BigRedX

The vast majority of the time nothing terrible is going to happen and you are unlikely to damage any of the equipment. However depending on how the sockets are wired and how the cables are wired into the plugs at each end you might get unexpected audio side effects. If you have reached the stage where you have patch bays in your set up then you really should be also at the stage where you can solder up your own cables so that you are using the correct ones with the correct plugs attached.

The 4 extra strings do appear to have been a later addition.

I have an Eastwood Hooky Bass 6 Pro. I play in a post-punk/goth influenced band so it's fairly appropriate. However for me the only reason I have it is because it's only Bass VI with a neck wide enough to comfortably suit my playing style. If I could get on with the Squier Bass VI I'd probably still be using that. When I have the cash the Eastwood will most likely be replaced with something custom made with the same neck with but a more interesting looking design.

A former bandmate told me about his previous musical project where he and another musician would drive every Monday from Nottingham to Newcastle where they would stay all week (driving back on Friday night) rehearsing and recording with a singer from a reasonably well-known 90s band who was trying to relaunch his career. This went on for about a year and a handful of gigs before it all fell apart. However, given the nature of the project, I believe they were being paid for their time.

Which is more valuable/useful? A slightly non-original bass that works properly, or an all-original one that is unreliable?

Anyone who plugs a memory stick from an unknown source into their computer deserves everything they get.

It's a sad state of affairs when a band's audience is prepared to pay £10 for a T-shirt which will probably have at least a 100% mark up, but won't pay the same for an album on CD which is barely breaking even on pressing costs only.

The main problem is that the design in the OP is is not really suitable for printing onto cost-effective T-shirts, hence the prices that are being quoted which is for direct to garment, which is too expensive and not as hard wearing. IME a design like that in the OP is only worth producing directly when the band is at the stage where they can be looking at T-shirt sales of 1000+. At the level the OP's band appears to be they need T-shirts that can be printed for around £6 each or less (for 100 shirts) to be sold at £10-£15 a shirt. This means reducing the design to a single solid colour - generally white to be printed onto a black T-shirt. Depending on how the original design has been produced it may be possible to go back to the original artist and get them to do a new version that meets the requirements for single-colour screen printing. They will also need to simplify some of the fine line detail as that won't reproduce well. The other potential issue is that the design is specific to a particular EP which means that it will date. One of the bands I play with have generic band logo T-shirts and those based on the cover of our last album. The album design T-shirts sold well while the album was new, but now the album is a couple of years old they have dropped off in favour of the generic ones. If this was for one of my bands I would forget about the illustration and simply go for a big band logo. This will look impressive, be easy and cost-effective to print which means that there is a very good chance that the band will actually make money out of selling them. It also turns every single person wearing one into an easily readable walking advertisement for the band. Also IME for the print to be cost effective you need to produce at least 100 T-shirts and be able to sell them for at least twice what they cost. If you don't think you can sell 50 T-shirts in a year then it's probably not for your band. Don't worry too much about sizes - from experience no matter how much of your audience is made up of skinny hipsters the people who buy band T-shirts tend to be size L and bigger. So get mostly L and XL and a few S, M and 2XL. As has been said get a SumUp or similar card reader. Personally I wouldn't bother with cash any more, it will save you from having to have change, as you can guarantee that the first 5 people to buy one for cash will all want to pay with £20 notes. HTH.

This is a Yamaha Super-Strat that I used to own and let him use for a few gigs. Despite the fact that the guitar was thoroughly wiped down after each playing session this was the result after a month or so of him playing it with all the rusting and pitting of the black finish to the metal parts caused by the reaction of the metalwork to his sweat.

IME it completely depends on what's in your sweat and how much of it you leave on your strings (and the rest of the instrument). I'm seem to be lucky in that my sweat is fairly innocuous and TBH the Fast Fret applicator added more crap to the bass guitar strings than it appeared to remove. OtOH I used to play with a guitarist whose sweat was so corrosive that he would have to give the whole guitar a thorough clean immediately after the gig otherwise not only did the strings rot away but so did all the other metal parts of the instrument.

My synth-pop band covered this back in the 80s. Trying to get the drum machine programmed with the correct bar structure was a challenge. It's a clever song that sounds simple until you need to dissect it at which point you discover that it is most definitely rather complex.

Not all Hondo Aliens have aluminium necks, although it looks as though the one in the Facebook link does.

So what counts as a "pub" gig? Here in Nottingham originals bands play at The Jam Café, The Chameleon, The Angel Microbrewery, The Golden Fleece, Rough Trade. IMO they all count as "pubs". There's also The Old Cold Store which is a venue behind a pub. The Chameleon and The Angel Microbrewery have separate upstairs rooms where the bands play, but you still have to go down to the main part of the pub to get your drinks. All of these venues have in-house PA systems. TBH no-one would play at the Chameleon if they had to bring their own PA system as it's almost impossible to park nearby even for loading, and then down a narrow alleyway and up two flights of steep stairs. The venue makes up for it by having the most ridiculously large 80s style rig that goes all the way up to the ceiling and the venue capacity could probably be increased by 25% if it was replaced with something more modern. I'm sure that if I looked hard enough I could find pubs here that were prepared to put on an originals band and would require the band to bring their own PA system. But why bother when there's plenty of places to play that don't require that extra effort?

You must be deliberately playing some strange places. For the past 30 years I have played 100s of venues all over the UK and the only times (less than 5) there was no in-house PA and lights was when we deliberately chose to play somewhere that didn't normally put on live music, and in these cases we knew in advance and hired in PA and lights along with a crew to load, set them up and work them and that was factored in to the economics of doing the gig.

