uk_lefty

I bought this recently and it's a bargain, I'd happily gig it. Secondhand the Korean made Warwick's and even German made would fit your budget. Sire do both V5 and V7 around £500 with a nice glossy fretboard.

I've recently acquired a fretless jazz bass. The stock strings are ok for now but soon I'll want to change them for something better. I'm thinking of buying groundwounds for the first time... I want the sound of a round but the fretboard-kindness of a flat. Will I get this from a groundwound? My other fretless has stainless steel rounds, I've also used flats and tapewounds before but I think it has to be either biting the bullet on roundwounds (maybe nickel instead of steel) or trying out ground wounds. Grateful for any opinions and recommendations. Thank you!

Symmetric body... Interesting! Looks amazing.

My board continues to move and change. The SY-1 was not being used much so I sold it off and received an HOF mini in trade. There's room back for the AMT Wah. I had a Thomann order so got a green underlight too just because I could.

Tough one... I'm going to say my Darkglass Duality Fuzz pedal. I was never really one for fuzz, having only had it on multi fx pedals and never really needing it. The last year I've played a lot more modern music and guitar versions of pop songs so the fuzz has become essential for replicating synth tones, especially with a boss OC-2 in front. The Duality is a great pedal, there's so much flexibility in what you can get from it, including a soft and subtle fuzz sound which I've never been able to find before. It was, of course, bought on the BC Marketplace too. Honourable mentions: ABM600 amp head, Sire V9 five string bass, Harley Benton jaco-alike fretless jazz which I've barely touched as it arrived on the day I went away on a work trip.

With my old LMB3 I used to use two settings which were both from the recommended settings in the manual. One was a nice but of compression, nothing extreme, the other was the enhance setting which worked great with fretless bass.

The "Jaco-alike" Harley Benton, in left handed! I wanted the Fender MIJ one but the cost of those is ridiculous and this Harley was obtainable and priced at the amount I received for selling off some pedals. Opinion... Well, I wasn't expecting much. Though these get rave reviews I'd heard good things about Westfield basses and when buying one thought it was awful. This is an excellent bass "for the money" though. My number 1 bass is a US Stingray. It's not as good as that, but it's not 12x worse either. I'm very pleased. My nearest reference points are a 90s MIM Fender jazz I owned for years and possibly one of my Sire basses (I owned a V7 Vintage and now have a V9). The body is not very well matched in terms of woodgrain, you can clearly see the three pieces when up close but gigging I don't expect this to be obvious. The neck feels lovely, I don't know if it's unfinished, but if it's finished it's finished very nicely with satin rather than sticky gloss. The neck is quite chunky, which I like, it is solid and resonant. The finger board is laurel and I want to see what it's like after a bit of oil, at the moment it's a bit dry looking and there's patches that look like wear but could just be how the grain is. Hardware-wise the tuners are functional, I'm not keen on plastic nuts but not offended either, everything seems ok. The electronics are better than expected but if course not to the standard of a Sire or MIM Fender, maybe not far off though. Soundwise this does what I want: jazz fretless sounds! I own a five string fretless but it sounds very dark, this bass has more brightness and natural mwah to it. It feels good to play, not super light but I wouldn't call it a heavy instrument, and the fingerboard is nice and smooth. The bass arrived set up with a decent low action and I haven't checked but to my ear I'm not picking up on any intonation issues. I've only played it through a Positive Grid Spark practice amp and not my ABM rig but amplified it makes the expected sounds! It doesn't scream "premium, complex tones" but it's unmistakably a fretless jazz bass. I'm going to gig this sucker next year. My band mates had never encountered a fretless bass before until I brought mine out on a few gigs and now they're seeing the benefits and understanding it more. This is more a "play at home" tool for me though to explore stuff I do t usually do in the band. I'm very pleased with it. If it cost three times as much I don't think I'd have been disappointed. While I could work through some upgrades to everything except the body and neck, right now I just don't see the need. This bass is likely to be played with not-so-subtle EQ shifts, reverb and frequent chorus, maybe even octaver, so the amount of processing it goes through means I don't think I'll hear much benefit from hundreds of pounds worth of upgrades. Overall a very good use of money if you're after a first fretless, or a backup for gigging.

