itu

The neck IS different. Everybody talks about double truss rods, but one thing is the string spacing from nut to bridge, loved it. The neck heel could have been rounded differently though.

Yes, but mine was second hand, and I bought it in '86. £1450 today. (I should have added that it was my first own bass. Decent to play compared to Cimars and Yahayas of the time, and Fender has never been my thing anyway. There was one very good Aria Pro II, but the owner didn't want to sell it for obvious reasons.)

Molds cost an arm and a leg and some more. No wonder Status wasn't investing to a one more mold. I like wide necks, but there are very few 5-string wide ones, and those tend to cost a lot. I did an investment to a Modulus Genesis 5, that I bought from @graham1945. I used it three hours ago in a gig, and it is super stable. Wonderful sound, too. I actually tuned the bass with a Peterson SAM tuner on Wednesday, and it was still in tune after few days and a gig. Excellent performance.

The headline was "NBD, my first Rickenbacker". Years ago I could have written: ORD (old Rick day), my first bass. It was from 1974 and black. From Denmark street, and cost was £400. Lovely. I might try one again, but the price, no way.

Noo, I'm not into that particular bass, but does your wife have a sister, maybe...?

Bassic Status neck was maybe slightly cheaper, but tint and other options raised the price. Jerry Scheff from MG has built few necks every now and then, and those pop up rarely in Reverb. Steinberger bolt-on instruments may also be a base for a custom bass. Check Peavey G-bass. Cheap as chips!

Overrated: SVT, EBS, Fender, flatwounds, Big Muff, P pickup. Underrated: Peavey, Ibanez, and similar equipment used by the numerous garage bands.

Long ago it was Rotosound 606 30-90 SS. Now it has been 40-100 (+120) SS from GHS Long scale + or D'Addario. My basses (including fretlesses) have scales from 33" to 36".

I have had Encore (quick), Finale (very capable & very complicated), and finally, Musescore. Muse has quite good support via their web. There's nice selection of arrangements available (of varying quality, naturally). What I like in it is that it is pretty straightforward after learning its style to make scores. Some details may be hard to understand in the beginning (triplets, oh dear), but it is doable. What I dislike is triplets; some things you do seldom can be found fastest by trial and error. It is not super complicated like Finale, it has more features than Encore. Pricing is decent, too.

While playing lots of covers, the singers dictate the key. Therefore I just played a song in C sharp / D flat major on Friday. I have to say that my reading abilities could and should be far better. I played maybe 5 songs by heart (usually better feel), and some 30 from scores. Some I had transposed to the right key, but not all. That C# is always a chore...

Stan's song theme starts with the neck dots on one string. Connection to school, and learning the neck? (Just guessing.) Chord spacing The more important detail is about why the chords sound good when we travel up the neck, and not so much down low. Well... Frequency doubles when going up an octave. The frequency difference of a played octave is decent around the neck, even down there in the half position. A fifth does not work anymore when you go down low: from 42 Hz (E) to 62 Hz (B) the f difference is only 20 Hz. Not too far from let's say a detuning effect, but muddy anyway. Let's take the basic tuning A, 440 Hz and put a fifth (E, 659 Hz) on top of it. Now the difference is already over 200 Hz, and the sound is fine. The lower you go, the further away the notes have to be. Playing with a piano may be complicated, if the pianist loves to go down. You need a 5 string, or low tuning, or simply stop playing. There has to be some space between you and the next note upwards. Arrangers know this well. Hopefully someone now understands why chords are nice, but not every chord anywhere around the neck. And that we may need to have some space between instruments, if there's a chord, although some unisono or octave playing can be very effective.

Music - composing - arranging - performing - learning - enjoying ... Whatever you do, what's not to like?

The current situation down there suggests that you turn your head to that direction only after Vladimir has left the building.

Giblin and Palladino are the first ones that come to my mind when I hear the word fretless. Willis and Manring, if it has to be more complicated. And John Francis.

@disssa: if you ever think about selling a PCB, or the files, I suppose there are more than two of us that might be interested in few of your creations...

The best is the one that has gone through a professional setup according to your preference.

To understand the capabilities of the pickups you could bypass everything in between the pickup and the amp. One at a time. Yes, a bit long way, but will lessen the need to buy preamps or other parts that could turn out useless. The split of the pickup is a natural step forward, if the mud is too much. If even that does not please your ear, consider new pickups. The basic sound has to be decent, preamp does not add anything that there isn't. Pots - tone & vol & blend - are high end killers. That's why I suggest bypassing them in the first place. They degrade the pickup response. (John East has active blend, which doesn't cut highs. Many preamps are just tone stacks after those ordinary vol, tone, or blend pots.)

Bass probably supports the amazing pianist. Trumpet is good, too, but the piano is really special.

Flathead screws, can not be new, maybe 80's, or 90's. Those bridge saddles look somewhat familiar. Home made, maybe?