Boodang

A 7 string bass will give me more freedom, but a 4 string will give me more focus, ah, frets, ideal for chordal work but a fretless is more expressive, ooh that's a nice acoustic bass guitar arch top, but a double bass might do it better especially if I get an expensive bow and learn how to use it... ooh, what's that shiny thing over there, a new pedal I haven't tried out, hmm I think I need a new boutique bass to play through it, ah but I could get that cheap Squier and spend hours agonising over custom replacement pickups........ = my average week.

Even though it's just a tool, a bass can inspire you. It could be a cheap bass or an uber expensive boutique bass, either way if it achieves that then it's doing it job.

If the instrument improves how you feel about music, then go for it. Definitely my answer is, balls to it and buy what makes you feel good.

Incidentally if you're after the classic Jazz tone, then active pickups (and to a certain extent active preamps if they have buffered blending... see end of this comment) are not the way to go. Passive single coil pickups when blended using a passive preamp are 'interactive' in that some of the signal from each pickup 'bleeds' into the other. This has the affect that some frequencies are reduced and others enhanced. If you have active pickups then they are buffered so this doesn't happen. The same if you have passive pickups but an active preamp which buffers before blending and thus prevents the interaction of the pickups. The East retro preamp has a switch so you can have buffered active or un buffered passive blending, but not all active preamps have this and is something to consider when choosing a preamp for a Jazz.

The Overwater looks good... starting from £3900.

The solderless/plug and play system is not the issue, it's that you can't put active pickups in series. Active pickups (and we're talking pickups not preamps) have an op amp built into the pickup itself to boost the signal, consequently the pickup is buffered by the op amp and you can't feed the signal of one pickup into another... so parallel only I'm afraid. You'll need to install passive pickups if you want to do that.

That can be an issue but not as bad as the left hand of the keyboard player which no amount of eq can cure. My preference is to play in the piano/bass/drums trio format, so now I only work with piano players who are missing their left hand..... I'm currently unemployed.

I think the reason I'm learning toward the Stradi rather than the Shuker is that among their standard options is a carved top and chambered body, the latter of which I'm particularly keen on.

This Shuker Uberhorn is currently for sale on their site at £3400. Looks gorgeous and has a tri tone colour finish that changes in different light conditions. Interestingly it lists this as having the Headway Snake piezo installed which is Headway's budget piezo model. I'm sure Shuker know what they're doing but I'd want to know the reasoning for that before shelling that kind of cash. Shuker basses do look the mutts nuts tho.

Can't go wrong with a Squier but I did try out a Yamaha TRBX304 and was quite impressed, especially as an all rounder. And have to say, I haven't tried the Revelation basses but if I had 400 quid to spend I'd give one a go at those prices.

At the risk of repeating myself (but I'm going to anyway!), every Jazz should have a series/parallel switch... cheap and easy to do, still retains the original sound but unlocks a humbucking sound which is already sitting there waiting to be unleashed with a simple switch mod.

I changed my preamp to a 2 vol, 2 tone, early jazz setup but it came with the option of a series/parallel switch. Series mode really changes the character of the bass and has solved the issue you are talking about... at least for me anyway. Thicker bass tone, less brittle sound. I also put an alnico 2 magnet in the bridge position as that has a more mid emphasise, but left the neck as an alnico 5. A series/parallel switch will let you go from standard jazz sounds with the nuances of the pickup blend, to a wide spaced humbucker.

Plus some interesting finishes, including a thin layer of stone (some kind of slate apparently) which they can put on as a veneer on the body top.

The 'normal'version.

At this price it'll be worth a trip to Poland to try one out. Your right about the violin corners, they're custom made though so they'll change anything. Also they do a version with a 'normal' body but I like the look of this one!

That's basically how the KSM Foundation bridge works which I'm tempted to put on my jazz.

As a fretless player I'm quite taken by the sound of this bass, at least what I've heard of it on YouTube. Love the fact that the fingerboard is continuous and apparently there's a magnetic pup under the board. There's going to have to be some serious saving up for this one but I'm tempted.

This reminds me of the Ray Ross bridge and his 'tone pin' solution. I think the only reason to put one on a bass is to make it look different but they're not cheap.

... or an EUB with no markings!

As @Mudpupsaid, a source audio aftershock will give you loads to try out in one pedal. I'm using a TC Electronic spectradrive and there's a lot of toneprint drive/fuzzes to experiment with, but unlike a multi effects it's v simple to use and has a 4 band eq and comp.

To mis-quote the Shrek line to describe the jazz/groove trio I played in, it wasn't getting us to play that was the issue, it was getting us to shut up. The set was made up mostly of stuff from the 70s (think tv theme music), with plenty of improvisation. If we weren't feeling particularly inspired the set would still over run, but on a good night the improvisations could easily triple the length of a song and the keyboard player, as good as he was, would be in a world of his own. Playing a gig in Northampton, we were feeling particularly inspired, no break between sets, heads down and thoroughly enjoying our improvisational genius (well in our heads we were genius!). Then, all we could hear was drums as the PA stopped working. Management had pulled the plug and came over to sort of apologise but mostly to say it was the easiest way to shut us up given that it was closing time and we weren't paying attention to his gesturing. We were still feeling quite chuffed with our playing but the managements parting comment was that 'we were quite good but next time could we play more than just one unrelenting song'. We felt slightly less chuffed as we packed up.

Ah, the 'we've booked you by accident' syndrome. Was in a folk/rock band, there was a local festival which was quite popular, we submitted a demo to try and get on the lineup but we'd put it in late and wasn't surprised to not get selected. Then, with not long to go and thinking we were just going to be in the audience, we got a call saying there had been a last minute cancellation by one of the acts and could we oblige. Of course was the answer but was very surprised to learn that the organisers had put us on as the headline band. Now we had been around for a bit, so in our egotistical minds this seemed plausible. Come the day, the organisers were chatting to us so no suspicions about mistaken identities. Then, the MC announces us with the line 'we're really excited to have booked this band, we've been trying to get them here for years...', at which point we all look at each other with wtf faces, ' please welcome THE *****'. Turns out we had the same name but without 'THE' in front of it as the band they thought they'd booked. We had never realised there was a band out there with a similar name as the 'real' band were doing much bigger gigs than us and our paths had never crossed. Well, no time to think about it, we went on and the set went down well. The organisers were happy and said they really enjoyed our new material. We never told them!

Did you ever forgive said drunk band member?!

... under £200 and probably has a better bridge than the original.

All mahogany construction, set neck, body & neck binding... actually looks quite good. At this price I'm sure the hardware and finish isn't the best but still, looks quite serviceable.