jrixn1

Yes, E major, as this is where the harmony pulls towards. The classic "what key is it in?" is Sweet Home Alabama...

I know it's copied from their website; but what is "virtual true bypass"?

I'm using a MicroBass 3 straight to PA, which is slightly out of your stated budget... but you said you might add a tuner and an LS-2, in which case the MicroBass 3 already has those things built in. The MicroBass 3 has two physical input channels, which can be independent or blended; I put my acoustic (upright) on channel 1 as it has the full eq including semi-parametric mids and a notch filter. I put P bass on channel 2 which has semi-param mids and drive. Also, I don't know what your in-ear setup is, but the MicroBass 3 has an aux-in for the monitor feed, and independent volume control of your bass to your ears. It also has two DI outputs and an effects loop. For me as an aspiring minimalist, it replaced about four pedals and it has no extraneous functions.

Great basses, but I'd get a new set of scales. I cannot believe that they weigh only 3.25kg...

An update. My Aguilar pickup arrived today and I put it in, and removed the Sandberg preamp. It's loads better now. Whether it's woody or not, who knows, but I am getting the classic P bass tone which I wasn't before. I use Dunlop flats too btw, good choice. I didn't shield the cavity as it turns out it's already shielded.

To narrow down where the issue is, I would first try plugging the bass directly into the Shuttle, with the DI on "pre EQ" and "mic level". Start with the Scarlett gain on zero, then start playing the bass, increasing the Scarlett gain until it gets a good signal (the light turns from green to orange). Did that work?

I'm in a similar situation (except it's a VM5) as the OP @Smirfy and decide to remove the preamp and replace the stock Sandberg large-pole Precision pickup with something more vintagey (I've gone for the Aguilar 5P-60CL). One thing I'm not clear on... the original Sandberg pickups use shielded wire, and the cavity itself is not shielded. Assuming the replacement pickups don't use shielded wire, should the cavity be shielded as part of the replacement process? I see that's what @PatrickJ did here: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/436108-sandberg-california-ii-vs4-precision/ as he says, "When I initially replaced the pickup it was quite noisy which ended up being a shielding issue."

I would guess marketing, since FRFR is a buzzword.

Have a look at https://web.archive.org/

One additional really good thing about powered speakers, which is nothing at all to do with "FRFR", is that most of them are designed with the option to tilt into a 45° monitor position. I can hear myself a lot better with something in front of me pointing at my head vs something behind me pointing at the back of my knees.

I used an RCF HD 10-A (which is pretty much the same as the RCF 310-A) on upright for a while, mainly for monitoring. It was a good setup. I moved to the slightly larger/louder RCF 732-A because I also play five-string bass guitar and occasionally don't have PA support so need to swing the speaker around to fill the room. In fact I have done that with the smaller HD-10 and it did ok but it was reaching its limits.

RCF 310-A mk4? £288, 12.2kg, 400W, 50-20kHz. Perhaps worth quantifying "cheap" and "lightweight" though, as they mean different things to different people.

I can tell you what I did, if it helps. I'm using REAPER but perhaps there is the equivalent in your software. My external keyboard (not a Moog, unfortunately) is connected to the computer with the USB cable. Here is the recorded midi track: So then I right-clicked on 'ROUTE' and can see that the default MIDI Output is 'None'. So I changed it to a channel of my keyboard (which seems to be called 'virtual', but just to reconfirm it is an actual physical keyboard):

Might you need to configure the computer to route output midi to the Moog.

You can get an indication of whether lightweight tuners would work, without spending money upfront, by removing one or two of the existing tuners and see if the balance of the bass improves. If it does, work out the weight of the tuners still remaining on the bass. That is the total amount that four new lightweight tuners must not weigh more than.