It’s great news – the bridge from Hipshot looked like it was going to cost £80 to ship(!) – but Barrie from BassGear was on the case and secured it as a custom build: brass Type B Hipshot with all the quick release goodness I’ve got on the other basses (warwick and aria pro II) for £135 – brass and painted black. Sweet!

I’m itching for the bass back with all the goodies onboard: the GR55 doesn’t have anything to power it at the moment (I’m thinking I might fit the pickup I have to one of the other basses!), and those modelled bass sounds are calling me to play some Rush… some freebird… some original material!

The bass is going to be a real monster when it’s finished. I’m hoping it’ll be tap-friendly as well: I have a lot of old tap pieces (I arranged Day At The Beach for bass, also Midnight (both satriani tracks) and learned a few Stu Hamm solos years ago – these usually get practised when I use the Aria as it’s strung really light and the bass itself is stupidly playable (it’s on 30-50-70-90, a la Mark King!) – thin strings, low action, pro setup did that for that bass.

The 6 string gets 20-40-60-80-100-130 (I like a decent wedge on the B) – Warwick black labels. Great strings, they come up beautifully after a week in Meths!