Russ

More and more luthiers seem to be using super-lightweight woods for basses now by request (stuff like paulownia, etc). They do the job, but you end up with other issues (thin tone, balance problems, etc). Paulownia also apparently dents easily and is effectively one step above balsa wood in terms of density. If light weight is the end goal here, I'd be looking at something traditionally made but with a small body, and perhaps headless. The Ibanez EHB range might be something worth looking at. I've played a few and they sound great and are extremely light (the 6-string I tried must have been no more than about 7lbs).

I think, out of that lot, with the exception of Status, Basslab is the only company that makes an entirely carbon fibre bass. The rest all just use graphite necks. Moses are no more - they stopped doing instrument necks a while back, and now only make carbon fibre speaker enclosures and violin/cello fingerboards. Emerald are a good bet if you want to go acoustic though. Their stuff is great and, while pricey, is not horrendously priced for what it is. Klos is gearing up to produce replacement graphite necks, to fill that gap in the market that has been vacated by the closure of Status. So maybe you could speck out a bitsa bass with a Klos neck and a lightweight/hollow/chambered body from Warmoth/Allparts?

The ones in my bass are the 10-coil, one humbucker per string models. Those are the ones that are the closest match to the Wal pickups. They have six wires coming out of each pickups - one for each pair of coils, and an earth wire. The preamp is the Lusithand Double NFP Special - this is designed specifically for those pickups, with up to six inputs for each filter. Nuno (Lusithand's main man) also makes a version that works with regular pickups (the regular Double NFP, without the "special"). Herrick are now the only pickup company that are making pickups for the Special preamp - Rautia Guitars used to as well (they called it "new style" wiring), but they've recently closed their doors, and Turner's Wal-style pickups have more regular output wiring. Have a chat with Martin Herrick before you order - let him know what you're after and he'll help you out. He's very responsive to questions and I'll happily use him again. I have an idea for another project - I came across a kit guitar company that offers a Dingwall-style multiscale bass, and I was thinking of getting one and getting it kitted out with the Herrick/Lusithand setup.

So I've had a bit more time to play with it now, and I think I've identified how to get some of those signature Wal sounds with the new circuit and pickups. That classic high-mid Wal "bark" is in there (the Geddy/Chancellor tone) - pickup blend centred, both filters open to about 75%, and both knobs pulled up to activate the frequency boost. The frequency sweep of the Lusithand preamp is a bit wider than the original Wal circuit so you don't really need the "pick attack" setting. If you pan most of the way to the bridge pickup and have the bridge frequency knob set somewhere in the middle, you've got that poky, rubbery tone that I associate with Percy Jones and Mick Karn. It's tempting me to mod my fretless Bongo. If you have the blend centred and everything wide open with both boosts activated, you've got a slap sound to die for. The only downside to this upgrade so far is that it's added maybe a pound to the weight of the bass - the pickups are hefty! I'll try and knock up a video over Xmas - @Dood, I'll take your suggestion! But I'll throw in a few stereotypical Wal riffs (bit of Tool, 80s Rush, etc). I'm no videographer, but I'll do my best.

It's home. First impressions - exactly what I was hoping for. The output level is INCREDIBLY loud - too beefy for my practice amp. So I'll have to dig out the big rig to give it a proper shakedown (and maybe make a video). Any riff requests? Interestingly, it has a big dose of that Wal flavour (it's got that "complexity" in the upper mids), but it's also retained some of its Music Man-ness, probably because the pickups aren't in the Wal positions.

So we still have a few electronic gremlins to address - the neck filter is massively distorting if it's in anything but the completely open position, and the bridge filter seems to have no effect whatsoever. Probably a simple fix, but the bass didn't get to come home with me tonight. We'll get there though!

I should hopefully be picking up the Bongo tonight - my guitar tech assures me it's got the sound I was after (I told him to give it a try and see if it sounded like 1980s Geddy Lee - that's kinda his era ). Full report either later or tomorrow! Seems there was a minor earthing issue with the pickups, but Martin Herrick was quick to respond and it got sorted quickly and easily.

Here's Tom doing his thing, and sounding amazing on his Bongo 6. Also, the drummer is INCREDIBLE.

I love Myung, and he's sounded so much better since he switched to the Bongos from the old Yamahas, but my main inspiration for getting the stealth black Bongo 6 was Squarepusher, who has an identical one.

Yep. And I guess "Wongo" sounds like that dodgy payday loan company! Open to alternative naming suggestions though. If all else fails, it can be Susan. Or Dave.

Yep. They only made a small number of them. They were selling them exclusively through Sweetwater (big US online instrument retailer) a few years back. I'm not normally into sparkly finishes (I really wish they'd make a natural-finish Bongo with a pretty exotic wood top) but this one is stunning. My other three are CAR, firemist purple and stealth black.

