BigRedX

Because it is assumed that everyone understands cars and therefore will get the analogy. Except if you are like me and don't care about cars and therefore have no idea what they are on about.

I've posted this before, but in context of the OP it bears repeating. In 1979 before going to university I had a part-time job working at my local musical instrument retailer that was then in the process as repositioning itself from being mostly a seller of home organs to becoming a seller of typical rock band instruments and in the process getting some more and better guitars and basses than just the few Grant and Columbus copies that had previously graced their walls. As a result one of the eagerly awaited deliveries was about 30 Fender guitars and basses. Unfortunately when they arrived it was a major disappointment. Not only were the majority in rather nasty colours - predominantly stinky poo brown and a horrible slightly see-through white that looked like the sprayers had finished early for the weekend rather than a deliberate colour choice, every single instrument exhibited some degree of poor construction. The three-bolt neck models were the worst with all having far to much play in the neck pocket, such that one of the outer strings was no longer over the neck at the top end. The only person who looked even remotely happy was the freelance guitar tech who could see hours of additional paid work coming his way trying to make these instruments playable. If it had been up to me I'd have packed them up and sent them back, but I believe they'd been acquired in some "dodgy deal" that had by-passed the UK Fender distribution service in order to get a more competitive price. I certainly looked as though we had received all the instruments that no one else wanted. The manager seemed to think that having the Fender name on the headstock would be sufficient to make the sales, but they turned out to be rather slow moving and a significant quantity were still there looking very sorry when I bought my first bass from them 2 years later (unsurprisingly it wasn't a Fender). Compared with the Ibanez and Aria guitars and bass that arrived around the same time, and were perfect in every way and most even in tune when taken out of the box, these poor Fender instruments did little to enhance the brand name. It's hardly surprising that they had been surpassed by the copy makers in early 80s...

Is it the replacement speaker that has blown? For the cab to have an overall impedance of 8Ω the speakers should all be 8Ω each and wired in series/parallel pairs. If this replacement speaker really is 4Ω then the impedance of the whole cab will be under 8Ω (6.86Ω approx) which could also damage you amp if it isn't rated for loads under 8Ω, or it's valve amp and you are using the wrong transferee tap output. Also what is that bit of orange tape doing on the white wire? Is it just for identification purposes or is it covering a join? If it's a join I'd be looking at that as a possible source of any unwanted noises, and replacing it with single continuous wire.

I bought my first tuner (Boss TU-12) back in 1983. At the time I was playing synth in an electronic band and we wanted to stop having to do the "tuning song" at the beginning of our set where we used a middle C drone on the backing tape to tune the synths. We all though it was unprofessional and a terrible thing to have to inflict on the audience. IIRC it cost over £40 which was a significant amount of money back then and more than any of the effects pedals I had bought previously. I haven't been without some sort of electronic tuning device since then. The TU-12 got repurposed into a 2U rack unit in the early 90s along with a regulated 9V PSU and a couple of interface circuits for the synths I was using at the time. I still have it somewhere in storage.

I had exactly the same amp with exactly the same problem (one that was well known and widely discussed on line) that I had owned from new, and Ashdown simply did not want to know. I was fobbed off with excuses and excessive charges for simply looking at the problem and eventually they stopped answering my emails. The amp ended up being sold for spares and repairs on eBay for next to nothing. I would have put it down to the fact that the amp was poorly designed and essentially unfixable, and unsurprisingly Ashdown would want to wash their hands of it, until I read the original story post by @TheGreek of his experience, which left me even less happy than before. Personally I will never buy anything from the company again.

It's one of the parameters available when the tuner is active. You change it using the "Type" control. I have mine set to "Strobe" as I've found it the easiest to use on stage. There's even an option to use the tuner pedal to route the signal through an external tuner. However I found that the Helix one was just as accurate as the Peterson StroboRack that I was using previously.

Which mode are you using it in?

I've never owned a tuner in pedal form. Apart from my first tuner - a Boss TU-12 - all my other tuners have been either rack mounted or part of another device. Currently I use the tuner in my Helix.

For me amp and cab sims are a bit of a red herring. IMO they are just EQ presets with limited adjustment. Instead I just use separate EQ and drive modules on the Helix. That allows me to pick the most suitable EQ and drive for each song without having one permanently linked to the other. When I do pick an amp sim it is used primarily for the drive sound and takes the place of the dedicated drive module. For the Bass VI I do use an amp and cab sim on some of my sounds, but it's the Helix version of the Roland Jazz Chorus combo, a device that in "real life" would be totally unsuitable for the bass guitar. For me that is the best thing about modelled effects and amps, in that I can't damage them by sticking the "wrong" kind of signal through them. The worst that can happen is that I won't like the sound, and then I can try something else instead.

Not music, but I'm self employed and do well enough to make a living out of it. However my business has been entirely built on two things: 1. I built up a reputation as being VERY GOOD at what I do while I was still working for my last company. 2. I became self employed because the company in question went into liquidation and I was able to pickup several well-paying clients a result which got me through the first few years. Extrapolate that into the music business and that will give you a starting point.

Backing tracks that I'm making some adjustments to, in order for them to be ready for the next couple of gigs.

