BigRedX

Because almost everywhere I play with originals bands the venue has full PA support for all the instruments, I don't need to bring any bass specific amplification to the gigs I play. The PA gets a DI from the Helix and I only bring my FRFR cab if I don't know for sure that the foldback will be up to the job of giving me a bass sound that allows me to tell if I'm playing in time and in tune. IME all the covers bands I have been in or seen in the last 10 years have their own vocal only PAs which would require me to still own a conventional bass rig.

Get in touch with Newtone and get them to make set with the same characteristics as their Axiom Bass VI set but for 34" scale.

As I said my experience was from playing originals music at a variety of venues over the last 40 years. The fact that my "rig" can now be a Helix (and occasionally an FRFR for those venues where the monitoring isn't suitable for anything other than vocals) instead a traditional amp and cab set up is one of the many practical reasons why I don't play in covers bands anymore, and nor am I likely to start doing so again.

If you are set on a Kramer The Duke there are a few things to be aware of. 1. Make sure the one you buy is actually a Kramer. There's a visually very close copy in the Hondo Alien. However no every Hondo version has an aluminium neck and the hardware quality is very poor. The easiest way to see it's a proper Kramer is to check the neck plate where it will say so. Also the string retainer at the end of the neck only has a single bolt holding it in place on the Kramer and 2 on the Hondo. The Hondo also has a wooden fingerboard, while the Kramer has an ebonal one. Don't be conned by unscrupulous sellers. There were no exceptions, if it doesn't have all the Kramer features it isn't one. 2. Be aware that even the Kramer version is a bit of a bodge. Kramer made the bass headless by simply sawing the headstock off their standard aluminium neck. It has guitar type machine heads rather than bass ones and the string path between them and the bridge saddles is somewhat conveluted. Also the hardware used on the Kramer models, while being decent quality, varies from one example to the next. I'd make sure that you get one with the Schaller 3D bridge and Schaller machine heads. Because they are now old and no longer in production the prices are somewhat inflated over what would be expected of a bass of similar quality.

I can only speak from my own personal experience which is: 40+ years of playing in originals bands, none of the bands I have been in have owned their own PA that was used for gigs (I've been in a few that had their own rehearsal rooms with a vocal PA but we would have never consider using it for a gig). In the early days the PA was hired in and this cost was covered by the money we got from the venue/promoter. Apart from a few very small pubs that I played in the 80s, the bass always went into the PA. From the mid-90s onwards the PA was generally permanently installed in the venues I played. The few times that my bands had to hire one in was because we were playing somewhere that didn't have live music on a regular basis. I also think that a lot of the time musician's a overly precious about their sound. Yes we should strive for the best sound possible at all time, but unless you a regularly playing decent venues with a really good PAs, you also need to accept the fact that it's not always going to happen, and when it doesn't you should make the best of what you have. That means: can you hear enough on stage in order to be able to play in time and in tune as a band? and: FoH is it the required volume for the type of venue without it sounding harsh, and if the band has singers, are they audible?

The pre-amp is actually inside the pickup housing. There's nothing actually "active" about the pickup mechanism itself, that is a traditional wire around a magnet.

The gigs don't even have to be that big. Here in Nottingham if you play at The Bodega - I couldn't find a capacity number, but given that the considerably larger Rescue Rooms is 450, I'd be amazed if it is any more than 150 - the only people hearing your amp will be you (if you are stood directly in front of it) and a few people at the front of the audience directly in the "firing line" of the cabs. Everyone else will hear you via the PA whose feed for the bass guitar, at best, will be taken DI output of your amp. IME playing originals only the very smallest of gigs - venues well under 100 capacity - are vocals only in the PA, so for 99% of the gigs I play my bass rig was essentially a personal monitor, and often I was being asked to turn down so much, so as not to affect the FoH sound, that I could hear more bass guitar from the guitarist's wedge on the other side of the stage then I could from my own cabs directly behind me. IMO it has got to the point now where the traditional bass rig is just for pub covers bands where the PA is primarily for vocals and as stage dressing for bands whose whose image demands it.

Actually none, since the the phasing effect is achieved my mixing the modulated signal with the original and since there is no A/D/A conversion of the original signal there is no latency introduced. As others have said the system that will suit the OP will depend very much on what other equipment is in the signal path and what sort of usage they expect from a wireless system.

Depends entirely on the pedals and what sort of of bass sound you want. There is no definite answer. Edit: as other have said if you like the sound and it fits into the band sound and/or song arrangement/production then it really doesn't matter if the effect is specifically aimed at bass guitars or not.

Also what is your set up? Bass into amp, or do you have effects? If so which ones?

Although "swamp ash" is simply any species of ash grown in a swampy environment. Therefore as you can see simply knowing what species of wood you have is only part of the picture. Ideally you also need to know the growing environment and the age of the tree when it was "harvested". And even then because every piece of wood is different you still don't know how it's going to affect the sound of the bass when in conjunction with all the other factors. Buy the bass that is the right weigh for you and if you are going to have one with a finish where the wood can be seen, what you consider to be an attractive grain pattern. Those at least will be known quantities at the time of purchase.

Unfortunately from a cooling requirement PoV it doesn't always work that way. In my guitar playing days I used to run a Marshall PowerBreak with my combo and some of the more extreme effected sounds would send the fan on that into overdrive irrespective of output volume setting of the amp or the amount of speaker attenuation being applied by the PowerBreak. And that fan cooling was definitely being needed with those sounds.

