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Up to about 30 minutes a night most nights when the wife and tater tots are in bed.

No because the distance between frets will be wrong. But if you get a bolt on and put a properly build shortscale neck on it and keep the neck pocket in the same place then you have to move the bridge to make it work. For Fender guitars Warmoth do conversion necks that do not need the bridge or the pocket moved - the neck is built in a way that makes it all work just by screwing it on. I am not aware of anyone doing bass conversion necks.

No, you have to move the bridge AND redo the fret positions, which is why it has 24 frets instead of 20 (or whatever is on the 4003, I just have a 4004 here, it has 20)

So they don’t like what you do, but aren’t prepared to take on the responsibility for any between song engagement themselves? Helpful 🙄 Good audience engagement is a skill. I’d prefer it kept to a bare minimum and only if the person is clearly interested in the audience. Not enough bands rehearse transitioning from one song to the next at the best of times. Too much gazing at their pedal settings, or tuners, or waiting for the drummer (or whoever) to count the next song in. Should be “Thankyou…1,2,3,4…” unless you think a song needs an introduction because of some significant meaning, or the guitarist needs time for a cuddle from their mum because no one noticed he brought his ‘63 Les Strat with the mandolin duck down bridge spoon. 🙄 Bands!!

Years ago, I went through the initial 400+ owner bewilderment but this thread on Talkbass gave me some good direction https://www.talkbass.com/threads/mesa-400-settings.268322/ I shan't regurgitate what it says. My 400+ is off to see Stan @ The Amp Hospital soon. It's got an electrical fault that trips out the consumer board at home every time I plug it in and turn it on.

We have these coming in next week

I'm struggling here. I imagine I've read something wrong, but is the idea that you can convert a longscale into a shortscale just by moving the bridge?

Don't try to educate the audience, one singer I worked with used to start telling the history of the song and who played on the original, we all used to tell him no one is interested. Another singer had a habit of saying "it goes a little like this" after announcing the next song. We used to count how many times he said it, his record was sixteen times in one gig.

Have a few beers beforehand to steady your nerves 😀

Thanks mate, always a pleasure 👍

A typical band PA in a pub/club is usually set up to deal with loud rock music, not a guy trying to engage in witty banter, so his mumbling will be largely inaudible anyway. Given that one man's "witty banter" is another's "who the hell is this dickhead?" you're set up to fail if you do much of this stuff. It gets worse. Very few people are natural entertainers, still less spontaneous ones. A line gets a few laughs at a gig and instantly becomes part of a fixed script, to be repeated at each and every bloody gig at exactly the same point, until everyone is sick to death of it. Sometimes you reach the Seventh Level Of Hell, where there's only one singer but everyone in the band has a mic so that they can all take part in the stale, pre-prepared banter. A bit like a badly-read radio script. The audience is there for the booze and the women. Your music is pretty much incidental. No one gives a tinker's cuss that the drummer's name is Dave or that the band comes from Slough, no one is interested in being thanked for coming to their local. Just play the bloody songs.

Bit of a Spinal Tap Stonehenge moment there, from the look of it. On the original point, speaking to an audience is an art. Not everyone can do it. In my band, we leave it to the singer, who has good presence and can do it. The worst thing in the world is when everyone chimes in (especially with in-jokes, as mentioned above). So the rest of us keep quiet. Keep it simple, short and amusing and move on to the next number is a good rule to follow.

Nine Inch Gails Attack of the ¾-foot women.

The John Peel archive on the creative flow channel on youtube. There's around 100 shows on there at the moment. That'll keep me occupied for a while.

Bloc Farty

True confession... at my last gig we had a semi-scripted narration by 'Dr Weiner Schnitzel' between songs. That said, he disappeared near the end to return dressed as a clown with a sledgehammer. But this did result in a sticky end...

I think it was the playing! I skipped a lot as well, but he is the guy they made the 4030 for in the first place, according to this: https://rickenbacker101.substack.com/p/overview-the-4030 which is also quite clear they just moved the bridge (although that original was a 4002 body)

I play in a duo with my partner, so there's never been controversy! We play renaissance & mediaeval music, with a generous chunk of folk-rock thrown in. I do the patter, usually playing two songs or tunes back-to-back then talking about the one we played and they one we'll play next. My partner (who also has a mic) tends to throw in 'amusing' quips and anecdotes, usually at my expense. I guess we're a bit different in that a lot of the tunes have a bit of history - e.g. Simon & Garfunkel's 'Scarborough Fair' can be traced way back to mediaeval Scandinavia and I talk mostly about the music. But I think without context our stuff wouldn't be as interesting for the audience.

Nine Inch Fails

Just do what the Ramones did. Finish song, 1,2,3,4 start song...

Nine Inch Tails (Band of miniature dachshunds)

Update on RRP prices for these basses, which should be available within the next 4-8 weeks: Icon 4 Black or White gloss £819 Icon 4 Black Stain or Black Cherry £849 Icon 5 Black or White Gloss £839 Icon 5 Black Stain or Black Cherry £869 So you can expect to see them in the shops in the high £700's...... fantastic value!

I got a warning that it might include offensive content and did I want to continue - I did and I’ve no idea what was offensive about it. Not the best demo (what little demo there was) as there was too much distortion and the rest was just stills to music. I skipped a fair bit, so I might have missed something, but this bass is not for me. It is, from what I could tell and as we had already worked out, a short scale bass on a full sized body and neck. Shame, it could’ve so much more (or do I mean less? ).