Also never seen one before, that looks fantastic!! Peavey used to make some brilliant basses.

Good one last night. Marking a year with the band, going back to our "home" venue, also the place I first played with the band on 10th December last year. First half had a few issues... Effects board lost power mid song, so pulled the cable from the board and went direct bass to amp. After the song it turned out plugging my effects power extension into a different socket fired it back up. Then we had an issues with the electronic drums, we had the same in soundcheck but this was really persistent and seemed like it was coming from my bass amp. I was losing volume, or maybe it seemed like that because of the noise coming from a loose connection on the drum kit, and it messed me up for a few songs. I've had issues with the battery pack in the back of my bass coming slightly loose and losing volume so I swapped basses, went direct to amp, tried loads of stuff but just ended up creating more issues. Sorted it all out at half time, second half went without a hitch, all gear worked fine, decent gig with a proper crowd enjoying the festivities. I've been really working on my harmonies and backing vox and feel it's improving a lot. I'm also playing the songs a lot more naturally now rather than desperately trying to remember structures or tricky parts.

Yeah I spotted that one. I know they did these from the US in the late 70's and early 80's but it was the Japanese one specifically I wasn't aware of.

Yes, love the way you describe it!!! I played this many years back at a "reunion" gig for my old band and found the same! Since then I've tried to persuade every band to play this, or Mudd lonely this Christmas, but never with any luck.

Love this rig!!!

Yes and yes. The band I joined a year ago play two Christmas songs for the "home" December gig. Fairytale of New York and Shakin Stevens. The crowd enjoy it more than some of the standard covers. It's really not much extra effort to stick two well known classics in. The way I see it someone will be asking for Christmas songs so you can play the one or two you know and leave it at that. If anyone doesn't like it they can go for a pee or to the bar and normal service resumes two minutes later.

Awesome! I've never seen one either and I do a lot of "research"! Also been looking out for a four string fretless. I've got the Harley Benton jaco-alike on order but tempted to go for something more special and ideally unlined.

You're surely not all suggesting that this was hurriedly slapped together and rushed out for a Christmas cash-in?? 🤔 😄😄😄 Wham can do no wrong, I love this song!!!

Ha! I spotted that one and thought it was very interesting! Is it factory fretless or modified?

Yes. Gorgeous, gorgeous bit of wood, gold hardware, bell brass frets... But somehow I just didn't gel with it and had to move it on to free up some cash. Having more experience now I don't know of I'd be able to get more out of it, but at that price I wouldn't even be tempted to try.

I can't do curly hair. I'm struggling to just do hair.

Isn't it strange how things turn out... My old Warwick Streamer LX has reappeared for sale in a music shop in Wales. I bought it in 2007 for about £450, sold it 2008 or 9 for about the same. If I wanted to buy it now, more than ten years later... £1,599.

Was there an "iconic" or distinct bass guitar that you think of in the years 2000-2009? Warwick maybe? My band have done a "00's night" a few months back and it was successful so we're doing another tonight. We're thinking this could be a way to get out there to more venues so trying to build it up... So at the moment I'm playing a Stingray which is a pretty universal bass from 70's onwards, but if I were to go for something more period correct for the look.... Interested in opinions here. Thanks!

£380 was a giveaway!! I do like an MIJ Fender but almost £1000 is too much in my opinion.... £700-£800 much more realistic, depending on the model.

You missed it when it was listed on the marketplace here for £380

Love the colour combinations, looks like a quality bass.

I had a Black Star BEAM and thought it was great, though you're not getting a decent low B sound out of it. After not using it a while I moved it on, regretted it, got a Positive Grid Spark. I wasn't impressed with the Spark until I managed to update the firmware and download some new bass amp sounds, now I am impressed. I recorded this entirely using the Black Star BEAM. There's loads of layered guitar tracks and two bass tracks I think... https://soundcloud.com/white-collar-fraud/take-on-me?ref=clipboard&p=a&c=1&si=861ba76c87db4da2aafd57cc030a77f5&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing