BigRedX

These days almost all software is purchased by licence, so unless your DAW and plug-ins are all Windows only, you'll be able to download the Mac versions at no extra cost. If you are happy to buy second hand you'll get a much better deal on a used Mac, and as others have said they tend last longer and hold their value better than Windows machines. This is being typed on the Mac I use to earn my living, which is 12 years old and still going strong. I'd steer clear of ex-gamers machines, because they'll have probably been drive hard/hot by their previous owner(s) and may be on the verge of failure. Also for non-gaming use the graphics card will be over-spec'd and for your needs over-priced. All good DAWs will de-prioritise screen redraw when the system starts to run out of power, so unless you want to run multiple large monitors you'll be paying a premium for a component you don't need.

In that case, IMO anything with a reasonable amount of padding and a carry handle on the side will probably do. I'd be looking at something in the middle price bracket from any of the standard gig bag manufacturers like Ritter.

Thanks! It's actually been 42 years. I've edited my original post. It turns out it was easier for me to get a gig on the main stage at Rock City than The Boat!

First time playing at Nottingham Boat Club, the scene of some great gigs I went to when I first moved here, and it's only taken me 42 years to get on this stage. No gig photos as yet, but here's one from the afternoon soundcheck...

What's the gig bag for? Something light (and smaller than a hard case) to hold the basses while they are in your car and being carried to and from the venue, or are you planning to walk any distance (more than 10 minutes) wearing it? As far as protection goes the Mono bag is great, but yet again on Friday I was reminded why I don't use it to carry the bass any distance. On me the the bass hangs so low that the bottom of the bag is just above the backs of my knees and it slaps against my legs with every stride. The straps are so long that it is impossible to do them up tightly enough to make the bag secure like a rucksack would be. The 30 minute walk was a massively unpleasant experience which ensured that if I have to do it again, I'll be patient and wait for the bus. AFAICS in order to be comfortable the straps need to be arranged as they would on a decent backpack. That means not close together at the top and ending much higher up than the bottom of the bag. I don't see any gig bags like this on the market at the moment. Probably because this arrangement would make to top of the bag too high and it would be hitting door frames no matter how small the wearer was. However, I would be grateful if someone proved me wrong.

No. None of the necks on my basses have changed much with temperature conditions and given the fact that it will all be over in a week or so, if I did make any adjustments now, I'd just be reversing them again when summer reverts to the UK normal, so I'll put up with very slightly higher action than normal for a few days.

I've just had a read through the Custom Skins guidelines and FAQ, and I'm impressed. They haven't made it complicated for those who are just going to cobble something together in Paint or Word Art and at the same time it's not been over-simplified for those of us who know what we are doing when it comes to presenting graphics for print. On that basis alone they should be congratulated.

Does it have to be a laptop? While they are pretty good for portability, the compact design is the main reason why they fail more regularly than desktop machines and especially in hot conditions, and on the whole they are never as powerful as the equivalent price desktop, plus that tiny screen doesn't make life easy especially for most music apps.

From a practical PoV, I've tried that, but I keep coming to the conclusion that I have a favourite bass to play and nothing else comes close for the playability. As a result I've sold all my 4 and 5 string basses except for my 2 Gus G3s and I'm in the process of getting rid of the unplayed Bass VIs and replacing them with a second Eastwood Hooky. If I could afford two bass VIs from Gus I'd have them instead. I'm aware that the Gus doesn't visually suit every band, but these days I'm unlikely to want to join any band where I didn't think that look would be appropriate.

Different band images require different looking instruments.

As I said, the bass that was in my single Mono gig bag survived having a heavyweight 2x10 cab dropped onto it. Whether a double bag would offer the same level of protection would probably depend on how good the padding is between the basses and how rigid the case is with the extra width. If the bass has been in a regular padded gig bag it would have probably suffered some damage (and so would the cab). Some hard cases would also have fared quite badly in this situation.

Other than having a similar body and headstock outline it has very little in common with the original 1963 Thunderbird bass.

Really? I like Underworld's music, but I only got into to it because I'd been a fan of the previous version of Underworld, and Freur before them. All the things that make the second version of Underworld you like stand out from the other "Progressive House" acts of the time had been repurposed from Karl and Rick's previous bands. IMO Darren Emerson always looked like the weak link in the band and unsurprisingly after he left, very little changed and he's done nothing of note musically since then.

A return to the original (1963) spec with a slightly wider two-part bridge/tailpiece. Every "update" IMO makes them less desirable. If Gibson wanted to be really radical then a 5-string version based on the above.

IMO it's restrained and about as close to being economically and proportionally perfect as possible. I certainly prefer it to the more "distinctive" version that's on the G1 guitar.

Pretty much all mainstream Japanese guitars and basses do this.

In that case the Mono dual bag might be feasible. Bear in mind that two basses plus anything else you might want to cram in the pockets will be quite heavy, and you might find, like I did, that the Mono bag isn't the most comfortable to wear for any significant amount of time. I've been using a Mono M80 bag (single) for about 10 years now, but it's nowhere near as comfortable to wear for a long (more than 10 minute) walk than the Ritter bag it was supposed to replace. However it does offer a level of protection way above the standard gig bag. I had a 2 x 10 cab drop about 3 feet onto my bass in it's Mono bag and both were fine. This is why the Mono bags are expensive. The protection they provide actually works. When I bought my Mono bag it was the smallest and lightest of the semi-rigid gig bags, but it's still only marginally smaller and lighter than a Hiscox case. It will, however, allow you to cram it into spaces in the car that a conventional hard case would struggle to fit into. On the other hand, for me, it is absolutely no use for carrying my bass any further than from the car/van to the venue/rehearsal room etc. I certainly wouldn't want to make the 30 minute walk from where I live to the rehearsal room with mine, and I'd be even more reluctant to do so with the weight of two basses in a similar bag. HTH.

Why do you want a gig bag? To save a bit of space in the car, or to actually carry your basses any significant distance (i.e. more than the trip from the car to the venue).

A drummer I worked with in the late 90s had a home brew version of this, with a small conventional kit that had been fitted with triggers and comprehensively damped inside the shells. It worked nicely for the band because even the significantly reduced acoustic sound of the drums was loud enough for us to hear on stage without needing the samples and synthesised sounds loud in the monitors. It also worked well for those members of the audience who listened with their eyes rather than their ears (usually other musicians) who consistently commented on how much better this drummer sounded even though he was triggering exactly the same sounds as his predecessor who used a more obviously electronic kit, as well as the sequencer we employed before that!

And that's why I have ditched my traditional amp and cabs in favour of a wedge-shaped FRFR as a personal monitor and PA does the bass (and all the other instruments) for FoH.

Speakon plugs/sockets are a properly engineered solution for the currents and voltages present in amp to speaker connections for anything other than low wattage (under 50W) combos.

Do the drums function of useable acoustic drums too or are they damped in some way to reduce the noise?

IIRC the maximum cable length for USB was originally quoted as 5m. I've also successfully used a USB extender system which employed Cat5e cable and allowed me to control a computer several rooms away via the standard network cabling system. I don't know how good this system would be with timing critical USB data though.

In that case unless getting RecAll working is still a priority, just continue using Reaper. On the basis of that update my suspicion that it is a clocking problem that is being caused by RecAll is the favourite. If you still want to resolve this then please post the zoomed in screen shot of one of the clicks and point me in the direction of the manual for RecAll.

Female backing vocalist/keyboard player is Shirley Manson