Boodang

Yep, Percy Jones was a huge influence, especially the Brand X days back when Phil Collins was playing proper drums!

I had one back in the day... lovely bass, wish I'd kept it.

Wilkes used to put 'percussive' plates on their fretless basses.

What were the reasons he chose Vigier?

The fretless I want to get is the Vigier Passion delta metal... but the through neck model not the latest bolt on (I much prefer thru neck). I played one many many moons ago at the bass centre, very nearly bought it but went and got a custom made instead. You very rarely see them up for sale s/h. For some reason they changed the name from 'delta metal' to 'iMetal'! As the current trend seems to be to put 'i' in front of everything.

Ah, that would have worked a treat!

It is v heavy! I play sitting down these days but I wouldn't want to stand all night with this around my shoulders. But the sound is great and I love the profile of the neck. I've got a custom creamery pickup in this one, i pluck the strings over the end of the neck and the sound is huge, a lovely woody tone i can't get with any other bass, even my most expensive custom.

Oh, and forgot to say the moral of this particular story; the best bass to fend off an attack from an irate vocalist is of course... a Fender.

Another own goal... I was in an originals band, the guitarist was also the vocalist, he wasn't convinced his vocals were the best so we thought we'd get someone in. The vocalist we chose had a great voice but we weren't sure it was right for the music, so a few gigs were booked as a tryout. By the time of the 'incident' I was getting fed up as the new vocalist would always turn up late after everything was setup and disappear as soon as we'd finish. We were playing at a small pub, the song in question had the lyric 'you call out my name' just before the middle 8, at which point I 'inadvertently' blurted out 'w*nker' at the top of my voice just as the band dynamics went quiet. The vocalist instantly turned around and came at me, I'm trying to fend him off with my bass whilst still playing, the band keep playing but have joined the audience in that they've turned around to face the debacle at the back of the stage and are laughing. I wasn't sure how long I could keep up my defence when the vocalist, in the spirit of the show must go on, went back the mic. After the show I expected more of the same but he did his usual disappearing act but this time for good, which did solve this issue of whether he was going to stay in the band. Of course, once the band realised he wasn't coming back he became the greatest vocalist ever and apparently it was all my fault we were now not going to reach the dizzying heights of fame!

That reminds me of the time I got asked to sit in for a mate of mine who was going away for a couple of months. A trio mostly doing Hendrix and the like, no rehearsal before the first gig but I did get a sit down acoustic evening with the guitarist just to go through any tricky bits. 1st gig went ok and it gelled quite well. 2nd gig, feeling confident (and I still don't know to this day why I did it), I thought, I know what this band needs to pep it up, we should do Hendrix with a double bass. So without announcing it beforehand I turn up to the venue with just my DB. Almost worth it for the look on the guitarist face when he realised A. I was serious, and B. There was no alternative/going back now. I thought it went really well, especially the bits where I got out the bow (again a great surprised looked from the guitarist). The guitarist however was under the impression that the band had taken a dramatic musical turn for the worst but give him his dues he did think it was an interesting experiment... so long as I didn't repeat it (yes, after all that he still let me do the other gigs but double bass and firewood were used in the same sentence). Interestingly I'm not sure the audience noticed much difference!

Is playing sitting down an option? I do most of my gigs on a drum stool these days. I got a back injury from surfing and yoga / core strength exercises helped a lot.

My Westone Thunder... first bass I owned.

One of the ways I warm up for a gig when I'm playing bass is to use a drum practice pad and go through some fundamentals. Drumming definitely helps your bass playing and vice versa.

It's never too late! Always played bass but bought my daughter a drum kit when she was young and I ended up playing it more than her. Upshot was I took up drums as well. The drum kits are not so much the issue as the interest in percussion it sparked, so now the house is full all sorts of weird instruments half of which I got because they looked cool but only played once.

I hope the nose bleed happened during a suitably rock n roll song!

The natural P with the maple board does look cool!

Ah, the trick is to not try an imitate Jaco, something I find really easy to achieve!

I've always been an unlined player until a few years ago when I picked up a Squier VM fretless for the only reason it had a resin board... but it was lined. I don't know why, but at first the lines confused the hell out of me, I was all over the place. But I persevered and now I like it, especially up the dusty end. However, there is one interesting affect. On the unlined, I have no preference for a tonal centre but with the lined I find some keys more comfortable than others .... it's almost like unlined is a blank canvas whereas lined is more caged. PS. I do like the resin board which is now my fav finish for a fretless. Just need to find an unlined one now.

I thought there must be some good stories out there in BC land, so thanks to everyone for sharing. There's been some great anecdotes, very amusing reading!

That price doesn't scream quality, not that it isn't but.... in the pictures what's going on under the second fret?

As a lifelong fretless player the lack of choice is deeply frustrating. I think there was more variety back in the 80s & 90s. It's a shame when a new bass comes out they don't add fretless as an option, even if it's a special order. A while ago I went into my local shop to ask if they were going to get the Squier VM Jazz fretless in stock (it has a resin board which is quite rare) but they said no as it would probably just hang on the wall for years. Things like that are what drives to you to just get a custom bass and have done with it. Having said that, the Ibanez SRF looks an interesting option.

Interestingly, as 'easy' as it is to setup a bass (and I've been playing and setting up basses for 40 years) I still can't get it as good as my local luthier, no matter how many tips he gives me.

Not so much defeatist, just that if you've got to a stage where you're using washers and shimes, the bass is obviously not working as intended, so rather than botch it why not find out what the key underlying issue is and fix that. For instance, truss rod at the end of it's thread, then replace it. Just don't like botching things. I'm sure they didn't sell bass with extra washers in case the truss rod run out thread, so in my mind it's a botch.

If it's just that the truss rod has run out of thread, then replace the rod. My neck thru Sei had this issue, so got my local luthier to replace and set up... now good as new.

If you can 'persuade' a neck to behave itself then all well and good, but if you're at a stage of having to use shims I would venture to suggest it's time to put it out of its misery.