A couple of months back, viewers of Tomorrow's World were thoroughly confused by a rather cack-handed demonstration of a new British bass.

Always on the ball in matters musical (remember the crashing Fairlight, the band made to look like the inventors of MIDI, and other gems?) the programme rather gave the impression that this was some kind of new toy. Not at that price, mate!

So what is the Ashbory? Bass-ically (just the first in a long line of terrible puns!), it's an attempt to address the problems of the size and weight of a bass guitar and the fact that, while you can happily build a half-sized guitar, a half-sized bass just don't play right.

Inventor Nigel Thornbory realised pretty early on that he couldn't get the right tension and the right pitch on conventional strings only half the usual length, so metal strings were out.

The Ashbory's strings are made of a new rubber material (they're polymer elastomeric strings in fact but that's a bit of a mouthful), which gives the guitar a really weird feel.

It also lets out conventional magnetic pickups. Instead there's a one-piece transducer pickup, and this is matched with an active output circuit (courtesy of co-designer Alun Jones of Ashworth Electronics) which can be switched in as desired.

The Ashbory's body (in shocking pink) is around eighteen inches long, and although there are fret marks on the neck, there ain't no frets there.

Because the Ashbory doesn't have much in the way of a body either, you can very easily reach the 24th fret and some way above, but the scale length is compressed so there's an enormous adjustment to be made in learning to speak Ashbory.

As far as controls go, there's a three-position toggle switch for off (centre), passive (up) and active (down, LED on).

The circuit drains the battery (inserted in the back) even in the off position, unless you remove the jackplug.

The three chrome controls are for Volume, Bass Boost/Cut, and Treble Boost/Cut, the tone controls obviously being more effective in Active mode.

The head of the guitar has classical-style tuning pegs behind it but these are being changed to something a little more rock 'n' roll.

The Ashbory we looked at was a hand-built model selling at £299, but plans at the moment are to mass-produce a considerably cheaper model, and negotiations for a manufacturer are currently under way.

But how, I hear you asking yourself, does the thing play? A flip answer may be, "with great difficulty", but in fact it's not at all difficult to get a great sound out of the Ashbory — it's controlling the sound that starts to present problems.

There are things you can do on the Ashbory; you can slap very well, producing a great funk sound at very agreeable volume. You can play double-bass style, with a smooth and rich tone made more variable by the active tone setting. You can reach frets and chord shapes which aren't possible on a conventional full-scale bass.

There are also things you can't do. Try bending and the squashy round-section strings will probably slip from under your fingers. Try your usual licks and you'll find that the lack of frets and the compressed scale length foil you completely, but that can be overcome with a bit a of practise.

Try sliding and you'll produce the usual fretless effects, as long as you adjust your touch. The Ashbory strings are a little sticky, so if you bear down on them as you would on a metal string you'll grind to a halt fairly quickly.

But if you cultivate a light touch (and possibly apply a little talcum powder, a trick which isn't as daft as it sounds though it may make you the nicest smelling bassist around) all should be well.

But are the changes you have to make to your playing style justified by the advantages of the Ashbory's design?

Obviously it's compact, weighs only a couple of pounds, and yet still gives you some powerful sounds and some unusual playing possibilities.

Against that you've got to get used to the weird new strings and their limitations, the compressed-scale fretless neck, and the bilious colour (presumably there'll be different colours available on production models).

But let's not quibble. While you may not want to invest £299 in specially ordering an Ashbory, (even though the money is refundable within 14 days of delivery), it does represent the first major innovation in guitar technology since Les Paul, and as such deserves to be checked out when it reaches the shops. Happy twanging.

ASHBORY Original Bass: £299