Beedster

That made me smile, glad you got it back and that it's doing what it does best!

Had a lovely, albeit all too brief, reunion with Julian at Aber Station yesterday, during which he handed over a rather lovely SVT-ii. A true gent, in every way, I'm looking forward to having enough time for a beer and proper catch up next time

But we love you for it mate

Ha ha, fair point, although if I hadn't, I would still be playing a crap MIJ Jazz through a Peavey TNT combo, which would have been a far greater mistake.

I know you're not exactly a novice at this stuff Gareth (didn't realise it was you when I posted above), but it still suggests that there's part of the board around the 9th fret that's uneven. I don't see either of the above - low nut and flat board - as de facto problems on a fretless bass, whilst both almost always are on a fretted. I have the nut on my FLs cut to the level of the board, they're only there to keep the strings aligned with each other and the PUPs, not to add any height. I also have zero relief on my FLs. Having said this, playing style, tonal preference, and music genre will be factors in what works.

Uneven board most likely, although taking action up significantly should sort it. Sometimes happens with defretted boards wher the filler has not been fully levelled and sits above the board. Only takes a very tiny deviation from flat for this to happen on a fretless.

The old Modulus Flea Bass is one hell of an instrument, nice one Andy. i used to own one just like that, as well as its predecessor, the Sonic Hammer, an instrument so aggressive that I had to muzzle it. Once you've played a well set-up Flea Bass, every other bass you will play will feel like it has very high action, the quality of engineering is in a different league to any other bass I've played. To extend Ped's comment above, there are graphite necks and then there are Modulus graphite necks. Enjoy

Ha ha, I've seen both TG and Kraftwerk, and yes, not a lot going on in terms of physical movement to be sure. A whole lot more going on it terms of music to my mind

The 'energy' is in the robotic synth lines, which assuming a half decent PA/mix, can sound great live. Shame the PSBs have to occasionally ruin the effect by singing Nicely put

And the overdrive was from a guitar amp, not bass (at least for the pre-1980 stuff for which I guess is what we're talking here). And he hit the strings pretty hard.

Very true, which is also why some 4-string versions of 5'ers (TRB as per my previous post) also don't seem to work as well. So many variables influence how and instrument sounds, feels and plays; we have a habit of focussing on PUPs, bridges, strings etc, but there are occasions when switching these can't change the aspects of tone that are a function of the design and dimensions of the instrument.

I don't disagree mate. Something that you can see on the forums here is quite interesting in this context. Someone will advertise a bass, amp, cab, whatever, and it might sit there a while, even months. Then it sells, and within days, sometimes hours, one or more people have posted in 'Items Wanted' for that same item. Why? Possibly because they had got into discussion with the seller, started to anticipate just how good they were going to feel with the new Boogie head or Sadowsky bass, only to find that dream dashed by another pesky buyer. The point is, getting near to something starts a brain/mind process that many people find it hard to step out of*, and eBay know that! The best offer option is about way more than allowing people to sell something a little cheaper. * Regular readers may recognise an autobiographical flavour to this comment

Or you're more likely to simply say 'sod it' and press BIN. The thing is, the moment you make the close offer, you start thinking that it's yours (well, not you specifically, but people generally). OK, it can have the opposite effect and make you so angry that you don't buy it. But you've still done the seller a massive favour, in that the fact that you've made a bid is there for all to see, and that increases the desirability of the item, and might encourage other people to think "Mmm, better buy this before the seller accepts that offer". People rarely buy with their logic, more often relying on their emotions, as eBay (and the BC marketplace) demonstrate daily

Yep, it gets the brain of the buyer engaged, the dopamine flowing, and makes the sale more likely, which is exactly what eBay want; they certainly don't want items sitting around on their listings for months on end, even if they eventually sell for a few pounds more. Funny thing is that adding the Best Offer option can sometimes encourage a buyer to hit BIN, due to the worry that it might now sell very quickly and the possibility that even by making an offer you might lose out.

The answer of course is that Leo created perfection, and no matter how hard you try, you can't get better than perfection. Why does it have four strings? Because that's all a Precision Bass needs. Need more, then you don't need a Precision, you need something else. There might be some more tangible/physical reasons also, such as that below (and having played a few 5-string Precisions - a few cheap ones and one very expensive model - I suspect there's a lot of truth in it). The same type of question can be asked of so many instruments; why were the 90's TRB5s so much better than the four string versions of almost identical spec? I always felt there was some magic about the former, that was perhaps not the result of the number of strings per se, but a by-product of it (greater neck mass, playability?).