Russ

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.

One place where G&L have found a bit of a niche is amongst cash-strapped Tool fans. Out of the box, they probably have the closest thing to a Wal sound of any production bass. Obviously the electronics are very different, but they have a very similar character in the high mids. So a lot of Tool fans have been gravitating towards them as it gets them "close enough" to the Chancellor Wal tone.

The 5s are 17.5mm, whether it's a US or Tribute model. They're very similar - the Tributes have flatsawn maple necks compared to the quartersawn ones on the US models, they come in a much more limited range of finishes, and the body woods tend to be heavier, but, otherwise, they're practically identical. The pickups and electronics are the same. G&L Tributes are one of the best bargains out there, basically, and are criminally overlooked, considering their Leo Fender lineage.

Just another couple of names for the list - I seem to recall he was playing Canadian Lado basses for a while. I can't find a picture of him with it, but I'm pretty sure it was one of these: He also played an Ibanez Sabre-style bass that was a kinda flip blue/purple colour. EDIT: Joe Lado is now 80 years old and is still building guitars. They also have a FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ladoguitars

Actually been finding myself wanting a late-80s Longhorn (b*ner) Jazz as of late. They're over 30 years old so they're classed as "vintage" now and they're still quite affordable.

I'm still waiting for some consensus on their long-term reliability. I haven't heard nearly the amount of complaints that I've heard about the old Portaflex series and the SVT-7, but I have heard a few. Mostly about the lower-powered models, strangely.

Martin have a new short-scale acoustic bass, the 000C Junior. They're actually guitar scale (24.9"), but sound very full and play like an electric. No 5-string yet, although I am trying to persuade them. DISCLAIMER: I work for Martin. But I don't get anything extra for pimping their stuff on websites.

If you want something to play out of the box, definitely. HBs are ridiculously good value for money, and are testament to what a cheap Chinese factory can produce when there's proper quality control in place. If you're a tinkerer and are looking for a mod platform, you could do worse than go down the path of the Chinese custom builder on DHGate though. I think that's the point I was trying to make.

The brightest basses I've ever played... well, one would be my old GB (now owned by @meesterbassman)- Bernie makes a point of his basses having a very extended top end, he always called it the "high-tech sound". It was also all ash and maple, so it was a very bright, trebly bass to begin with. Others would be pretty much any Status - the top end you can dial in on those is crazy. And MTD - those custom Bartolinis they use are super-crisp, and they'll definitely shred some tweeters with the treble control dialled right up. Also, pretty much any bass fitted with a John East U-Retro or Uni-Pre- the high end boost you get when you pull up the treble control is very sharp. I've owned several Bongos, and still have one. They can go pretty high, but not "pingy" - their character is mostly in the high-mids rather than super-high treble.

The reason I'm not discounting it entirely is because an old work colleague of mine ordered a bass on there - it was a blatant copy of a Mayones Commodus, and it cost him £250. When it showed up about two months later, it was actually pretty bloody nice in terms of construction, woods, etc. Well balanced, not too heavy, and the maple top was a proper top, not just a veneer. The fretwork needed lots of attention, and the electronics were just cheap, noisy s**t. He replaced them with an EMG 40DC set (the bass was routed for exactly that pickup size), got a full setup and fret job done, and the thing ended up being the equal of any £1000+ bass for about half the money. I've also seen stories of people who bought the Faux-deras off there and did the same thing and they ended up being excellent instruments. They'll have no resale value whatsoever, but they're basses you'd buy to mod and play and not feel too guilty about, since they're not particularly expensive.

I never quite understood Jazzes back in the day. Loved the look, the balance. and that scooped sound for slap and pick work, and the bridge pickup for fingerstyle, but making them work in the mix in a band context (especially one with heavy guitars) was always a bit of a challenge. Two things fixed that - firstly, and most obviously, dial the bridge pickup down about 20% from maximum, or, if you have a pan, dial it a bit more towards the neck pickup. Instant barky mids. Different to the mids on a P, but just as punchy. Secondly, compression. Jazzes LOVE compression. Don't be afraid of adding loads, the amount of additional thickness you get is worth the small loss of dynamics. I don't play Jazzes any more, but that's what worked for me.

Used to go to a rehearsal room about 9/10 years ago that was kitted out with modern Carlsbro gear. It was OK. Nothing particularly special, but it did the job. An improvement on their 80s/90s gear, for sure, but still with a whiff of old Peavey about them. Unremarkable, but ubiquitous and relatively bulletproof. I notice, with this latest "Viper" range, they're doing what they did with Delta Bass all those years ago - keeping the word "Carlsbro" well away from public view!

Was watching some video of Sleep Token playing live the other day - the guitarists play 8-strings in double-low-E tuning (EAEADGBE). Their bass player uses a 4-string. He used to play a standard P as well, only recently getting a multiscale Aristides, but even they are just 34"-36", less extreme than a Dingwall. Just because a guitarist plays in drop-G doesn't mean you have to. Just use a tone that sits under the bottom end of the guitar, even if it's playing in the same octave. Might also be worth checking out a Digitech Drop pedal - they actually work pretty well on bass, as long as you're not looking to go stupidly low.

There's still plenty of metal out there for us older guys. I'm in a band doing original metal, and we're all in our 40s and 50s. It's not 80s-style either, it's quite contemporary. It's a case of getting the right mix of personalities and aspirations. Personally, my big aspiration in music was to play the London Astoria. I never did, and now it no longer exists, so I've had to recalibrate. Basically, I enjoy getting in a rehearsal room with my mates and making lots of loud noise, and occasionally going out there and playing it for other people. Plus I still love the bass, the sound of the instrument and what you can do with it. That hasn't gone anywhere in the past 33 years. If you want to get into sub-genres - doom, goth, thrash, death, prog and power metal are full of us not-as-young-as-we-were types. A lot of the time, as long as you've got someone reasonably talented and photogenic on vocals, nobody cares what age the people behind them are!

From the ones I've seen, woodwork and finishing are fine, if not great. Neck and fingerboard are usually OK, although they go a little heavy with the lacquer sometimes, and there might be some sharp fret ends. Tuners, bridge, electronics - utter rubbish.

JMB seems to be the go-to these days. Gumtree used to be reasonably good too, but I think people have gone off it in recent years. I do kinda miss the days when the one and only place you ever needed to look was Loot.