Colin Edwin

Colin Edwin (born 2 July 1970 in Melbourne, Australia) is a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he plays fretted and fretless bass guitar as well as Double Bass. He joined the band in December 1993. He is also a member of Ex-Wise Heads, a three-piece group that mixes ethnic, ambient, and post-modern influences, as well as a metal-influenced project, Random Noise Generator.

In 2001 Colin played Double Bass on one of the most acclaimed albums by the British duo No-Man, which is Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson's side project. Colin and Steven are friends from school. "Steven was instrumental in introducing me to several types of different music," he explains.^[1]

Colin is known to be a big jazz fan, and incorporates an atypical jazz-inspired style into his playing in a rock band. Also unusual for a rock bassist, his main bass was a 1994 Wal Mach I four-string fretless bass for 10 years of live and studio use until giving it "a break" and semi-retiring it from the rigors of live touring in 2004. He used a Music Man StingRay and after a Music Man Bongo for the Deadwing tour, which can be viewed on Porcupine Tree's DVD release Arriving Somewhere. During the same time period Colin was introduced to Spector basses and purchased a EuroLX 4-string model in Natural Oil. The company then gave him as a gift one of their extended scale-length models (35" as opposed to the "standard" 34" scale for 4-string basses), a Euro 4LX-35^[2] in transparent black. This proved to be useful as over 1/2 of their 2007 album, Fear Of A Blank Planet was downtuned C/F/Bb/Eb to which the 35" scale length give better definition to the lower notes as well as the general rigors of touring ("The Euro 4LX-35 has a graphite-reinforced neck, which means it can come out of a freezing-cold trailer into a hot gig every night for a month without going out of tune or having any trussrod problems.")^[3] For the second leg of the Fear Of A Blank Planet tour starting in October of 2007 a ReBop Deluxe FM^[4] unlined fretless bass in Natural Oil was brought out on tour for the song "A Smart Kid" among others, and well as using his Music Man Bongo bass guitar as his spare/encore bass.

However, as of late September 2009 Colin is currently back to using his Wal Mach I fretles 4-string for the majority of the tour supporting the Porcupine Tree release of "The Incident" which is being played in full on this leg of the tour and which he played approximately 85% of "The Incident" song-cycle was played on the Wal. His black Spector Euro 4LX-35 is used for the other 15% "heavy parts" that are downtuned to C or lower. As of the Monday, September 21 show in Cleveland, Ohio no other basses were seen for backup or encore usage. In the liner notes for "The Incident" Colin still endorses and thanks Spector basses as well as EBS amplifiers, speaker cabinets, and effects pedals. He also endorses Ernie Ball Bass Strings for use on his Wall fretless bass^[5] and Spector Medium Stainless Steel Bass Strings on his fretted Spector basses.^[3]

Current Equipment

• 1994 Wal Mach I fretless 4-string bass (Natural finish, Ebony fingerboard) with a Hipshot Bass Extender installed for downtuning the E-string to D.
• 2006 Spector Euro 4LX-35 4-string bass downtuned to C/F/Bb/Eb in Transparent Black. [1] strung with Spector Medium Stainless Steel strings. [2]
• BassLab Soul-IV in Black (used mainly as a studio bass and also as a backup/encore bass on the "Fear of a Blank Planet" tour [3]) strung with Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky strings [4]
• BassLab Soul-IV in Metallic Orange (prototype bass borrowed from Heiko Hoepfinger used as a studio/recording bass([5])
• EBS TD 650 amplifier and two 4x10" Proline neodymium cabs. [6]
• EBS ValveDrive tube preamp/overdrive pedal, EBS MultiDrive distortion, EBS OctaBass octave, and EBS MultiComp compressor. [7]

Previously Used Equipment

• 2006 Spector EuroLX 4-string bass in Natural Oil finish with a Hipshot Bass Extender installed for downtuning the E-string to D [8] strung with Spector Medium Stainless Steel strings. [9]
• 2007 Spector ReBop Deluxe FM unlined fretless bass in Natural Oil.
• 2004 Music Man Stingray fretted 4-string bass (Natural ash finish, Rosewood fretboard [10]) with a Hipshot Bass Extender installed for downtuning the E-string to D.
• 2005 Music Man Bongo 4-string bass in "Stealth (flat) Black" (used as a backup/encore bass on the "Fear Of A Blank Planet" tour).
• Trace Elliott AH350 amplifier and speaker cabinets
• Tech 21 LM300 amplifier and two 4x10" speaker cabinets ("trashed on a European tour by some slack local crew" [11])

Online posting of former and current equipment by Colin Edwin [12].

External links

• Porcupine Tree Official Website
• Ex-Wise Heads Official Website
• Random Noise Generator Official Website
• No-Man's Official Website
• Article in "Bass Player" magazine September 2007
• Solo Album Website

References