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Well, my point is that the sound quality defines the quality of the content which reaches your ears. However, I do get what you're saying; I've been to a couple of Hi-Fi shows where a lot of suppliers were playing lounge jazz, which simply bores me.

@DTB, have you tried to ask Yamaha if they could make a fretless replacement neck for this bass? Another option might be to order a fretless neck by some luthier (if I remember correctly, Jon Shuker could make one). In my view, it might be worth a try instead of making changes to your beloved bass that might turn irreversible.

It's the old "Garbage In, Garbage Out" ... If it's a poor recording and/or a poor pressing it's never going to sound good! Saying that, I occasionally have a singles night (!) where I flop out my 7 inchers from the late 70s/early 80s, and while not having the absolute fidelity of something like Al McDowell's Time Peace, or Nazaire's"Who's blues?", they don't sound bad at all, especially things like The Monochrome Set's "He's Frank" or DAF's "Kebabtraume"... They, however, have the immortal words scratched into the end groove - "a Porky Prime Cut". Always wanted to have a record of my own mastered by Porky!

Do not. Do not de-fret it. Do not. Meet a luthier. Ask him/her to build you a fretless neck to the instrument. This will be a very good and valuable investment to the bass and to yourself. You shouldn't mess with a fine neck. You just need another. If you do (or do not) like the combination of the neck and the body, you can go back to the luthier and order a suitable body to the extra neck (be it fretted or fretless).

I won't say don't do it, but many years ago I de-fretted my bass. . . . and I regretted it. Taking the frets out (with a kitchen knife and filling the slots with polyfiller) never gave me sound I thought I was going to get. If the bass wasn't worthless when I started, it certainly was when I finished. It went in the bin shortly afterwards.

The defret will destroy the value of the instrument, and for a BBNE2 this is probably somewhere between 2 and 3 grand. Nathan East plays a TRB5 fretless, not sure if it's a defret or a factory custom special. Prices of these are starting to creep up and amounts verging on silly money are being asked for them. If it were me I'd be looking for a TRB5, BB-N5A or the fretted version BB-N5 to defret. Or maybe even a BB2005. Luthiers in Suffolk? Well you could ask Andrew Guyton but I'd be surprised if he'd be interested. I'd say Colin Fulton, but he's disappeared from view and I don't have an address. It depends whether you want a full-on luthier or a good guitar tech. Steve at Guitar Lodge in Felixstowe has done some good work for me, though nothing involving fretwork or fret removal. He does a lot of fret work and broken headstocks though. Robbie Gladwell is also highly recommended though I've not used him so cant vouch for him personally. If you're going to attempt it yourself, buy some cheap necks and practice.

It won't be free for long.

Go for it.. I've done a few for myself. As others have said, go steady when removing the frets - my first attempt had many chips flying! I was later shown how to grind some pincers sharp and flat for gently lifting and rocking the frets. Go steady and all ends up well. Filling in, I've used black or white plasticard, also maple veneer, also just rosewood dust mixed with epoxy. Each gives greater or lesser visibility to the lines. Overfill then smooth back. Good luck!

I'm taking it a month at a time. Failed in January, so far I'm OK in February.

Not sure on the relevance here, you were talking about pitching a note on a fretless, not a where within a fret to place your finger on a fretted instrument. I would think where you land in between the frets will make a minimal difference to tone as the anchor point is the fret after your finger (closest to the bridge) to the bridge anchor point. Pitching a fretless is still the on the line closest to the bridge (on a lined fretless). Jonny

I'm sure as we are all analogue playing musicians on this forum that most people will see that Suno CEO as the enemy. But I think he might have a point on one thing: Technology will be able to really 'gamify' music and open up brand new stuff - e.g. you're at a birthday party and all say a few prompts 'make a rock version of Happy Birthday for John, make fun of his hair, add a Kazoo solo' and a visual app to 'suggest dance moves' then 'record us performing this song/dance in the style of a 80s hair-metal stadium performance', upload and share with 'John's birthday party TikTok group' etc etc. The end product will be throwaway and pretty much worthless to the rest of the world (there are already 100k songs uploaded to Spotify daily, so we're nearly there already), the value is in the experience of those that created it. It is a shame though, a party could hopefully just sing a song, do a kazoo solo, dress up and do a dance all without any technology....but I guess times are a-changing and people like using technology for this sort of stuff, I suppose it could make your party more global and not face to face, which again I'd see as a bit of a shame in many ways. Perhaps there's room for that, and still room for semi-retired blokes playing a P Bass in the pub to do their cover of Mustang Sally for the 100th time to an indifferent audience and feel acomplished/joy in the artistic expression experience?

Thanks guys, thought it was possible but that I should check there wasn't some fundamental deal breaker in compatibility before I muse on it further

As @Paddy777 said you should be able to operate both Anagram and DMX controller together or independently using the Morningstar. Depending on how your setup is used you may need to use different midi channels for each peice of equipment. 👍 You've now got me thinking about my band set up.......💰

If you’re asking if you can use the Morningstar midi controller with it then yes you can, I’ve seen a few Anagram setups in various FB groups with exactly that setup, so yeh you’ll be fine with that

When Scotts Bas Lesons posted a clip of this on Instagram they got a reply from Dave Hillis, who was apprently one of the sound engineers on the original track, saying there's no acoustic bass on there. I can't 100% vouch that the guy posting as Dave Hillis is who he says he is but he seems to check out.

Anyone can stencil "New Order" onto a tatty old flightcase.

Hi all, I am trying to work out if the Anagram might be right for my needs, hopefully some of you are able to advise. I currently run an fx board with a Morningstar switcher controlling both effects selection and sending midi to a DMX lighting controller. This allows me to single click changes in both effects and lighting live. I assume if I was to go with the Anagram that I would be able to take a similar approach and use the Morningstar to change effects on the Anagram? I don't have a huge numbers of settings, usually just ~4 key sounds: OD, Distortion, Chorus, Chorus + Reverb. I sometimes dabble with additional drive/fuzz sounds but these 4 are the fundamental ones I need to switch between. Is this going to be easily achievable?