Gear, part 1 - Status Graphite Paramatrix, 'Blue'

OK, let's get this clear. I've never written a blog before, only read a handful. Not really my thing. But I'm told this is what I should be doing in order to help build a 'web presence'. Jeez, I cringe just typing that kind of thing. But what the hell, I'll give it a try, and hope that it's of interest to some folks out there, whether bass players or those interested in life as a bass player.

So, where to start? I suppose the obvious place is with some kind of overview of the gear I use. Most bass players I meet seem to love to 'talk gear', and I'm no exception, so that seems as good a place as any to start.

So this week, let's talk about my workhorse bass: my Status Graphite Kingbass Paramatrix, or 'Blue', as I call her. If you see me out playing live, nine times out of ten, this is what I'll be using. It was built in 2013 by Rob Green of Status Graphite in Colchester, UK, and she came to me in a trade for my old Alembic Stanley Clarke in 2014. 'Why would you exchange an Alembic for ANYTHING?', you may well ask. Well, as much as I loved that Alembic, it was a finicky beast - the neck was alive, and the controls were quirky and complex. And it was worth A LOT of money. So much so that I was afraid to take her out to play. Too much of a risk. I needed something that was rock solid reliable, easy to dial in sounds on, and that wouldn't leave me in sweats if I left it unattended for even a few seconds. This fit the bill perfectly.

The Status has an all carbon-fibre neck, through neck construction, and a black 'woven graphite' carbon-fibre shell around a wood core body. As such, it's pretty much indestructible. After the nuclear apocalypse, all that will remain will be cockroaches, a bunch of Steinberger basses and this thing. The carbon fibre construction means it never goes out of tune, regardless of temperature. It's headless, so string changes are a breeze - I've broken a string mid-song before now and had it removed, replaced and tuned to pitch within the space of a chorus. And the electronics are top-notch - volume, pickup pan, treble cut/boost, bass cut/boost, low parametric (frequency sweep and cut/boost), high parametric, and coil tap switches for each pickup. So many possibilities. But I do tend to just set it and leave it - both pickups equal output, both pickups in humbucker mode, a little low mid cut on the low parametric, a touch of bass boost and a smidgeon of treble boost. Seems to work for most scenarios - I don't even change the settings when switching from fingerstyle to slap. Once it's set, I don't tend to change it during the gig. Somebody once told me that you should EQ for the room from your amp. I don't know if that's true, and if so why, but I don't - I have my amp settings constant and tweak my EQ on the bass to compensate for the room, if it's boomy or trebly.

And finally, it has LEDS in the neck. Blue ones. Hence the name I gave her. Yeah, it's a gimmick, and I sometimes wonder if, instead of taking a solo, I could just turn the lights on and stand there, not playing a thing, and get away with it ... But hey, they make me happy!

Anyway, enough yapping, here are some pics. Any questions or comments, do please feel free to chime in. More next week. :-)