Mod collection restock update

[ilan]

I do like the color.

Well here's another one for you

https://reverb.com/item/72832258

[uwe]

It sounds beautiful. Undistorted and pure. It's how I like 8- or 12-string basses to sound.

[uwe]

Well here's another one for you

https://reverb.com/item/72832258

Way to go!

[uwe]

I wonder what Anna Nicole Smith would say about that.

Get a grip?

[ilan]

Way to go!

What's that 4-pickup NR in Craig Gruber's hands?

[Dave W]

Piccolo bass is an oxymoron. Bass scale length but guitar tuning range doesn't make it a bass.

[n!k]

Sounds like a harpsichord. Just add powdered wig.

[uwe]

What's that 4-pickup NR in Craig Gruber's hands?

Something he obviously played at the sessions for Rainbow's debut, but I don't know if it was also on the recorded versions - could very well be by the sound of them.

He also played that bass live with Elf when they were still regularly opening for DP. There is a pic of him in the inner gatefold sleeve of Rainbow's debut, but that is from Elf days, Gruber got fired (like all Elf guys with the exception of Ronnie Dio) before he ever got a chance to perform live with Rainbow, they just recorded the debut.





You can see him play it here (audio unfortunately heavily distorted, but a historic artifact, no other footage from late period Elf survives, they were a great band).



On Elf's last album (recorded around the time of the Rainbow debut and hardly released at all so as to not conflict with it) the bass could well be that TBird:

https://youtu.be/U7Ms3vS-yDk?si=ROA0wT9xOQJWOY7F

Same on the Rainbow debut, with this track being particularly Elf'ish:

[ilan]

Piccolo bass is an oxymoron. Bass scale length but guitar tuning range doesn't make it a bass.

Agreed. It's an ultra long scale guitar. It's the opposite of the EB6, Bass VI, Dano tic-tac etc., that play like guitar but sound like bass.

OTOH Guitar is almost cello range (only a 3rd above), and — this is from Wikipedia — "in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, [the cello] often plays the bass part. (...) Figured bass music of the Baroque era typically assumes a cello".

In Two of us George Harrison is playing the bass part on his Telecaster, and in Red House the bass is played on a Gibson ES335 with the tone rolled off (Noel was unconfident to record on a real bass). Les Paul used to do that too.

[ilan]

Smooth Brown is back in the European Mod Collection. It's the same bass that was offered in the US Mod Collection in December but did not sell. Gibson calls it non-reverse but it's reverse. £2,199 ($2,685) and still there.

https://www.gibson.com/en-GB/Electric-Bass/MOD-RAM015309/Smooth-Brown

[westen44]

Agreed. It's an ultra long scale guitar. It's the opposite of the EB6, Bass VI, Dano tic-tac etc., that play like guitar but sound like bass.

OTOH Guitar is almost cello range (only a 3rd above), and — this is from Wikipedia — "in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, [the cello] often plays the bass part. (...) Figured bass music of the Baroque era typically assumes a cello".

In Two of us George Harrison is playing the bass part on his Telecaster, and in Red House the bass is played on a Gibson ES335 with the tone rolled off (Noel was unconfident to record on a real bass). Les Paul used to do that too.

Here is Noel Redding playing that bass part on guitar.  I think this is from a concert in Paris.  It takes way over a minute before they get to the actual song. 

[ilan]

That's a bass, but in the studio recording the bass part was played on guitar.

https://youtu.be/2sGkT5pgc-g?si=ix88bQe2v93_cCQb

[Dave W]

Smooth Brown is back in the European Mod Collection. It's the same bass that was offered in the US Mod Collection in December but did not sell. Gibson calls it non-reverse but it's reverse. £2,199 ($2,685) and still there.

https://www.gibson.com/en-GB/Electric-Bass/MOD-RAM015309/Smooth-Brown

Appears to be gone now.

[westen44]

That's a bass, but in the studio recording the bass part was played on guitar.

https://youtu.be/2sGkT5pgc-g?si=ix88bQe2v93_cCQb

Noel Redding played guitar on the studio version of Red House, but he also played guitar on that Live at L'Olympia Paris performance.  I think Redding felt uncomfortable playing either guitar or bass with Hendrix.  He felt like an inferior guitarist to him, but he also barely considered himself a real bassist, especially at first.  I think his confidence in playing bass increased as time progressed.  Otherwise, he wouldn't have chosen bass in those post JHE bands such as Road and the Noel Redding Band (in Ireland.)  Plus, brief stints on bass with Randy California and even Mountain. 

[ilan]

but he also played guitar on that Live at L'Olympia Paris performance

Cool, I didn't know that.