BigRedX

I doubt that custom or boutique instruments will ever go away given that they have been in mainstream usage for over 50 years now. And you should be glad that they exist, because the alternative would be people like me hacking vintage instruments apart to get them to do what we want.

In theory a decent idea. However in practice, especially for live use, every additional connection adds another point of potential failure and a patch bay will add 2 for every device connected to it. Also connections that are made and broken on a regular basis tend to be the ones that fail first. If you find yourself changing the routings you use on your pedal board a lot, there are two things you may want to look at: 1. Have your patch bay normalised so that the most commonly used configuration is hard wired into it without needing any additional patch cables. 2. Look at one of the MIDI controlled routing systems where all your devices are attached to a master controller unit and the various routing are made from that.

Next gig for us is our first proper headlining one: Friday 19th September at Liquid Light in Nottingham. Supports from St Lucifer and Joshua Todd. Doors are at 7.00 with free entry.

For me the only significant advantage of the Stadium over the standard Helix is Showcase. I'll wait until it is included and I can see if it's actually going to be any use to me.

Are you going to stain the back of the neck to match the body?

Actually in a way it is Thomann's fault as they continue to use DHL for deliveries in the UK, and while they may be giving an excellent service on mainland Europe, here they are mostly a bunch of useless muppets.

IME playing along to the recorded version always gives you a false sense of ability as the original part is there in the background as an unconscious safety net. Also the songs are EXACTLY the same every time, and while that should be what the band as a whole is aiming for, the reality is often a quite a bit different. In the days when I was playing covers, no matter how well I thought I'd nailed the bass line when practicing at home, in the rehearsal room with the rest of the band it would become rapidly obvious that there was still some way to go.

Listen to drummers and write your own.

Practicing? That's boring. I'd rather be commissioning another boutique bass. While still at school, my history teacher wrote the following on my end of term report: "His design of guitars is stunning. I wish I could say the same for his attention during history".

I've been involved at every level from doing all the writing, recording and production (except the vocals) and organising every aspect of the other band members musical lives, to simply turning up and playing what I am told to play. However as I see myself first and foremost as a composer rather than a musician I have been the major creative force behind the vast majority of the bands I have been in over the last 50 years. When it comes to music I have the sort of personality that if there is no great creative or organisational force within any band that I am part of, I will gradually take over those roles. For my current band all the musical and non-musical duties are fairly evenly split between the three of us. The synth player and myself come up with the main musical ideas and our singer adds lyrics and vocal melodies. I do the drum programming and our synth player does the production. On the non-musical side it's pretty much evenly divided up: our singer does all the people stuff, I do the graphic design and our synth player provides the band transport. It seems to work very well.

From the other side of the fence from someone who has used deps for their band, I'll repeat this because IMO it is worth repeating: If there is a dress code then follow it! While we didn't except our deps to go all out with full leathers (we were a garage punk/psychobilly band) although it would be nice if they had, we did think that a simple instruction to wear black with no obtrusive band or brand logos and no trainers for anyone other than the drummer would be easy to follow. However you'd be surprised by how many couldn't or wouldn't do this. Remember that for the night you are on stage you are part of the band and you are in part responsible for maintaining their reputation both sonically and often visually.

Thank you @LowB_FTW

Are they decent quality? That's a bit difficult to tell from a handful of photographs taken by the maker that no doubt show the best of the instruments in question. They look well enough made, but how can you really know until you have taken the plunge and bought one? As for the price, they are being made in Italy so, unless you are also in the EU, shipping, VAT and import duty will bring the final amount closer to £1350 in the UK for most of the examples shown on the Reverb page, and it you don't like it once you've actually tried it there is then the hassle of sending it back and reclaiming the tax paid which is no longer as straight-forward as it used to be. Personally I think that's a bit expensive for a Fender copy by someone who is still relatively unknown.

Never worked with my Etherwave Theremin. If we plugged it into the PA and there was no signal at the desk the culprit was always the PA's DI100 box. Swapping it for the EMO DI box we carried would sort out the problem every single time. AFAICS the way that the earths of both devices were wired would cause the DI100 to effectively short the output of the Theremin.

IME DI100s have an earthing system that can cause some instruments not to work with them, especially anything with a non-standard PSU.

No I have little interest in Fender shaped basses and even less in fake aging. However the reason for my initial comment is that it seems to me the market for Fender copies is already massively over-saturated at every price point from Harley Benton all the way up to Celinder and similar, so I have a morbid interest to know what each new entrant in this market thinks they can add that isn't already available. After all the Fender bass is now getting on for 70s years old with no significant changes to the two core models for about 50 years, and they were created with express intention of being simple to produce using 40s technology and relatively unskilled labour, which means that pretty much anyone with a workspace, tools and modicum of woodworking knowledge can make one. If I wanted a Fender copy with fake aging there are already numerous sources for one - off the top of my head Limelight, Nash and even the Fender Custom Shop, and I'm sure there's more than that; and for one that looks new the choice is almost endless. So what does this maker bring that hasn't already been done before?

No electronic device is 100% transparent, so by all means for this application start with something inexpensive and if the results are satisfactory then that's all you need.

Does the world need another Fender copy with fake aging? And if so what makes this better than all the other Fender copies with fake aging?

IME unless you are also a prolific song writer with plenty of drive to enable you to organise the other musicians, you are better off joining an existing band.

I've gone the other way. My Helix is so much an essential part of my bass sound that it really doesn't matter which bass I play through it they all come out sounding very similar.

Depends on the construction of the guitar, scale-length and tuning and the amount of processing applied. The 28" scale Baritone guitar I had that was tuned B-B produced wonderfully rich sounding chords even in the first position. That was with a fairly clean sound. On the other hand the 30" A-A tuned guitar I tried was only useful for individual picked lines.

I had a very similar experience although in my case it was more down to the fact that my parents really didn't approve of pop/rock music. Had they thought otherwise I might have ended up with a Rickenbacker or something with a John Birch logo on the headstock. I ended up making my first electric guitar in the woodwork shop at school when I should have been studying for my A levels and was brought home at the end of the school year as a "fait accompli" much to my parent's disappointment. My first bass was bought out of my university grant money and still required that I eat frugally for month. When I finally had the kind of disposable income needed to fuel my musical instrument habit I went mad and spent a considerable amount of money on a fully equipped home studio and all the toys required to fill it. Most of it's gone now, but as I said it took 50+ years to properly scratch that itch.

This. Even if you make a loss in real terms think of it as the hire fee for all those years you've owned the bass. It will be a lot less than what it would have cost you to hire it for that length of time.

I'm in my 60s now and I've never let my age get in the way of playing the music I want. Up until the end of last year I was in 2 post-punk/goth influenced bands, both of which I joined when I was the same age you are now. I found one through a JMB ad that I placed. I was specific about the sort of music I wanted to play and the level of commitment that I was prepared to put in and that I expected from the band in return. It took almost a year to get a reply, but it was exactly the sort of band I was looking for and is the band that I am still playing with, albeit with only one of the members that was in the band I when joined. The second was a band that I was a fan of and was following on Facebook, so when they posted that they were looking for a replacement bass player I got in touch. For this one because the band was reasonably well-know within the genre they had several other people interested and there were additions held. I was the one chosen and the only reason I'm no longer with them now is that I decided to concentrate on the other band when the singer announced he was calling it a day. In both cases that fact that bands already knew who I was (my previous band had done gigs with both bands in the past) I think was an advantage when it came to auditions etc. So while you are looking go out there and and see some gigs by local bands playing the sort of music you want to play and get networking.

If this was me, I'd either leave it as it is, or sand the headstock back to the wood and do it again properly.