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I don't see those replies as elitist at all. They make a valid point. You say you don't have much money to spend on this, but you'll be willing to risk a couple of hundred quite (that I can see on DH Gate for this model) on what is effectively a lottery and potentially unplayable, and non-retrunable. Not to mention, you may have to pay import taxes as well, and you're willing to spend more money and time to upgrade it? There are far cheaper and risk-free options available that are more likely to be perfectly playable, even giggable, straight out of the box. Harley Benton from Thomann, or Gear4Music's in-house brands for instance. Don't like them - send them back. Or try your local Facebook Marketplace - you can try them out in person before buying them. Reading between the lines, it sounds like you really want a Duff McKagan bass on the cheap!

Like so many bass players, I have recently been investigating the lightweight route (lazy, perhaps, but it certainly beats dragging a wardrobe across gravel and up stairs to gigs) and found this thread. My setup until now has been a Laney Nexus 400w tube head with a 1x15 and 4x10 Laney RWB cab underneath for the open air gigs where you really need to move some air. For indoor gigs I have been using a MarkBass CMD121P and have recently had to add a New York Traveller 121 extension cab to keep up with the guitar players. While the Laney rig is EPIC, it is also HEAVY (but worth it for the right setting). I am finding, however, that I am dialling out everything that MarkBass seems to add to colour their kit (very marmite on this, I know a lot of people love MB kit - and they are great for the weight and the price… if you like the MB sound). After a lot of reading, I took the plunge and got in touch with Stevie at LF Sys for a final piece of advice and very quickly took the plunge to invest in one of Stevie’s finest Monaco cabs. (Stevie was honest enough to say that a pair of Monaco’s would not be the same as the Laney rig, but would get me to the same ballpark). Originally, I was looking for a solution for electric bass so also managed to bag a Genz Benz Streamliner 900 to pair with it - and it certainly does not disappoint! One of the bands I play in has a couple of guitarists that seem to have their amps constantly set to 11. At these volumes, the MB rig was getting muddy and the Laney was rig overwhelming. So: enter the GB Streamliner and the Monaco… wow! This setup gave me the heft and richness of sound I was looking for in bass tone and sat in the mix with absolute clarity without drowning out the rest of the band. This then got me thinking and wondering how it would fare for upright… so GAS strikes again and I managed to bag a Genzler Magellan amp for a steal on e-bay and tried that last night. Again, I was truly impressed. This is one versatile cab, taking the tube grit of the Streamliner with electric bass with ease and, the very next day, providing a really clean sound with the Magellan and upright bass. Bearing in mind that, as the Monaco is 8Ohm, I was only using 1/2 the max power of each amp yet the volume was plenty (and then some) for the two rehearsal settings. Obligatorty pic for reference: I have a feeling that I may shortly have a MB rig and a Laney rig up for sale… although parting with the Laney will be hard, but I suspect it may start collecting dust as the Monaco really does get to the same ball park. Thank you Stevie!!

Most mixers only have one headphone out, so you’ll need something like this to take the mixer stereo headphones out and power two sets of headphones. https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=0835-AAF If you go down this route, don’t forget to buy a TRS to TRS cable with the right size plugs to fit your mixer.

I've worked on plenty of Ric truss rods and nearly always clamp the neck straight, prior to carrying out adjustments. It is an efficient way of taking the stress off of the rod during the process of straightening the neck.

I have a Markbass CMD 121 P combo. It's great for home practice and gigging.

Bungalow Bill - The Beatles

would have thought they might have relocated the operation outside of the uk ..the brand is strong and quality can be maintained if the will is there, the days of asia producing rubbish are behind us.

Heh, I can't leave anything alone... I also swapped the bridge for another one which let me get the action a touch lower but I'm still not wedded to the chunky high mass bridge look on this bass...

Well when I first bought my OBD-3 I was playing it through my jazz bass and it sounded awesome, the tone I wanted etc, but I’ve since moved to Spector and although I can get a nice sound from it by rolling the bass all the way back on my bass (tone pump pre amp, dialed down to around 30% output) it’s just not very practical in a live scenario. Certain songs I need to stomp on and off for distortion, so I’d initially read up on radial dragsters to correct impedance load which I thought may help me get the OBD-3 pedal working to my liking, but as ITU commented above maybe that’s not the best idea. I’ve got a second hand big muff deluxe on the way to try next

I second a used Markbass combo. While it's a little spendier, if you can find a deal on a CMD121 rather than a Blackline, you will find yourself more or less set for life. I used mine solo for rehearsals for years and smaller gigs, plus it has the guts to add a second cab for larger stages. It's super small and robust and versatile. at low volumes, the fan noise and horn hiss can be louder than the bass, which is great. As tempting as it is to find a lower power alternative to make sure its portable anything that says its "100 Watts'" for bass s in my experience is going to struggle at practice volumes to stay "Clean" usually with combo's these are paired with a cheaper speaker and the gain needed to bring up your volume will shape your tone, So going from bedroom levels " to headroom" is going to be a struggle, Last night, I used one of the new Fender Rumble 100's (new rehearsal room for us) I't sounded Dire .... I've used the larger ones before on shared stages happily but I've not been enough of a jerk to want to adjust their settings. I'm sure I'm going to anger the folk who love them but I found it totally boomy, undefined and saturated no matter what I did with the Eq, to get any volume to compete with the guitarists I needed to run the gain quite high and it was so bass heavy .... i ended up with its eq controls with the bass totally cut and both low and high mid and treble and 70%, perhaps this is because its designed with fender bass'es in mind which can be a bit more " mid focused" but it was an experience that made me wish i'd brought my markbass .