EssentialTension

http://faroutmagazine.co.uk/spotify-valued-at-23-billion-goes-public/ ... but I also read that they lost $1.5 billion last year.

Guitar market retail sales in the United States from 2005 to 2016 (in million U.S. dollars)*

I didn't get the paywall banner but I do now - strange. But yes, in US at least, guitar sales are on the up. From a low of $820million in 2009 to $1221million in 2016.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/440131/us-guitar-market-retail-sales/

Bargain and very nice anyway.

... and if you are playing with another fretless instrument - bottleneck guitar in my case - it can get complicated and spicy.

A used Lakland 55-01 would be well within your budget, 35" and is a very good bass and could be resold probably without much loss . But, as people say, best to try a few if you can.

Number 2 usually means getting paid.

It seems to me there are really two general ways of running a band: 1 It's a collective where everyone and anyone has a veto (usually after giving a song a fair chance); or ... 2 It's someone's band, in which case that person is the musical director and everyone plays as they are asked.

It's all a bit hazy after all these years, but didn't the Edgar Broughton Band (and/or The Pink Fairies) have a tendency to play on the back of a lorry outside of various festivals with banners saying 'Free Festival Now'. Am I imagining this?

I still prefer unlined.

It's not fun if it spoils the song.

Yes, some band members don't seem to realise that, for example, the bass line would likely need to be different at a different enough tempo, faster or slower.

Is it because Antoria might sue them?

Pick playing can be very funky ...

I played with a drummer who did this. BPM was agreed in advance for all songs and saved on metronome. Drummer takes beat from little flashing light on the metronome, counts us in and off we go. Perfect.

Very nice.

Is that a Maruszczyk?

The audience commonly do not know and even less do they care. In ten years I have only ever one time had an audience member comment on my fretless or upright playing ... and that was another bassist on Basschat. The words 'kudos', 'wow' and 'without lines' were not used.

But many of us are very similar so there is very good reason and a sensible motive to test and even to adopt some methods that have worked for others.

Never heard of him before but I can tell he's better at it than me. Only 17 here but probably practised quite a lot ...

I don't play jazz, I rarely go above E on the G string, I don't get asked to solo, I use open strings whenever possible, and I certainly didn't spend 35 years listening to a drone ... ... but I've never had complaints about my intonation on upright or fretless whether lined or unlined except when I already knew I had missed the note. Like was said before, the OP will have to choose; but it doesn't take 35 years to learn some competence on a fretless, lined or unlined.

And, as you know, even with lines the test of a note is the ear not the line.

Partially different perhaps but really not completely different.