BigRedX

IMO it is generally more effective to replace the pot which a new one from a reputable brand.

I've not owned a hardware digital recorder/portastudio, but I have owned a couple of digital mixers which I imagine would be very similar to the front end of a digital portastudio and the routing options are massively complicated and completely incomprehensible without the manual until you have become familiar with them. In general I find the computer systems dialogue boxes to be more informative.

But it could just as easily be the ideal sound. You don't know until you've tried it. However with all the knobs at 12 o'clock it's lost before you've even started.

I don't really get this thread, probably because my favourite album by bands I like tends to be the one they made before the one that was successful.

Which is why you might as well start with whatever EQ was set by the last user of the amp. It's just as likely to be as usable as all the knobs at 12 o'clock.

There's a reason why double basses have such large bodies... I owned a Warwick MIK Pro Series Star Bass. It's acoustic sound was little better or louder than any of my solid basses.

Sorry but I would never pay over £1k for a mass-produced factory-built bass. New or second hand.

I recently tried to send a bass using DPD and it turns out that for the moment they aren't accepting any parcels over 1m in length.

And you were able to send it back. As I said in a previous post trying for a few days at home is going to give you a far better idea of whether or not a bass is going to suit you, then any amount of hours trying it in a shop. Besides its a mass-produced factory-built instrument, you have expect some variations in build quality.

IME these days you have to try really hard to find a guitar or bass with substandard build quality. Form my PoV the basses and guitars I buy are generally fall into £1k+ when new price range so build quality is a given.

Is the spacing between each string in the course the same at both the bridge and the nut?

Got you. I was thinking that the spacing at the bridge for each course Vs the spacing available at the nut would mean that the outer string(s) would no longer be over the fingerboard at the of the neck. Not that there simply isn't enough room at the nut to keep the string spacing in each course constant along the whole length. Although having had a look at photos of the two 8-string basses I used to own, it looks as though the strings in each course are slightly closer together at the nut then they are at the bridge.

In the last 20 years I have only bought 2 instruments (out of over 50 guitars and basses) that I tried in the shop first. One a Squier VMJ was sold within 3 months. It was fine in the shop on my knee, but I couldn't get on with how it hung on the strap. The other one a Burns Barracuda is my go-to bass for one of my bands, but isn't 100% perfect and will at some point probably be replaced with either something else that I've bought on spec on line or had custom made for me. Most of the guitars and basses I like simply aren't available in musical instrument stores, and if they are are almost never available in multiples to try. Therefore I might as well buy on-line and try it at home and in rehearsal where I can make a far more meaningful decision on its suitability than any number of hours playing it in the shop, and return it for a refund if it doesn't suit me.

Surely the problem isn't with the nut, but at the other end of the neck?

Except that ultimately the decision lies with the check-in staff and cabin crew of your flight. If they have recently had a bad experience with another musician (or are just generally having a bad day) there is a chance that they will insist that the instrument goes in the hold and if you haven't packed it appropriately what you are going to do?

Have you got a source for the exception of VAT on secondhand goods brought in personally? I know that the allowances for good brought in personally is higher than for those sent by post/courier service. You get charged VAT on all posted items from outside the EU over £15. Marking the item as a gift will only increase this limit to £39. Import duty only applies to goods over £135. The simplest rule of thumb for allowing for VAT and import duty is to add 25% to the cost of the item plus the postage and then another £10 on top of that for the clearance fee. That way you won't get any nasty surprises. IME it is rarely worth buying anything that costs under £100, unless there is definitely no alternative, as the import charges will nearly always make it more expensive, then buying from within the EU. After the end of this year expect this rule to apply to anything bought from outside of the UK.

All the 8-string basses I've owned had necks at least as wide as the narrowest 5-string I've had.

In the days when I was using rehearsal room amps, I would leave everything where it was except the master volume which I would turn down to zero, plug in turn up and adjust the EQ from where it is to get the sound that I want (if necessary). Unless you are very familiar with the amp in question there is no way of knowing where the flattest EQ setting is. And even with the controls at mid-way for an amp with active EQ and at full for those with passive tone stacks (you do do know which amps have which don't you?) there will still be a baked-in frequency hump or dip which gives the amp its "sound", otherwise there wouldn't be any point having different makes of amp.

At the moment, the only Newtone strings I buy are the Axion Bass VI sets, which come with dire warnings about not cutting the strings before fitting them, on the packing. Because the bass I am using it with has standard bass machine head posts this is of course impossible. However an email to Newtone reveals that because these strings are hex-core it is OK cut them first. AFAICS the packing is unique for these strings so why are the installation instructions incorrect?

Only applies to their round core strings - something that should be explained better on their web site and packaging IMO.

The graphics card must support “Metal”. There’s a list of compatible cards somewhere which I will look for later. IIRC for best compatibility you need an AMD rather than NVIDIA card. Edit: read this article https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2018/6/12/how-do-you-find-mojave-compatible-graphics-cards-for-cheese-grater-apple-mac-pro-51-computers for compatible cards.

I would agree. I've just upgraded from a 2008 MacPro 3,1 2.8Ghz 8 core with 16GB RAM (which cost me £350 just over 3 years ago) to a 2010 MacPro 5,1 3.46 GHz 6 core with 64GB RAM which cost £600. (These are proper Xeon desktop/server processors rather than the i-series that are found in most consumer grade computers). The only thing wrong with the old one was the fact that it wouldn't run an OS newer than El Capitan and I needed to upgrade the OS in order to have the latest versions of Adobe Creative Cloud for my work. The old Mac was more than capable of running any of my music projects in Logic.

Rather than looking at the platform, look at which DAW and which plug-ins you want to use as some are only available for one OS or the other. IME unless you are a very experienced and technically-savvy Windows user, the money you save by not buying a Mac will be used up in the extra time spent troubleshooting.

I don't see what the fuss is all about. It's just an extra string. The tuning interval between this extra string and the others doesn't change irrespective of whether you go for low B or high C - it's still a 4th down or up, so all you playing patterns transpose perfectly. Having said that I've pretty much played 5-strings only since I switched back to mainly playing bass in the late 80s. There is one thing that helps. Stop switching between your old 4-string basses and the 5-string unless you are going to use the two different types of bases for different bands and/or styles of music. I had a brief spell of playing 4-string fretless at the same time as playing fretted 5-string, mainly because I hadn't found a 5-string fretless that was as good as my fretted basses, but getting a good 4-string fretless was much easier. But because I only used the 4-string on songs where I played fretless and the 5-string on songs that needed a fretted bass, there was never any confusion. At the moment I play 5-string basse in one band and Bass Vi in another. The baselines I play for the two bands different styles so once again there is no confusion between the two.

I've just had a quick look at the options available for Hardware recorders that are currently being produced and all of them appear to work on the principle that if you want to do anything more than rudimentary editing you will be transferring the files into a computer based DAW, the hardware unit simply being means of having a portable recording device that you use on location rather than transporting your computer. Also unless you are using paid for plug-ins with live authorisation copy protection (which wouldn't be available to you on a hardware recorder) you don't need an internet connection for your dedicated computer to function.