Half fret bass

[Drax]

Getting annoyed with those stupid frets under the G and D strings ?

Is your Steinberger just too damn heavy?

[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1980s-Wilkes-Guitars-Headless-Half-Fret-Fretless-Active-Bass-Guitar-/142492615079?hash=item212d38c1a7:g:ArwAAOSwSblZp8ya"]http://www.ebay.co.u...rwAAOSwSblZp8ya[/url]

(sorry mods - can you move to Ebay weird and wonderful ..)

Edited September 3, 2017 by Drax

[Bass_Guardian]

That is awful...

[TrevorR]

Wilkes weren't backwards in coming forward with "innovative" "solutions" to problems (which no one actually seemed to have). Anyone remember their "The Answer" guitar and bass and their slap plates for fretless basses?

[MoonBassAlpha]

Looks ok to me.

[paul_c2]

I suppose if you're paralysed by indecision then it offers a solution.

[Happy Jack]

Refretting wouldn't be difficult or expensive, and you'd then have a superb, lightweight travel bass.

Being active, you might even get away with plugging headphones into the output socket.

Way overpriced at £395, but not a piece of crap IMHO.

Do bear in mind that I may be biased. I own http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/h4ppyjack/library/Basses%20CURRENT/Westone%20The%20Rail%201985%20CURRENT

[Drax]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1504685918' post='3366495']
Refretting wouldn't be difficult or expensive, and you'd then have a superb, lightweight travel bass.

Being active, you might even get away with plugging headphones into the output socket.

Way overpriced at £395, but not a piece of crap IMHO.

Do bear in mind that I may be biased. I own http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/h4ppyjack/library/Basses%20CURRENT/Westone%20The%20Rail%201985%20CURRENT
[/quote]

What a unit! Is that pickup on rails?

[Happy Jack]

Yup. The bass is a "Westone The Rail", and the pickup unit + volume control slide along it.

There is no tone control. You change the tone by sliding the pickup.

It looks well gimmicky, but it actually works extremely well, and of course the same idea was pursued by Gibson for a while.

The only problem is that, by their own admission, Westone's designers never really expected this to be a great bass or a top-end instrument so there was a certain amount of 'building down to a price' and this is particularly obvious with the crap electrics. I've replaced the cheap'n'nasty pickup on mine with a Dark Star ...