BigRedX

For some bands image is massively important and this includes the look of the instruments that are being used. Reading between the lines, even though it hasn't been explicitly said, I'm guessing that this is an originals band with a strong visual and musical identity. Unfortunately, although a number of people here are in denial about it, looks can be just as important as playability and sound when it comes to having the right gear for your band. maybe if you're playing a hodgepodge of covers in a pub band it doesn't really matter, but otherwise IMO it does. I've certainly discounted people auditioning for bands I've been in because they didn't have the right image and that includes their choice of musical instrument. However, since the OP is already in the band it can't all be bad. I think this situation hasn't been helped by the OP seemingly declaring to the rest of the band that he's unhappy with the sound/performance of his bass as it currently stands, and maybe they were just trying to be helpful in suggesting alternatives for him to consider rather than insisting that he gets the Dingwall. I don't know I wasn't there at the time. Sometimes musicians aren't very good at expressing themselves verbally.

I really don't understand the idea of it being better to use some random cabs with your amp. In the days when I still had a conventional bass rig I did this once. I had to purchase some extra speaker leads first to make sure that I would be covered for all eventualities as there was no way of knowing that the supplied cabs would have Speakons. It's just as well I did since they were jack only. They were very low sensitivity compared with the my cabs (EBS) and I had to turn up my master volume far higher than I would normally and I was still struggling to hear myself as soon as I stepped away from being directly in from to them. All in all a very unsatisfying experience, which lead me to say in future I would no longer bring just my amp. I'd either use my complete rig or the complete rig of whichever band we were playing with (having organised it in advance). If I was using an all-valve amp there would be no way that I would even consider plugging it into an unknown cab(s). Since ditching the rig for an FRFR and Helix it's no longer an issue. The new gear takes up far less room in the band van than my old conventional rig, and can be fitted anywhere on stage that is convenient.The PA gets a DI from the Helix and I can ignore supplied rig and not have to worry about messing about with someone else's gear.

The 80s is a very broad church. Are you going to consider all of it from New Romantic/synth pop through jangly guitar bands, goth and hair metal to acid house?

With regard to radio play this is completely and utterly wrong.

There's a trade-off between the proximity effect and having to deal with excessive sibilance and plosives. It will vary depending on the voice and the microphone. You'll need to experiment to find the optimum distance. Generally you want to be less close to the mic then you would for singing.

Trying to use words to describe sounds is ultimately pointless. One person's "burpy" is another person's "farty". One person's "deep" is another person's "muddy". My bass sound is tailored to fit the band and the song. For one of bands I current play in, that means a different bass sound on almost every song. When you're in a band where the other instruments are just vocals, synthesiser and percussion, having the same bass guitar sound on every song is both wrong and boring.

Interesting neck break... I used to own a Washburn B20-8 (8-string bass) which had a very similar selection of cracks and breaks in the neck, and which had been fixed with a selection of what looked like rosewood wedges, plus a glued-in block at exactly the same point where it looks as though the truss-rod was coming through the back of the neck on this bass. I wonder if this was a common Washburn problem with their necks?

How many additional sources will you need to add to the bass for your IEM? You need an additional input for each of them, which will be a stereo input from the PA feed as a minimum. So how many additional inputs including effects returns does the Stomp have? You will also need some way of routing the bass out separately from the mix while sending the whole mix to the headphones. I suspect that on the full Helix this is done using one of the effects sends running in parallel so that the signal from the bass only can be tapped off at this point to go to your amp and/or PA DI, and the main outputs are just used for the headphones. All this additional routing and mixing will probably use up one block that you would normally be using for effects or Sims, so make sure that you have enough to do what you need plus the IEMs.

I think I paid £20 for mine when they were being EoL'd in the late 80s. They now seem to be 10 times that second hand. Madness!

Nothing wrong with that. My first sampler was the SK1. Also if you want to hear what can be done with kids toys when it comes to making music check out Kid Carpet.

It will depend on how many extra inputs there are and what the internal routing is like on the Stomp. The full Helix does this by using the additional instrument and microphone inputs plus the effects returns as mixer inputs.

Then you just need to work out if the instrument is worth an extra 25% on top of the asking price plus shipping.

