Russ

It's not bad. I like it more than I liked the roughly equally sized Marshall Stanmore speaker, which I thought was loud bit a bit flat. There's a bit more bass and treble extension with the Spark. I have a Marshall bass practice amp that sounds better having music played through it than the Stanmore. It streams over Bluetooth, not wifi, alas, but it works pretty well.

So I got my Spark today. As long as you temper your expectations, it's actually pretty bloody good, and quite clever. Firstly, it doesn't put out a load of bottom end. It's only got two 4" speakers and a small port behind the cloth on the front, so there's not much thump, but it is nice and clear, and only bottoms out if you play below E on a 5-string (I ran my Bongo 5 - which has a famously hot output - into it and it just about handled it without crapping out). It's got a nice midrange burp, so bridge-pickup fingerstyle sounds good, and it pops nicely if you slap or dig in with a pick. Over and above the hardware, it's the software that impresses the most. It has several dedicated bass amp models (from what I can tell, there's two GK models, an Ampeg, and an Eden) and, if you add effects, they work nicely and don't thin the sound out. Nice crisp, wide stereo reverbs, decent (if not very versatile) delays, good chorus, flanger and tremolo, and a chunky, buzzy, Darkglass-esque distortion. It comes with lots of fun playalongs for you to jam with (complete with on-screen tabs and chord charts for some of it), and the app is nicely integrated with Spotify and Apple Music (if you're running it on an Apple device like me) so it's easy to load up your playlists and play along. There's also the Smart Jam features that 'listen' to what you're playing and provide a backing track, but I haven't really played with that yet. It also functions well as a regular stereo Bluetooth speaker. You can tell it was primarily designed for guitar though, because the guitar tones are very, very good. I plugged in my Sterling JP 7-string, and it authentically chucked out everything from a smooth, valvey blues tone to a great full-on shreddy, djenty metal tone, with well-modelled dynamics. The low B on the 7-string came across thick and clear too. Overall, based on the few hours I've spent with it, it's a fun little box of tricks, with some decent, usable sounds in it, and it seems like it's going to be a great tool for neighbour-friendly practice. There's more to dig into with it yet though, especially the Smart Jam stuff, so I'll report back once I've messed with it some more. It'd be nice if the next iteration had a looper and possibly a built-in wireless system like the Boss Katana Air, but, for now, I think I'm happy.

I should have mine next week, apparently. I'll let you know what I think when it arrives. I've been after something that's similar to the little Boss Katana thingies, but for bass, so I'm definitely curious to see how well it works.

That'll be Chris McIntyre, who used to work with Martin Petersen at Sei. I can confirm he definitely knows his stuff.

Nathan's one of those Youtubers, like Berthoud, Zon and Davie, with a scary amount of technique that makes for great 'stunt' bass videos. It was a pleasant surprise to see him join Dev's band for their last tour. He did a pretty good job too, although I think Dev's DTP band was, on the whole, better, especially for playing his older stuff. The recent gigs were a little too 'noodly' and unfocussed for my taste as a long-time Devin fan.

Yep. Something about Davie's overly forced Italian-stereotype schtick irritates me. At least Stevie T is intentionally obnoxious.

If I'm in the mood to be wowed, Zander Zon and Charles Berthoud are both pretty hard to beat. Berthoud is probably technically the best bassist on Youtube and seems to be able to play anything. As for Davie504, he plays well, but I find his sense of humour to be a bit obtuse and hard to take. Not always in the mood for histrionics though. If I want some honest gear reviews and some nice grooves, I enjoy BassTheWorld's content, Scott Devine's stuff (of course) and Julia from Thomann. I also find myself watching some excellent guitarists, like Sarah Longfield, Per Nilsson and Steve Terreberry (who also has a sense of humour that's, at best, an acquired taste). I find Beato to be hard going. He's knowledgeable, but opinionated and rather one-dimensional. He also seems to be fixated on classic rock and not a lot else.

I've got an RBJ-67 5-string. Lovely bass for the money, nice woods, great pickups, well finished and decently put together. Good low B too. Only criticisms would be that it's kinda heavy (around 10lbs) and the headstock is huge and makes the bass hard to fit into a regular gig bag or case. I've added a J-Retro, which makes the already big tone even bigger - it's nice to have a midrange control, but you really don't need much in the way of treble or bass boost with those pickups.

Ben is a bit of a tool junkie. He's a collector of vintage tools, and actually also runs a vintage tools website! He's got videos on his Crimson Guitars channel that consist of him just fawning over his tools.

I've got a pair - 5-string HH, fretted and fretless. Love them. What a huge, unmistakeable sound. Even if they look a bit like a bog seat. The (older) fretted one has had some neck issues over the years though. I had it heat-treated and it seems OK now, I just hope it stays that way. The newer fretless has all the new aluminium hardware and is far lighter than the old fretted one, but still has the same massive tone.

