pineweasel

I see, so workable for modest volumes. It probably wouldn't work for my band as we have a loud drummer, and the required vocals volume would become too high.

I saw a band recently in a smallish pub, and I was intrigued by the positioning of their PA speakers. A 4-piece, they had the drums and keys next to each other along a wall, with bass and guitar in front. All instruments plus the kick were going through the PA (no amps), and all four players had a vocal mic. The PA mains (15” Yamahas) were either side of the drums and keys, next to the wall and hence well behind the front mics. No sub as far as I could tell. The guitarist and bassist both had wedge monitors. They sounded pretty good and the volume was decent for the room, which was full with a raucous crowd. I can see the appeal of getting the PA mains out of the way, but how do you get an arrangement like that to work without feedback?

The fretless fives have caught my eye. Does anyone have any experience of the PJ version of these basses?

It’s true that the strings on the SR5 do run close to the edge of the board, a deliberate decision by EBMM to keep the neck slim, and some players don’t like this. But I’ve never seen one that’s badly off centre. You’ve been rather unlucky.

Lots of good info here on the changes made over the years: http://www.musicmanbass.global And if you are considering a used EBMM Stingray, you can check the serial number here, which will tell you the model, colour and date of manufacture: https://www.music-man.com/serial-number-database

I don't think so, you only get to choose one effect for each of the four knobs, or you can turn that group off by rotating its knob fully counter-clockwise.

One issue with the Express is that the control of each effect appears to be severely limited, consisting of just the sweep of the effect knob through that effect's range, which "increases its intensity". What does that mean for, say, the OC-2 clone?

Looks like it, see page 10 of the manual https://line6.com/data/6/0a020a40152f865e216d6d6b24/application/pdf/POD Express Owner's Manual - English .pdf

It's no good if you need more than one effect at once. But if, like me, you use effects sparingly, and only one per song, it can work well. It's replaced a board with octaver, envelope, distortion, phaser and chorus, and it fits in my gig bag.

It’s interesting that EBMM have dropped them from the latest Stingrays though, and nobody seems to be complaining.

You need to connect the L tape deck output to the XLR and R to the instrument/line input (or vice versa), so a different cable or adaptor for each.

The Scarlett Solo has a one mic input and one instrument/line input, so you'll need to connect your L & R tape deck outputs to those inputs using suitable cables or adaptors. The two tracks will be going through separate input circuits so there might be slight differences in the levels and EQ, though maybe unnoticable when the source is an old cassette. Record onto two audio tracks in your favourite DAW, ensuring you don't have any processing set up on the inputs. From there you can edit into individual tracks, process if desired and export to whatever stereo format you like.

I'm not aware of the pickup wiring ever being changed. Where did you hear about it?

I’ve had a Bass Sleeve for years and regularly walk a mile or two with it. I find it perfectly comfortable, but I am over 6ft.

I bought a few over the years for my lefty Fenders and found it simplest and cheapest to get Bass Direct to order them in.