Happy Jack

https://www.soundcraft.com/en/products/ui24r Best decision I've made in years.

Interesting. I've been using Reaper for over two years now without hitting that particular barrier, and that's taken me from 5.nn (high numbers) when I bought it to currently 7.07. In truth, I'm not convinced that I'd bother to pay for a further upgrade, simply because (like most people) I use such a limited range of what's on offer that most of the 'improvements' are pretty much irrelevant to me. I could use my current version as a stand-alone for the foreseeable future without it being a problem.

As you say, different strokes. I have a quite specific need: I'll be gigging (for example) tomorrow night in a pub and then Sunday afternoon at a rock'n'roll club. After each gig, I want to take the audio and tidy it up (not drop-ins and such, just a bit of compression and EQ), then match that slightly-enhanced audio to the video taken at the same time. Then I can pick one or two of the best performances or the songs with the best dancing or the ones which make me look even better than I really am and produce a couple of 3-min videos for publication that very day. Being able to do all that, really quickly and easily, and all within the same product and interface, is an attractive proposition. If I was setting out to re-record Dark Side Of The Moon then no, I probably wouldn't recommend Reaper. And if I was looking to re-edit Life On Earth then no, I probably wouldn't recommend Reaper. It's horses for courses, innit?

Huh? Not been my experience at all. One licence purchase, unlimited (and frequent) free upgrades.

You're supposed to spray them occasionally with silicon grease.

I rate Comfort Strapp very highly: https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/comfort-strapp-pro-bass-series-strapps/

Wicky Wacker went on to become a famous industrialist ...

Oh God! did I lust after that Dudepit model at the time.

A noisy reformer? Did you plug it into a Trace combo or something? 😉

Quite surprised to see how much these things go for nowadays ... well north of £2k I gather. In all fairness, I greatly prefer the Grabber. I do like me a sliding pickup. 😎

By sheer coincidence, I've just finished watch a twoodfrd YouTube about fixing & setting up one of these.

Too late ... I've already blown the Xmas fund on something else. 🙄 https://www.korg.com/uk/products/synthesizers/rk_100s/index.php Comes with a set of roller skates. Allegedly.

Different strokes for different folks. As an absolutely amateur DAW-user who mainly needs to mix live recordings taken in pubs & clubs the night before, I find it hard to imagine spending 20p on 3rd-party plug-ins, let alone £200. 10 years ago I was happily publishing unmixed, unprocessed MP3s recorded with a Zoom H2 set on a shelf behind the bar at the pub. At the time, unbelievably, that was enough to put my covers band head & shoulders above the local pack. 😂 "That's a live, no-frills recording of us playing the Dog & Duck last week. That's exactly what we sound like. Book my band to play here, and what you hear is what you'll get." I got a LOT of gigs like that. All very different from how @BigRedX (and many others) use a DAW, and I get that. It's worth bearing in mind that the OP (from 2017!) was not "the best DAW" or even "the right DAW for me"; it was "the best value DAW" and a product as good as Reaper that can be had for nothing, not a sausage, bugger all, represents value that simply can't be matched by any of the established high-end competitors. Even if you choose to buy a licence (as I did) you're still looking at a one-off £40 payment for a product that gets improved/fixed/updated quite literally every week.

Reaper. I say again, Reaper. And thrice! Reaper!

After a huge amount of research time and money spent, my opinion is that the best compromise between sound and weight is currently the QSC CP12. It's neither as loud nor as 'hefty' as the QSC K series, the RCF ART 712, or the Mackie SRM450, but it's easily enough for most venues and it weighs 13.7Kg which is about a third less than the others I just mentioned. When it's time to put them on or take them off a pair of shoulder-height poles you really notice that missing weight. Where I need more oomph than that for whatever reason, I just combine them with a couple of sub-woofers sitting on the floor, so no lifting onto poles involved. They also make superb floor monitors.

I use a Crazy 8 on an old PA pole as my stage monitor (putting the cab at ear level virtually guarantees no feedback concerns) and then get most of my bass sound and volume through the band PA. All of my gigs include @Silvia Bluejay on sound engineer duty so the mix always sounds great out front while I don't need to worry about what the audience is hearing. This video is from the loudest and most raucous of the pub gigs we play:

That's a lovely looking thing. Does it play even remotely as well as it looks?

Mat? What you need is a Reformer.

Do you get much of a volume variation across the pickups? Is the bridge noticeably louder than the neck or maybe vice versa?

And while you're in there, be sure to weigh it. I had two of the real thing (thank you @silverfoxnik 😂) but had to sell them for the heinous crime of weighing 11lbs. That's each, you understand.

Pilates, pilates, and more pilates.

Already done ... goes back to the supplier (full refund, not a replacement) tomorrow as soon as the Post Office opens.

He's in Aberdeen, Chris. That's a commitment level too far for me, and I'd guess for you too. 😀