I have recently been following fretless basses in the BC Marketplace, particularly 70s Precisions, but having realised how bad my fretless playing is, I had a bit of a re-think. Some nice relic Jazzes on the Bass Gear website caught my eye, including a couple of stack-knob early 60s replicas, so I fore-warned Barrie (Molan of this parish) and took a trip down to Twyford this afternoon. I took my Streamliner and Midget for ease of comparison with what I already have.
After a welcome cuppa I started working through the possibles in my mental list. I tend to know quite quickly if an instrument is not going to suit me, so after a couple of hours I had tried and put back 8-10 instruments; nothing wrong with them you understand, just not for me. My favourite to that point was a one-off replica of Herbie Flowers '59 stack-knob Jazz (see [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/117779-herbie-flowers-jazz-bass-replica/page__hl__herbie"]original build diary[/url]), fitted with flats. I quite liked the control layout, and the sounds were closer to what I was searching for, but it wasn't saying 'take me I'm yours'.
When offered a try of the one other flats-loaded fretted bass in the shop, I thought it rude to refuse, so I found myself holding the '73 Precision pictured below. Consider this: I reckon not to like woody-looking finishes and maple fretboards, I thought my Precision itch was already being scratched my my Sandberg, and I wasn't even [i]looking[/i] for a P. But when I started playing this one, I just kept on playing, knocking out on-the-spot bass lines, and enjoying the range of the passive tone control and its wonderful sweet spot. Unsurprisingly, it came home with me. Playing it at home only served to confirm I had made the right decision, as I played along with iTunes set to shuffle and routed through my studio speakers.
Thanks Barrie, Vic and Phil for putting up with 3 hours of my noodlings! I am one happy bunny.