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Oh well, it helped me out two years after posting! And I joined the forum 👍😁

This morning's service is one I will remember for some time. We are blessed by having lots of young people in our congregation. They range from babies through all school years to college and university students - plus their parents who are in their twenties through to forties. At 72 I am old enough to be most of our congregation's grandad! We have thriving youth programmes which meet on week nights to cater for the various ages. They attract our own young people who also bring along school friends who do not attend church on Sundays. This morning the church was packed with about 170 people following a youth camp over the Friday and Saturday nights. It was held at a youth centre about 40 miles away and involved silly games coupled with the message of Jesus. The group (including non-church goers) arrived from the camp about 15 minutes before the service started and were fed tea, coffee and hot pastries. Their parents came along to collect them and stayed in the service to find out what had gone on. Our assistant pastor pitched his message just right with plenty of fun but loaded with the Gospel. I was playing bass in the band. We started with "How Great Thou Art" (one of my favourite old hymns) and the singing was terrific. That set the tone for the rest of the service. Further up this thread I posted a video of "Behold Our God" and commented that with a small band I hoped we could do it justice. Boy did it work! Where I was standing I could hear many male voices belting out the song and I don't mind admitting that I choked up a bit. We see many young folk lost in a world that feeds them all kinds of lifestyles and to see a packed hall of teenagers and younger kids praising God and enjoying each other's company was very heart warming. When it is not seen as 'cool' to attend church, having so many young men in our fellowship is encouraging. The fact that we have many young female students may have something to do with it! Playing in church is a privilege I do not take for granted and today was a blessing in more ways than one.

Little revisit - I went and got a Freeway switch and installed it. Took the opportunity to do a bit of copper shielding while I was in there... War volume tests this week at band rehearsal, but through headphones I was enjoying all my series options... IIRC in addition to the standard switching I now have N+M (series), N+B (parallel), N+B (series), N+M+B (parallel), M+B (series)

There is one for sale in the Classifieds here: Otherwise plenty of options out there. Some have an optional footswitch operated distortion circuit built in. Some have option of plugging in earphones for silent practice / aux in for playing along to phone, iPod, etc. Some have sweepable mids if that matters to you. Here are a few to start you off: MXR M81 (very transparent preamp/DI) MXR M80 (more colour to this, and optional distortion) Ampeg SCR-DI (distortion circuit and headphone input) Aguilar Tone Hammer (a popular one, has higher power needs than some, overdrive switch) TC Spectradrive EBS Microbass / 2 / 3 GK Plex DSM Noisemaker OmniCabSim - Deluxe & Mini versions 3 Leaf Enabler (discontinued) DSM & Humboldt Simplifier NUX Melvin Lee Davis NBP-5 Broughton Messenger Radial Bassbone OD Tech 21 BDDI (& version 2 with more mid options) Tech 21 BDDI Programmable Tech 21 BDDI Deluxe Tech 21 Para Driver (think this has a V2 as well) Tech 21 VTDI Tech 21 VT Bass Deluxe Tech 21 Fly Rig Tech 21 Steve Harris Tech 21 Dug Pinnick Tech 21 Q Strip (more transparent than their other options I believe, with low & high pass filter controls) Orange Bass Butler Caline Wine Cellar Behringer BDI V-Tone Bass Driver Lehle RMI Basswitch IQ DI Walrus Audio Badwater Laney Digbeth Eden World Tour DI Darkglass B7K Darkglass Vintage Ultra Darkglass Microtubes X7 Two Notes Le Bass tube (dual channel) Sushi Box Finally Tube DI box Then there are the more expensive tube DI boxes such as: Shift Line Olympic Noble preamp REDDI My list certainly isn't exhaustive. It's somewhat of a minefield, depending on budget and what exactly you think you need. I'll get back with my thoughts soon based on the few I've tried.

It's a lot better this morning. 2 gigs (sitting for some of them) and some ibuprofen and I seem fairly ok sat here, just got out of bed, no tablets and not too bad. Hopefully I've turned the corner now

What your music teacher doesn't want you to know... - but this is no clickbait scam! : Ain't that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

Well, in the seller's defence, had they put it in the right place they would have really struggled to access the strings at all given the size of that bridge cover

I can seafood miles - The Who

I'm shocked. A rehearsal space with a cleaner?

I would put the Laney digbeth preamp in. It has clean and overdrive channel that are mixable, di and and effects loop as well as a 4band eq. Cheaper than most Di boxes aside from Chinese clones. Only issue I would mention (as rediculous as this sounds) you need to like the sound of your bass. It doesn't colour the tone the same way a sansamp or the like does. I had some issues with that for a while until I got a new bass and realised why I wasn't getting on with it😐. Something like a second hand sansamp has the advantage of sounding more or less the same regardless of what amp/sound system you plug it into. That's something that can be very valuable if your not using your own amp.