Absolutely this. Being able to own almost 50 guitars and basses at the same time allowed me directly compare them all and decide which ones I would keep and use and which I was just owning because I could. The six that I have kept are: Gus G3 5-String (red). This is my main bass for one band Gus G3 5-String (black). This is the back-up bass. Eastwood Hooky 6-String Bass. This is my main bass for the other band Burns Barracuda. This is the back-up bass for the Eastwood. When I have the cash it will be replaced by another Eastwood. Gus G1 Guitar. For writing and recording Fretking Esprit V Custom. For writing and recording. And that's all I need.

According to page 43 of the quick start manual it is for MIDI over USB.

No chorus and delay at the same time?

Before I got the Helix I had a BassPod XT Pro. For the band I was in at the time I used 4 sounds as follows: 1. Basic sound 2. As 1 but a bit brighter 3. As 1 but with a bit more drive 4. As 1 but with a bit more drive and brighter I could have got away with using sound #1 for the whole gig, and I did on a few occasions when there was no room for the Floor board due to limited floor space on-stage or the cable connecting it the Pod was playing up. With the Helix now I have a separate Preset for each song often with multiple Snapshots for variations within that song. Each has been tweaked so my volume and EQ balance complements the changing sounds of the other instruments. Even if I was in a band that required one bass sound for everything, I'd still be using the Helix because I could dial in my one perfect sound.

It's got a USB socket on the back already. Doesn't that provide "MIDI over USB"?

I've just spent about 15 minutes scrolling through the Quad Cortex page and I have to say that as a Helix user I'm not particularly impressed. 1. Touch Screen. Guaranteed to go wrong at the worst possible moment. Sometimes I have problems getting my phone or iPad to recognise my fingers; and touch screens at supermarket checkouts? Forget it. Unless all the touch screen functions can be duplicated with the front panel controls this is a non-starter. 2. They dedicate far more time and space to amp and cab models than they do to effects. IMO amp and cab models are red herrings. They are things that get in the way of your sound, especially if you are using effects. Ever since I got my first multi-effects unit 35 years ago I have been fighting against the additional colourations produced by my amplification. Now I rarely use any amp or cab models on my Helix. They don't do anything I can't already do with EQ and drive modules. On the few occasions that I have used amp and cab models they tend to be ones that should be aimed at guitarists but happen to produce a sound that I want. As I have said many times before there are no rules when it comes to modelling devices, you can't break anything like you could with the actual amps and cabs. Also remember that many classic bass amps are the same as the guitar amps but with a different badge on and maybe the EQ frequencies slightly tweaked. 3. External PSU without a locking connection. For me on stage this is a disaster waiting to happen. For individual pedals on a pedal board it doesn't matter since everything is fixed in place and if you've built it properly nothing can become disconnected. However devices like Quad Cortex and the Helix Floor are the pedal board. I'm thankful every time I set up, that the power for the Helix is supplied by a proper IEC mains connecter on a chunky cable, and which can be easily replaced should it go wrong. Both the guitarists in one of my bands use multi-effects pedal boards with external PSUs and both are on their 3rd PSU since I've been in the band due to the weedy cables becoming irreparably damaged.

At one point I had over 50 guitars and basses, as well as a very well equipped home studio in its own dedicated decent-sized room. These days I'm down to 9 basses and guitars and 3 of those are only still here because I haven't got around to selling them. My studio is Logic running on my Mac that I also use for my day job. It was nice to have lots of instruments and studio toys, but many of them never got any real use, and TBH these days I feel I would be better off saving up the money and getting a decent amount of studio time with a good producer for my band instead.

It's a completely different situation if you are running your own PA and it's strictly vocals only. Having said that in the 6 years I have owned it, I've needed to use my RCF745 twice as both backline and to fill the venue with suitably load bass guitar. Both times it coped without a problem and due to its improved dispersion characteristics compared with a typical bass rig I was able to be much quieter on stage - only a little bit louder than I would normally be comfortable with and certainly nothing like the time I had to use my conventional rig as FoH bass where I needed to be so loud I could barely hear the rest of the band on stage. The PA and lighting issue is one of the many reasons why I quit doing covers and have stuck to originals bands. The additional hassle of having to carry, set up and later take down a PA and lighting rig makes the gig less good VfM when you consider how much longer it takes overall.

One of the (for me many) advantages of playing in an originals band. No investment in, or need to carry and set up PA and lights. They are ready-installed in the venue along with people to run them. The band that I play with that doesn't use any backline has 8 items of equipment (and two of them are stands) which are an easy carry between car and venue for the 3 bands members and our occasional roadie/merch seller.

And as I have said many times before, selling my old (big and heavy) bass and guitar rigs paid for me to buy a Helix Floor and RCF745 FRFR cab new and come away with a slight profit. And on hindsight I could have got away with a lesser (cheaper) FRFR as it only gets used for rehearsals with one band and the occasional smaller gigs where the quality of the foldback is unknown.

In the days when I was using a full backline, for local gigs it was cheaper and convenient to get a taxi. Taxi drivers have no qualms about "parking" in the middle of the road directly outside the venue for me to load in and out. The fare both ways was only slightly more than the cost of parking and definitely less if load out was after midnight, and the overall convenience of not having to carry the gear great distances or messing about looking for free or cheap parking outweighed any additional cost.