Bassassin

A reverse image search chucks up a few Reverb listings & a bunch of pics from a TalkBass Skjold thread, showing 4 & 5 string Drakkars with this string anchor system. No clear pics of exactly how it works, but it does appear to be pins, similar to how guitar strings are anchored to a Bigsby trem system.

Pete's also a member of Kino, one of the many creative outlets of one-man UK prog scene John Mitchell (It Bites, Arena, Frost*, Lonely Robot, John Wetton, Karmakanic, Asia, David Cross Band etc etc...).

To be fair, if it was a 4-string (there doesn't seem to be one) & £100-odd cheaper, it could be the basis for an interesting project.

Amazing - I've been making Rick-type TRCs for years from clear acrylic, & head-scratching over how to add custom logos - usually ending up printed on a bit of paper trapped underneath. Absolutely never thought of this! Chapeau - you are a genius! 😎

I can see that, maybe both share a Chris Squire/John Entwistle influence despite their music being quite different. And known for using Ricks early on, of course. I was definitely a Foxton fan in my early days, Tube Station was an excellent challenge when I was starting out.

It's almost like they forget: "What do you want to do when you grow up?" "I wanna play in a rock band!" "You can't do both."

100% agree - having rediscovered them & dug into the early Hogarth era, Seasons End is a classic & a superb debut for h. If Easter had been the lead single I'm sure I would have picked it up. Still kicking myself for all the tours I misssed out on.

Big fan - saw them a bunch of times in the Fish era, I was initially highly skeptical but got dragged along by a girlfriend to see them. Front row at Hammersmith on the Real To Reel tour sort of changed my mind! I lost interest after Fish left - I hadn't liked much of Clutching At Straws, and when I heard Hooks In You, the first release with h, I thought they'd been railroaded down a commercial pop-rock route & didn't bother listening to them for a very, very long time! Anyway they played locally to me in 2011, I thought it would be rude not to go - and for the second time seeing them live blew me away. I'd say I far prefer the h era now, Hogarth is such an expressive, captivating vocalist & frontman, and lyrically & musically the band's scope is so much broader than the early years. I find much of the Fish stuff pretty uncomfortable to listen to now - so much embittered misogyny in his lyrics. Apropos of nothing - the very first time I saw them Pete was playing an Aria Pro RSB Deluxe II, which was what I had at the time. Last time I saw them was at the Berlin Weekend in 2023, and here he is playing a Yamaha BB400S fretless, just like one I had a couple of years ago!

I really, really hope they're called 'Licker'. Because as a pal of mine said when he heard Load - "well, they ain't f*ckin' metal any more!"

Hadn't encountered this band before you posted that track, and having had a listen to Pony Express Record, the album this song's taken from - what an incredibly interesting band! I very much doubt I'll be trying to learn any of the songs - like you say it's not really about technique, but I'm having a great time trying to get my head around what's going on compositionally & arrangement - wise. Such a lot to take in, I think I'll be coming back to this for a while. Thanks for posting that track!

I think it's a hardtail Strat copy body with a bit of veneer (of some description!) stuck over the front to cover the pickup routing. Neck & bridge 100% from some random budget shortscale. Anyone want to volunteer to drop £260 on it to find out?

ABBA / Cannibal Corpse crossover incoming! 😎 Apropos of nothing - I have just read that apparently there's a Mexican George Michael tribute who calls himself Carlos Whisper. If that's actually true, this thread's over.

Back in the 90s there was an excellent Thin Lizzy trib in Glasgow - Fat Betty. For years I've wanted to create a tribute to Sweden's two greatest musical exports - ABBAration will either play the music of Opeth in the style of ABBA, or the music of ABBA in the style of Opeth. Or possibly both.

To be honest I don't remember. But you'd think OP would be asked to edit the post to remove that part, rather than completely delete an otherwise acceptable & genuinely interesting query, pics and all.

I wonder why? I think part of the value of this community is to be able to help non-bass players with questions like yours. You're far from the first person with a mystery bass they'd like to know more about! Anyway, glad we were able to give you some insight into it - please do ask if you have any other questions.

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. It's a bitsa, constructed from a budget 1970s-era Fender Jazz bass copy, from what I can see possibly a Korean-made Hondo or Satellite, which has been mated with the neck from a Taiwan-made Kay shortscale bass. It appears to have been refinished with possibly some sort of adhesive backed checkerboard patterned paper or plastic. Anyway, this is what the body & electronics came from: And the neck came from something like this: I can see what look like the screwholes from the bridge's original position so it may be that it's been moved to compensate for replacing the original neck for a shorter one. If that's the case it should intonate correctly. If not, it's a fairly straightforward modification to reposition a bridge of this type. Edit - looking again, the bridge has definitely been moved - it's right up against the bridge pickup. It's possible that may be enough to intonate it. You can check this by measuring the distance between the zero-fret & the 12th fret, then between the 12th fret & the bridge saddles (or rather, saddle) - they should be the same.

Two basses. I'm way too lazy to want to re-learn songs either a semitone up or for 5 string. Being me & having more basses than sense, I'd take a little headless Steinbergery-type thing for the handful of songs in E standard - easy to lug around & easy to prop on the side of your amp for a quick swap.

They do just look like generic cheap push-on kernobbs.

I'm a fan of high mass bridges. That's because they look nice, like someone cared about the design, rather than being a cheap adjustable anchor point originally intended to be permanently hidden under a shiny chrome cover. I've put them on quite a few basses that came with a BBOT. It's exactly the same as the tonewood argument. In a system where 99.9% of the sound is a consequence of a string vibrating between two fixed points, above a magnetic pickup connected to some electronics, in turn connected to an amplifier/audio interface etc, the material of those fixed points, or of what those points are attached to, will have a negligible effect on the sound compared to every other factor or variable in the system. Probably the best measurement of that effect is wishful thinking. But they do look nice.

You can still get several flavours of the Aria version, if you don't mind a slightly oversized 4-inline headstock. Looks like the J/J with a scratchplate isn't in their current lineup but there will be some used ones out there. (Edit: it is, on p.2). https://www.ariauk.com/index.php?route=product/category&language=en-gb&path=61

That's interesting - I don't think I've seen this before. There's been a tendency to assume, America being America, that UK Westones were an afterthought/poor relation to the SLM/Electra Westones in the US, which were a little different to the versions we got. Interesting to discover that the Electras were based on the existing UK market range & there was no actual duplication of the existing models once Electra Westone was launched.

I suspect it was this - I thought at the time that HB/Thomann had contracted the factory that made the Aria RSBs & were very probably using the design without permission. Behringer did something similar back in the '00s with a range of bass heads that were essentially Ashdown MAGs, made in the same factories with the same components, but with a slightly re-jigged front panel. Maybe it's a German brand thing...

I would expect the earthing just involves a wire from the electronics to the locking screw on the slidey bit, and a second wire from the bridge to the upper tube. Black chrome plating on the black tubes, perhaps? These were Matsumoku products (at the time Westone was Mats' house-brand), and not ultra-budget instruments. It would be odd if they'd used sub-standard electronics & components.