Happy Jack

I'm very sorry to hear your news, and well aware that it's coming for all of us in due course. "Best" is one of those words. Basschat is "best" financially if you want a single (very modest) fee to then sell without limit for a year. Given your circumstances, that would be a good fit. It's also "best" if you want knowledgeable buyers who (in the main) are not time-wasters, tyre-kickers or low-ballers. Essentially, selling on Basschat is a more pleasant - or less unpleasant - experience than most. eBay and Gumtree are "best" if you want to reach the largest audience, or possibly if you live in a remote or obscure part of the country. I've heard Beds called many things, but not remote or obscure. I'll asl @Kiwi or @ped to jump in with the registering-as-a-seller thing; it's been so long since I did that. 🙄

https://www.cases-and-enclosures.co.uk/roc-cases-grey-flight-case-l550-x-w220-x-h175mm-with-foam-insert Incidentally, if you happen to be running TWO Nano+ boards (which I do, one for my bass pedals and one for my vocal pedals) then you may also be interested in https://www.cases-and-enclosures.co.uk/large-protective-flight-case-l590-x-w360-x-h235mm-with-cubed-foam although I notice that this seems to have been out of stock for a while.

... for those musicians unfortunate enough to have gigs this weekend in Chobham, Weybridge, Chertsey and Woking. 😱 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nrd0n7299o

Dreadful news.

Isn't that the answer, then?

Surprised to read this. Both sets of strings are stainless steel and, while I don't doubt that there are differences in construction, I'd have guessed that they have similar compliance levels. Are you sure that the problem doesn't lie in the way you play those basses rather than in the strings? The much tighter string spacing on the Hofner leads to a very different technique than on a Mustang.

I love Radial kit but their prices (both new and pre-owned) have gone right through the roof over the last few years. For less than half the price of a pre-owned Tonebone you could get an equally flexible and high-spec'd pre-owned EBS MicroBass II. Those things are good enough that I have two of them. For my purposes, the Mk.III is a step down and the Mk.II is a much better product.

Of course, this approach won't work for everyone ...

Set up Zoom Q2 4k HD (or similar) cameras around the band. Place a Zoom H4n Pro (or similar) recorder in front of the band. Switch on & record. Later ... load up everything into Reaper (https://www.reaper.fm/). Have fun. To get you started ...

There's a FB meme doing the rounds (about high-end audio gear, but it still applies) where one chap is saying to the other "The two things which really attracted me were the expense and the inconvenience".

Note the subtle change in tone when a human enters the conversation ... "hello, would you please let me know which Saturdays from April onward is your band available. Really keen to book them in " 😂

And of course the perceived improvement lasts about five minutes. After that, it's your bass and it sounds like you.

My CK61 has become my go-to when I'm restricted on space or set-up time. It's very Jack-of-all-trades and there's not many sounds that it excels at (though the orchestra with flute is superb) but as a one-size-fits-all it will always do a job for you. I particularly like the ease of use. Having pairs of buttons dedicated to modulation by semitones or octaves is SO much better than burying that in a menu somewhere, and the range of easy-to-reach sounds for use at gigs is spectacular and makes it easy to change on the fly mid-song. It took me a while to get my head around the fact that the user-controlled sounds have nowt to do with Midi and are just 3-way mini-mixes of stock sounds (with various FX available, of course). Given that I hate having anything to do with Midi, for me that's an absolute Godsend. When I'm playing a full 2-set or 3-set gig on keys then I'll take a 3-board rig using a Stay stand. The CK61 sits in the middle and is chiefly there for piano and orchestral sounds, though it also does good clavier and useful bits like harmonica and even banjo. Below that is a Hammond SK1 which does organ ten times better than the CK61 can ever do, natch. Above it is a Korg Kross which is another Jack-of-all-trades but I bought it precisely because it does excellent brass.

In today through the Lemonrock enquiry system: "I hope this email finds you well. My name is **** ******, and I am the manager of a pub located in ************. As we are exploring opportunities to diversify our live events offerings, I recently stumbled upon your profile and found it intriguing. I would be grateful if you could provide me with information regarding your pricing structure for live performances. Understanding your rates would greatly assist us in evaluating potential collaborations and aligning them with our budgetary considerations. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your time and consideration. Please contact me on blah blah blah" First thing to note is that this is not a joke post. That's a cut & paste (anonymised, of course) from the email. Second thing to note is that those of you who haven't had office-based careers may imagine that this is what business correspondence looks like. It doesn't. In a 45-year career dealing with business correspondence of all sorts, I can't remember ever receiving anything quite as jargon-laden and turgid as this. Resisting the temptation to reply "We believe in peeling the onion by directionifying our key performance indicators into a transitional enhanced profitability status" @Silvia Bluejay replied seriously and honestly. In a reasonably long email about what we do and what we charge she used the phrase "cash on the night". A reply was received within seconds, mentioning the online payment system used by this pub's owners. Hmmmmm. And again, hmmmmmm. And thrice, hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Dang! Your only date remotely near us is when @Silvia Bluejay is out of the country, and you play her music. ☹️

@cetera - where's the link to your tour dates?

If what you want is the sound of your amp / speaker combination going to FOH, then just mic up the speaker, neh? That way you're guaranteed to get exactly the sound you want, and you don't need no stinkin' DI boxes neither. 😱😂

Closure: The bill came in at a rather more reasonable £510, for which I was very relieved. Perhaps more importantly, the instant I started playing the bass it was as if I'd traded in a cheap Chinese beginner's bass for a high-end instrument. Not just better than it was (with a warped fingerboard, well duh!) but substantially better than on the day I bought it and - if anything - even better than the Zeller 3/4 it replaced. No complaints from me. Thwaites did an excellent job. 🙂

If it were done, 't'were best done quickly ... That £149 price from GAK has already gone; presumably they've sold out, which doesn't even begin to surprise me. Andertons still have some at £159 and bizarrely a new deal from Thomann has just popped up at £146, though I suspect they'll add £15 for P&P.

My preferred use for the H4n Pro is to have it on a small but stable tripod on the floor just to the side of the drummer's throne, the two mic capsules of course pointing directly at the kit. Meanwhile, I take a stereo splitter cable from the Headphones Out on the desk (used to be an XR18, now a Ui24, works equally well with both) to a pair of 1/4" mono jacks which go into the combi sockets on the H4n Pro. The recorder needs to be in 4CH mode for this to work and I leave mine set like that at all times regardless. That gives me a 2-channel stereo FOH mix from the board plus a 2-channel stereo mic close-up of the kit, which is the element that tends to feature least in the FOH mix. In fairness, that's not actually "right next to the snare", but it's pretty darned close and anyway @Silvia Bluejay and I have taken more and more to mic'ing the kit using the Glyn Johns approach, so theres more snare & hi-hat in the FOH mix these days.

Have you tried running the lead vocalist through a Mic Mechanic?

ROCKNEY Gertcha The Sideboard Song There Ain't No Pleasin' You

Friend of Jimmy Page, maybe?