Update on this. I bought a Fusion 800s off Mr Dinsdale and paired it with a barefaced retro 6x10. Only played it in the house so far so yet to use it in anger but the tone is absolutely superb. I love the Gallien Kruger growl and paired with the barefaced it just sounds so gritty and crisp, tried it with a fender jazz, music man sub and Spector rebop and they all sound amazing. I was a bit concerned about the tone controls etc on the head after reading various opinions online but it only takes 10 minutes of playing or so to feel your way through them. Will update on here after I’ve used it for rehearsal and gigs in the next few weeks but it’s looking like a very solid purchase!

Ashdown Studio 15 is great for my 72 year old back and legs!

You don't see many of these about! It has Humbuster pickups. 🙂

Folks, some sad news today. I visited our very own @ash this afternoon for our annual P bass exchange and to my horror it would appear that ash is down to his last 3 P basses. This is very worrying indeed and I have offered a much emotional support as I can. In order not to aggravate ash's condition could I ask for a short moratorium on posting any pics of P basses or indeed any listing of P basses for sale. It's a difficult time for ash and I'm sure the BC community will support. Thank you.

Riot - U.K. Subs

Off to the Netherlands (although the gig's in Italy) for this curio from Dutch footballing legend Ruud Gullit.

I was in an Essex band called Midlife Crisis (South Woodham Ferrer's) at that time, there was even a website dedicated to bands with that name. There were 43 bands registered😂

Cyan O' The Times ～ Prïnce

Brilliant, it worked! You’re obviously some kind of wizard 😁 But seriously, thanks. I would never have known that. I just assumed putting the red wire in the wrong place resulted in flames haha.

Prawn To Run ～ Bruce Springstëën

Absolutely this, unless you can be 100% confident they'll treat it as well as you would (spoiler: they won't).

I think you can appreciate someone’s bass playing but not know much about them. I reckon Greg’s doing the right thing to crowdsource some opinions from bass players.

I echo this. Had one the same as Cosmo’s bass on the right briefly in a trade. Sounded really good but was just too damn heavy for me.

Yep, L4/L5 prolapses and disc damage years back have left my back…not great. Pilates based stuff seems to be what the NHS physios at least have been favouring in recent years and does help me for sure. Walking plenty when it’s OK to also helps. Likewise (trying to) keep my weight down. Oh, and Barefaced cabs!

Don't Come Around Ear No More - Tom Petty

TC Electronic Spectradrive. DI, drive, comp and 4 band eq. Plus the toneprints give you access to tons of drive types, and comps, so it's very flexible.

perfect set up for the married man 😂

She played a Veillette Citron bass - only 270 ish instruments were made before the company ceased to trade. There are probably 3 in the UK - I've owned two of them.

Have done all the varnishing, also oiled the neck and fretboard over the past couple of weekends. Still needs a final buffing, but happy with how it is coming together. Back view first, with test fit of the tuners. And the front. Hardware roughly positioned. Next up for today was securing the pickup, no pics as it was a bit of a pain and just got on with it, went with magnets and a couple of panel pins with the heads snipped off to push it onto and keep it in place, didn't want screws showing but will have to see how it is when it is strung up. Next was positioning the individual bridge saddles, out with the string and marked it up. And then did a strip of copper underneath the saddles, attached to the earth wire and passed into the control cavity. Then screwed the saddles in place. It is great having a job again, but makes build progress very slow. Not getting any time in the evenings, so just weekends at the moment. Hopefully can get on with the controls next weekend.

Great job @Al Krow. Very informative and helpful conclusion. You have probably helped many on here save their time and expense with the journey you've published. Thanks!!

Had a good gig on friday. Someone dexcribed the crowd as 'muso night' so no pressure... in the end we probably played one of our best performances. Even did a bit of call and response with Alex and took an insanely fast solo for Bullfrog Blues. A fair few new songs too which was nice. Great prep for the Earl Haig next weekend😁

It's interesting how obvious it is, right, even via a compressed Instagram upload? In terms of recording: was my usual set up of Rode Stereo Mic --> Sony a6300 (with the internal camera recording levels cut to avoid distortion). The recording was done via my desk with all settings identical - I simply panned left or right. I was particularly interested in how the speakers handled vocals and I think that particular song illustrates it very well. I only recorded that one song unfortunately and the 732A PA is now in the possession of our lead vox. We did use at a gig last night for, bass, keys and 2 vox. It was very good. My conclusion from this past year (with some very helpful input indeed on this thread, thank you!) is that in terms of relatively compact PA set-ups, with no bass line or subs: RCF310A (relatively budget) --> RCF 912A = big improvement in bass handling --> RCF 732A = further significant improvement in vocals / mids (but looking at double the price of the 310As)