tauzero

I agree with the Steinberger bridge, not so about the scale length - it's half standard scale. However, it would take the cost up somewhat from £400. I can't see there being an enormous market in mini-basses, so having them spread across a range of prices is better for both maker and buyer than having them all clustering about the same amount.

MihaDo Fingybass arrived earlier today yesterday. Seems nicely made. Fretting is good, there's a little buzz from playing bottom C on the B string but that's it (and even that might be due to me not fretting the string firmly enough). Chamfered edges, the body extension along the neck gives clearance all the way up the fretboard. Nut clamp is a piece of brass bar with grub screws for the clamp. As can be seen, tuning uses a 3mm Allen key and is very smooth. I think I'll put another strap peg in on the lower bout so it doesn't get scratched up. As can be seen, it has 2 3.5mm sockets - the lower one is the headphone socket (jack socket is switched off when headphone socket is switched on), and I think the one just by the switch is an input, allowing playing along with bangin' choonz. Intonation was almost spot on, just needed to move the bridge a couple of millimetres on the low B side. Controls are volume and tone, as you'd expect, and sound is pretty good. Next thing is some experimenting with effects and EQ.

MihaDo Fingybass arrived earlier today yesterday. Seems nicely made. Chamfered edges, the body extension along the neck gives clearance all the way up the fretboard. Nut clamp is a piece of brass bar with grub screws for the clamp. As can be seen, tuning uses a 3mm Allen key and is very smooth. I think I'll put another strap peg in on the lower bout so it doesn't get scratched up. As can be seen, it has 2 3.5mm sockets - the lower one is the headphone socket (jack socket is switched off when headphone socket is switched on), and I think the one just by the switch is an input, allowing playing along with bangin' choonz. Intonation was almost spot on, just needed to move the bridge a couple of millimetres on the low B side. Controls are volume and tone, as you'd expect, and sound is pretty good. Next thing is some experimenting with effects and EQ.

Second-hand, or have you found a really cheap source?

I had a Superfly, later replaced it with the Superduperfly (2x500W instead of 2x250W). Got a bit warm and there was a faint twitter always present (not audible to the audience). The EQ was great, graphic or parametric (using the editor) and switchable with MIDI. I did suggest to Ashdown that they package the EQ up and flog that as a pedal (it worked for Source Audio) but they politely thanked me and didn't.

Tecamp Puma 900. Bought second-hand a few years ago, still my favourite.

There's another thread somewhere about relic basses, but I will say that as someone who makes some sort of effort to look after his basses, seeing something that not just looks distressed [1] but has been deliberately made so sets my teeth on edge. Even if it is a Fender. [1] To quote Pterry, "It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed', although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well."

Could you let me know what they were too?

Headed basses. Get rid of the headstock and that cures tuners on headstocks, strings not parallel, misaligned tuners, and neck dive. Strings being wound on tuners in the wrong direction. Performance related - leads being chucked into a bag with no attempt to coil them. Wall wart power supplies with the lead wrapped round the body of the power supply.

Are you sing it with a GR-55 or GR-20 or similar? The Roland pickup goes into the internals of the pedal, the existing output is split out in the pedal to a separate output. Annoyingly, my existing output is only available from the jack socket. Must get that sorted out sometime.

I liked 3, quite liked 1 & 2. Without hearing the bass without effects it's difficult to know but I did get the feeling that 5 might have had the least effect on the actual tone of the bass but not so happy with it. 4 was pretty awful. TBH any of 1, 2, or 3 would do me in a pinch (which isn't to say that I wouldn't look for the exact sound I wanted).

The Sale of Goods Act is completely irrelevant. It was replaced by the Consumer Rights Act in 2015. Under that, if it fails and you return it in the first 30 days, you are entitled to a full refund. If you discover the fault in the first six months, the retailer has one opportunity to repair or replace, after which you are entitled to a full refund (or partial refund if you want to keep it). If it's more than six months, you have to prove that the item was faulty when you received it. Rather more information available from https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act. Mrs Zero used to be head of customer services at an online clothing company, and I have had my ears bent about this.

Variax. Then you get the sound of lots of different basses.

Contents may settle during transit.

Some may recall the 15-string horror Tennessee that regularly appeared on Ebay. Some may have almost managed to forget it. It was a dreadful bastardised thing that started out as a 10-string. Well, in my research for Chodearodearas, aka Chinese Foderas, I found this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000165811793.html Who could resist a 17-string?

The 6-string version is under £300 inc shipping from Aliexpress (couldn't spot the 5-string).

Whose turn is it to post it next week?

I was almost tempted but it's a crap defret, it's passive, and something horrible has been done to the body between the fretboard and neck pickup - some sort of homemade slap groove? So it would be either a big project or parts, and it's not quite worth it for parts.

Same goes for the OP...

How much of the neck was actually present?

All the comments are going a bit wide of the original subject. Time to say good bye.

And string spacing in mm. I do height and weight in cm and kg, generally measure in metric, torque in Nm, longer distances in miles but can switch to km (ditto speeds). Finding it hard to move from psi to bar. Oh, and I don't much like Al-necked Kramers, from my having a play of a former band-mate's many years ago. It got used as one of the instruments pxed for my first Warwick (I gave said bandmate the money that the shop credited me for it, £75).

The Warwick Nobby Meidel isn't something you see every day. I think that this is the first fretless one I've seen though. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warwick-Nobby-Meidel-Fretless-Bass-Guitar/392973829355 It was a bit more of a bargain before then: https://www.richtonemusic.co.uk/product/warwick-nobby-meidel-fretless-bass-guitar-no-015-w-bag-2nd-hand-ywarwick64213/

Even longer than that, the UK has been metric for 55 years. It just takes the more benighted of the population a long time for it to sink in.

I used metric hex keys, the same as I did for the previous ones I put on another bass, and the same as I did for the replacement ones. Strings Direct checked them when I sent them back and also found them faulty. I like the bit that goes onto the strap but I just don't see the point of the one-piece peg.