EliasMooseblaster

Acacia Strain? Is that something giraffes suffer from?

No wonder people were impressed with your tone - I have a TF fretless myself, and it's an absolutely wonderful instrument!

I'll second this - been using a couple of Ashdown all-valve heads for a few years now and - touch wood - no valves or fuses blown to date! Doesn't stop me worrying, of course, but it's worth it for the tone.

It certainly looks like a nice bass - is it a Tony Franklin, by any chance?

Ironically, I seem to recall that one of the main things that confirmed my decision to buy an Epi EB-3 was a demo video where the reviewer insisted it was terrible for slap!

I forgot to mention it in my earlier post, but that was the main motivation for me. I had a couple of projects on the go that had stagnated, and one day I decided that if I wanted to get out and get playing again, I was going to have to take some bold steps in a different direction. (I'd never been to a proper jam night before, so it felt like a bold step to me at the time, anyway!)

Was he so upset that he cried all the way to the chip shop?

I can sympathise with both of your positions - I am possibly one of the world's worst networkers. That said, I took a chance on a jam one night and it marked the beginning of a whole new phase of my musical life. I realise I was probably fortunate: it was a pretty good jam night, which attracted a lot of pro/semi-pro musicians, and I happened to rock up on a night when one of their more regular bass players was away. But although I got a lot of time up onstage, I hardly spoke to anybody, and I certainly didn't make any lasting connections. The key was to keep going back, and that way I gradually got to know people. Ended up in a multitude of different bands, including the one that's been my main focus since 2011. So you may not have to network too actively to meet some more musicians - there is a great benefit to being a dedicated bass player in a room full of singers and guitarists!

The trouble with this thread is it's started me looking at the BC Marketplace again! There's a lovely-looking Ken Smith going on there coming in sub-£3000, though it would depend on you being interested in a fretless 5! You just know it'd be a cracking instrument, though.

PA "bass bins" are not for disposing of unwanted instruments.

That's a fair point; I'm probably falling into the trap of conflating "what modern bass players want" with "what Gibson enthusiasts want", and they probably don't overlap as much as I'm presuming. That said, I'd be surprised if the 5s didn't sell - they're an increasingly common sight, even in the blues and classic rock idioms with which Gibson mostly seem to be associated - though I realise that it often needs a more nuanced redesign that simply widening the neck a bit and slapping on an extra string!

Hang on - so after the promising steps of upgrading the stock bridge, and adding coil taps to the pickups on the last few years' run of Thunderbirds, Gibson decided the best course of action was to...completely revert to the original spec? And still not a B-string in sight. They're clearly determined that the best way to penetrate a modern market is to shut their eyes and pretends it's still the early '70s...

Who, of course, also designed and built one of my all-time favourite models of bass guitar. (I feel this is the kind of pointless trivia that's worth bringing up on a bass forum...)

Is it me, or is grunge a bit of a tricky one to define? I feel like it covers a spectrum where you have very punk-influenced groups like Mudhoney at one extreme, and heavy-metal-in-disguise groups like Soundgarden at the other. If you're particularly interested in working with fast changes, Mudhoney are probably essential listening - and having briefly played in a band with a similar style, nailing those changes exactly in sync with the guitars while keeping locked in with the drums can be an art in itself! If you're looking for something with a looser feel, Ament, Shepherd and Yamamoto are all excellent suggestions...though if you're going down that route I might suggest another look at Geezer Butler's style as well!

That might be a bit too quiet...

Perhaps start telling them you play drums instead.

Would a grand get you a Gibson? Most of their SG-style basses have historically been 30" scale, though it's fair to say they're a bit of an acquired taste!

At least the basslines they play are consistent with the rest of the band - which is to say, tedious beyond belief!

Absolute dream of a bass. All three pickup combinations serve their own role just nicely, and the tone control gives you an amazingly wide range of sounds. Wonderfully comfortable neck, and the ebony fingerboard is a thing of beauty. Not that I've tried a huge range, but without doubt it's the best passive fretless I've ever got my hands round.

Blackmore's Night looking to veer off in a new direction...?

Ah, in that case there's another bassist who's been using the same party trick - CW didn't come into existence until nearer 2011!

Got to be a strong possibility! Did you ever share a bill with a female-fronted group called Cherry White?

There's a huge Guitar Guitar in Epsom; I seem to remember they carry a wide range of the "usual suspects" - Fender & Squier, Gibson & Epiphone, assorted Stingrays and a few pointier models. Guitar Village, as mentioned above, often has some more esoteric stock (aren't they Farnham rather than Epsom?). It's a shame Kingston lost Hands Music a couple of years ago. Never the biggest range, but they had some nice-looking G&Ls and a few more unusual models last time I went in.

I couldn't agree more - and the great advantage that we have today is that we can skip past the "drivel" to the stuff we actually want to hear. The contents of the current UK Top 40 stopped bothering me as soon as realised that I could easily tune into radio stations and playlists which are pushing more interesting and challenging new music. There's really no excuse these days!

In the Hall of the Mountain King, by Edvard Grieg. It just became a bit of a running joke when the band was still doing the Camden Toilet Circuit, and I'd like to think a few soundmen appreciated something a bit different from the slapathon that they tended to get from the other bands.