BigRedX

IME unless you are going go and buy in person Ishibashi are the only Japanese seller who are properly geared up to deal with foreign sales. I've bought 4 or 5 times from them without any problems, so long as you remember to figure in postage and import charges. Trying to buy on-line from anywhere else like Digimart has been an exercise in futility.

IME the back button rarely works properly on any forum (mostly because it results in threads not being properly marked as read or not), and I always use the site navigation tools instead. That's what they are there for.

There are always shortcuts available to any "career" if you are lucky enough to know the right people and be in the right place at the right time... Are you the best friend of anyone whose band has just had 2 singles at the top of the UK charts, have a massive record company advance (or 2), and who have recently sacked their bass player?

I may have misunderstood the OP, but I read the question as being what Fender Jazz bass would cover all your bass playing requirements, and I replied that there is no Fender Jazz bass that does that for me which I see as a perfectly legitimate reply. I would have posted the same if the question had been about Gibsons or Rickenbackers. I think it is naive to assume that everyone is happy or able make do with a traditional bass of some description.

I briefly owned a Squier VM fretless Jazz when I was getting into playing fretless bass almost 20 years ago. I hated pretty much everything about it. I didn't sound as good or play as well as the £70 Wesley Acrylic defretted bass that it was supposed to replace; and when used standing up with it on a strap I couldn't properly reach the G-String machine head, although I had no problems with the much larger Overwater Original.

But they are so boring... IMO the only way to be more boring than having a Jazz would be to have a Precision.

Neither the image, nor the string count of a 4-string Fender bass suits any of the musical projects I am currently (and likely to be in the future) involved with.

I don't think there's any music I've gone from loving to hating. There are some genres that I'm less interested in than I used to be like prog, trip hop and progressive house/trance, but I still enjoy listening to anything I liked enough at the time to buy on record or CD. There are some songs that I would be happy to never have to listen to again, whose enjoyment was killed by having to learn and play them when I was doing Dad Rock covers, but none of those were ones I liked enough to actually buy when they were originally released.

I've got what is now called the M80 Classic which was bought back when it was simply the only M80 case for bass. From a protection PoV it is great and probably better than many "hard" cases. It also has the advantage that it can be squeezed into spaces in a tightly packed car without worrying about damaging the instrument inside. However, as I have said before, as a gig bag for carrying the bass any distance it fails miserably. It is simply too uncomfortable to wear for any length of time. The straps are too close together where they join the top of the case which makes it awkward across the shoulders, and bottom hangs so low that each step causes it to slap against the back of my legs. To me it seems as though Mono have simply enlarged the guitar version of the case without considering the practical implications of adding an extra foot to the length. Also after 10 years the main zipper is starting the wear out at the bottom of the case, so it is not longer safe to unzip it fully. When it finally fails I doubt I will buy another one to replace it, unless I knew I would never have to walk any distance carrying a bass in it again.

And the OP has admitted that they intend to break the law on a publicly accessible part of an internet forum that is indexed by all the major search engines...

Do you have a multi-meter? If so you could check for electrical continuity between the bridge, vibrato mechanism and the control plates, before going to the trouble of taking the bass apart to check for missing/disconnected earth wires.

Could be. Might also be the single coils pickups and this amp is making the noise more apparent. Does it go away if you touch the switch plate as well as the one with knobs on? What about if you select the middle along with either the neck or bridge pickups (these combinations should be hum cancelling)?

@kodiakblair Most people on here who want tools for working on their instruments want them only for that purpose, and so specialised tools from StewMac and the like are ideal for them, as they can buy them and then get on with job. I used to be a keen DIYer until my expectations outstripped my abilities in that field, and I've made guitars in the past (back in the 70s using the IM articles as a guideline), and if I had the time and inclination to build guitars again I would get the required tools off the peg and they would be reserved solely for making guitars. If I can save time and effort buying the right tool for the job, then I will because in the majority of cases for me time is more important than money. Your properties are probably different.

Yes but back then most of the specialised tools required had to be individually modified from the ones that were commonly available. International Musician magazine ran a series of articles by Stephen Delft in the late 70s on how to built your own solid electric guitar. This ran to over 2 year's worth of issues and several months were given over discussions of what tools would be required and what modifications would be needed to those that you bought. I distinctly remember that there were detailed instructions for how to file the set off a standard handsaw to make it suitable for cutting fret slots. These articles also included instructions for making a truss rod from scratch as the alternative at the time would have been to remove one from an existing guitar. Thank goodness for modern luthier's supplies.

