Mrbigstuff

Your track record suggests you don’t need much persuasion 😂

Number 1 for jazz/ fretless styles is an Overwater fretless Number 1 for replicating a P bass with flats is my fender P bass with La Bella flats Number 1 for replicating Jazz bass with steel sound is a Squier VMJ with MB steels Covers most of my needs

ditto! The essence range also seems very popular in the states and the demo vids I’ve seen sound great too. The online shop still has some tasty examples left.

Alembic for 70s and Ken Smith for 80s

There’s a Sire U5 in the classifieds

I like both. It is definitely harder to engage an audience with originals that they are not already familiar with and even more so as an amateur band in the local pub or small venue. Seeing the audience dancing/ singing along ect gives a certain energy that makes covers more satisfying to play. However, I have never played for a big artist on large stages/ festivals and I imagine that is a fantastic experience and those I know who do that prefer it over the function gigs.

I tend to be able to get a sound I like from either a passive P or Jazz. Used both active and passive in the past on gigs but always found with an active bass I’d mess around with the pre too much and despite being happy at soundcheck, then have a different opinion when the show started and focus too much on that.

I was going to suggest taking it to The Gallery but for the price of the travel you could get a very decent bass 😂

😍 As a pair they look sublime

Personally wouldn’t mind paying a fair whack more somewhere like ATB guitars just for the peace of mind that you’re getting what is advertised.

Dealers increase the markup then consumers buy as an investment. Never ending loop until they only trade hands with collectors.

Gigging/ rehearsals ect is a big effort, especially when only for a hobby. If on top of that the band doesn’t value what you bring to mix as a person, there’s no way I’d bother.

More due to circumstances more than anything I have a spread; Squier, Fender Mex and an Overwater. You can easily see why the prices differ and the Fender has needed a bit spending on it but I play all 3 equally depending what the music requires.

Do a search on here or Facebook

Yeh tried half round and just felt it didn’t sound quite as good. The bass is too good to compromise on tone.

Jam nights at local pubs might be of use for building the local network.

You’re right that it’s more trails than grooves. Not really sure if it has an affect on sound/ tuning. If it’s something best left to professionals I’ll probably keep using it until it’s worse. Might decide to get in coated as well.

I don’t think Steve will be paying that to get it back somehow.

Yeh definitely ebony. I had the same thing on a Warwick fretless but didn’t have it long enough to worry about.

You have a pretty new bass so can definitely be let off this time

I don’t like the sound of flats on my fretless jazz so use rounds. Only issue is it’s an uncoated Ebony board and gets the usual string grooves. Are these easy enough to sand down with fine sand paper? Are there any pitfalls to doing this?

They’re both doing their best effort to ignore you

If the cash value is better used elsewhere, sell all but the MM. Unless it’s required for your job, no one needs more than one bass and the MM can cover the majority of styles. Having said that, I had a US stingray for a birthday gift and found it so underwhelming that sentimental value wasn’t enough reason to keep it.

If you decide to go down the route of a custom build with them I highly recommend. I’ve ended up with a bass far superior to a Fender at a similar price and I was able to choose the spec how I wanted (even though I went pretty standard)

I hope this is true. It will make all these years practising on a crappy Squier VM worth it.