Boodang

Just the sound of the recorder, no matter how well played, just sends shudders down my spine as horrendous memories of school music lessons come flooding back!

Just because a bassoon is expensive doesn't mean the price of a Fedora is justified. I can see how an acoustic instrument could be expensive but I'm at a loss, given the materials used, to see where the money on a solid bodied bass guitar is spent when they're pushing the prices that Fedora charge. Am I offended? Only mildly as people will pay what they are willing. Is it Fedora value for money, in terms of what it cost to make I very much doubt it, in terms of what it brings to the person who bought... well, if they love it then yeah. Incidentally I'd love to know how much it costs for Fedora to make one of their instruments. The £12k bass in the SBL video, what do we reckon? 2 to 3 k tops? If that, it is a solid body after all. That's a 9 to 10k profit, quite a mark up!

Give the Bose Sleep buds a go, they will take your mind off it. I don't just use them when I'm trying sleep, the sounds can 'transport' you so if I fancy reading on a tropical beach, i load up the 'waves lapping on a beach' file and there i am... in spirit anyway! For me the Bose has been a revelation and I couldn't live without them.

Not forgetting the EBS Valvedrive.

True in the sense that they can't 'fix' tinnitus but it can be caused by a broken or bent hair in the inner ear (caused by constant loud noise) which will then create noise signals without any stimulus. Out of interest one thing I've found that has helped me.... Bose sleep buds! Now, they're not noise cancelling or indeed even wireless headphones but what they do is play sounds which you select from the Bose library, things like waves, camp fire, rain forest, there's loads. When I want to read or it's quiet and I find myself more conscious of the tinnitus, I put these on and it seems to distract my mind from it. But not so distracting I can't read. Also helps with what it says on the tin ie going to sleep. Expensive but awesome bit of kit.

The model J is a great pup but as a split coil it's not going to give you that single coil toppy air. Having said that, if you want a beefier tone this is a great choice and the coils in each pup can be switched series/parallel as well. So lots of tonal choice.

Another option if you like the feel of the Jazz but want a beefier tone.... replace the single coil pups with some Thunderbird ones (Mike Lull makes some nice ones) or replace each jazz pup with a musicman one for a monster sound!. Will need a luthier to do a bit of routing, and there's no going back, but it will give you a bassier tone for sure.

The bass I drag out for our Status Quo tribute band gigs down the Dog & Duck.

PS want to slow down and groove more? Then get a double bass. Even if you just use it for practice, it will change the way you approach bass playing in general. Even a cheap EUB, like the Stagg, will do the job.

I love the story of when Jaco first started playing with Weather Report. He really goes for it and Zawinul just says, look we know you can play, you just need to chill a bit. Not in the same league but I was in a band, I hated this one song and decided to sabotage it by playing the absolute minimum amount of notes I could when we were in the studio. When we finished recording the band congratulated me on my best, most sensitive playing yet!

A 7 string bass will give me more freedom, but a 4 string will give me more focus, ah, frets, ideal for chordal work but a fretless is more expressive, ooh that's a nice acoustic bass guitar arch top, but a double bass might do it better especially if I get an expensive bow and learn how to use it... ooh, what's that shiny thing over there, a new pedal I haven't tried out, hmm I think I need a new boutique bass to play through it, ah but I could get that cheap Squier and spend hours agonising over custom replacement pickups........ = my average week.

Even though it's just a tool, a bass can inspire you. It could be a cheap bass or an uber expensive boutique bass, either way if it achieves that then it's doing it job.

If the instrument improves how you feel about music, then go for it. Definitely my answer is, balls to it and buy what makes you feel good.

Incidentally if you're after the classic Jazz tone, then active pickups (and to a certain extent active preamps if they have buffered blending... see end of this comment) are not the way to go. Passive single coil pickups when blended using a passive preamp are 'interactive' in that some of the signal from each pickup 'bleeds' into the other. This has the affect that some frequencies are reduced and others enhanced. If you have active pickups then they are buffered so this doesn't happen. The same if you have passive pickups but an active preamp which buffers before blending and thus prevents the interaction of the pickups. The East retro preamp has a switch so you can have buffered active or un buffered passive blending, but not all active preamps have this and is something to consider when choosing a preamp for a Jazz.

The Overwater looks good... starting from £3900.

The solderless/plug and play system is not the issue, it's that you can't put active pickups in series. Active pickups (and we're talking pickups not preamps) have an op amp built into the pickup itself to boost the signal, consequently the pickup is buffered by the op amp and you can't feed the signal of one pickup into another... so parallel only I'm afraid. You'll need to install passive pickups if you want to do that.

That can be an issue but not as bad as the left hand of the keyboard player which no amount of eq can cure. My preference is to play in the piano/bass/drums trio format, so now I only work with piano players who are missing their left hand..... I'm currently unemployed.

I think the reason I'm learning toward the Stradi rather than the Shuker is that among their standard options is a carved top and chambered body, the latter of which I'm particularly keen on.

This Shuker Uberhorn is currently for sale on their site at £3400. Looks gorgeous and has a tri tone colour finish that changes in different light conditions. Interestingly it lists this as having the Headway Snake piezo installed which is Headway's budget piezo model. I'm sure Shuker know what they're doing but I'd want to know the reasoning for that before shelling that kind of cash. Shuker basses do look the mutts nuts tho.

Can't go wrong with a Squier but I did try out a Yamaha TRBX304 and was quite impressed, especially as an all rounder. And have to say, I haven't tried the Revelation basses but if I had 400 quid to spend I'd give one a go at those prices.

At the risk of repeating myself (but I'm going to anyway!), every Jazz should have a series/parallel switch... cheap and easy to do, still retains the original sound but unlocks a humbucking sound which is already sitting there waiting to be unleashed with a simple switch mod.

I changed my preamp to a 2 vol, 2 tone, early jazz setup but it came with the option of a series/parallel switch. Series mode really changes the character of the bass and has solved the issue you are talking about... at least for me anyway. Thicker bass tone, less brittle sound. I also put an alnico 2 magnet in the bridge position as that has a more mid emphasise, but left the neck as an alnico 5. A series/parallel switch will let you go from standard jazz sounds with the nuances of the pickup blend, to a wide spaced humbucker.

Plus some interesting finishes, including a thin layer of stone (some kind of slate apparently) which they can put on as a veneer on the body top.

The 'normal'version.

At this price it'll be worth a trip to Poland to try one out. Your right about the violin corners, they're custom made though so they'll change anything. Also they do a version with a 'normal' body but I like the look of this one!