Russ

In terms of custom instruments, that's not usually the case - people like to pick their own choice of woods, hardware, pickups, neck dimensions, number of strings, fretted/fretless, etc and the chances of selling it on the used market mostly rely on someone else who's in the market for that sort of instrument having the same taste as you, and not wanting to deal with the lead time or additional expense of ordering their own. Almost all basses, possibly with the exception of Wals and old Fenders, depreciate like used cars. Anyway, you buy a bass to play it, not as an investment. Then again, you're supposed to buy a house to live in it, and I suppose that doesn't stop people looking on them as investments...

I think the difference with the likes of Wal, Status and Jaydee is, as a brand, they're known for a particular sound sound since they make their own pickups, preamps, etc (and hardware, in some cases). Most of the rest of them use commodity pickups, preamps, etc. Nothing wrong with either approach, in my opinion. Out of the "new breed" of builders, I'd say the likes of Alpher and ACG have their own sound, since they make their own electronics, etc. Bernie isn't exactly one of the new breed, but GB would count too, since he uses bespoke pickups and electronics and his basses are known for having a certain sound.

There's probably more custom bass luthiers out there now than there has ever been, but most of them are pretty small scale operations. Yes, the majority of the market is still FSOs, but you're starting to see more interesting instruments working their way into the limelight - the rise of Dingwall has been a big deal in that regard. Ibanez continue to be pretty brave with their designs, considering they're a mass-market manufacturer. You're not seeing so much of the alternative-material instruments, although you've got the likes of Klos picking up the baton dropped by Status when they stopped making aftermarket graphite necks, and it seems there's quite a big market out there for carbon-fibre acoustic guitars from the likes of Enya and Lava. At least, in the UK, we've got the likes of Shuker, Sei, Overwater and GB still making great custom instruments, although it's very sad (but understandable, given Rob's desire to retire) that Status have had to downsize so much.

Technically, Modulus and Status are still around, but obviously not producing at nearly the scale that they once were.

I've gone through a few phases over the years. I used to go for a very mids-heavy sound and quite heavy-handed technique to try and cut through in a band with two guitarists with Dual Rectifiers. It sounded decent, but a bit boxy and it peaked out a lot. Then I decided to go back and re-engineer everything and try and get something closer to the Tony Levin sound, with my own twist. So I started using a moderate amount of compression (I used to avoid it if possible), scooped out everything around 800Hz and started playing with a much lighter touch to "play" the compressor, so the bottom end bloomed out more, but still kept definition in the high mids and treble so the sound cuts through. A bit more mids, and a little wash of DG-style distortion gets added for when the guitarist goes off to solo to fill things out a bit. I'm also not averse to a bit of delay/reverb, and love me a bit of ambient/shimmer reverb. It took a while to get to this point though, lots of experimentation with playing style, basses, effects, gain staging and so on. It's the sort of thing that only really comes with time and lots of listening.

The only "name" players I can think of who played G&Ls are Jerry Cantrell, Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith and Cass from Skunk Anansie. I'm sure there's been plenty of others, but those are the only major ones that come to mind. Cantrell now has something going on with Gibson/Epiphone and they've worked with him on a signature Les Paul and an acoustic, Tom Hamilton plays all sorts of different basses and always has done, and Cass uses Alusonic basses now, so they've all moved on. I also owned a Saab. Still got my eye out for a nice 2012 9-5!

It appears to have longer, somewhat less "lumpy" horns than the regular bolt-on Thumb. Might be the angle though.

They did do a limited edition one a couple of years back that did have the proper Thumb body shape, where the horns were the right length - they should have changed all the bolt-on Thumbs to look like this: My dream Warwick would be a Streamer set up like a Thumb, which they've done. I'd just want a sixer! Sorry for the digression... back to Bongos now.

I've always found the original, through-neck Thumb to be a lovely looking beast and have done since I first saw one back in the early 90s. The bolt-on version, like in this image, is a funny looking thing though. I wonder why they couldn't exactly recreate the body shape in bolt-on form?

Mark G just confirmed on FB that there's going to be a gig bag coming. So that's cool.

The alternative is getting a camera case or an actual rack, which, to me, seems kinda pointless if you’re reducing the bulk by ditching the wooden sleeve! Surprised about the weight - it only has one more metal panel than the normal version (on the top) and that has to weigh less than the sleeve. Has to be a mistake.

