Grahambythesea

The Greek is right, play with your ears not your eyes. If you do miss "fret" a little slide into pitch. But listen to double bass players particularly Jazz bassists, you will hear that even great players aren't precisely on note all the time . It's part of the charm and the sound of fretless playing and double basses.

A great fella to deal with! We met up in Shrewsbury to hand over the bass which was interesting. Shrewsbury really needs to sort out their traffic problems! We had great email communications. Enjoy playing the bass Francis.

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1487609270' post='3241185'] I think you've hit the nail on the head. There's a few exceptions but when was the last time you saw a player you looked up to with a Gibson bass? Especially compared to their 6 strings, I'm struggling to think of many players with even the T-Bird which I'd guess is the most abundant model. Caleb Shcofield (Cave In) and his Grabber and John Curley (Afghan Whigs) and his T-Bird are the 2 main ones for me but even Caleb switches between that and a P. If the classic models were more widely used and maybe just easier to get hold of then more people would use them. [/quote]. Kyle Eatwood has a fretless Gibson Bunny Burnell, but that must be the shortest lived signature model ever. He probably has one because Bunny was his tutor.

I was over in the US recently and tried the Gold Tone mini bass in a shop. Has those weird rubbery strings but it sounded really nice acoustically. Not enough to actually use in earnest but nice for practicing. Was on sale at $399 which I suspect is a lot cheaper than either the Taylor or the Guild.

You can blame anyone who voted to leave the EU! It's messed our currency completely. Just been in the States and what we have to pay for a $ would be laughable if didn't make things so expensive.

Dark tort. I used to have a white P with white PG and it didn't look good.

I love the contrasting woods. Is it really light, I was always under the impression they were heavy.

I'll give a shout for the Spector Spectorcore which also has a Piezo bridge (Fishman). Within budget 4 & 5 string versions very well made and it has an 'f' hole!!!👍🏿😉

The generally negative views expressed here seem to have been born out in low sales. Andertons currently offering the violin burst 5 string for a mere £699 and the website says they e 6 in stock! Must regret ordering them. Their video sound test makes them sound very versatile. The square shoulders give them a slab body look which makes them look a bit different and didn't show up in the original pictures released by Gibson. Anyone bought one yet?

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1501403086' post='3344409'] Shouldn't that be the other way round? [/quote]yes, that's what I meant. I'm surprised Gibson/Epiphone haven't sued! They stopped everyone else from producing lookalikes.

Does anyone else think the Embassy looks remarkedly like the Fender Dimension?

I wonder why the Mexican version of the 5 string has a 5 tuners in line head whilst the US model. Has the more popular 4 + 1 format? Are they using up the old jazz 5 string necks which used to have the 5 in line head? The Andertons deal offers a Mexican 5 for £599 while they are also offering the US made Gibson EB 5 for £699. I know there is not a lot of love for the Gibson but it does seem great value by comparison.

Other than sounding different to Ps/Js/MMs are there any other advantages? Do they weigh less, hang better, have better necks? If not then they are not going to sell and their future looks doubtful. Fender seem happy to scrap lines, remember Cabronita?