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Just my experience - as valid as any other. I've said how it CAN work and what the drawbacks are.

Acoustic duo gig yesterday evening at a local pub - birthday party for a friend’s wife. We played in a room at the back of the pub which used to be a brewery, with a flagstone floor but very uneven. We both spent all the gig balanced precariously on stools with one foot on the ground, not ideal but no alternative. I had to put wedges under our PA speakers on one side to prevent them from falling backwards! We did our usual request format and had some good ones. Because there was no room for dancing it meant we could play more slow tempo tunes, including ‘Sweet baby James’, ‘Rotterdam’ and ‘Let’s stay together’. Bad planning meant the buffet was served during the start of our second set, but we ploughed on regardless as we were due to finish by a certain time. Didn’t seem to matter, and we went down well so all good. Load out in the rain but meant it was quick! Got two more gigs this Tuesday and Wednesday, then a week off, phew.

I like that too, simple, straightforward, and let the music do the talking.

I'd agree there. It's the same shade as my Olympic Jazz.

My back is bad and have gone short-scale, have a Sandberg Superlight on order (2 year waiting list, aaarrrggh). I`ve also started using a Mono GS1 strap, and heightened it as before had the low-down punk setting which doesn`t help posture. The combination of a shorter bass with its centre of gravity being more over the core of my body, plus the thicker padded strap and playing the instrument higher up have all made a difference. I don`t use pedals with screens but if I did I would be in the same position so would be looking at one with a bigger screen or lets say 3 patches where each could be selected like on the Zoom B3, and then just add this on to my copy of the set list so as to know which patch for which songs.

My back is bad and have gone short-scale, have a Sandberg Superlight on order (2 year waiting list, aaarrrggh). I`ve also started using a Mono GS1 strap, and heightened it as before had the low-down punk setting which doesn`t help posture. The combination of a shorter bass with its centre of gravity being more over the core of my body, plus the thicker padded strap and playing the instrument higher up have all made a difference. I don`t use pedals with screens but if I did I would be in the same position so would be looking at one with a bigger screen or lets say 3 patches where each could be selected like on the Zoom B3, and then just add this on to my copy of the set list so as to know which patch for which songs.

couldn't you have a little lamp on the floor pointing at your pedals and set list?

You'd have to tune it sharp though

I’d be down for this.

Sunday afternoon saw our (Rascallion) first live performance since August last year (long story!). The event (outdoors at a local pub) had originally been billed as "Country Music Day", featuring a local female solo acoustic singer followed by us, so we'd worked up a set featuring a few of the more country-adjacent tunes we've not done for a while, and added the 6/8 at 49 BPM delights of "Tennessee Whiskey" to our usual CCR / Eagles / Petty / Stones country-rockesque fare. Sometime over the last month, the event then morphed into a combined Sausage & Cider Festival and SSAFA Fundraiser, but we decided to stick to what we'd already put together, and it mostly went OK despite rehearsals being sporadic due to various members being ill or otherwise unavailable. After Meg had entertained the crowd (and us) with two sets of country classics plus a few very good (and in one case very funny / raucous) originals, it was our turn to spoil everybody's afternoon. Apart from a number of on-the-hoof arrangement changes courtesy of Mr Singer (OK, maybe he was just testing out our recovery skills, but I suspect not... ), a couple of the carefully-crafted intros we'd worked up at rehearsal on Wednesday going to pot as various folks piled in before they should have done (think we need a few more counting lessons... ), and a few other minor moments by all of us, seems we got away with it judging by the amount of applause, outbreaks of (possibly cider-induced) dancing, and complimentary comments at the end! Used my 1997 CIJ Jazz, faithful old Ashdown MAG300-C210T combo (acquired from @karlfer of this parish about 15 years ago, and which doesn't get to see much action these days), plus the usual board of Micro Thumpinator > NUX tuner > Ampeg OptoComp > Ampeg Scrambler > Ampeg Liquifier > Ashdown 12-band Graphic EQ/DI > Behringer DI600P DI. I somehow contrived to play the whole of the first set and a chunk of the second with the sub-harmonic engaged on the amp having omitted to disengage it after our last rehearsal, but I don't think anybody noticed. 🤫 Anyway, that's hopefully got the rust knocked off prior to our next gig this coming Saturday at our spiritual home of Anderby Village Hall. Might have some videos to put up later, if I can manage to get them off Mr Rhythm Guitar's phone at rehearsal, but in the meantime here's the setup, and a combined "Post Your Pedalboard / Footwear" shot.

I recently created a large playlist of Vulfpeck, Fearless Flyers and Cory Wong tracks. Liking the 'this American life' feel. Also, curiously liking Khruangbin for their light, easy listening (I'm obviously getting old!) ambient feel.

This doesn't really help the OP, but for my points: In the concert band I play in, I have moved from using paper sheet music to an iPad. It is a game changer, but I have to be very careful with the angle of my stand as it sometimes ends up sitting in a position that is on the varifocal divide between far and short lens, so can get a bit blurry if you look at it from the wrong angle. In my late 40s, my back is already shot, so although I use pedals, they have to be pre-set before a gig and switched by foot only as I can't bend down far enough to change settings on the fly!

I have a John East J-Retro fitted to my Jazz Bass. I love a bit of low mid, which I feel gives punch and definition. When I go through a, front of house, PA I will turn up the low mids on my Jazz to prevent the sound engineer giving me a muddy sound out front. Of course I could change the whole character of my bass, with various options available with the J-Retro, but I mostly keep things pretty simple. I also like the ability to walk out into the room, while the band is playing, and change my tone to suit the room, without touching my amp controls.

Again, varifocal lenses are the answer here, a different prescription for different areas of the lens, no magnifying effect up close at all. Talk to your optician. Edit -> there's nothing happening here which hundreds of millions of people haven't gone through already. Your optician will be your best source of advice.

It's really useful to have a volume control that doesn't affect the tone.

How did it go Trevor?

The problem is that at the end of their useful life 9V PP3 batteries tend to 'fall off a cliff' in higher current use. Hence the familiar rapid onset of fartiness halfway through a set. They usually show well above 9V off load even when fairly well discharged. What really matters is the on load voltage. A better quality battery e.g. a good alkaline one, will go to a lower on load voltage before it suddenly drops. The load varies between preamp designs. A preamp taking a smaller current will cause less voltage drop and therefore work with a weaker battery. They can also recover a bit when unused. So the voltage level a gig or two before the battery fails depends on the quality of the battery, the preamp current requirement and the frequency of use. This graph is at an unrealistic 100mA discharge rate. Much lower rates would be found in mist of our applications (except old school digital effects). The theoretical ideal would be to measure the voltage with the preamp on and keep records for each battery brand until you know when it's likely to fail. Thinking about it, a sensible compromise would be to use older batteries for practice/rehearsal and keep fresher ones for gigs. You could keep track of which batteries are freshest by measuring their voltage. I'll probably start doing this! P.S. I have an active Hohner with a red LED for power on. The LED probably uses more power than the preamp...

It’s almost counter~intuitive but HPF is the bassists and sound tech’s friend.