... it'd be a "Wongo". I've always wanted a Wal, but I'm not prepared to wait three years for one, nor do I have a spare £6,000 knocking about. However, I have four MM Bongos. Yes, I know they look like bog seats, but I love them and they sound immense. So I came up with the idea of "Project Wongo" a little bit Wal, a little bit Bongo. I ordered a pair of Martin Herrick's fantastic multicoil pickups and a Lusithand filter preamp, and they're in the process of being fitted to one of my Bongos. The Herricks are a bit thicker in dimensions than the stock MM pickups, so a little bit of routing was required, but they're in, and the preamp is mounted but not yet wired up. Here's the progress so far: S The bass should hopefully be wired up and back together over the weekend - full report coming then. I might even make a video!

I saw him do a clinic thing at a pub in Croydon many moons ago. Lovely bloke who really knows his s**t. I’m about 3500 miles too far west right now to make this one, but his clinics come thoroughly recommended!

So me and the band are looking into doing some livestreams from our rehearsal space. We’ve tried it before, but the sound is atrocious when you just try and do it from your phone. What would be an appropriate setup be to livestream with decent sound and picture quality? I’m guessing a decent HD camera, a couple of good mics with a mixer, an audio interface and a decently powerful laptop to plug it all into? Also, what software would you use to control it all (assuming I use a Mac)? I’m pretty tech-savvy but online video is still pretty new to me! Any suggestions would be welcome.

There aren't really any UK builders doing "off-the-shelf" stuff. Chowny maybe, but they're pretty much the only ones. Almost all the rest are custom shops, and you'll be playing specifically what a particular buyer has specified for their personal tastes. There's nothing stopping you from contacting Shuker, Sei, GB, Overwater, etc and asking them to make something that fits your tastes. My Sei singlecut 5 is anything but polite, because it was designed not to be!

I was happy to hear that Shergold have returned recently with a new line of guitars. Supposedly there are basses coming in the near future. https://www.shergoldguitars.com/ It seems they're going the route of using Far East manufacturing, so they won't be made in the UK, but it's still good to hear that a storied name in British guitar manufacturing is back in business.

There's a bunch of bands and musicians I no longer listen to because of their beliefs and positions on various things. Various metal bands who have espoused racist or fascist beliefs, The Who, anything involving Morrissey, and, most recently, Iron Maiden, due to Dickinson's support of Brexit. I've loathed Mustaine for years, and, as far as US artists go, Kid Rock and Ted Nugent can both go and fornicate themselves.

Mustaine is a bone-fide drooling loony - conspiracy theorist, bible-basher, bitter ex-member of a band that went on to be huge, and former drug addict and alcoholic, all rolled into one angry old ginger. The fact that he went on Alex Jones' show should be reason enough to avoid anything he says or does. A lot of "tr00" Metallica fans draw the line at anything that came after And Justice... - for Megadeth fans, it's everything that came after Rust In Peace.

It's the way with metal bands - while they're on the way up, they're angry and channel that anger into their music. Once they "make it" and they're rich, they've got nothing to be p***ed off about anymore and the music loses its edge. Happened to Metallica, happened to Korn, happened to Slayer, happened to Megadeth, kinda happened with Slipknot too (although they had other things to be upset about). Metal is in rude health though. There's some amazing younger bands out there right now. I thoroughly recommend the new Lorna Shore album, "Pain Remains", as a shining example of what modern metal can be.

If you like The Commitments, check out a more recent Irish film called Sing Street. Set in the 80s, lots of New Romantic-influenced music, great young cast, with a few notable older cast members like The Commitments' Maria Doyle Kennedy, Jack Reynor and Aidan Gillan. Lots of fun, and some great tunes. And it'll make you never want to set foot in an Irish Catholic school!

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I've seen reviews saying they've gone "old school" with this song - "old school" must refer to the 90s now then! Between Load and Reload, there was maybe one full album's worth of decent material.

I've got a M1 Pro with 16GB. It handles literally anything I can throw at it. If I look at Activity Monitor while running Logic, with EZDrummer 2, AmpliTube and about 12 tracks with a whole bunch of soft synths, the CPU usage was... 6%. That's insane. The Air uses the same processor, so you should be good. The new Air with the M2 would be even better.

Definitely a Peavey. Probably a Millennium, with the sparkly red finish, although the Fury, Milestone, etc of that era all had that body shape. I think the Furys all had humbuckers rather than J pickups though, and the Milestones all had scratchplates.

I hate this sort of discussion. Charles Berthoud is an incredibly talented musician (who can most definitely play 'regular' bass), and him and his ilk aren't out to steal your gig. If that's not what you want to do, fair enough, you do you, but don't knock others who do enjoy that sort of thing, and who have put in the practice to be able to pull it off well. Remember, as a member of a band, you're the entertainment - lots of people like slap and find it entertaining. Like anything musical, don't over-egg the pudding, but don't discount it just because you can't do it!

Not everyone hates them. I have three.