Flip paint needs to be applied in a single spraying in order for it to flip in the same way which is probably a significant factor in the cost. Also this means that it isn't possible to retouch any damage at a later date, as there was no guarantee that the new finish would flip the same way as the original. This is why my Gus was resprayed in a different colour. Had it been possible to do a repair to the existing finish I would have gone for that option, but as it had to be refinished from scratch whatever colour I chose I decided that I'd prefer CAR.

Personally I only want to do one A/D conversion for all my sounds. So once it has been digitised it stays that way. Each A/D D/A conversion will add a slight amount of delay to the sound. For one of my bands only the vocals and the Bass VI have to be digitised. Everything else (drums and synths) is generated "in the box".

Playing music I love. Best high ever.

For one of the bands I play in, I also program all the drum parts, so the bass and drums always lock perfectly together.

Bass > Helix >Computer for me too. However I also make use of the fact that the Helix outputs both effected and direct sounds via USB with effected on 1 (& 2 f you want stereo) and direct on 7 (& 8). I can then either use the sound of Helix itself, recreate it in my DAW using the Helix Native plugin, or use other plugins to add extra effects to the sound like automated gates and filters. This means that the bass sound can be easily changed if necessary as the recording and mixing progresses. Personally I don't bother with stereo on the bass. If I am going to do anything interesting with panning I'll record it as separate parts. I've recently done the bass part for a song where there is a low E all the way through the verse and main instrumental part with additional higher A and Ab. I played the "drone" E as one take and the high notes as a separate one. I then cut that into individual notes and panned the A half left and the Ab half right, keeping the E centre. There also a high 2 note chord riff in the middle 8 which was done in two takes, one strumming the chords and the other picking the individual notes and again panning each part left and right. This results in a much more complex and wider sound than a typical stereo effect.

I think the OP is looking for less bass vibrations, not more 😉

For live use maybe consider replacing the lot (or most of them) with a multi-effects pedal? I'm a big fan of the Line6 Helix. I did recently have a play with adding additional MIDI controlled effects via the effects loops on the Helix, but found it was all too much hassle for now and have decided that if it can't be done within the Helix I don't need it for live use. In the studio it's a different matter, Using the Helix as my audio interface it is possible to record simultaneously the sound with and without effects. I can then either use the Helix Native plugin to re-create my patches or replace them entirely with other effects available in my DAW.

A while back I sold all my musical equipment that I wasn't using, and while it would have been nice to hang on to a lot of it, they would have just sat in their cases or gathered dust on stands in between me picking them up to have the occasional noodle. In a way I was lucky because I had built up a collection of almost 50 guitars and basses and was therefore able to make exact comparisons between all of them to decide what I actually needed and what was just nice to own. These days I only have a few instruments that aren't of immediate use, and on the whole I'm more musically focused for it.

It will probably be partially directional and partially tonal. I can't see it in the photo but from what I encounter and larger stages, I imagine that the drum monitor is angled slightly towards the back of the stage so as to minimise spill to FoH, also it will probably be EQ'd to maximise being able to hear the instruments. IME the problem with bass rigs interfering with FoH is excessive bass. These days I rarely use my FRFR when I gig relying instead on the PA foldback, however on those occasions when I do bring it, I normally have in pointing across the stage to minimise FoH spill.

Can you fill the riser with something like Rockwool RW3? Or is it open sided? If that's not possible the only sensible solution would be to ditch the wedge and go for IEMs.

Like all these "tests" the scientific methodology is so flawed that the test itself is worthless. The proper scientific way would be first to see whether simply dismantling the guitar and putting it back together with the same parts produces any change in sound. Once you can prove that it can be done 50 times in a row without any difference, only then can you start examining the the effect of replacing ONE component at a time.

I own two Gus G3 5-string basses. They are not quite identical. One has humbuckers and passive controls with an ebony fretboard and hipshot machine heads, while the other has single coils, active electronics a cocobolo fretboard and Gotoh machine heads. In all other respects they are as identical as it is possible for two instruments made from wood, carbon fibre and aluminium tubing. The pickup configurations and electronics mean than they don't necessarily sound the same, but by configuring them identically - actives turned off, passive tone on full treble and humbuckers in coil tap mode, for the three matching pickup combinations (bridge, neck, and both in parallel) they are virtually indistinguishable. For me the whole point of having two close to identical basses is that should I break a string or something on wrong at a gig, I can swap to the other one with the minimum of hassle. I also use an Eastwood Hooky Bass in my other band. At the moment the "backup" for this bass is a Burns Barracuda, which is a very different instrument in feel and sound. The plan is to sell the Burns and buy another Eastwood for the reasons stated above.

Line6 Helix straight into a decent PA.

Not for playing bass. I wear glasses for reading and computer work, and while my long-distance vision would benefit from some correction it's not bad enough to require them. I had varifocals when I first got some "proper" glasses, but found that the middle portion for computer work (which was the most important for me) was too small in size and focal length, so these were replaced after a couple of weeks with "occupational" lenses for close up reading and computer screens up to about 4' away. I do have a pair of emergency glasses (always my last prescription) in my leads bag in case I need to do any close quick repair work at a rehearsal or gig, and use them for setting up the computer that plays our backing, but after that everything is automated and the display on my Helix Floor that also acts as a set list is clear enough for me to see without glasses. In fact I find wearing glasses when I don't actually need them to read a book or computer screen very distracting and a little uncomfortable, so I have to take them off while I'm working on new material playing guitar or bass and only put them back on when I'm at the computer manipulating audio or MIDI or programming my effects.