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He's started to do little blog thingies... here's the first.

Not if you compare it to its equivalent on a Rickenbacker - and that genuinely is a slapped-on afterthought. Roger Rossmeisl's original design followed the form of the instrument in a way the current "design" doesn't. I think I've only seen a couple of singlecuts that aren't foul. I really have no idea why anyone thinks it's a good idea to add an extra 2kg of timber to a bass and make it look like this: And once you see it, that's all you can see...

Modern singlecuts..... Euuurrghhhhhh...... Bodies like toilet seats *cough* MM Bongo *cough* Multi-string 'basses' that have more notes in the baritone,treble, alto & soprano range than actual bass notes available

I’m loving everything about this. Lakland Bob Glaub. What a beautiful thing, sounds killer and used to belong to Nate Mendel. Lush as

Since @AndyTravis posted a photo of his fine pair...

Ever so very much this ^^ They look like comic book whales to me.

Stingray scratchplate and control plate. For such an "iconic" design they look like a rushed afterthought to me.

It possibly comes under the heading 'functional' (although I've yet to encounter problems without the feature) but I just don't like the of any of those modern single cuts. A traditional single cut looks fine, Hofner Club, Gibson Les Paul, Yamaha Bex4, etc, it's just those with a bloomin' great bulbous top, erm, lump, that I can't get my head around.

*cough*

Maybe Jet Black and Carol Decker?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You're not supposed to touch your face!

One word: Dingwall. I’m sure they’re great instruments but I think they just look ludicrous.

Double Trouble are one of my favourite rhythm sections. Tommy and Chris’ work with Storyville is often overlooked, which is a travesty.

Factory relicing. Will not touch it.

I can't stand Fender P / J bass, Stratocaster shaped headstocks, and the big elephant ear tuners are ugly as sin. In fact I've never got the whole P bass thing. Bland with a side order of ugly.

any any any..six string

Markbass.

Branding on the body. Sandberg make some nice basses but those four dots mean I will never own one. And perhaps more controversially, tortoiseshell scratchplates. I always assume people like them because they invoke a particular era, because visually they make no sense - especially on a sunburst - gross! Highly subjective of course! Edit: I just thought of another one: those big long single cut bodies you so often see on higher end basses. I realise this one is not purely an aesthetic choice, but a horn does the same job, surely?

Au contraire mon ami, the early P/Tele Bass headstock has the most pleasing symmetry and it is the later P Bass that should be confined to a darkened room!

Also cough. The only 4 string I'll ever need. NYC Will Lee. The longer I've had it the more I love it. The Will Lee switch adds a lot of extra mid punch and tonal options to the bass.

The theme from Minder. Not cool but love it. (Dennis Waterman wrote the theme tune, sang the theme tune)

Long Beggs-related story. Feel free to scroll on by. Back in late '86, when I had hair and a discernible waistline, my rock-pop band were making our desperate bid for stardom. We lived in Reading, so it was dead easy to jump in the car and head into London to play gigs. We played quite a bit at the Red Lion in Brentford (RIP) -- our first few gigs there were as support to a guy called Philip Jap (the old farts among you might remember him) and his then band 'Secret Society'. I think he missed a trick by not calling them 'Jap's Eye'. Anyway, he asked us to play support at a party in London and we accepted. Being the mid 80s, slap was still acceptable -- almost mandatory in fact -- and our songs featured a lot of it. A lot. So there I was, thumbing the blazes out of my poor Wal, and it gets to the song with my showoff solo bit... I take a deep breath and go thwack-thwacka-ding wickety-wackety-wockity-dang, and having given it my best I look out at the crowd... straight into the eyes of Nick Beggs. Apparently an ex-label mate and friend of Mr Jap. I had a brief moment of wanting the ground to open up, I mean here's this bass god looking at me and I've just tried to impress this audience with something he could probably have done with one arm tied behind his back. But then his face broke into a big genuine smile, and with a nod he raised his glass towards me. I was walking on air for a month after that. I've bumped into him a couple of times since then, obviously he doesn't remember me but he's always been really friendly and happy to chat. Definitely one of our instrument's Nice Guys.

Absolutely.

And the last job to be done before I start with lots of sanding on the body was to make a control cavity cover. Again, I made a template for this and used an offcut of spalted beech to make a cover.

Next job - use the template to cut the pickup pocket (after carefully measuring to make sure it was central and square). And check again before cutting...

Next task was to make a template for a Musicman style pickup. I've got one template but it was just a little too tight fitting. First thing was to mark out a piece of mdf with the key dimensions Once that was done holes were drilled for the mounting lugs and a few others for cutting out it out using a coping saw. After that I used some pieces off wood pinned to the board ready to use the router to neatly trim the template with a bearing cutter. And the finished template

Its got to be Fodera. They design such beautiful basses and then it looks like they have forgotten about the aesthetics of what the pattern of the preamps knobs will look like. Its a cluster x*"! of knobs that have no cohesive design when it comes to the rest of the body. I don't get it. Jens Ritter does an amazing job. But no, not Fodera. Maybe its substance over style.

I quite like the look of my own one.

This is quite funny, and very true, especially the intro’s bit.

Exotic hardwoods/coffee table basses. "Reliced" (another word for deliberately trashed). Weird shapes, especially angular/pointy. Dozens of strings and knobs. Stupid names/emblems.

Any pretend Fenders - that is, basses with all the features/shape of the original but not. Appreciate they may be better built / higher spec / more upmarket / expensive / boutique, but just make the whole thing more original. I’m looking at you Sandberg, Sadowsky, Lakland etc etc.

Not a fan of Fender shapes - P bass, J bass (body and headstock). Yes some of them are nice to look at - especially those not made by Fender, e.g. Sadowsky, Sandberg et al. - but there's so much out there that looks better. I loathe pickguards, especially tort, especially on Fender-ish basses. I really don't like 'burst' colours, although I'm stuck with them on a few of my basses because there was no lefty alternative. I'm sure I'll think of something else!

This one. Bought new in '88, been with me ever since.

Duck Dunn /Thread.

My new MusicMan Cutlass. Sounds, feels and plays fantastically well

Oh and Warwick Streamers with scratchplates. WTF?

I've only managed eleven of them. You must be one heck of a twitcher. PS: Hi Silvia! @Silvia Bluejay

Oh god. everyone hates sunburst and tort, p/j’s and Fender shaped bass which aren’t fenders... looks like my 2 new additions are just 2 piles of firewood 🤪

Bill Wyman had a great feel for Blues and often played fretless. Definitely influenced by Willie Dixon.

Check on Pino Palladino on the John Mayer Trio album Try! Absolute master class in taste full playing and making a guitar trio sound “full”. Another great example of why Pino should go down as one of the greats! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4396AVR51tE

Gerry McAvoy - played with a pick and everything!

Another +1 for Willie Dixon. I always liked Richard Cousins playing with Robert Cray's band. Also Joey Spampinato from NRBQ, played with Keith Richards and Eric Clapton too (and of course a fan of the Dano Longhorn ☺️ ).

Johnny B Gayden (Albert Collins)

Anything by Wham. LOTS of great basslines on that stuff....

Hmm...😊

Gimme Three Steps has a cool bassline that's fun to jam to.

I have a thing about strings going straight through the nut. So any of those ones where the strings spread out are not for me. I think my favourite is the 3 + 1 on the MM 4 string. Like below: