BigRedX

And this. Or fit underneath the keyboard stand holding the computer that is running the backing track. I can place a wedge FRFR almost anywhere in stage as it's footprint is minimal.

It's one extra thing to bring to the gig (or leave behind afterwards). And arriving 3 minutes earlier is no use when you have 10-15 minutes between the end of the previous band's set and the start of yours in which to set up. Like the gig I played last night where there were 4 bands playing (all with completely different equipment requirements) and the whole gig was only 3 hours long from doors opening at 7.00 to the music curfew at 10.00.

IME unless your band is massively loud on stage and you have FoH support for the bass pretty much any FRFR is going to be fine. I've never needed to run my RCF745 and anything like full tilt. With the angled cab, the speaker is pointing at my ears rather than my knees which does more for audibility than the power available from the built-in amp.

Remember that all the budget digital wireless systems work in the WiFi frequencies, so anything that affects WiFi will also affect your wireless devices. (Including too many people in the audience with mobile phones looking for a WiFi signal).

Personally I don't like detuners as the change in string tension puts me off. If the string is the right tension for E it's too floppy for D. I actually have a separate guitar for playing in drop D with the 52 E replaced with a 56 for tuning to D.

Which is why I've done it. Personally the only reason I can see for not getting a worn bass (or guitar) refinished is because you can't afford it. You don't see drum kits, keyboards or brass instruments that have been relic'd so why guitars and basses?

For me it depends on whether I need to follow the guitar riff exactly or not. Personally, given the chance I would prefer to play something different, so in that case the tuning doesn't matter, and in fact using a different tuning to the guitarist is likely to force my into doing something more creative than simply aping the guitar part an octave lower.

IME most hacks are a complete faff when you are trying to set up in a hurry. Best to have something that is properly designed to the the job you need. Plus for some of the bands I've played with in the past those 3 minutes saved are an extra song we can play in the set.

For the very occasional gig I do where there is no PA support for the bass the additional grunt of the 745 means I can be heard out front. Also because my sound come from the Helix, I don't want a "traditional" bass amp and speaker mucking up the audio with their particular baked in sound. Plus if I do get a PA engineer who is trying to give me the standard rumbly bass sound I can march then up onto the stage stand then in front of my speaker and and tell them that I want to bass to sound like what they can hear on stage but louder. Since I switched to the Helix and FRFR both the bands I play with have had a much better on stage and FoH sound. The wedge shaped cab means I can position it in such a way that everyone on stage who needs to be able to hear me from my cab can, and I have a lot more options for on-stage placement. One of the bands that I play with uses back run from a computer. This is housed in a flight case that goes on a smile keyboard stand at the side of the stage. My FRFR goes underneath the stand which means that the amount of room I require on stage for my gear is halved.

I got to admit I liked the bass sound, although I wouldn't be one I'd use all the time. Unfortunately everything else about this "song" was horrible. I've also come to the conclusion that these bits of music (Vulfpeck, Snarky Puppy, Dirty Loops etc.) are done as videos because if it was audio only 99% of the audience would be looking something to listen to after less than 30 seconds, as the music on its own isn't enough to hold most people's attention.

First I'd try a different lead, then I'd check that whatever it is plugged in to is supplying the correct voltage phantom power.

I think it really depends on how much your on-stage rig contributes to the FoH sound. For me when nearly every single gig I play has the bass going through the PA and whatever rig I carry is for stage monitoring only (and big stages not even that, since I can only hear it over the foldback when I am stood directly in from of it), going the FRFR route made total and utter sense. The big conventional bass rig might look good behind me, but when even I can't hear it over the sound coming out of the foldback because I've got to turn it down so far in order to not interfere with the FoH sound there is little point in having a dedicated bass rig. I haven't really noticed any lack of very low bass from my RCF745, but then again, it's not a frequency I need on stage in order to be able to hear what I am playing, and in fact it might even contribute to the fact that I can hear myself far better with the FRFR than I could with any of my previous bass rigs.

IMO all "mojo" is fake. Musicians who really cared about their instruments would have them repaired and refinish as and when it became necessary. A bit like having your car serviced.

What's wrong with a refin?