My "other" band Hurtsfall have their 4th single Revelator out today. We also made a video for it: Much more unashamedly Gothic compared with In Isolation, but I hope those of you who enjoyed that will like this as well.

The fact that we are unlikely to get enough people to agree on the same thing at the same time to make it worthwhile not withstanding, having just had dealings with Eastwood's custom shop, I'm not entirely sure that they would be capable of producing anything within a suitable timescale for Basschat's members. I have just this week received my Eastwood Hooky Bass 6 Pro bass. This is an instrument that was announced in January of this year at a point when the prototype had already been in use by Peter Hook for some considerable time, and therefore the bulk of the design process should have been complete (especially given that it is essentially a direct copy of his Shergold marathon 6 String Bass). That's a whole 9 months to produce and ship a couple of hundred instruments. Could we really wait that long once the design process was complete?

And many of them will be replaced by new venues once the "dust has settled". It's always been like this. Pre-Covid, apart from Rock City (and one other which has gone through numerous name changes and now bears little resemblance as a venue to the one I played at in the 90s), none of the places in Nottingham I was playing in the 80s, 90s and 2000s still exist as music venues anymore, but there are still plenty of places left to play, most of which are far better as venues than the places I was playing the I first moved here. Also it is now much easier to get weekend gig for originals bands than it used to be, when Friday and Saturday nights were strictly discos and covers bands. I see this as failure to acknowledge that things change and move on and as much as we would like everything to remain exactly as it was for ever, many of those changes from my PoV have most certainly been for the better.

Personally I've not had a lot of success with algorithms to introduce me to new music since Pandora stopped operating in the UK. They either bring up music I already know about and like or dull bands that IMO don't really fit the search criteria. This leads me to believe that: either I already know everything there is to know and have found all the bands I am ever likely to like in my chosen genres already, or that the algorithms are not very good. I would agree that there is more new music available than ever before, and that along with the fact that there is no filter is part of the problem. These days anyone with a recording (of any quality) and approximately $50 can get their album up on all the major download and streaming services. That is too low an entry point IMO. It swamps the market with mediocre music and makes the good stuff even harder to find.

Thanks for the clarification, and for the thought behind the process. Thinking about it myself it occurs to me that the vast majority of bridge/tailpiece acoustic guitars are also arch-top in construction. Is this due to the forces involved and their directions in relation to the top? Does it make a difference whether the arch top is carved or moulded/formed? Of course the most important question is now you have finished this... what's next?

My Eastwood Hooky Bass 6 Pro arrived today. First impressions are very good. Nut width 50mm with 41.5mm between the centres of the two E strings (slightly wider than original specified) and 65 mm at the bridge. I've just tied playing through the songs that I most often get wrong because of the closer string spacing of my other two Bass VIs and was able to play them fist time without tripping over the wrong strings. Hangs well on the strap too. I haven't been able to try it plugged in yet as my FRFR is at the rehearsal room and I've managed to break my current pair of headphones again. I ordered mine with the Eastwood gig bag which is very nice: semi-rigid and padded, not quite as good as the Mono M80, but then only about half the price. Looks as though the Squier will be up for sale shortly as it's unlikely to get any playing time now I've got this and the Burns, even though I used it in the video for the new Hurtsfall single "Revelator" which is out tomorrow (11th September) as I thought the white colour looked better than the pinky-red of the Burns in B&W. Full review when I have had more time to play and take some decent photographs.

Agreed. I'm another who ditched my conventional bass rig in favour of an FRFR and I can't ever see myself going back. The £2k I paid for my Helix and RCF745 might seem a lot, but it was less than I spent on the rig it replaced and most of that was bought second hand.

Whatever it cost, it would have been far more than I could afford. My first proper bass rig put together in 1982 (after I stopped using my Carlsbro Wasp guitar practice amp for my bass) was a no-name 100W transistor amp obtained in exchange for a Shaftesbury Resonator Guitar, an ex-soundsystem 1x18 Cab that cost me £25, and a home made 2x12 cab that was given to me by a friend of a friend who was moving away and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of taking it with him. That lasted me for about 10 years as a bass rig and then as part of a rehearsal/PA amplification system for my synth band.

On my school report: "His design of guitars is stunning. I wish I could say the same for his history." This was based on the fact that I spent most of my history lessons doodling guitars rather than taking notes. I managed to scrape a C at 'O' Level. I hoping that I'll be able to afford to get Simon at Gus Guitars to build my version of the Bass VI before the teacher in question dies. I know that he is still around because he runs one of the U3A history groups that my mum attends.

As always stunning! I notice you ended up going for a guitar-style bridge with sting pins rather than what appears to be the standard bouzouki separate bridge and tail-piece. Any particular reason why?

Something that is simultaneously weird and elegant at the same time. I don't think that you can put it down to individual things. It's everything that goes together to make up a musical instrument.

As a seller I always take responsibility for the packing and selection of the courier. I am also happy to ship a bass or guitar in either a gig bag or a hard case because the outer packing and padding will take the brunt of any mis-handling. IME, anything that will damage an instrument in a gig bag will do the same to one in anything else less than a full custom-fitted flight case.

A guitar or bass in a decent padded gig bag, and then properly boxed should be no more vulnerable than in a good hard case. And have a good read of the excluded items. One of them is magnets. That technically excludes every piece of electric musical equipment.