Happy New Bass and Ukulele Day to me! 
Last week on Wednesday we finally felt the time is right to go and check out a new instrument store about half an hour drive away from our home (it is the closest now, the other one I had a few of my guitars from closed on New Yearās Day 
).
I checked them before online and felt it was a good place to go, as there online store had a quite nice selection of guitars, basses and ukuleles. Especially the latter two I had in mind, as I wanted a bass for years since I had a dabble at it back in the days where I played it in our school choir (not that I actually knew how to play it back then 
). For the moment, the ukulele is also more for me, but as soon as Vincent is old enough and wants to, he shall have it to play. Itās definitely not a childās version, so hopefully it wonāt be smashed.
As we got there, we got to know that during summer break the exhibition is a little smaller than usual which was immediately obvious for bass guitars. There were only 4 different ones, two of them 5-string versions, so I only had two options to try - which was not bad at all. It doesnāt matter if I try 5, 10 or 20 as either one of these is what I want or now. I would never buy an istrument when I feels itās not the right one. So only having two, the time to make this decision was drastically reduced. 
So finally to the part, why we are here:
The second bass I tried āclickedā right away. It felt so good and was smoothly playable, even with my tiny hands that are definitely not in a well trained shape these days. Further, I soo much loved the looks of it: The J-Standard Mighty Jazz in Azuki Metallic by FGN.
Itās a passive bass that was handmade in Japan and is no longer produced (as the lad in the shop said). A few specs for those interested:
- Neck is made of maple, fretboard is rosewood and body is alder
- Pickups are Seymour DuncanĀ® Quarter-Poundā¢ SJB-3/SMB-4d (Single Coil and splittable humbucker)
I havenāt tried it with an amp, yet, as I donāt have a specific one for bass anyhow and itās too loud as well in our current living situation. Iāll try my headphone amp or a DAW/headphones instead to play it plugged. Once we settled to our final home (hopefully late 2026/early 2027) I will get a decent bass amp, too. 
Now itās about to learn how to play it properly (when I find the timeā¦ 
).
For the ukuleles there were a few more, but the one I took home with was the first and only choice to play as I loved how the wood looks, it played nice and was not too costly (given that Vincent might smash it in the futureā¦), a Volt Grenada concert ukulele.
Itās made of mahogany, rosewood fretboard and okoumĆ© neck. Itās a little sweetie and sounds lovely. I havenāt looked up any chord diagrams, yet. I plan to find them out myself, which shouldnāt be too hard knowing the tuning and how chords are constructed. A nice application for music theory.
Because itās funny, hereās how the new siblings look next to each other:
PS: No, our floor isnāt that dirty. It is parquet that has never been taken care of properly by folks that rented/owned this flat before us. 
I just strummed away this afternoon and my husband was like: 
āHow do you do that, that sounds nice alreadyā while I played through chords in the key of C. 
Hope to get some good grooves down soon. 
ā¦ always falling for the big fellas on looks alone!!! 
Well, I hope that you have a pleasant relationship & donāt neglect your guitars ātooā much!!! 
HA HA HA!!!
