Am soft on the female carrying the basket (6)
I believe the answer is:
hamper
'basket' is the definition.
(eg food hamper)
'am soft on the female carrying' is the wordplay.
'soft' becomes 'p' (musical abbreviation for 'piano').
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the female' becomes 'her' (I've seen this before).
'carrying' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'am'+'p'='amp'
'amp' going into 'her' is 'HAMPER'.
'the' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hamper that I've seen before include "Impede the food basket" , "Food-basket" , "Picnic box" , "Obstruct with picnic basket" , "Christmas basket" .)