Russ

Been playing with a U700 head a bit, into my Barefaced Big Twin II. I like the tone. There’s a lot of stuff in there, and the power amp emulations are excellent. Good, powerful EQ, and the two pre-shapes give you instant good tone. The compressor is decent for a one-knob job. But I agree with Bill - the little toggle switches are flimsy, hiding the effects settings round the back is a bit silly (some people might not even notice they’re there!) and, well, despite 700 watts of power, it never feels like it actually gets very loud. Also, NO MUTE SWITCH! Great first go at bass from Blackstar - it’s really got potential. But a Mk2 version needs to address some of these issues. Proper pushbuttons for the EQ, preamp, effects, etc please. And, if they’re keeping the effects, put the settings on the front. And add a futtockin’ MUTE SWITCH!

"Hand Built" used to mean using a hand saw, hammer and chisel. Even luthiers who don't use CNC machines still use various other machines and tools for the various steps of building an instrument, including preparing/planing wood, cutting the wood (bandsaw), sanding, drilling, routing, etc. A CNC machine is just one more machine. And many of those who do use CNCs only use them to cut out bodies. They still prefer to do neck shaping, etc by hand using planes, rasps, etc.

They already have done.

Nice bass, but what happened to Norman Watt-Roy? Can you even have The Blockheads without him?

CNC machines are a) extremely good for consistency, b) quicker than doing it by hand, but also c) very expensive. So I don't see how people expect companies who use them to be cheaper, except for mass manufacturing, where a company will be churning out 100 bodies an hour using multiple machines (the cost of the machines can be amortised more quickly that way).

The big difference there is that Dingwall Combustions are made in the Far East, although Sheldon's team does QC and setup at their HQ in Canada before shipping them out. The new Status basses are being made in the UK. As far as the LEDs go, SimS and Status do a lot of work together - I expect Status prepares their necks for SimS beforehand, with the required routing, slots, etc. And they're only an hour away from each other!

People tend to overlook the fact that a lot of the sound of a Status comes from the Hyperactive pickups and electronics (super-hi-fi with seriously hyped-up high end) and the phenolic fingerboards - the 90s wooden-necked Statii still sounded like Statii! So the lack of carbon fibre isn’t a dealbreaker. It might have been nice to see a graphite “skin” on the necks though, like Martin Sims was doing on some of the Enfield basses, or that Jon Shuker does on his Jean-Jaques Burnel model. The Jonas Hellborg model sounded the most Status-y of any Status, and that had a wooden neck. It also had ridiculously overpowered 36V electronics. Going to miss the all-graphite models though. They had their own vibe, and I loved the coloured variations they were offering.

Wondering about the new neck construction. From the description on the website, it sounds very much like a standard-ish 3-piece maple neck with carbon rods, much like they did in the 90's, just painted black. I'll reserve judgement until I've tried one, but I'm just happy to see Rob back at work, and I'm glad he's on the mend. Incidentally, their website is now over 20 years old, and is very much in need of a refresh... looks a lot like like the one I built for Martin at Sei back in 1998!

Ebonol is basically just phenolic, isn’t it? I had an Ibanez GWB (the cheap black one) a while back and it was OK, but didn’t have much “mwah”. I also had a Cort Curbow years ago with an ebonol fingerboard, and it wasn’t bad. The body of the Cort Curbow was also made of some synthetic material that had a rather unpleasant smell! I tried one of the new Ibanez EHB fretlesses recently, with the blue Richlite fingerboard (which is basically phenolic resin-infused paper!). It was pretty nice though, sang nicely and felt pretty solid. Better than the ebonol on the GWB.

That's so weird. I was thinking about her this morning and was wondering what she had been up to. I'm sure it'll come out that it was suicide. She was a troubled soul with a remarkable, genuine talent. RIP Sinéad.

Have Ampeg addressed the SVT-7's reliability issues? I used to have one and loved how it sounded, but it crapped out on me during the first song at a gig and I haven't really trusted them since.

My current band and my previous band were both female-fronted rock/metal. Totally different energy with a girl up front rather than a bloke. I'll agree that good female rock singers (especially if they're prepared to put the work in to write and arrange originals) are rare as rocking horse s**t, so if you get a good one, hold onto her! Video time! Earthbound AD (current band): Evyltyde (previous band, back in the UK). Acoustic number, but I chose this video because I'm in it.

I don't think so - the ABM range are the more traditional, full-size class A amps, the Rootmasters are the smaller class D amps. Different markets, I think. Plus, it hasn't stopped GK, Mesa, Orange, Markbass, Ampeg, etc from doing it.

I don't play Ashdown any more, but I'd recommend them to anyone, mostly based on their customer service and general bulletproof-ness. I've owned two ABMs and a RM-800, all of them gave me years of good-sounding, problem-free service. If they ever come out with a valve preamp version of the RM-800, that'll be my next amp!

Never had the change to meet him, but back in the 1990s, back when I was still starting out, we corresponded a bit online. Lovely, encouraging guy, and one of the all-time fretless masters. RIP Mo. One of the unsung greats.

Barefaced don't have dealers. They sell direct, and will ship worldwide, assuming you're willing to pay! I've had my BT2 since 2013 and have no plans to part with it. It just keeps on delivering. The only way I'd be tempted to part from it would be to get the new BT3 - although I don't really like the new script-y logo!

When I get them (October-ish, apparently), I'll make sure there's a NBD thread for them! They're going to sound like Bongos though. They're both going to have Delano Xtender pickups (which sound very Music Man-ish when in parallel mode), coupled with a Noll 4-band preamp with the frequency centres adjusted to match the Bongo ones.

Two 6-string Maruszczyks.

Another vote for Jonathan at Feline. He maintained all my basses before I moved away, did some electronic transplants, and set up one of my basses that was nigh-on unplayable so that it's now pretty much the best-playing bass that I own!

I seem to recall the girl who played bass in Babylon Zoo was a member on Bassworld back in the day. No idea if she moved over to Basschat or if she's still here. Closest I can think of.

Been finding myself getting drawn into a lot of old (and not-so-old) goth stuff again recently. Recently rediscovered VNV Nation, Assemblage 23 and Wolfsheim, caught up with The Eden House, and have been listening to some of the old Peter Murphy stuff too (call me a bad goth, but I found most of the Bauhaus stuff almost unlistenable - his solo stuff is much better!). My wife used to be a major goth in her youth, and was a member of a "vampire court", where they all wore fangs and specially designed ankhs, arranged themselves into feudal houses, and got together in dark clubs to listen to goth music. One of her old vampire friends died recently, and we went along to the memorial, which was basically a goth club, but in the daytime. BigRedX and Cat Burrito - I'll be listening to more of your stuff later!

Lord Of The Lost actually covered Voyager's Promise. That seems to be a thing this year, the artists doing covers of the other artists!

I went to school with a kid who would pay other kids 50p for a scab so he could eat it. 😮

There's no autotune at work there. Certainly not on the lead vocals. Danny and Alex can sing. Here's a live performance of the tune from a couple of weeks back:

They tried to get selected last year too, with the song "Dreamer". They won the audience vote, but not the jury vote. This year, there was no public vote, and they got "appointed", probably because they got passed over last year!