BigRedX

Why would you even want to play that sitting down?

Or you could write your own songs. I've found the only sure route to musical happiness for me to to have had a hand in writing the songs that I play. Getting the thread back on track, if you are going to do covers, then also make sure that they are songs that suit the line-up of your band as well as the abilities of the various band members. When I was doing covers there were numerous songs that we thought we'd try only find that as a band they simply didn't gel. Also there was a band in the practice room next to mine earlier this week absolutely murdering some of the covers they were rehearsing. I wouldn't fancy having to catch them in a pub any time soon.

IME using a string tension calculator is no better than picking gauges through trial and error. String tension calculators are only accurate for the brand and type of strings they have been designed for. They may be close for the same gauge from another brand but if you are going for that kind of accuracy you really need the correct figures or you might as well do it by feel. String tension figures alone tell you nothing about the compliance of a string when fitted to a particular bass, so they won't tell you how stiff a string feels in comparison to the others when things like different break angles over the bridge and nut are taken into account.

Balanced tension is a weird thing because it most definitely isn't equal tension. I suspect it's designed as a compromise between tension and compliance and is supposed to make all the strings feel as though they have the same amount of stiffness. However because it is impossible to know how a particular bass will affect the compliance of a string, it only really works on Fender-style basses where the break-angles over the nut vary depending on how far away the machine heads are and where the string retainer for the D and G strings is placed. Any variation on this will change the compliance of the string, rendering the balanced set "unbalanced". Also who gets to decide what is balanced? For me balanced would mean that the strings feel stiffer from G (least stiff) to E or B (most stiff). I have yet to come across a set that manages that.

As I said last time this came up, on the other forum I frequent JMJ would always mean Jean-Michel Jarre.

You only need 2 conductor and screen cable as it's a common screen/earth for both outputs. TRS jack on the end that plugs into the Rickenbacker and two TS jacks at the other end. Tip on the TRS jack is the neck pick-up and ring is the bridge. Instead of using a Y cable consider building a splitter box and then using a TRS-TRS cable and two standard TS-TS jacks cables for the outputs. IME this is more roust for gigging use. I don't understand your second question. Do you want to run one side of the Rickenbacker through the pre-amp and then mix it with the other side sent directly to the power amp? AFAICS the amp you mention doesn't allow mixing at any of the post pre-amp inputs so plugging something into one of those sockets will disconnect the pre-amp. Ideally you should be using Rick-o-Sound with two separate amps and speakers for the most versatility.

I've owned some old and some valuable instruments, but their vintage, rarity or value have never stopped me from taking them to whatever gigs I've found myself playing. For about 5 years I was regularly taking in the region of £15k worth of instruments and equipment to punk and psychobilly gigs. I suppose I have become desensitised to worrying about the value of instruments from having been in synth bands in the 80s when in real terms the value of the equipment I used to gig was considerably more whilst my disposable income was a lot less.

It's all relative. I'd call 40-100 regular, so light would need to be 35-95.

Late to the thread, but as other have said if money is tight reconditioned or EoL is the way to go. IMO unless you get a very good deal (under £400 for a Mac with a 1TB SSD and at least 16GB RAM) I wouldn't buy one that doesn't have an M series processor. I'd also make sure that you buy a Mac that is capable of running the latest version of Logic, because it will probably be needed in order to main compatibility with the systems at the college. Backwards compatibility is a variable. For instance I run Logic 10.4.8 on my MacPro which I use for most of my composition and 10.6.2 on my MacBook Pro which runs Logic for the live backing for my bands. Projects that have been saved on the laptop can be opened on the MacPro, but it complains and keeps telling me to update Logic. Were I to go up to the next version of Logic on the MacBook they would no longer open on the MacPro at all. And pay for Logic. £200 is a complete bargain simply for the number of excellent plug-ins that come with it.

As I've always said, any gig where I was worried about the safety of my instruments, I would be more worried about my own personal safety, and wouldn't be playing it in the first place.

