Colin Edwin

Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin onstage with Porcupine Tree, Falls Church, VA - October 2007.
Background information
Born	2 July 1970 (1970-07-02) (age 41) Melbourne, Australia
Genres	Progressive rock, neo-psychedelia, art rock
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Bass guitar, double bass, guimbri
Years active	1993–present
Associated acts	Porcupine Tree Ex-Wise Heads Random Noise Generator

Colin Edwin (born 2 July 1970 in Melbourne, Australia) is a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he plays both fretted and fretless bass guitar as well as double bass and guimbri. 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 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 fretted and fretless Wal Mach I 4-strings basses 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 plays approximately 85% of "The Incident" song-cycle on his Wal basses. His black Spector Euro 4LX-35 is used for the other 15% "heavy parts" that are downtuned to C Standard. In the liner notes for "The Incident" Colin still endorses and thanks Spector and Basslab basses as well as EBS amplifiers, speaker cabinets, and effects pedals. He also endorses Ernie Ball Bass Strings for use on his Wal fretless bass^[5] and Spector Medium Stainless Steel Bass Strings on his fretted Spector basses.^[3]

In 2009, Colin released his debut solo album titled Third Vessel, available through Burning Shed.^[6]

Current equipment

• 1983 Wal Mach I fretless 4-string bass (Natural finish, Ebony fingerboard) with a Hipshot Bass Extender installed for downtuning the E-string to D.
• Wal Mach I fretted 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 Standard" (C/F/Bb/Eb) in Transparent Black. [1] strung with Spector Medium Stainless Steel strings.^[3]
• 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 [2]) strung with Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky strings.^[3]
• BassLab Soul-IV in Metallic Orange (prototype bass borrowed from Heiko Hoepfinger used as a studio/recording bass([3])
• EBS TD 650 amplifier and two 4x10" Proline neodymium cabs.^[3]
• EBS ValveDrive tube preamp/overdrive pedal, EBS MultiDrive distortion, EBS OctaBass octave, EBS MultiComp compressor, EBS UniChorus Chours, EBS Bass IQ Envelope Filter, EBS Tremolo, Boss HR-2 Harmonist, Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner.^[3]
• Gigrig Pro-14 switching system

Previously used equipment

• 2007 Spector ReBop Deluxe FM unlined fretless bass in Natural Oil.
• 2004 Music Man Stingray fretted 4-string bass (Natural ash finish, Rosewood fretboard [4]) 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 for the majority of the "Deadwing" tour as seen on the band's "Arriving Somewhere..." Live DVD and as a backup/encore bass on the 2007-08 "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" ^[7])

References

1. ^ "Porcupine Tree". Free Williamsburg. http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/september_2002/porcupine.html. Retrieved 2008-04-13. 
2. ^ "Spector Bass - Europe Series 4LX-35". Archived from the original on 2008-04-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20080410120700/http://www.spectorbass.com/bass_euro_4LX-35_1.html. Retrieved 2008-04-14. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Colin Edwin On Riding A Sonic Storm". Bass Player Magazine. September 2007. http://www.bassplayer.com/article/colin-edwin-riding/sep-07/31497. Retrieved 2008-04-13. 
4. ^ "Spector Bass - Europe Series ReBopDLX Bolt-On". Archived from the original on 2008-04-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20080410103009/http://www.spectorbass.com/bass_euro_ReBop4DLXFM_1.html. Retrieved 2008-04-14. 
5. ^ "Ernie Ball - News". Archived from the original on 2008-04-03. http://web.archive.org/web/20080403055435/http://www.ernieball.com/news/264/. Retrieved 2008-04-14. 
6. ^ "Debut solo album from Porcupine Tree bass player Colin Edwin". Third Vessel. http://www.thirdvessel.com/. Retrieved 2011-07-08. 
7. ^ "Some of you know Porcupine tree???". Ernieball.com. http://www.ernieball.com/forums/music-man-guitars/23750-some-you-know-porcupine-tree-2.html#post351598. Retrieved 2011-07-08. 

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
• Colin's Myspace

Persondata
Name	Edwin, Colin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	2 July 1970
Place of birth
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Place of death