Chris2112

I'm glad it all worked out but I do find it rather unimpressive that the original electronics lasted just ten years. Bad luck, I suppose.

'Budget' these days - it ain't what it used to be!

Awful. It was never a good song in my eyes and this excruciating cover somehow makes it even worse. I suspect that the only input Yoko had in the writing of the original was to influence the corny content of the lyrics.

Just to add balance, I have never seen what the fuss was about. I don't particularly rate him as a great player but then I have never really liked Jamiroquai. To me, they had a sound that aged like warm milk (I have always hated disco). British music went through a really rough spot as the 90's wore on. I can understand though, why Jamiroquai were a smash when they were. That warmed-over disco sound was unlike anything else going on in the early 90's. Synth pop was dead, rock was all dreadful grunge and electronic music was really taking off. Jamiroquai were their own genre, almost.

Anything where James LaBrie doesn't sing much and before Jordan Rudess joined would be a good start.

I'd replace like for like as best as I could. The Markbass Jeff Berlin combo and Cort Rithimic Jeff Berlin bass would be the absolute essentials and I consider the Pedulla Pentabuzz to be the best fretless around so that would also be replaced. The biggest headache would be replacing my 1994 SKC Bogart Blackstone like for like. They're fairly rare so another Bogart may be tough to track down to fill that position (my preference being five string, Bartolini soapbars). A Status is a bit different but I always like to have one graphite necked bass for the benefits they provide. A Modulus Quantum, despite being a more conventional design, shares a lot of tonal similarity with the Bogart so that may suffice as a replacement.

A back-from-the-dead bump for this thread, saying as I ordered one of these this evening. I received a Darkglass B3K last month from a very kind friend in the states who shipped it to me. Since then, I have been enjoying having some overdrive in my life. Whilst at work last night I saw that Bass Direct had a used EBS Billy Sheehan standard for sale. It wasn't a pedal I had heard of before but being a big fan of Billy's brilliant playing and thunderous tone, I decided I had to have one. I ordered it there and then, and that was that, until I woke up this afternoon to a PayPal refund an email from Marcus at Bass Direct telling me the pedal had sold. Luckily, Andertons had one of the deluxe models in stock for not much mire money, and with a couple of useful improvements over the standard pedal it seems this will be a sound buy. My brother has an Attitude Ltd II that I'm looking forward to hearing running with this new pedal.

I may have been wrong. Those B2's are rarer than a clean sheet in a nursing home so I may never see one. Looking at them in pictures though, the newest B2's do appear to have a satin finish as I would expect. Some of the older B2'S and Clover Slapper basses have a shiny gel-coat type finish similar to Status.

They have been back in production for a while now. I'm very glad to see this as I think they are stunning instruments. It's also good to see that they're back making carbon fibre necked basses. They used to use SKC necks made by Stefan Heß of SKC Bogart Blackstone fame. When Stefan closed his business, Schack went to making wooden necked instruments exclusively, presumably because they had no other supplier. With both companies back in action, it looks as though they have resumed that relationship. I recognise the neck profile and weave as being Stefan's work. I've never played a B2 but I know that neck will be flat and fast with a smooth satin finish. Man, I want one!

Stunning! The BT is the ideal Ken Smith shape IMO.

With regard to the Nuevo Spellbinder, I think a deal could be done as it looks like both have failed to sell. Alembic money but without the cachet. I'd take a Series II...

A couple of years ago I got some winter tyres for my car through Camskill - an X308 Jaguar XJ so quite a rare wheel size these days. I think the tyres came through DPD, though only one of two turned up. I raised a complaint with the courier and Camskill ended up sending a replacement FOC, which was fitted to the car. I did wonder how something as big and expensive as a tyre could go missing, since they don't package them, they just have the delivery label stuck on. I never thought I'd see the missing tyre again, since the courier had already forked out for the replacement. A few weeks later, a driver turned up in the dead of winter and handed me the original missing tyre, saying it had been found in a sorting depot!

That B-Quad is stealing the limelight!

I remember looking at that Nuevo Spellbinder a while back and wondering how many had been built for customers. At $15,000 each, I didn't expect that even one would have been sold beyond the two prototypes. I suppose this confirms that. A shame that the project didn't get off the ground.

I've never liked the look of those Loewenherz basses but that golden lion bridge piece is particularly foul. I think this one was gifted to Stanley and it was his first Loewenherz. I may be thinking of someone else, but if memory serves, the luthier gave it to Stanley at an airport in Europe.

A Warwick Dolphin. My GAS for these is transient; I always want one but at times it's stronger for some unknown reason. I will have to get one some day.

He's played a diverse range of vasses over the years outside of his obvious association with Alembic. It doesn't strike me as unusual that he would play a Fender because, knowing Stan, it isn't just going to be off-the-rack. I'd be interested to hear the new record more than anything. I've always found Stanley Clarke to be very inconsistent in terms of his output. He's written a handful of bangers and plenty of pretty average records over the years and has admitted that the quality of his records has varied massively over the years. I thought 'The Toys of Men' was an absolute screamer when it came out and easily his best work since Animal Logic II. However, that record is now a decade old and I wasn't that keen on the new Stanley Clarke Band album.

