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Copper foil helps - but it's not as efficient, and it gets crap quickly with gain pedals. And you never really know about interference levels at a new venue until you get plugged in and maybe find out it's going to be a horrible night. Can't be dealing with that!

Add doozy into the equation...

The pots on my trusty headless Hohner B2A have become unacceptably noisy. The serial number suggests it is from 1987 so that isn't surprising. I do find this bass useful for travelling or jam sessions where there is no space and it sounds good. I am trying to replace the pots but have hit a few issues. The original pots have a 3/8" threaded shaft so the holes in the body are about 9.5mm diameter. They are long shaft mini pots e.g. total length about 27mm and body about 17mm diameter. 2 x A500ohm for volume and one B500k ohm for tone. I have spent hours looking for the exact replacement pots and they just don't seem to exist. Modern mini pots generally have a 7mm thread which is loose in the hole. There isn't room in the cutout for full size pots which do have a 3/8" threaded shaft. I can probably make a short bush to space the shaft out with some 3/8" brass tube 18SWG brass tube, but that will be a bit fiddly. Also the inside of the body cutout is not parallel with the outside so the pot doesn't sit flat. I might be able to get a chisel to it, but again rather fiddly. A drastic approach would be to take a fretsaw and remove the cutout entirely and replace it with a home made brass fascia plate which I can paint to match the black gloss guitar, but that is likely to look a bit of a botch.

"Dimed". Just say "full" or "maximum", we're British [1], not bloody Yanks. [1] Most of us, anyway

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