ForestPoetry

I'm down to just one now, my MIM Jazz. There's some Stagg firewood hidden in a closet somewhere but I don't think that counts! Think I've owned about 10 basses over the years.

I've owned both the Ibby and LTD. Don't bother with the LTD. It looks pretty, but felt cheap and the electronics were hugely underwhelming. As someone on here said before it was like they took a bass and stuck a guitar pre-amp in it. Having to turn the bass EQ knob all the way up to make it actually sound like a bass should be a deal breaker for anyone. Also the "rawwwk" headstock is cringe, and I say this as an avid extreme metal fan of going on two decades. The Portamento? Beautiful instrument. I sold it as I fell out of love with the tone (tend to prefer the simplicity of passive these days and the Barts are great but I did go off them), but it played like an absolutely dream. Very good B string and the piezo is very convincing and organic sounding. I used it (just piezo) on a track on my old band's album and they were all wowed by the sound. I then re-recorded every other fretless part on the record originally done with a Hohner Jazz because I loved the Ibanez so much. I quite miss it actually!

Oh man. If they do the v7 fretless in an ebony board I am ALL OVER that. As if I wasn't GASSing for one hard enough already. When are we going to see these new and improved versions?

I think the Sires are absolutely amazing for what they cost, total Squier killers and I can't wait to get a fretless V7 5 string as soon as I can. £450 for the equivalent of a Fender Deluxe active with a passive switch? No brainer.

I had the 5-string of this for a while. It was great but I sold it on relatively quick. For what it's worth the fanned fret neck was a dream to play, it really does work, and in the dark burled finish it looked stunning. I just couldn't get on with the tone...too thin and snappy. The fingerboard on it is some exotic tonewood that looked absolutely striking but was just too bright in tandem with everything else.

If you want a good headless for not much money you can't beat an old Hohner Jack IMO. Beats the Spirit in my eyes, however they seem to be going up in value these days. I got mine for (I think) £300 from a BCer however I see a lot of them on ebay for around £400 in far worse condition than mine was in (essentially 20 yrs old and not a mark on it).

I owned a fretless 5-string in the spalted Maple finish. It looked nice, felt nice, played nice and the basic tone of it was decent. The pre-amp however was totally underwhelming, seemed voiced more for a guitar than a bass to be honest. Turning the bass boost all the way up to get it to sound like a bass is not the way forward IMO.

That headless one is gnarly!

A friend of mine has a Spectrum bass and I absolutely love it

Beatles, New order, Iron Maiden, Metallica, U2...that kind of stuff.

All Soundgears have rubbish resale value. Probably because they're so ubiquitious. The only ones that seem to have any aftermarket value are the vintage ones. Even the current Prestige ones, I see them selling for about 50% of their original cost, and those are very high spec kit. Great for the buyer obviously! Interesting how you say you don't find it comfortable, I briefly owned the newer version of this (with the burled maple top) and it was effortless, just played itself. The tone left a little to be desired, but that's probably on me, being more of a Jazz guy now than the Ibanez fanatic I was for a few years.

Hnnnng. Stop!

I remember seeing these 2-3 years ago and (being still knee deep in my Soundgear obsession) thought they were just Ibanez copies and was turned off by the headstock. More fool me. These things look super from what I've seen on youtube. Not too expensive either! The Speakeasy version anyway. How do the newer ones compare to the original Nanyos?

I tell you this Configurator tool is dangeroous! Would love to own a Sandberg, this would be about as close to a dream fretless I could get (or maybe with a dark brown coffee table body):

Pretty much any contemporary pop. It has zero artistry to it, and it's always either some castrated sounding male singer crying over some woman, or toxic grrl power Miley Cyrus crap convincing today's young women that being a smartphone addicted airhead with an attitude problem is something to aspire to. It's less music, more cultural engineering. Aside from that I'll listen to pretty much anything as long as it's real. Except Coldplay. And Radiohead.

Totally missed that! Did you get it in the end? Pics?

I've been thinking about getting an electro-acoustic bass, preferably fretless. Something I can noodle around with for fun in my spare time, pretend I can play Latin Jazz, that sort of thing. I've seen a few options out there but it seems fairly limited. I really like the look of that Sigma one but I don't want to be spending more than £250 ideally. Beater budget effectively. is is nescessary to have a larger budget so as not to get a rubbish preamp? In the event I bought a fretted one (as there are many more options available), could anyone tell me how much a good de-fret job (inc. filling in line markers) is likely to set me back? Cheers!

I was amazed the first time I picked up a V3 100w combo. Great tone out of them too. I remember being less than impressed with the earlier Rumble amps.

That's nuts! I love it.

AFAIK the Hohners were designed to be contemporary licensed all-wood versions of the L/XL series Steinies (and the guitar versions). I briefly owned a fretless Hohner Jazz copy that was easily as good as a MIM Fender. Never owned a B series but I had a Jack for a while. Really good instruments, even if they did kind of "defeat the object" of the Steinberger at least in terms of construction.

I wonder what Ed Roman would have to say about all this, were he still around? Really it comes as no suprise to me. There was never any middle ground with Gibson as long as I was aware of them. It was either buy an Epiphone, their version of a Squier for £250 (still really good, although AFAIK Epiphone is effectively a seperate/sister company anyway) or drop at least close to, if not dead on, £1000 for a USA Standard SG or Les Paul or whatever. Outside of collectors and brand obsessives, who's really going to do that when you can spend £600 on a Gordon Smith LP which is probably a better made guitar anyway? To say nothing about how buying out brands like Steinberger et al and effectively bastardising them (and this is me speaking as a Spirit owner) made them less than popular with a lot of people.

^ I love that Sad Lovers and Giants album! Epic Garden Music isn't it? Been rinsing a lot of Heaven 17 and Human League recently. I'd forgotten how much the bass playing on "Penthouse and Pavement's" title track absolutely sizzles!

What an utterly horrifying prospect. I thought the hologram 2pac and Dio were the most asburd, poor taste things I've ever seen in my life.