I've tried a Boden Prog. Lovely, if somewhat esoteric. I tried it out as I'm on a bit of a quest for something super-light. Weighs practically nothing, which I love - my back and neck very much appreciate that at my age! It weighs maybe 7lbs. It's small and would fit in a guitar gig bag. Neck is a strange, bevelled shape and the whole headless thing always throws me (you'll feel like the neck ends too soon). Plays like butter though, very well-dressed frets, low action and a surprisingly big sound for such a small, light instrument, with super-punchy mids and a great B string. It's also extremely crisp and will magnify any faults in your technique! Downsides? Pricey. No variations in finishes or colours. No fretless option (although fretless on a multiscale bass would be a bit weird). If they did some of the funky colour schemes they offer on their guitars I'd definitely be more interested, especially if they did one like the new Per Nilsson Singularity guitar, with the red-and-black stained ash body and the red anodised hardware. Verdict: Awesome, but definitely try before you buy.

I like the 'concept' of Hartke better than the execution. I had a 2x10" Hartke combo years ago, and I went through 3 speakers in less than a year. It sounded great but just couldn't cope if the amp was turned up above 12 o'clock - the speakers were super-fragile. Larry's a nice enough guy (met him several times at Sam Ash on 34th St in NYC, where he runs the bass department) and his ideas are good, but his execution is flawed and I'm not sure he has particularly good business sense, the current Hal Leonard debacle being the latest example.

The Ampeg SVT-7 does a pretty good job of nailing a proper valve tone. The trick is finding one that won't blow up on you.

The DBS amps were immense. You wouldn't want to move them without a handtruck and a van, but they were worth the weight. Probably the last good bass amp Marshall ever made. Given that Marshall don't make any Marshall-branded bass gear anymore (they have the Eden brand for that), if they put the DBS preamp into a big-power class D head and sold it as an Eden/Marshall DBS, with the proper black and gold livery, they'd clean up. The Bass-State, on the other hand, were cheap practice amps and almost entirely unremarkable.

You could always tell when the 'stars' were in town though based on the cars parked outside. I used to go over there on the Tube, and one day I remember seeing a big gold Rolls parked outside. Turned out the Rolls belonged to John Entwistle, and he was in there trying some stuff out. I was a bit starstruck and left him to it!

Back in 2003 I scored an endorsement with Warwick via their old UK distributor. I guess a lot of their UK-based endorsers at the time had kinda gone below the radar, so they were looking for new blood, and the band I was in at the time were starting to make a few waves. So I scored the endorsement and promptly ordered a Streamer Jazzman for silly money (well under four figures), and, when I got it, it was... meh. Horrible huge thick neck too. So I told them it probably wouldn't work out, went back to playing my Sei and flogged the Streamer on eBay for £500 more than I paid for it.

Never mind that. They've brought back the AFR. Played one back in the 90s. Lovely looking instrument, played and felt great, sounded kinda wimpy though. Maybe they've beefed it up a bit now.

Surprised John Hall hasn't had a s**t-fit about it and threatened to sue Stuart Spector. He seems happy to go after anything that even vaguely resembles a Ric and isn't built in China. Nice bass though.

It was good back when it was first on, playing 'proper' metal while Kerrang! played constant bad pop-punk on a loop. A whole channel playing what we used to only get three hours of on a Sunday night on Headbangers' Ball. They ended up basically becoming a carbon copy of Kerrang! in the end though, playing all the same drivel. And there's no need for two channels of that. No great loss. You want to watch metal videos? You have YouTube.

Yes, back when I had access to custom sets of Elites, I played 35-55-80-105-130, so very light to very heavy. I don't have easy access to custom sets anymore, so I've reverted to a standard light-gauge 5-string set. It suited how I played at the time, and I still maintain that there's no reason that the same note needs to sound the same on each string - string-to-string balance is overrated.

Been back and forth from LHR to EWR more times than I care to remember, and had a bass/basses with me on at least half of those occasions. Never been checked once, on either end. That doesn't mean you won't, but, in my experience, the likelihood is minimal. Maybe stuff a shabby-looking old gig bag in your case to bring it back in.

I used to see Brian May and Anita Dobson with annoying regularity on Kingston high street back in the mid-90s. He was hard to miss and you could hear him coming because of his clogs.

Yep. Part modern exotic wood singlecut, part rock'n'roll Thunderbird. All awesome.

I met Stu and Derrick (drummer) back in the late 90s, when I was helping out on the technical side of a Sony commercial Jay Kay was shooting. Lovely blokes. Got some nice bass kudos going with Stu, talking about Jaco and Larry Graham. But JK was a knob. I knew it from the second he roared into the place, in his souped-up AMG Merc. The Sony guys brought him a Winnebago to use as a changing room (everyone else we'd had there, including Premiership footballers, were happy to change in the bogs), he'd only talk to my boss, not us other peons and generally came across as an arrogant, overly-entitled man-child.

For me, Revelations are the best instruments available at the lower end of the market. Better than Squier, etc. They've done their homework, come up with cool designs, found a good factory to work with in China, and have the benefit of Entwistle's many, many years of experience. I remember loving the old Hohner Revelations back in the day, and I'm very glad they've made a comeback. My RBJ-67 5-string Jazz is a phenomenal instrument. Doesn't hurt that I only paid £300 for it.