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Quietly (and unintentionally, really), and amicable. Our ADHD singer was juggling 4 kids (at the time, she's at 5 now) and too many hobbies and just didn't have the time and the focus. She was completely unreliable to make any appointments with - and entirely unaware and oblivious of it. Eventually it just didn't work out anymore and we had to tell her. Together we decided it was in our shared best interest if she quit the band and we found someone else to replace her. This proved to be easier said than done. We were an originals band who played poppy metal. We had one album out and had played about 20-30 gigs per year in small clubs and sometimes as opening act for bigger names in our genre. Not quite established, but we were making a bit of a name for ourselves. We were in the process of writing new material for a second album, and were looking for someone who was equally amazing as our old singer: she had great pitch, a great voice, good English pronounciation, and was able to create good and creative vocal lines on the spot in jams, with temporary nonsense-lyrics. Turned out she wasn't that easy to replace... We held auditions for weeks and had about 10 female singers try out. Only one of them was any good but she was a true pro and we couldn't offer her what she was looking for - because all of us had different day jobs and no intention of making music professionally, with the exception of our drummer who had a degree in contemporary music. So she kindly thanked us for our time and left. The others were all terrible: either absolute beginners, or just an absolute mismatch to our sound. And none were creative (or confident) enough to join in on a jam and create on the spot - which is OK, we were perfectly aware this is difficult when playing with a bunch of guys you've never met before. Then our lead guitarist left. He already had a PhD in chemistry, and would go to Oxford University for 3 years for a postdoc research project of 3 years. That's about 8 years ago now, and he never came back . He's a professor at the university of Barcelona now. Our band is inactive ever since, but it's safe to say we all quit. The 3 remaining members (rhythm guitarist, drummer and myself) still played together in a doom metal project since late 2019, but unfortunately the guitarist was booted a couple of months ago for not making enough of an effort. That was (and still is) a real bummer for me, having played together since 2009

Comes from Qatar I believe……

Wonderful Basschatter, great guy. Transaction concluded swiftly and painlessly. I heartily recommend Peter, you can deal with confidence.

It's not part of Sica's standard product range. I did a reverse Google Image search and came up with nothing. It looks very much like a cheap Chinese car audio chassis. It doesn't look like a neodymium driver, by the way. @Bill Fitzmaurice might be able to suggest something, but it's difficult to do so without knowing how the system has been designed. I'd expect this to be a midrange driver with a higher efficiency than either the Sica or B&C drivers the OP mentioned. Perhaps try phoning Eich or contacting one of their UK dealers.

Did your old Vista fit in one of those Thomann bags, @Paul S?

But is it worth having half your brain removed ? Dave

I look like a right tit not playing a keytar

You've got to be careful about 'Daydream Believer' in certain parts of Glasgow!

Every now and then I get the urge to acquire a Keytar, even if only an inexpensive one. But then I remind myself that, a) I have no real use for one in a band context, and, b) I'd look a right tit playing one.

Well, that's further bafflement. There's heatshrink over the end of the outer insulation on the pickup leads, which I thought might contain the ends of each pickup winding, like on the BH2 pickups. No such luck. Slit the heatshrink and it just covers where the cable screen is run into a separate sleeve. No access to the internal coils. So I need at least one replacement MK1.

Sad to hear when anyone leaves a church. Hopefully over time they will take leading worship more seriously, and you will settle into your new home.

I’d love to try IEMs out. But for my gigs, which are mostly 3 or 4 band bills with sound check only for the headliner, and line check for the rest through whatever provided back line is there I can’t see it being doable.

That's strange. It sounds like bass guitar to me, even down to the string noise. It sounds good, but I can't picture it in my head as a DB.

...as long as the sound engineer knows what they are doing IEMs are great. If they don't - as is the case for 90% of the times I play - an amp is still necessary (and as I said above I always bring one just in case). I also have to admit I like the look of my stage rig... it makes me smile.

If there was a Ripper in line with the Thunderbird pricing then my wallet would be back in peril. Otherwise I think I'm out. Though that G3 is very lovely.

Hot Mess - Cobra Starship

I'm sorry to hear that - mind you I hope you symbolically sawed one of your guitars in half on stage instead of leading worship to make the point, as one of the (ex)worship leaders at my previous church did. Many years later I still very much respect him for doing that!

I’ve only left 2 that then folded, other than that replacements found/bands carried on. 1 - glam/heavy rock band. We’d been together for about 7/8 years, different lineups etc. We were gigging 3 maybe 4 times a year at that point, not enough for me so I went elsewhere and got a position in a regular gigging band doing punk covers. As they had a full calendar they had to be my priority. 2 - the punk covers band. They’d already been around for a while, we managed a few years, split for 6 months, reformed but it wasn’t the same. The guitarist could only do 4 gigs a year with 2 rehearsals for each gig due to his wife telling him this (turns out he and the drummer were forming another band which she seemingly didn’t mind, or more likely the afore mentioned limits were nothing to do with her at all). As such where we were super tight & good we became average so I left and the band folded. From those ashes the singer and myself formed Knock Off, the most successful musical thing either of us have ever done.

I can't speak for 'Logic', as I don't use a Mac, or any Apple stuff, but Reaper, even after paying the one-off licence cost, has, bundled, one heck of a lot of plug-ins, and any that one acquires after, either free, low-cost or paid-for, depends entirely on one's needs. I use Superior Drummer a lot (I'm a drummer...), and it costs what it costs. Maybe Logic has the same stuff for free; I doubt it (but could be wrong...). I use Reaper for direct recording 'real' instruments, recording with virtual instruments, treatment and production, and MIDI plays a large part in what I do. There are things it doesn't offer, certainly, but they are probably at the more esoteric end of the User scale; I've never found anything it can't do to my satisfaction after a coupe of decades of almost daily use. Is it better than sliced bread..? Maybe not. Is it rubbish..? Certainly not. It would, in my opinion, be hard to out-grow it, for all but intensive professional use, and even then it's hard to see how. (There now follows, below, a long litany of stuff that [whatever] is better at, at a bargain price...). Do I recommend Reaper..? Yes, I do. Does it suit everyone..? Maybe not, but it's certainly a contender for 'best value for money'.

The only band I've ever been in that properly broke up was very anti-climactic but pretty jarring - a band meet up in the pub was arranged, guitarist/songwriter/nominal band leader arrived last, told us he didn't want to do it any more, then left. Me, the drummer and the singer had a pint and absorbed the news (or the news was absorbed by the beer?). Band over.