If you were really serious about natural “relic’ing“ on a modern instrument you could have the original finish stripped and replaced with nitro that will age in a sympathetic way.

Hurtsfall will be playing at around 8 tonight.

However you want. I use a Burns Barracuda with one of the band I play with which allows me to alternate between conventional bass line and higher pitched melody work (at which point the synth player takes over the bass duties). It varies the sonic texture of the songs. The tuning is the same as a guitar only an octave down so you get the standard 4-string bass range but with extra high notes from the top two strings. I have mine tuned EADGCE because I ned an open C string drone on a couple of songs we do. IME they aren't really suited to playing conventional chords on (I certainly can't get the same richness of tone while retaining decent note definition as I can on a 28" scale Baritone guitar tuned B-B) unless you stick to the higher strings or neck positions, and on the more "vintage" styled instruments the neck tends to be narrow even by guitar standards - think 70s-style narrow Stratocaster neck which combined with the much fatter strings doesn't make them the easiest instruments to play.

For anything recorded in the pre-digital age, if the tempo didn't feel right when it came to mastering, then the individual tracks would be vari-speeded to give the right feel with no regard for what it would do to the pitch.

No idea. I don't have a problem with it at all. In fact one of the basses that I use most regularly had a £850 complete refurb including stripping off the remains of the original finish and respraying in a (IMO) more attractive colour.

For me it's much more to with what sort of bass line I am playing and what key the song is in. As I said in my previous post the most musically conventional band I've ever played made the most use of the B-string both for position and actual notes. Some of the weirder stuff I play hardly used the B string.

After almost 40 years of playing the bass I only learnt this last year as one of the bands I'm play it occasionally in their current set.

I've seen Rory Gallagher's Strat up close and I have to say it's minging! I'm glad it was in a sealed display cabinet otherwise I might have worried about catching something from it...

For me appearance does matter. I've owned 3 basses whose wear could be described as more than just a few dings. The first is an early 60s Burns Sonic Bass. It looked like it already had a hard life when I bought it in 1981, although I've now got used to its appearance. However because I've been using it quite a lot recently for recording, at some point in the near future its going have a bit of work done to it to increase the playability, and I will probably get the more obtrusive dings and dents seen to at the same time. The second was a second-hand Gus G3 which I picked up very cheap off eBay because it was in a terrible state. Once I'd decided that it was a bass I'd like to keep, it was sent back to Simon Farmer to Gus for a complete overhaul including a re-spray of the body and neck, and new chrome on all the aluminium parts. When I got it back it looked like a brand new bass. The last was a fretless 5-string Overwater Original, previously owned by a reasonably well-known session bassist who'd used it on sessions all over the world, and was starting to look a bit shabby which wasn't really surprising for a bass that was over 25 years old when I bought it. Had I decided to keep it, I would have probably sent it back to Overwater for a refinish. However I decided that I had other basses that did the same job better and it was sold on.

How important are your cabs to the FoH sound of your band? If there is little or no PA support for the bass, then you really need to have two cabs the same, otherwise the bass sound will not be consistent throughout the venue, which is something that you definitely want to avoid. If the PA mostly produces the FoH bass sound then anything that is the same size will do. Stack the cab you like the sound of best on the top so that you can hear it.

To answer the OP's original question, I've pretty much only played 5-string basses since 1989. I'd just spent most of the 80s playing synths and wanted something that was capable of playing in the same register. It also helped that the first 5-string bass I bought was much better than the 4-string bass I'd been using before, and my next 5-string (an Overwater Original) was an exceptional musical instrument. Since then, the amount of use the B string gets depends entirely on what songs I'm playing and the musical style of the band I'm in at the time. Interestingly the band that saw me making most use of the low B was also the most musically conventional band I've been in, as the original guitarist favoured the keys of B, C and D when he was writing songs, so those notes got a lot of use. In my current bands, I use the 5-string in one, and use the low B on just 2 songs in the current set (one being a cover of She's In Parties" by Bauhaus where I play the bass line an octave lower than the original). In the other band since the departure of our guitarist and the decision not to replace him, I've switched to Bass VI (short-scale 6-string bass tuned E- E) as the higher strings are more useful for the music we play and we have a synth player to cover any really low notes.