Should be ready next week, apparently ()

Great! What's on order after this one. [duck];)

I was actually thinking of asking what you may have heard.....
Good news indeed.

(Rich needs an Electro)....duck and cover

Fat Rich, has this order arrived? I may have missed a post. Please post some pics.

Yes Rich, do show!

I wish you wouldn't call me "duck" in public.

Went up to Colchester on Friday, got home and had about an hour before having to go out. Spend most of that time just staring in admiration.

Saturday was the Basschat SE Bassbash so still little playing time for me but some very positive reaction from other players.

Have been out most of today so I'm going to get some playing in and I'll try and post some pictures soon and give you some info on how they play and why I chose the options I did.

The rate I'm going Rob will have his pictures up on his website before I get any on here ;)

Good man, Rich.

Isn't it just Sod's Law. When you have a new toy there's no time to play with it.

Looking forward to the pics.

OK, these pictures aren't too good because it's so gloomy today, they don't really do the basses justice.

From the back they all look the same:



But from the front:



Close ups:







Matching headstocks:







Will post some thoughts on how they sound and play shortly.

So this was all triggered by the London Bass Guitar show back in March.....

I've always been of the opinion that the best way to get the traditional Fender sound is to play a basic unmodified Fender, and use something more modern to cover most of the other sounds. That for many years was my 92 Series 1 headed 5 stringer, and a pair of Japanese '62 Reissue Fenders (a Precision and a Jazz) from the late 80s. They're all a little towards the heavy side, lots of tone but not what you'd call resonant, but my playing style and amp settings made it sound good to my ears.

I'd ordered a couple of stunning S2 Classics and specified one piece bridges to give them the focused tone I was used to, the monorail bridges always sounded a bit "floaty" to me.

But then I played a scruffy old 72 Fender Jazz bass a few years back that just grabbed me, the resonance of the bass and the big open tone of it was astonishing, it made my old Fenders sound a bit nasal and small. This thing was alive and made me reconsider what I wanted from a bass. However I was still very happy with my S2s, there were a couple of details that I would have changed with hindsight but basically they were nearly spot on.

Meanwhile someone on Basschat started a thread about what are considered the best looking basses and someone suggested the Ibanez RoadStar II:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=iba...&dpr=1

which I really liked the look of apart from the very old fashioned looking headstock, and the slabbiness of the body looked a bit uncomfortable too. Didn't think anymore about it until I went to the London Bass Guitar show and they had a custom built Stealth bass with a stunning Movingui facing with a red tint, with the faux binding inspired probably by the Mark King 30th Anniversary bass. So I had a quick go on it expecting not to like the sound of it, and it was surprised by the resonance of the bass and the big open tone. Plus with the bindings and the Stealth shape it looked a little bit like the Ibanez but with the familiar Status headstock... perfect. I tried to resist ordering any more basses but just couldn't keep away from the Status stand to gawp at this bass, much to Roger's amusement :D

Couldn't really hear clearly at the show so went up to the factory with my trusty S2 to do a proper comparison and really liked the sound of the Stealth, plus they weigh a bit less than the S2 which was a bonus. I decided this was the way forward and was also an opportunity to incorporate the tweaks I'd like to make to get them from 95 percent perfect to 100%.... which were:

Slightly tighter string spacing at the nut: it pretty much matches the tighter string spacing on a 70s Jazz bass, also from playing the Fenders I was used to the strings being quite a way in from the edge of the neck. I was getting sloppy on the S2 five string and occasionally pushing the string off the edge of the fret.

Slightly tighter spacing at the bridge: to keep the strings parallel to the edge of the neck. Ideally a slightly wider neck would be the perfect solution but I didn't think Rob would want to build some new moulds ;)

Rosewood fingerboard on the fretless: phenolic sounds a little too bright to my ears, the warmth of the rosewood with the note definition of the graphite neck is the perfect combination to me

Matching headstocks: They're on the Slipstream guitars so why not? Particularly since the wood facings were going the full width of the body. They'd look nice and woody from the front, and all hi-tech at the back.

303 Circuit upgrade with tweaks: I love this preamp, it's great to have 3 different sounds and the flick of a switch. Was hoping Rob could tweak the circuit to balance out the perceived volume in all 3 switch positions but it would mean redesigning the whole board.

So now I've got them they're even better looking than I thought, they feel great to play and they sound great. Everything I hoped for really.

As ever, a huge thank you to all at Status, to Rob for going to all the extra trouble of digging out the templates for 35" scale, finding the right nut width and spending time experimenting on the preamp, Dawn for getting my scribbled list of options into an actual order and for helping choose the woods. And to Gerry, Roger and Steve for building the best basses in the world ()

Wow!, Very nice selection, Rich.

I know what you mean by the "resonance" element to some basses. I was torn between the tone block concept, and a simple Alder body for my last S2 order.
If a foam core S2 ever comes along, I'll nab one.

You put some very valid thought, and perspective into your new builds. Enjoy the heck out of them, they are gorgeous.

I would love to try the fretless, if we meet up in March B)

Be great if you can make it over for the next London bass show, just keep me away from the Status stand, I can't be trusted not to order something :o

Wow, indeed. Love the blue one. Good to know there is still an option for a rosewood fingerboard. Enjoy the playing.

Wow, what a collection! I like the wavy pattern on the movingue tops. The chrome hardware complements the colours on all three basses. Thanks for posting.

Greg

I've a spent a bit of time with these basses now and they sound huge. Acoustically they're noticeably louder than the S2 Classic, much more bassy but with loads of clarity in the upper mids and high frequencies. Lots of resonance and sustain too. They have a very slightly hollow sound that I was initially a bit concerned about but plugged in the sound is massive.

The first thing I noticed is the Stealth is much more responsive to changes in playing position, playing over the bridge pickup sounds a lot different to playing over neck pickup. The S2 on the other hand has it's own tone that can be brightened somewhat by playing over the bridge pickup or darkened somewhat by playing over neck pickup, but it's still a similar sound. I can vary the tone much more with Stealth just with my fingers, which is interesting.

Same thing with the pickups, there's a much more noticeable difference in tone between fully bridge pickup and fully neck pickup which also means more options when blending them.

I've always felt that graphite necked basses take on the character of the strings more than wooden basses, again the Stealth does that but even more so. I put some DR Fatbeams on one of the fretted Stealths and the stainless steel clang really came through strongly, it gives the bass a completely different character than the one that still has Hotwires. I generally use Fatbeams if I want a clangy sound with lots of overtones, Ernie Ball Slinkys if I want a more subtle tone, or Hotwires if I want a bassier sound with a strong fundamental plus a bit of zing. It's going to be interesting to do some experimenting with strings to get different sounds.

Add all the options available with the 303 circuit and there's a huge variety of tones from bright and zingy to woolly and dubby. All with a nice musical warmth that most people wouldn't expect from an all graphite bass.

Ergonomically they've got a bit of neck dive, not bad but they're not as well balanced as the heavier S2 Classic. Oddly the slightly tighter string spacing at the nut makes the neck feel a little chunkier even though it isn't, very strange!

Really pleased with these basses, they're better than I expected. :D

Thanks for posting all these detailed descriptions, Rich. It creates enough gas to heat a pensioner's home for a year.

Some more pics now there's a bit more light:

....WOWZER!
Don't forget to leave the house to buy groceries and such. :P

Aaah, I wondered what that rumbling sound was!