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Some great replies, thanks all. Seems I'm verging on the outskirts of sanity, although am accompanied by a few similarly-minded souls. I took the Z3 to the gig and loved it. Too deep in to back out now: the clandestine affair has started! Maybe I need to buy two phones and start going on frequent "work" trips....

Home In My Hand - Foghat

Welcome Home - Peters and Lee

I had an Ampeg SVT 3Pro and found it to be a good amp and the power was there if you pushed it Replaced it with an SVT CL 300w and felt I had everything I needed but I was young and lifting it wasn’t an issue I used a 610 cab and this helped ! Again a heavy beast but lots of speakers and everyone could hear it !

Perhaps you have different definition for "after". They will have done it this way to control the signal going to the external preamp. It is still an audio signal until the power amp gets hold of it after the loop.

was surprised with the photos today how much Liam Gallagher looks like Cliff Richard

I don't EQ front of house other than to get a flat response with pink noise before I start (actually it isn't flat but check out Michael Curtis on Youtube for a good curve) I eq each channel. I have eqs preset for most things and don;t normally eq mic'd amps, bass di or synths. All resets are a starter for ten. It's just vocals, anything with a microphone and acoustics. I try to sort out the eq in the mixing not once mixed in FoH. I don't send eq or compressed signals to monitors and rarely send reverbs to stage (feedback beckons if you do). I have some favourite presets - maybe that's another thread. - I found Attaway Audio on you tube made excellent eq suggestions. Seems the US churches run more live music events than anyone else; don't be put off, they have great experience. i do tweak eqs on individual channels and polish compression and gates too during a gig. I run instrument groups together using DCAs. Generally don't use buses except monitoring and fx. 'Verbs are normally eq'd to trim the top and bottom frequencies so they sound like a natural space. I've found the best way to polish FoH is a multi-band compressor. It's almost the most fun you can have doing sound after all the heavy lifting and herding cats at sound check. You can get the vocals to float over guitars and then have a lead player come to the fore, all by what's loudest in the mids and upper mids range. Add some brilliance to the cymbals etc in the high band. Tame the flub n mud in the lower mids. You can even out the overall kick and bass volume if you like to sound full and punchy and consistent. I run Behringer and Midas mixers and these have a good multiband called a combinator. The stereo one seems to work great. Again there are some good youtube guides Cheers

Open Arms - Journey

I add this with my 2EQ Stingray 5 (with LaBella flats) a boost at 500 and 800

Probably too late to this party but I've just read this and.... I had an SVT3-Pro for over ten years and it's deafening flat out. Here's what you need to know:- Preamp is there for your drive and tone. Want more tube distortion? Up the gain. Put a RAT up front or a muff. The peak just means it's driving the valves into the region they aren't linear anymore. They can take it, they max out in a subtle and coloured way and then give that nice valve breakup sound, which is why you bought a tube amp in the first place. Try messing with it and see what it does. The ampeg is a tank. You won't break it. Otherwise get something with transistors and no variation of sound. Set right you can flip between clean and distorted just by how hard you play. I nearly always had the gain set around 60-80%, even with an active bass. Always have it set so at your hardest playing the peak light is at least flashing in and out. I've played Buck Rogers by Feeder without any drive pedal and got a pretty good approximation of Taka's quiet subtle clean and utterly ripped. Set all the tone to 12 O'Clock. EQ FLAT. Always start from there. use the mid control if you need some mid scoop, but keep it subtle. Bass is, well bass-y. don't crank up the bass for volume; it will sound like elephants farting in a large hall 300 yards away. Flubby and muddy. Set to taste and sound, NOT for volume. Everything should average out around 12 o'Clock and zero dB, not all slammed fully one way or another. You can use the DI out to get a better idea of the actual preamp out sound, so stick it into an interface and check it sounds ok on some monitors. FX Loop - stick your modulations here; we all like some flange, chorus or vibrato occasionally. Try to make it so they don't change the overall volume from off to on. Output Section - tube gain is a voltage sag adjustment. lowering it reduces the transformer voltage supplied to the power stage tubes, meaning they saturate more quickly. This gives a warm and glowing colouration and limiting. Think Sister Sledge or The Pointer SIsters, or maybe Bootsy Collins. Turn it to max and the two valves in the power amp section stay linear and and don't saturate (yes there are valves in the hybrid power amp stage). It's in the tech material somewhere. Turn down the Tube gain to act as a soft limiter.. around 50-70% is great for all those soul and disco bass lines. Fully up for clean dry modern power, like a trace. The Graphic should have the frequency sliders set around the middle (0dB) on average too if that wasn't clear. Can't remember if the graphic has a volume slider but put it full up if it does. Oh and master volume - start with it about 30% up. If you do the above first then you will be able to set the tone. Use the master volume for what its' meant for. I rarely had master volume above 50% in a rock band. There are four mosfets in there doing the heavy lifting, solid state buttons of loudness. If you get bad hiss or have them anywhere near flat out you've not set the preamp correctly, you are just amplifying the noise floor of the preamp. Really hope that helps. It really helps if you find out what each part of your signal chain actually does, and is there for. Gain staging is everything. BTW I had the SVT3 Pro, and ampeg 4x10 HF + 1 x 15, Run in Parallel for 4ohms. tbh the 4 x 10 was enough by it's own in most cases. My basses at the time were a charvel 3B '86 through neck, a Cort C4 Limited for the funky stuff and a Sandberg VM4 (music man sound alike, better build quality :))

Why would you want to gate?

Thanks to everyone who n replied with helpful advice. We did get an RCF Evox in the end, and it's been a huge success.

Exactly this. Superglue. You might have to re-apply it a few times. Interestingly our guitarist is a former NHS burns specialist and says Superglue (or something very similar) is used to repair skin quite frequently now.

The 200 is a dual coil more like an MM, not the triple coil of the originals.

I've just finished a theatre run for 'Come From Away'. We didn't have sight of the cast for the show, though the MD did. The MD cued all parts and counted in some sections for band where necessary. Their headset mic was mixed into our IEMs, of which we had full control ourselves in the pit (a god send) The guys at the top level could pretty much do a whole show with their eyes never leaving the pad - I was just happy to get through it as a previous non-reader! I found the experience very challenging but hugely rewarding.

Take no notice of the above advice There is no cure

Literally any bass that I buy is going to be more capable of sounding good than I am of making it sound so. I have a sire v7/5 and it is light years ahead of me, therefore c. £500 is where I draw the line between “good” and “vanity”

I don't think I would adopt that approach being suitably risk averse. Maybe your hearing is so shot that the only way one can judge quality sound is from the price tag where you're only going to hear what you want to hear anyway (an inexpensive bass will, quite naturally, sound poor to your ears). If you've got that kind of easy money, then as long as you're enjoying yourself and you think it makes the difference then that's all that matters, eh. I wouldn't want to be so dependent on the gear making me sound good.

He’s the new @AndyTravis 👍

Not at all- you could learn from each other and keep the fires (made out of old Les Pauls obviously) burning brightly I’ll give you a pass on the drummer as they have uses but wouldn’t the guitarist look much better, and more distinctive fronting bands with a bass? theres still time to save him from mediocrity - move quickly ! If you’re in time no neighbours with pitchforks and buckets of tar and feathers will besmirch your front lawn