Boodang

That's basically how the KSM Foundation bridge works which I'm tempted to put on my jazz.

As a fretless player I'm quite taken by the sound of this bass, at least what I've heard of it on YouTube. Love the fact that the fingerboard is continuous and apparently there's a magnetic pup under the board. There's going to have to be some serious saving up for this one but I'm tempted.

This reminds me of the Ray Ross bridge and his 'tone pin' solution. I think the only reason to put one on a bass is to make it look different but they're not cheap.

... or an EUB with no markings!

As @Mudpupsaid, a source audio aftershock will give you loads to try out in one pedal. I'm using a TC Electronic spectradrive and there's a lot of toneprint drive/fuzzes to experiment with, but unlike a multi effects it's v simple to use and has a 4 band eq and comp.

To mis-quote the Shrek line to describe the jazz/groove trio I played in, it wasn't getting us to play that was the issue, it was getting us to shut up. The set was made up mostly of stuff from the 70s (think tv theme music), with plenty of improvisation. If we weren't feeling particularly inspired the set would still over run, but on a good night the improvisations could easily triple the length of a song and the keyboard player, as good as he was, would be in a world of his own. Playing a gig in Northampton, we were feeling particularly inspired, no break between sets, heads down and thoroughly enjoying our improvisational genius (well in our heads we were genius!). Then, all we could hear was drums as the PA stopped working. Management had pulled the plug and came over to sort of apologise but mostly to say it was the easiest way to shut us up given that it was closing time and we weren't paying attention to his gesturing. We were still feeling quite chuffed with our playing but the managements parting comment was that 'we were quite good but next time could we play more than just one unrelenting song'. We felt slightly less chuffed as we packed up.

Ah, the 'we've booked you by accident' syndrome. Was in a folk/rock band, there was a local festival which was quite popular, we submitted a demo to try and get on the lineup but we'd put it in late and wasn't surprised to not get selected. Then, with not long to go and thinking we were just going to be in the audience, we got a call saying there had been a last minute cancellation by one of the acts and could we oblige. Of course was the answer but was very surprised to learn that the organisers had put us on as the headline band. Now we had been around for a bit, so in our egotistical minds this seemed plausible. Come the day, the organisers were chatting to us so no suspicions about mistaken identities. Then, the MC announces us with the line 'we're really excited to have booked this band, we've been trying to get them here for years...', at which point we all look at each other with wtf faces, ' please welcome THE *****'. Turns out we had the same name but without 'THE' in front of it as the band they thought they'd booked. We had never realised there was a band out there with a similar name as the 'real' band were doing much bigger gigs than us and our paths had never crossed. Well, no time to think about it, we went on and the set went down well. The organisers were happy and said they really enjoyed our new material. We never told them!

Did you ever forgive said drunk band member?!

... under £200 and probably has a better bridge than the original.

All mahogany construction, set neck, body & neck binding... actually looks quite good. At this price I'm sure the hardware and finish isn't the best but still, looks quite serviceable.

Yep, Percy Jones was a huge influence, especially the Brand X days back when Phil Collins was playing proper drums!

I had one back in the day... lovely bass, wish I'd kept it.

Wilkes used to put 'percussive' plates on their fretless basses.

What were the reasons he chose Vigier?

The fretless I want to get is the Vigier Passion delta metal... but the through neck model not the latest bolt on (I much prefer thru neck). I played one many many moons ago at the bass centre, very nearly bought it but went and got a custom made instead. You very rarely see them up for sale s/h. For some reason they changed the name from 'delta metal' to 'iMetal'! As the current trend seems to be to put 'i' in front of everything.

Ah, that would have worked a treat!

It is v heavy! I play sitting down these days but I wouldn't want to stand all night with this around my shoulders. But the sound is great and I love the profile of the neck. I've got a custom creamery pickup in this one, i pluck the strings over the end of the neck and the sound is huge, a lovely woody tone i can't get with any other bass, even my most expensive custom.

Oh, and forgot to say the moral of this particular story; the best bass to fend off an attack from an irate vocalist is of course... a Fender.

Another own goal... I was in an originals band, the guitarist was also the vocalist, he wasn't convinced his vocals were the best so we thought we'd get someone in. The vocalist we chose had a great voice but we weren't sure it was right for the music, so a few gigs were booked as a tryout. By the time of the 'incident' I was getting fed up as the new vocalist would always turn up late after everything was setup and disappear as soon as we'd finish. We were playing at a small pub, the song in question had the lyric 'you call out my name' just before the middle 8, at which point I 'inadvertently' blurted out 'w*nker' at the top of my voice just as the band dynamics went quiet. The vocalist instantly turned around and came at me, I'm trying to fend him off with my bass whilst still playing, the band keep playing but have joined the audience in that they've turned around to face the debacle at the back of the stage and are laughing. I wasn't sure how long I could keep up my defence when the vocalist, in the spirit of the show must go on, went back the mic. After the show I expected more of the same but he did his usual disappearing act but this time for good, which did solve this issue of whether he was going to stay in the band. Of course, once the band realised he wasn't coming back he became the greatest vocalist ever and apparently it was all my fault we were now not going to reach the dizzying heights of fame!

That reminds me of the time I got asked to sit in for a mate of mine who was going away for a couple of months. A trio mostly doing Hendrix and the like, no rehearsal before the first gig but I did get a sit down acoustic evening with the guitarist just to go through any tricky bits. 1st gig went ok and it gelled quite well. 2nd gig, feeling confident (and I still don't know to this day why I did it), I thought, I know what this band needs to pep it up, we should do Hendrix with a double bass. So without announcing it beforehand I turn up to the venue with just my DB. Almost worth it for the look on the guitarist face when he realised A. I was serious, and B. There was no alternative/going back now. I thought it went really well, especially the bits where I got out the bow (again a great surprised looked from the guitarist). The guitarist however was under the impression that the band had taken a dramatic musical turn for the worst but give him his dues he did think it was an interesting experiment... so long as I didn't repeat it (yes, after all that he still let me do the other gigs but double bass and firewood were used in the same sentence). Interestingly I'm not sure the audience noticed much difference!

Is playing sitting down an option? I do most of my gigs on a drum stool these days. I got a back injury from surfing and yoga / core strength exercises helped a lot.

My Westone Thunder... first bass I owned.

One of the ways I warm up for a gig when I'm playing bass is to use a drum practice pad and go through some fundamentals. Drumming definitely helps your bass playing and vice versa.

It's never too late! Always played bass but bought my daughter a drum kit when she was young and I ended up playing it more than her. Upshot was I took up drums as well. The drum kits are not so much the issue as the interest in percussion it sparked, so now the house is full all sorts of weird instruments half of which I got because they looked cool but only played once.

I hope the nose bleed happened during a suitably rock n roll song!