Grimalkin

The neck shouldn't be dead straight really. When you pluck a string it has a wider vibration pattern in the middle than at the ends, that's why a slight bow of about a millimetre or more depending, is put into the neck as relief, to allow for the wider vibration at the centre of the string. What leads me to think of temp difference is that you found the bass ok the next day. So what changed...

How much relief does the neck have and does your string to string setup follow the radius curvature of the fretboard. Is the A string set too low? Also consider the temperature effects on the instrument.

Right Said Fred - Bernard Cribbins. An acute observation on human progress. Book: Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift.

I tend to listen to The Rutles more than the Beatles these days. "I have always thought In the back of my mind Cheese and onions..."

"When I feel my head starting to swell," says John Lennon, "I just look at Ringo and I know perfectly well we're not supermen."

Keep them for rabbit snares, you're probably going to need them the way things are going... Unless you like eating boiled grass with a nice piece of dried larch bark, all of the time.

Welcome to The Century of the Self...

Jaco was an advocate of lines, there's a very good reason for that... I'm afraid Franklin is no Jaco, nor Willis:

One for the kids wasn't it. As the old quote goes: "If you were a twelve year old boy and you weren't obsessed with KISS, there was probably something wrong with you. If you are over the age of twenty years old and still obsessed with KISS, there is probably something wrong with you."

An onboard breathalyser, never be drunk in charge of a bass again. Avoid the scowls and the howls.

A cure for neck dive comprised of a helium balloon that suspends the head-stock by string. And you can have anyone's face that you desire printed onto the balloon.

An unlined electroconductive fretless neck that administers small electric shocks for bad intonation. What a source of mirth that would be.

Make your own roasted neck with simple tools and a barbecue...

Best to nip it in the bud. That kind of discontent has a habit of splitting up the whole deal.

I thought the thread was about Elon Musk for a minute.

I've been using Bass Centre Elites for 20 plus years, the steels are bright, the nickels are still bright but with a softer edge. They do have a nice playing tension I've found, softer than others I tried back in the day but that may have changed now.

It's subjective but my musical tastes are very broad anyway, there is no one type, no one tribe...

Foley with Miles Davis on "Lead bass"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(musician)

Never been a fan of the monorail bridges, I remember playing a Yamaha TRB5 P with piezo monorails, if you played it a little hard, the bridge started clacking around. Plus the lack of intonation adjustment space for different gauges.

String gauge makes quite a difference. I use a lighter .40 on the G set compared to the factory fitted which are usually .45. The softer tension from the lighter set means I have to move the saddles forward to intonate it. It would be unusual IME to receive a completely duff set of strings, usually I've found it's just one string in the set that is suspect.

"News guy wept and told us Earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet Then I knew he was not lying..."

That, and the fact that they are made of mahogany, which splinters up a treat. I've witnessed a Gibson EBO bass, Gibson Les Paul Junior, a white Gibson SG with a trem and a Gibson 335 dot, all having head-stock breaks. The Les Paul Junior was in case that fell on its side, that's all it took.

Take two strings off and spread the rest out. 18mm is the least I would want, I've found it depends on your physicality, I have fairly long fingers. Anything less than 18mm feels too cramped. I've owned and sold three Stingray5's over the years because of the tighter string spacing, it's not going to work for me.