Russ

Congrats! I have some personal issues with Bernie regarding his politics and will not be putting any business his way in future, but, as a former GB owner, there's no denying he makes some beautiful instruments. The Merlin is a stunning design. I prefer his older headstock design though, with the notch in the corner - the new one is more like his old Lowden/Goodfellow instruments.

Whatever happened to Toasted? Back in the day, he had a lovely Celinder J-Update just like that one. Maybe he sold it to The Gallery?

Yep, the website's pretty much 20 years old and hasn't really been updated in all that time. I'd love a graphite neck on my Bongos, but the Status ones are too short - Bongos have two-octave necks. Moses used to do a drop-in replacement Bongo graphite neck, but they've gone out of business now.

At this point, Trujillo has been in Metallica longer than Newsted was (he's been in Metallica for 17 years now, Newsted was in the band for 14 years). I guess he just hasn't made his presence known in the music - there's very little in the way of exposed bass parts in the albums they've put out since he joined, and he didn't play at all on St. Anger. Which is a shame, as you rightly say, Trujillo is an absolute monster bass player - check out his work with Infectious Grooves, Suicidal Tendencies and Mass Mental for some absolutely immense playing.

It is an active bass, and it has a 5-position switch with a bunch of presets, rather than being passive with just volume and tone. That might be cool if you had a way to edit the presets via an app or something, like the Game Changer guitar they came out with a while back, but I don't think it does.

If they want to sell any to anyone except (rich) bass-playing Dream Theater fanboys and fangirls, they are going to have to do something to impress beyond sticking Myung's name on the back of the headstock. The two-tone fingerboard thing, in this design, is dull - there's so much more they could have done with that idea. Look at some of the 'melted' designs that the likes of Conklin and Fodera have done over the years. It's not like Ernie Ball don't have the woodworking skills to do stuff like this, especially for an exclusive instrument such as a Myung signature.

I have two Bongo 5s - the 17.5mm string spacing is tight enough to begin with, I can't imagine what it'd be like to have to stick another string in that amount of space. Maybe he's got really little fingers or something. A Bongo with 19mm string spacing would pretty much be my dream instrument. Also, the whole EQ thing - one of the defining features of the Bongo is its massively versatile 4-band EQ. Without that, it's lost a big chunk of its character. I'll reserve final judgement until I've tried one, but colour me unimpressed so far.

More or less. I'm sure he has a perfectly respectable covers, blues or jazz band somewhere.

Didn't he used to write for Bassist magazine back in the day? I vaguely recall meeting him at The Gallery at one point. Not unpleasant, but not the friendliest of chaps.

The DBS range was very well regarded, despite being huge and heavy. I think Chris from Muse still uses his DBS rig. The MB stuff they put out later was decent but apparently quite unreliable. And, of course, the VBS and Lemmy stuff was great, but incredibly expensive and very niche. I guess the problem was that bass stuff was always secondary for them. In some ways it's better that they have the Eden marque to use for bass gear, although a 'Marshall Edition' amp, with distortion, etc, like the Blackstar one, would be very cool.

There's actually some great Class D stuff coming out of the UK. Ashdown's Rootmaster series are excellent, and Laney's Nexus range are fantastic. Not sure Trace counts as a British company anymore, but there's also the Elf. Just need Marshall to put something out now. I know they have Eden for all their bass stuff these days, but I would pay through the nose for the old DBS preamp section coupled with a big-powered Class D amp.

The combos sound great, nice to see they've done what they should have done in the first place and released a head. Looking forward to giving it a try. They've missed a trick with the cabs though - a single, smaller, full-range cab might have been a better fit, like a 2x12" or 1x15"+1x10" or something.

I bought one of those Brandoni/Eko bodies back in the 90s, took it up to The Gallery, and they transformed it into a rather nice Sei-alike for me. It's a great starting point for customisation. I wasn't much of a fan of that pine-esque finish though, so my one got refinished in transparent black and got to wear some Bartolini electronics and a Kahler. I still miss that bass.

I know Sherwood and Chris Squire were friends, and he was Chris' choice to succeed him in Yes. He does a decent job, but, in a like-for-like comparison, I think Lee does it better. Here's Sherwood tackling Heart Of The Sunrise: I mean, I like his Spector, but it doesn't sound right.

I met Lee back around 1990 when he worked in a music shop in Croydon. He was an amazing bass player even back then and inspired me a lot back when I was first starting out. I've followed his career with interest ever since, I love that he can balance playing with Yes (his dream gig, I remember him buying his lefty Chris Squire Ricky, one of only, I think, 12 that were ever made), playing with Take That, and doing his own prog metal band (Headspace - check 'em out).