Very smart! Absolutely gorgeous.

I'm not typically much of an overdrive user but I do think every bassist should have something to hand to add that drive if you need it. The other week, I found my old Digitech Bass Driver in my spare room cupboard whilst I was cleaning it out. Bloody hell, that thing is the worst pedal I have ever heard and mercifully, it crapped out after about five minutes. I haven't checked since to see if it was just a bad battery. An old friend of mine in America very kindly saw a Facebook post of mine and offered to send me his Darkglass B3K free of charge since he had upgraded to a B7K. I've been getting grips with it this week and it's a really impressive bit of kit. It makes a really rich and natural sound. I prefer a mild helping of grit rather than full on distortion but there is plenty of both on hand. I've found it reacts better to my passive Cort Rithimic than my active Bogart Blackstone though I'll readily admit I need to spend a lot more time playing with it to learn how to really use it (and I should also plug it into my PJB Big Head some time, to see what it's like through headphones and a modelled preamp). My brother came round with his Yamaha Attitude bass the other day. It's modded with Lace Sensor pickups and sounds absolutely riotous. A rock-monster bass if there ever was one. It took the sound of the Darkglass to a new level.

If they can't remaster the album because the original tapes are too fragile, then they should give Jason another crack at it. Sit him down with an Alembic and let him re-record it. The fans would love it and it would finally be the 'justice for Jason' we have all wanted. It's a shame that the band collectively pushed Jason out, and then took over a decade from that point to really honour his legacy. He brought a level of precision to the bass playing that Cliff just didn't have. Cliff is held up as sacred by the Metallica hardcore because of his untimely death but in reality, I have never found his loose, fuzzy bass sound to be very satisfying or effective. I hate to prescribe what a bassist should do but in the instance of Metallica, having a solid pick-player was the perfect tonic to lock everything together both on record and on stage.

I've had to rein the tone in a bit since putting these new strings on. I always use stainless steels but I'm startled by how crisp and aggressive it sounds. The last time I heard a set of Barts sounding this aggressive, it was on a Spector. I have had to dial the bass frequency back a bit on the preamp just to tame it.

Anaconda are amazing too. They probably make my favourite looking boutique jazz basses, I really must try one some day!

I ran into my first minefield with this bass today, restringing! I had expected this to be the most difficult part of the ownership experience as it usually is, but learning a new system with the Bogart saw it's first casualty in claiming my brand new D string. I had bought a packet of cheap Spector strings (cheap for what reason, I don't know, they're excellent strings) for the purposes of getting to grips with this and knowing that it might go wrong. I have previously owned two Kubicki Ex Factors, so I know about fiddly restringing tasks that become a doddle when you've figured them out (and the Kubicki was tougher than this, but never cost me a string). I made the mistake of not locking the D string in tightly enough at the headstock. The result was, as I tried to tune it at the bridge, I unwound the string by putting tension on it as it slipped at the headstock. Stupidly, I had cut the string short by then and there wasn't enough left to get it securely locked at the headstock end. All the rest of the strings went on easy enough, though you must take care to lock them tight at the headstock. A short length and good lockdown at the start ensure you won't lock the tuning roller out at the bridge as you go. I can see with a couple of sets of practice this could nearly as quick as double ball end stringing. I now have super crisp, zingy Spector strings on and a dull D from the old set. I'll wear them out quickly and slap on another set and hopefully, avoid making the same mistakes twice.

The Americans have coined a rather irritating term for this: 'diming' or 'to dime'. That said, I have always found the Stingray to be a bit of a thumpy, scooped sounding bass. If Leo was looking for something of a midpoint between the Precision and Jazz, he had perhaps found it. The pickup, for all its connotations of being in a 'sweet spot', is just too far away from the saddles for my taste. The eye can be deceived by the size of the bridge plate but the measurements matter. I like pickups closer to the bridge, effectively in a jazz bass position or closer. I always thought that the Stingray 5 sounded better with its neodymium pole pieces. A wider adoption of those is a positive for the Stingray range.

I've always wondered who it was that bought new Stingrays. EBMM have touted their consistency in build quality as their trademark for years. That, coupled with their massive production volumes, has meant that used basses have never been in short supply - unless you were maybe after an original Sterling model, before the lineup became confused as 'Sterling' also came to denote the cheap range and the Sterling model faded into the background. I don't know if they even still make it. That said, I'd never buy a used Stingray without playing it first, as they suffer from dead spots like nothing I've ever known, but the weak G string irritates me even more. I've read of people using mix-and-match string sets to use a heavier G for more oomph, that sounds ridiculous on a bass of that sort of price. For the price of them now, I can't see why anyone wouldn't just pick up a used Modulus Flea bass. Even if you don't covet the Lane Poor pickup, I find them to sound better than the Stingray, as they don't have such a naturally scooped sound.