I like the look without the case - it's smaller, and probably substantially lighter too. But they should sell it with a gig bag, like they did with the first-gen Rootmasters. Although maybe not with the wool lining!

I'm looking forward to trying them out. I'm just hoping they're not otherwise generic (and not very good) bass amps dressed up with a badge with some historical brand cachet, like Guitar Center did in the US when they brought back the Acoustic brand about 10 years ago.

The current NS Radius range of basses are rather nice - I was surprised. The higher-end ones have a graphite/maple sandwich neck, but even the cheaper wooden-necked WAV models are really nice and apparently super-stable. They're more a spiritual successor to the 1990s XQ series than the good ol' cricket bat though.

Epiphones, despite having lower quality hardware, pickups, electronics, etc, were a lot more consistent than US Gibsons. You got some great Gibsons, but a lot of bad ones. A friend of mine was after a new Les Paul and tried out at least 20 in order to find a good one. Supposedly they've got that under control now though.

Gibson seem to be on a bit of a path to redemption in that department. They're doing well with Mesa/Boogie, they've resurrected Tobias, and, by all accounts, the new instruments are excellent, and they have apparently addressed a lot of their QC issues recently. Having said that, I still can't see it happening.

At one point, I had four. I sold three of them thinking I was wanting to go in a bit of a different direction, but I miss them! Here's three of them. I still have the red 5-string.

What Owen said. In addition to the Mule, Alan’s been experimenting with a few interesting new designs lately, including a “skeleton” bass that’s basically a solid top and back, with a hollow, sparred interior. Shuker will also make you more or less anything you want - I saw a nice, Leduc-style floating top semi-acoustic from him recently that was rather nice. I’m sure he could make something similar in short scale.

They became independent from Fender in 1991 and started producing the Factor basses themselves again. They're still going and are producing Factors on a to-order basis, although Phillip Kubicki himself died in 2013.

It's basically going to be an updated version of the Nemesis heads, not the WT design. They don't have valve preamps, for a start. The Nemesis stuff was great though, and was probably the first ever proper lightweight range of bass gear. The FET preamp sounded reasonably "valve-y" too. The Nemesis 8x10" combo (yes, combo) was one of the coolest bass rigs I ever tried, and it sounded massive.

Personally, if this comes to pass, I'm expecting that Fender will re-release the range under the Fender banner, but rename them the "GL-2000", "GL-2500", etc as a nod to where they came from. If they did that, hopefully they go back to the cleaner look of the non-CLF versions, with the rear-mounted controls and without the weird lumpy metal control plate. I'd love to see the brand survive as G&L, but I'd be alright with that, I think. I'd actually be OK with the idea that they might do what they did with the Jazz Bass Plus back in the 90s after they acquired Kubicki, and use the G&L pickups and electronics in a Jazz Bass.

I think that may have been the case maybe 5 years ago or so. You're starting to see a lot more interesting stuff showing up these days - headless and multiscale (and headless multiscale) have taken off in a big way, to the point where almost every major guitar manufacturer (except the dinosaurs like Fender, Gibson, etc) have added them to their ranges. I think Ned has come in with this at the right time. The people who like his NS stuff *really* like it, and are prepared to pay for it, to the point where nothing else will do.

They do come across as very inexpensive - I'm just wondering what they cheaped out on. It says they use Eminence speakers, so it's not there, and solid state amp PCBs are kinda much of a muchness these days, especially for Chinese-produced class D amps (it doesn't mention that they're class D, but they probably are). Based on the controls, inputs, etc, the PCB design for the head itself is probably still the solid state David Nordschow design that goes back to the old Nemesis heads. The Terra Nova range used this too. My concern is that the biggest head is only 500W, and that's really not all that much these days. Those cabs are going to need to be pretty efficient to get much volume from a 500W head. I'd be more enthusiastic if they had an 800W head.

If they do what they did with SWR, they'll keep them around for a while, then, after a few years, take the bits they like, add them to the Fender range under the Fender badge, and shutter them.

Seems Gear4Music have actually done something with the Eden brand. There's a whole new range of amps and cabs called the Novatone series. They look good, and they're very keenly priced. I particularly like the cabs - the rounded corners are very reminiscent of the old Nemesis stuff. No idea how they might compare to the old World Tour heads or D-series cabs, but it's nice to see that they've actually been given some attention. This is more than Marshall ever did with the brand! https://www.gear4music.com/Bass_Amps/Eden?page=1