You may come to regret putting the higher markers on the other side of the fretboard. I have a bass where the front position markers do this and everything above the 12th fret is a bit hit or miss. I certainly won't have another bass with fret markers like that.

Make sure your portable power supply produces a "pure sine wave" AC output. This will be almost essential for getting noise-free performance from your amplification. From what I have read most budget systems are not suitable in this regard. There was another thread on here recently about this and several over on the SOS forums and the general consensus amongst those with more electrical knowledge than me and also from actual experience was that without pure sine wave AC you will run into problems, either with obvious unwanted noise or some equipment not even powering up.

I've had a couple of Shure microphones apart in order to repair broken wires and if you can solder it should be pretty straight forward. Based on my experience you might want to replace the internal wires between the capsule and the connector with something a bit more substantial. If the XLR has disappeared into the casing the grub screw that holds in place might be missing. Shure sell spare parts if you need to get a replacement.

All my leads were either made myself back in 90s using high quality cable and connectors, or bought from OBBM on here. I wouldn't ever contemplate buying one with moulded plugs not matter how good the brand was supposed to be. IME when the lead fails (and it will unless it's for home use only) and you decide to remove the dodgy section and solder on a decent Neutrik connector you'll discover that the cable itself is very poorly made and end up binning the whole thing.

If you get another power supply you'll need one with sufficient power for ALL your pedals, not just the Zoom. Add up the consumption figures for everything on your pedal board and then add 25% for future purchases.

Reminds me of a Guild JS2 Bass.

Mike Lull JT4. Essentially Thunderbird pickups in the correct positions in a Fender-style bass.

In the days when I was doing lots of pull-up banners for trade shows and exhibitions, all the suppliers I used had the facility to replace just the graphics part of the banner keeping the same mechanism (cassette roller and frame). In this case it made a lot of sense to use the more robust model so they could be used year after year with new graphics as required. I have found that for nearly all models the printed part starts to curl at the edges after a couple of uses making it look (IMO) rather scruffy.

IME if there isn't a system already in place in the venue it is even more hassle to set up than a simple backdrop. Besides for most pub gigs the wall behind the band is rarely blank enough to project on to, so you'd need a bring a screen which pretty much defeats the object.

I'm currently in two bands. In the last 3 years there have been two occasions where both bands had gigs on the same day and both times they were at the same event, so there has been no problem with scheduling. However if I had to make a choice to be in one band only I know which one I'd choose. In the Terrortones we once had a guitarist who thought he could be in multiple bands. We solved that problem by making sure that we had gigs booked every Friday or Saturday for the next three months which made it impossible for him to be available for others. He soon found himself playing just with us. That might seem harsh, but IME musicians think they can be in multiple bands because none of the bands are suitably busy. Making one band take up all their time with gigging and rehearsing normally keeps them happy.

Personally I'm not a massive fan of pull-up banners (in the world of displays a pop-up banner is something entirely different) as I don't think they have the right vibe for bands. However I see them more and more behind or at the side of bands at gigs so I'm probably in the minority here. However if you are going to go down this route, be aware that the budget versions are not particularly robust. IME they fail under in less than a year of trade fair use being put up by reps, so I doubt the sort of abuse they will suffer in the typical gigging environment will be any more friendly. Again one of the advantages of having PA and lighting provided by the venues I play is that if there is enough room for a "backdrop" it will be back-projected as part of the lighting rig and all we have to do is supply the venue or promotor with the band logo/graphics in JPEG or PNG format.

This doesn't answer you question, but IME the two most important features of a backdrop are: 1. Having some means of displaying it so that it is level and uncrumpled that doesn't involve gaffa-taping to the wall. 2. That it is visible (or at least the band name is visible) over the top of the drummer, keyboard player, backline and anything else at the back of the stage.

TBH if I had a string winder the amount of time I'd spend looking for it first I would have probably been able to wind all the strings on my Bass VI by hand.

Back in the 80s when I was first looking at this I found it quicker to develop enough rudimentary keyboard technique than it was to modify my guitar and bass playing style in order to get usable and repeatable synth sounds out of them.