a mid control would make a big difference.

Alex has lots of different instruments (he’s friends with the Carillion guys and plays their guitars in his other projects) but he plays the Statuses when he’s touring with Slipknot. I seem to recall the designed him a pointy, kinda X-shaped one, but it never made production beyond a few prototypes.

It uses Rautiaguitars multi-coil pickups (copies of the Wal ones) and a Lusithand Devices filter preamp. The Lusithand circuit has similar controls to a Wal - volume, pan, and two filters, each with a resonant peak that can be changed by pulling up the knob. It doesn’t have the “pick attack” setting like a Wal, where you pull the volume knob up, but the frequency ranges of the filters are wider to compensate. I’m currently having a Lusithand preamp installed in my Sei. There’s a few companies now who make the Wal-style multi-coil pickups - Rautia, Herrick and Bassculture come to mind. Nordstrand also make the Big Blademan range, which are not multi-coil pickups, but they are voiced to sound very much like Wal pickups They were designed for Justin Chancellor to go in some Warwick basses that were being made for him, but he didn’t end up using them. I think the prototype ended up getting sold on Reverb!

The irony is, The Who never played outside of the UK and Ireland until they were well into their second record deal. The whole "mod" thing wasn't popular outside of the UK.

It's still easier to get visas for Europe - they're a lot less strict than the US, but it's starting to become comparable.

We're not really talking about the sorts of bands who would headline Download. More the ones who'd end up on the smaller stages, at smaller festivals like Stonedead, and those who do pub or small venue gigs. The big bands have money, management, and most of them are long established. Paying for some visas that they didn't have to pay for before is a drop in the bucket compared to what they're already paying to move their stage show around the world. We're talking about smaller, newer unsigned bands, who don't have major financial backing or professional management, who've had the ability to expand their audience overseas severely restricted, in both directions. This is why the rubbish that the likes of Bruce Dickinson and Roger Daltrey have been spouting about Brexit winds me up so much - they say that bands from the UK used to tour in Europe before the EU, but conveniently forget that the music business was massively different back then. You never got to play gigs on the European mainland unless you were signed and managed, and this was back when labels and managers would pay to "develop" acts. The managers would pay for visas and arrange the logistics. Those days are long gone, the labels don't have the money for that sort of thing anymore, and smaller bands have to do all that sort of thing themselves now, on a shoestring budget. Plus, it reeks of them pulling up the drawbridge behind them.