Baloney Balderdash

Punch In The Nose - Sebadoh

He most certainly did! Leo Fender first an foremost was a businessman, if that had not been the case the first Fender bass would have been a greater instrument, albeit not as popular. As is with most things in this world.

Take These Hands And Throw Them In The River - Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra

As others already said, this is not a Gibson, the model name though is actually Gibson, though this one slightly modded. Got to admit this particular one looks pretty amazing, but I am pretty sure plays and sounds horrible.

All new from Chelsea Wolfe:

No it's not. Music is the most advanced form of communication we humans are capable off. Football is a game at best, at worst it is just a way to show off your physical and acrobatic capabilities, in other words a circus act. Of course music can be a circus act too, but not primarily the music I listen to. To OP, sounds like you need a serious talk in the band about this, but honestly unfortunately it sounds like your band mates are not as dedicated to the idea of playing in a band as you, and if that indeed is the case nothing good will come out of it but frustrations. Have a serious talk with them about it first though, and be completely honest and frank with how you feel about the current situation, be firm but not angry though, you got nothing to loose really, before making any rash discissions.

I personally much prefer the more narrow fretboard of a 4'er, and for one actually appreciate that there is a bit of physical action going on when playing, having to jump up and down horizontally on the neck to get the notes you need. The inevitable wide fretboard of a 5'er just feels clumsy and cumbersome to me, and staying in one spot feels dull and makes playing less fun. So for me 5'ers compared to 4'rs are both physically uncomfortable and less fun to play for me. And horizontal playing just somehow, beside being more fun, feels more naturally to me.

I wouldn't mind one of them Hagström short scale 8 string basses either:

Not sure I understand this... G#, as in? You mean G#0 as in 3 half steps bellow the low B on a 5 or 6 string bass?

Don't know if this will be too big, but I can warmly recommend the NUX Melvin Lee Davis Bass Preamp + DI, Melvin Lee Davis signature bass preamp. It's digital, but of really high quality, letting you chose between 3 different amp emulation (and NUX promise more will be added somewhere in the future), which is NUX's own modeled MLD signature amp, an Aguilar Tone Hammer amp, or a Norstrand StarLifter preamp, and 8 different IR based cab simulations from stock, but with the option of loading more 3rd party IR cab simulation of your choice onto the pedal. It sounds no less than amazing, is really versatile in terms of the variety of tones you can get from it, and of excellent build quality, but is really affordable and astonishing value compared to what you get (138£/159 Euro at Thomann). Regarding the size it is 115mm wide, and just 105mm deep (that is less wide and deep than the depth/height of a standard Boss pedal, and considering the top mounted jack sockets it wouldn't actually take up much more space than a standard Boss pedal).

No! 4 string instruments is a joke! Mozart was wrong, he should have insisted writing pieces for 5 string violins, cellos and basses! And Jaco was a hack! On a more serious note: Enough for what exactly? Entirely depends on the music you write/play. Do you need a low B string, but also a high G strings, then no, a 4 string would not work for that, otherwise, yes, it would be all you really need. Stig Perdersen from the Danish hard rock band D:A:D (Disneyland After Dark) never needed more than 2 strings, a low E and a low A string, and is famous for owning a huge collection of weird custom made 2 string basses. This being one of them:

Fender didn't event the electric bass guitar, there were several earlier examples of it than Fenders first non split single coil P Bass, he just popularized it.

You do use roundwound strings right? Though some P pickups just sounds rather muffled and wooly inherently (so swapping the pickup for a more well defined and articulate P pickup ought to help. A shame about the EMG Geezer Butler P not fitting, as that would have been perfect for that). Applying a HPF around 40Hz, and eventually cutting some low end further, around 100Hz to 200Hz or so, and boosting some high mids, around 1kHz or so, should help improving definition and articulation though.

An old track with a psychedelic electronic duo project I had with a friend a few years back, him being responsible for co-programming along with me (we usually would take turns in programing a layer or a couple of layers. I programmed/wrote the bass, as I often would, and the organ, of this song), and then me additionally being responsible for physical instruments (this track features a really fuzzed out and fu..ed up guitar solo), vocals and mixing (mind I have gotten considerably better at mixing since then. I also did the illustrations): Sorry, should have been posted in the "Share Your Music" sub forum, could a moderator please move it there?

The all analog now discontinued budget Valeton Aquaflow Vintage Chorus, which is based on the legendary Boss CE-1, but in a much much smaller enclosure and with more controls, sounds not short of amazing. The Boss VB-2 Vibrato, or the budget clones of it the Behringer UV300 Ultra Vibrato or TC Electronic Tailspin Vibrato, mixed in parallel with clean signal, via for example a Boss LS-2 or similar effects loop mixer, makes for a really lush amazing sounding chorus effect as well. And actually the digital Boss CE-1 emulation on the Line 6 M5, or on the Line 6 Helix as a legacy effect, or on the Zoom MS-70CDR, actually sounds surprisingly good too.

Here Comes Sickness - Mudhoney

I'm still sticking to the realization that no one picking technique/method will do everything I need it to optimally, so still swapping between using several different finger picking/plucking techniques, a Dunlop Tortex .60mm pick, and a Wedgie 3.1mm Soft rubber pick, depending, and mainly from a tone perspective. Mainly I use my fingers though, and I suppose mainly regular traditional 2 finger plucking technique, even if not by much, I really do normally incorporate quite a a bit of Flamenco guitar style index and/or middle finger flicking technique, classical guitar style thumb + index + middle finger picking, and double thumbing, and it does happen I incorporate the ring finger too.

Also it's no Unicode but in ASCII 11000111000011010 = Ç Whatever that is supposed to mean? First letter in designers first or last name, maybe? And by the way that letter is pronounced "SH" for what it is worth, similar to the German ẞ letter, also known as Double S.

Floating thumb works for all basses without any mods needed, and is completely free.

Sound piece of advice.

Fingertips - They Might Be Giants

I am glad it eventually all worked out for OP. That said I have never had any problems with returning products to Thomann or getting my money back.

Then perhaps you would care to explain to me why it is that passively mixing two passive pickups using an MN tapered pot would give you just the same result as if they were mixed individually actively, cause I don't think anyone actually did explain how that can possibly happen? Other than claiming it is so because I am too stupid to know why, which I don't really think is a valid explanation.