True, but most of these people rely to a large extent on word of mouth to get more work, and being a nice person does go a long way towards getting those recommendations.

This most important question you need to ask is: "Is there anything you'd rather be doing than playing music?" If there is you probably don't have what it takes.

You need to have drive, determination and the ability to put all your waking time into being a musician - whether that is actually playing or doing all the background work and networking that is going to get you noticed by people you hope will give you work. In many ways technical ability (so long as you have attained a certain competent standard) on your chosen instrument is less important than being the sort of person people want to be musically involved with and the ability to say yes to any new opportunity no matter when or where it is (so long as it doesn't conflict with something else you've already said yes to).

So long as it looks right to go with the rest of the bass and it is structurally sufficient, I really don't care what the fingerboard is made out of.

But the optimum string height will also be dependant upon both the relief of the neck (and where the lowest point is in relation to the neck length) and the gauge/tension/compliance of the strings, and to a certain extent the scale length. Unless all your basses have EXACTLY the same amount of relief with the lowest point in EXACTLY the same place on the neck and you use EXACTLY the same make/type/gauge of strings on all your basses the right string height on one bass may not be the right string height on another. My system is to raise the action until I get no fret buzz on any string at any fret I am likely to play. If that result in an uncomfortably high action then I'll look at the neck relief, but otherwise that it is.

For me the correct string height is the point at which I no longer get any audible fret buzz through the amp when I really "dig in". The numerical value itself is irrelevant.

Unfortunately I don't recall who it was but it definitely wan't Pino. It might have been whoever played bass on their second album (Get Us Out of Here). He was only on stage for the new songs that had bass and IIRC Alfie played the bass part on "My Room" on an Emulator keyboard. TBH I don't know what all the fuss is about Pino Paladino, he may be a decent musician and a nice bloke, but IMO he's got terrible taste in music. I don't think I have liked anything he's played on from a musical PoV. He's only on one track on Doot-Doot which is the weakest one on the album, and his contribution doesn't really add anything to it.

Before buying a board work out what order you want your pedals, and how accessible each one needs to be from a performance PoV. IME anything that needs to activated mid-song is best placed on the front row where you can activate the foot switch without worrying about inadvertently hitting another one. Save the upper row(s) for pedals that are either always on or those that only need to be turned on and off between songs.

Worst gigs: Propaganda at Rock City on their first major UK tour after "A Secret Wish" came out. Sounded nothing like the album. It was as if a bad rock band had decided to do a set of Propaganda covers without bothering to get a synth player (or two) in the band. Vocals were almost completely inaudible apart from the shouty bit in Duel/Jewel. The NME reviewed another gig on the tour and gave them a royal slagging off for the same reasons. The following week they published a letter from Propaganda's session guitarist complaining about the harshness of the review, with the following week another letter from one of the actual band telling him to shut up and that the NME review was totally right! Fleet Foxes at Nottingham Trent University on their UK tour after their first album. Musically it was fine, but every song was punctuated by ages of dead space with the band tuning up, engaging in banter between themselves and the front row of the audience all of which was totally lost on me and everyone else who wasn't at the front. Would have left after about 20 minutes when it was obvious that this was going to be the pattern for the whole gig, but was there with friends who were surprisingly into it. I have never been so bored at a gig in my entire life. Best gigs: Bauhaus at the Ad-Lib Club, Nottingham 1980. a few months before they released "In The Flat Field". The only time I have seen them play "Bela Lugosi" which they opened with. One of the most intense performances I have ever witnessed by any band. Finished with "Dark Entries" after which the whole band seemingly leapt off stage through the audience to get to the "dressing room" at the back of the venue and were gone before we really realised. No encore, although nothing really could have followed that. Freur at The Marquee in London. At the time Doot-Doot was my favourite album, and unlike Propaganda Freur delivered that great electronic sound faultlessly. Polysics at the Islington O2 Academy Bar. Even the two support bands - The Age of Jets and Kid Carpet were brilliant. Polysics were fantastic, and I went on the see them as often as I could including going to New York to catch them at CBGBs.

TBH I was surprised that it's still going. These days the sorts of artists that get booked for Jools Holland's programmes have little musical interest for me, so I'll stick to my normal routine of avoiding the actual show and instead, check through the recommendations in threads like this in the hope that there will actually be someone that I like (there hasn't been so far in this particular thread).

IMO a back-up instrument should be the same as your main one. Failing that it should play the same and be capable of the same sounds to the point where you could and would be happy to play the whole set with either.