Seconded - all the other hardware is black, so it looks weird that the tuners are the only gold on it. Loving those moon inlays on that one too. I think they're stunning. Not sure how it'd go over in my metal band though.

Love it. Beautiful finish - I'm a sucker for that antique violin thing. They sound lovely too.

It's not bad. I like it more than I liked the roughly equally sized Marshall Stanmore speaker, which I thought was loud bit a bit flat. There's a bit more bass and treble extension with the Spark. I have a Marshall bass practice amp that sounds better having music played through it than the Stanmore. It streams over Bluetooth, not wifi, alas, but it works pretty well.

So I got my Spark today. As long as you temper your expectations, it's actually pretty bloody good, and quite clever. Firstly, it doesn't put out a load of bottom end. It's only got two 4" speakers and a small port behind the cloth on the front, so there's not much thump, but it is nice and clear, and only bottoms out if you play below E on a 5-string (I ran my Bongo 5 - which has a famously hot output - into it and it just about handled it without crapping out). It's got a nice midrange burp, so bridge-pickup fingerstyle sounds good, and it pops nicely if you slap or dig in with a pick. Over and above the hardware, it's the software that impresses the most. It has several dedicated bass amp models (from what I can tell, there's two GK models, an Ampeg, and an Eden) and, if you add effects, they work nicely and don't thin the sound out. Nice crisp, wide stereo reverbs, decent (if not very versatile) delays, good chorus, flanger and tremolo, and a chunky, buzzy, Darkglass-esque distortion. It comes with lots of fun playalongs for you to jam with (complete with on-screen tabs and chord charts for some of it), and the app is nicely integrated with Spotify and Apple Music (if you're running it on an Apple device like me) so it's easy to load up your playlists and play along. There's also the Smart Jam features that 'listen' to what you're playing and provide a backing track, but I haven't really played with that yet. It also functions well as a regular stereo Bluetooth speaker. You can tell it was primarily designed for guitar though, because the guitar tones are very, very good. I plugged in my Sterling JP 7-string, and it authentically chucked out everything from a smooth, valvey blues tone to a great full-on shreddy, djenty metal tone, with well-modelled dynamics. The low B on the 7-string came across thick and clear too. Overall, based on the few hours I've spent with it, it's a fun little box of tricks, with some decent, usable sounds in it, and it seems like it's going to be a great tool for neighbour-friendly practice. There's more to dig into with it yet though, especially the Smart Jam stuff, so I'll report back once I've messed with it some more. It'd be nice if the next iteration had a looper and possibly a built-in wireless system like the Boss Katana Air, but, for now, I think I'm happy.

I should have mine next week, apparently. I'll let you know what I think when it arrives. I've been after something that's similar to the little Boss Katana thingies, but for bass, so I'm definitely curious to see how well it works.

That'll be Chris McIntyre, who used to work with Martin Petersen at Sei. I can confirm he definitely knows his stuff.

Nathan's one of those Youtubers, like Berthoud, Zon and Davie, with a scary amount of technique that makes for great 'stunt' bass videos. It was a pleasant surprise to see him join Dev's band for their last tour. He did a pretty good job too, although I think Dev's DTP band was, on the whole, better, especially for playing his older stuff. The recent gigs were a little too 'noodly' and unfocussed for my taste as a long-time Devin fan.

Yep. Something about Davie's overly forced Italian-stereotype schtick irritates me. At least Stevie T is intentionally obnoxious.

If I'm in the mood to be wowed, Zander Zon and Charles Berthoud are both pretty hard to beat. Berthoud is probably technically the best bassist on Youtube and seems to be able to play anything. As for Davie504, he plays well, but I find his sense of humour to be a bit obtuse and hard to take. Not always in the mood for histrionics though. If I want some honest gear reviews and some nice grooves, I enjoy BassTheWorld's content, Scott Devine's stuff (of course) and Julia from Thomann. I also find myself watching some excellent guitarists, like Sarah Longfield, Per Nilsson and Steve Terreberry (who also has a sense of humour that's, at best, an acquired taste). I find Beato to be hard going. He's knowledgeable, but opinionated and rather one-dimensional. He also seems to be fixated on classic rock and not a lot else.

I've got an RBJ-67 5-string. Lovely bass for the money, nice woods, great pickups, well finished and decently put together. Good low B too. Only criticisms would be that it's kinda heavy (around 10lbs) and the headstock is huge and makes the bass hard to fit into a regular gig bag or case. I've added a J-Retro, which makes the already big tone even bigger - it's nice to have a midrange control, but you really don't need much in the way of treble or bass boost with those pickups.