Russ

I think they're right to keep their signature basses to a minimum. Apparently a big part of the reason Flea jumped from MM to Modulus back in the day because EBMM wouldn't make him a signature bass. And he's far, far more visible than Dart, Myung, Commerford, etc. Although, if they're considering it, I'll have a Bongo 6 in red and black.

John Myung - bass player for Dream Theater (Grammy-winning prog metal band) Tim Commerford - bass player for Rage Against The Machine Probably not your genres of choice, but both massive in their fields with millions of record sales between them.

I believe he uses stock Stingrays with no modifications. Although he had that custom 3-string they made for him many moons ago (I think he lost it in a fire).

Joe Dart is a great player, but he's also kinda a "flavour of the month" player. He's to the 2020s what Stuart Zender was to the 90s, without the multi-platinum worldwide fame. His sig bass should really have been a Sterling By Musicman instrument. There are very few MM players who have the profile to do a proper MM signature bass justice. Obviously John Myung has one, Tim Commerford has one, and they should really do one for Tony Levin. Joe Dart isn't a patch on those guys in terms of visibility.

Chris Chaney has always used Aguilar every time I've seen him (once, many moons ago, with Alanis, and several times since with Jane's Addiction). Maybe he's endorsing Ashdown now? They seem to have got a few new people on board recently. Although, if that was the case, I'd be expecting him to be using one of the fancy new dual-VU ABMs rather than one that's 15-odd years old.

Lobster is a bit of an EBMM fanboy - he has a bunch of them. For him to be putting down an MM instrument it must be pretty bad.

Thanks for chipping in, Mike. Good to see you're still tooled up for graphite. I'll drop you a line on FB as I have something in mind, and there's no hurry! I remember a review of one of your Iceni basses with a graphite neck back in Bassist sometime in the 90s. I seem to recall an interesting neck/body join on that instrument too.

I saw the Kickstarter for those when they were first announced. They kinda lost me when they said they wouldn't be doing extended-range versions. I'd have thought many of the people who would be interested in something so decidedly non-Fender would be extended-range players, so I'd have thought they'd have done at least a 5-string.

Manson is majority owned by Matt Bellamy of Muse these days, and I'm sure his pockets are sufficiently deep. They're still making great stuff (I saw James Leach - ex-Sikth - is using their basses now), and the Wolstenholme/Status connection could make it a possibility.

I wonder if Jon offers them on anything other than the JJB range, or for necks with more than 4 strings? Last time I reached out to him about getting a quote he never got back to me.

I wonder how different they are to regular wood necks when it comes to temperature and humidity changes and so on - would just having the graphite wrap keep that in check? That, to me, is the killer app of graphite necks.

I was forgetting a couple of others - there's Emerald, out of Ireland, who mostly do graphite acoustics, but also do a nice acoustic bass, and they've done replacement necks in the past. And there's Basslab out of Germany, who make some crazy stuff (as well as some more conventional stuff). They use "composite", but it's basically carbon fibre. I remember trying one of their Soul basses, and the thing was unbelievably light. I think they're hollow.

Could have been. Might have to ask him. Weren't the Enfield ones just a graphite wrap around a regular maple neck?

Another name for the list of people who still make graphite neck basses is Geoff Gould - original founder of Modulus. He has his own G.Gould brand now, and their stuff is very nice, if very much in the Modulus mould (no pun intended): https://www.ggould.com/home.html If anything, his website looks older than Status' one.

Wow. Their upright costs $12,000! On the other end of the scale, there's these guys: https://www.enya-music.com/collections/guitar/products/x4-cutaway Surprisingly nice acoustics for not an awful lot of money.

As others have mentioned, Modulus are still around, but they're not making many instruments these days are they are severely backordered, much like Zon. Their prices have also skyrocketed. Bogart are still producing basses in Germany, and they're great, even if they are, a bit like Gus, an acquired taste in the looks department. I wonder if Mike from Zoot is still geared up for making them? His early basses (back when he used the Iceni name) all had the option of a graphite neck. Moses in the US stopped making replacement graphite necks a couple of years ago, and only make carbon fibre speaker enclosures and violin fingerboards now. They would have made you a graphite replacement neck for almost anything. There's loads of carbon fibre acoustic instruments around at the moment (mostly coming from China) so there's obviously some demand for it. I'd just rather not buy a replacement graphite neck from AliExpress!

I wasn't aware they were still offering the Hellborg bass. I wonder if it still had the crazy 36V preamp? I tried one of the old ones years ago at the Bass Centre - it was light, very small, and stupidly loud. Every amp I tried it with had the clip light flashing.

There's a 5-string headless in the classifieds too. And a Streamline. Let's hope we don't start getting into Wal money for used ones.

Thinking about it, this may well have been on the cards for a while. Take two of their most high-profile endorsers - Mark King and Alex Venturella. Both of them have been playing other brands as of late - King has gone back to his Jaydees, and apparently V-Man has a new endorsement with Jackson. They probably both knew the writing was on the wall. It'll be interesting to see where Chris Wolstenholme goes for his new basses post-Status. Maybe Manson? Apparently Matt Bellamy from Muse owns them now.

He's very deliberate in as much as he's saying that they will no longer be building the "same" range of Status basses and guitars "in Colchester". Essex used to be the epicentre of the British bass industry, with Status, Ashdown (and, before them, Trace), SimS, etc.

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.