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I've been taking my Steinberger Spirit away in my campervan for years. Cheap to buy, especially used, solidly built, stay in tune for months. They pack away in a small gig bag (supplied with the bass) and I've actually gigged mine and it's excellent. The extension on the bottom of the body makes it easy to play sitting down too. I take mine to gigs as a backup - fortunately, I've never needed it. There's some useful information on them in this old thread. Frank.

Wow that must have been very loud if it was too loud through the ACS customs. I have the 26db ACS customs, and sometimes find the fit isn’t as tight towards the end of a gig, which makes them not quite as effective. I tend to now only take them out when I am in the car and all packed up due to loud music/DJ playing after the band has finished and are packing up etc

Looks like they've tweaked the standard cobalt flats to compete with Thomastik jazz flats. If you get cobalt flats performance at thomastik prices then it's a poor deal 😂. I'm surprised to learn that pino uses flats but found that indeed..he's been using EB cobalt flats and thomastik jazz flats .. so, lively sounding flats. Well, on my two fretless basses, I currently have some eb cobalt flats and they're ok but have quite a distinctive tone that may take over the sound of your bass... and some thomastik jazz rounds ( not the flats) which are nice but very thin and rather floppy...and I'm not sure I like them, subtle and supple but flap against the fingerboard. I sure wouldn't blow 80 usd on strings for an 80 usd bass!

It's when I lift my finger off after playing the string. playing an open string no longer rattles. Also, I already did the credit card trick and the frets were even. Guess I'll just see it go away when I get better then

Hey all, just purchased a strap from Abd I’ve been wanting to try for ages. Well packaged, good comms and great price. So all good and I’d happily deal with again, thank you very much. Peace.

On a Roscoe 3005 I once had, I fitted a Babicz bridge which is 19mm spacing. The neck was wide enough to accommodate the extra 2mm per side and there was no change to the string sound balance from the pickups. Its a reversable option rather than missing out on a great bass. 👍

What do you mean by free and rest strokes? I've not heard the terms before.

The baby LFSYS is excellent and hard to beat, imho. As you have a PJB amp and want a clean sound with a fretless, I must (as a PJB user) suggest you also check out a PJB C4. I have a couple and they sound clean and open and are surprisingly pokey. One would certainly do a great job for pit gigs.

in my defence I’m constantly unsupervised

Love Is The Seventh Wave - Sting

That exact thing happened in a band I was in, guitarist put in ear plugs to “save his hearing dudes” then proceeded to turn up 3 times louder than the rest of the band cos he couldn’t hear himself.

Is it not just the capacitors/opamp filling up after being empty?

Nice to see a quirky bass made usable.

It's a slippery slope/vicious circle. They play too loud, cause damage to their hearing, turn up to be able to hear themselves, cause more damage to their hearing, turn up, etc, etc... Guitar players who wear earplugs are just as bad. They turn up because they can't hear themselves because of the plugs and wreck everyone else's hearing. If the rest of the band wears plugs in self-defence, the volume goes up even more because nobody can hear themselves properly.

There's nothing at all wrong with ceramic pickups, but in this instance the point is that neodymium pickups are the essence of the Bongo's unique tone. It was the first EBMM bass to feature those magnets, and was probably one of the first basses anywhere with that type of pickup. Allied to that four band preamp, those pickups give the Bongo it's incredibly powerful output and tone. Without that formula you are may well be left with just a funny-shaped bass that ain't that cheap. I love the Bongo, always have done. At these prices, like others have suggested, I'd look out for a used USA one.

Great to see it coming back to life. These are such nice basses, they were outstanding for their price point when they came out.

It's true, they are.

Is the rattle just when you lift your finger off or whenever you play the open string? The first could be technique, in which case it will improve as your technique develops, especially damping. If the second the nut could be cut low, still not enough neck relief, action too low especially if your playing style is quite aggressive) or a high fret. Hard to diagnose without the bass in my hands! You said you checked for high frets with a credit card. Something longer such as a 150 - 300mm rule is better. In the short term raising the action a little if you find the rattle intrusive.

Say Hello Wave Goodbye - Soft Cell

Surf's Up - Beach Boys