Don't forget that radio presenters are often chosen as much for how their voices sound as anything else. In the days when I did student radio (a long time ago, but the technical standards were very high even if the program content wasn't always), studio voices were done with a good quality microphone mechanically isolated from the room, a dead-ish room and a decent distance between the presenter and the mic, then some compression and maybe a touch of added reverb (the tiniest amount so that it's only just obvious when you A/B between reverb and no reverb). Ultimately though, those presenters blessed with a "radio voice" always sounded better than the rest of us irrespective of the processing.

Or a dry joint somewhere that requires the device to warm up in order for it to make reliable contact.

@Al Krow Let me know when you want to move the Akai on 😉

My choice of bass is decided by the following criteria: 1. In the studio: whichever bass I own is the easiest to play in order to get the part recorded with the minimum of fuss and smallest number of retakes 2. Live: whichever bass I own best fits the image of the band while still allowing me to play the bass lines.

There are some people who appreciate good clothes and how they look in them, and others who have them simply to keep themselves warm in winter and stop them from being arrested for indecent exposure in the summer. Musical instruments are the same. Some people like to obsess over their choice of musical gear and others simply want to make a noise in a band. Neither are right or wrong. For full disclosure: I do own one item of Primark clothing; I needed a pair of conventionally smart dark coloured trousers that I will probably wear on a handful of occasions at the most. I could have bought something from one of my favourite designers or had a pair tailor-made, but on this occasion Primark at £10 fitted the bill perfectly.

This. Don't expect that extra 1" to make any significant difference on its own. The factors for getting a good sounding and playing low B are: eck construction, neck joint and choosing the right low B-string (make, construction and gauge) for your bass.

I've owned a couple of basses with such a thin finish on the neck that I could feel the wood grain while I was playing. I hated both of the them and eventually got rid. For me a thick glossy finish feels far better.

Unfortunately once you get beyond the body shape it's just an over-priced PJ bass. I do like the body shape though.

The first thing you need to check is that your drummer can play accurately to a click. If they can't then the whole thing is pointless. The other thing is that it sets the structure of the song in stone and can make changing the set order less than simple. If those points are deal breakers then you need to keep looking for a suitable keyboard player or re-arrange the songs so that you don't need one. In over 40 years, I've only played in three bands that didn't use some form of automated backing, from just a simple drum machine to complex arrangements with synths, additional guitars, percussion, and backing vocals. On of the bands that I currently play with uses a lot of additional backing, but we would drop it in an instant if we could find a suitable synth player who could double on guitar as required, and who also had great backing vocals.

Proof that great music is as much about using instruments with the appropriate timbre as it is about playing the right notes.

Here you go: In the rack from top to bottom: Peavey Rack Sentinel which provided power for the other two Peavey units and lights for the front of the rack 1U blanking plate Peavey BassFex - the input volume control is behind me on the left. The knob you can see is the parameter access adjustment Peavey Spectrum Filter - lots of knobs but all labeled very non-amp things such as resonance, envelop amount, release etc. Plus this device was only in the signal chain for those sounds that required it, and when it was all the knob settings were ignored in favour of the patch settings and MIDI commands. Boss TU12 Tuner in a custom 2U rack box. Carlsbro 2x300W power amp. The BassFex had a bi-amp module that could be slotted in anywhere in the signal chain and was set up to send high frequencies to one side of the power amp and low frequencies to the other. Effects that tended to sap the low frequency power like chorus and flange went after the bi-amp module and were set to affect the high frequency component only. The high frequency side went to the red 2 x 8 cab on the top of the stack (which I made myself based on the dimensions of my favourite guitar cab), and the low frequencies went to the Carlsbro 1x15 cab. There were also two DI boxes in the back of the rack for high and low frequency sends to the PA.

The advantage of using a non-standard bass rig, with the speaker cables permanently attached to the amp via spade terminals and then cable clipped/tied into the rack. That rig used to terrify bassists from support bands. It was bi-amped and based around a Peavy Bassfex multi-effects unit. There were only 3 easily adjusted controls - input volume, and output volumes for the high and low speakers. Everything else was parameter access or controlled via MIDI. I had a blank patch for those support bands who needed to use my amp, but we always suggested that they bring their own.