SubsonicSimpleton

Quite a few bedroom dealers around on social media/gumtree/ebay who are asking prices in-line or in excess of what actual shops would sell the same instruments for have distorted the market and sellers expectations. Not a lot to be done about it really other than have a polite discussion and offer what you think is fair - as a general point of principal I avoid dealing with people who are being obviously unrealistic.

Lovely looking building - probably the best place to start from is the budget, and what would be acceptable in terms of overall aesthetics and light considerations. I did the PA for an event in a big community hall where they had heavy drapes installed floor to ceiling on all walls including the internal ones without windows, which allowed the room to be made more/less reverberent on the fly, but it was a modern building with no architectural details. Looking at the pictures of your church hall, I can't really envision that approach working without ruining the look of the place. You could maybe deploy absorbative panels on the walls in a way that doesn't destroy the overall look of the place - there are a number of companies that offer panels in all sorts of shapes/colours, including things like noticeboard replacements. Here's a couple of links I nabbed from a quick google search to illustrate - but I'm not endorsing or recomending these companies to be clear, they just have pictures of their products installed in actual buildings to give you an idea. https://www.acoustic-supplies.com/sound-absorption/ https://www.quietstone.co.uk/product/acoustic-panels/ https://www.soundreduction.co.uk/products/sound-absorption-solutions/sonata-memo-acoustic-noticeboard/ https://www.soundreduction.co.uk/products/sound-absorption-solutions/sonata-aurio-acoustic-panel/

If you want to change the center of gravity, moving the rear strap button towards the forearm cut will have a big effect without adding extra weight. Gaffa tape is your friend if you want to conduct a quick test without making any permanent mods.

You could go with standing up but restructure how you are practising and look at it as an opportunity to maximise the efficiency of your practising efforts. It is generally accepted that most humans have maximum effectiveness of concentration over a relatively short period (about 20-30 mins), so if you practiced standing up, and enforced a 5-10 minute break where you put the bass down completely and do some stretches every 20-30 minutes and stop completely when you start feeling fatigued, you may well find that you can maximise the results from your practising while simultaneously being proactive about your posture and physical health. K&M do good stools (I have the one @Happy Jack linked but without a backrest which I use mainly for playing double bass) but bear in mind that this isn't a magic bullet and you might gain more benefit from going to a beginner pilates/yoga class and working on your core muscles.

This is just footage from a parallel universe where Kenny G learned guitar instead of saxaphone.

Good rock music is simple and energetic and listening to should make you want to jump up and down, fusion always feels contrived and cerebral no matter how good the technical execution is. Lets be real, the only way anyone is getting laid after a jazz fusion/prog concert is if an absent minded farmer leaves his livestock tied to a lamp post outside the concert venue.

I would concur with one caveat. If the strings are very old - pegbox pic looks like the E is corroded - then replacing just one string might result in a big tonal difference between the new and old strings. I haven't used helicore pizz myself, but going by the manufacturers description I would guess that they are supposed to be significantly similar to Thomastic Spirocore, which can take a long time to dull(mileage will vary with personal body chemistry and how much you play).

If you post a picture of the ball end/silk and the pegbox silk the original strings can probably be identified. Might be worth considering replacing the whole set (single E string will be most expensive to buy new)

The col legno standard in the classifieds, and nymans rosin. If you want to spend less, I bought one of thomanns own brand carbon german bows which surpassed my expectations, I would expect the french pattern ones to be similarly good.

I realise that I should have probably cited OJ Simpson if we are taking the US Justice system as being infallible and never showing erroneous or favourable outcomes to people who are rich, famous or politically connected, and not guilty verdicts as an absolute indicator of innocence. I reckon that Thriller is one of the best pop albums of all time, and there is no denying how important economically MJ was to the music industry or indeed how beloved he was by his enormous fanbase, but if you look at the overall pattern of his behaviour towards the boys and their families, it doesn't look like innocent eccentricity to me, it looks decidedly like he used his fame and wealth to groom the families into allowing him unsupervised access to their children.

Just spotted this in the classifieds, might be worth further investigation - no affiliation with seller.

+1 for ACS, country mile better than using generic plugs, and even on the highest attenuation filters the sound reduction is pretty even so you don't lose the top end.

Neither was Jimmy Saville.

Thomastic do a lot of different spiro sets - there are a couple of handy resources over on talkbass (don't have a link to hand) notably a big spreadsheet that normalises tension data to one scale length/pitch so you can make meaningful comparisons - I think the person who under took this project has the username doublemidi. There is also a tension calulator that lets you precisely calculate what the string tension is if you detuned by a semitone/tone, which is probably the quickest way to determine how comfortable you will be with the change in tension.

Standalone units are generally not cheap, yamaha did make a 1u rackmount interface called the i88x which has a pair of high quality mic pres which will run standalone.

The bass you link is a flatback made by Hora in Romania, they are quite heavily built and not particularly resonant, so might be an advantage to use with an amp, but likely to be a bit disappointing acoustically in terms of it's ability to produce much by way of volume or bass frequencies. Before you think about shelling out on a new instrument, I would seriously advise that you identify what strings are currently fitted - they do make quite a difference to the sound and also playing comfort. If you can manage to take a pic of the pegbox and the tailpiece(preferably so we can see the string ball ends as well as the silks), it should be fairly straightforward to identify what is currently fitted and at least offer a couple of options that might work well for your wife in terms of string tension and overall sound.

Have you had the Stentor professionally set up(or did the previous owner have this work done)? What strings are currently fitted to the Stentor? (They can usually be identified by appearance if you don't know what is fitted) What is your wifes primary musical focus - does she play mainly with the bow, with the fingers or rockabilly slap style? Where is your wife on the learning curve, does she have access to a good tutor or access to other double bass players? What area of the UK are you in?

Before you look at buying another bass, have you optimized what your current bass can offer with a proper luthier setup and decent strings? Although the Stentor 1950 is a "student" model, the ones I've played have sounded pretty decent, and the small 3/4 dimensions make them easy to live with. Stock factory setup however isn't good, and people often get sticker shock over the cost of getting a proper setup done, which is a major quality of life improvement in both playability and sound. The most important bit of the bass for sound production is arguably the top, which is solid spruce on the 1950, so I don't think that the difference moving from one factory produced hybrid instrument to a factory produced ful carved is going to be night and day difference - some full carved basses are actually worse, because they get overbuilt to compensate the risks of using wood that might have only been seasoned for a short time. To avoid disappointment I would definately recommend playing in person before purchase. When you think about upgrading, can you articulate what you want out of the upgrade?

Just in case you are unaware, the Zoom R8 lets you send audio only out of the main outputs, and audio+R8 internal metronome click to the headphone out, you should be able to do this on the R24 as well. I bought my R8 from a band that had been using it for backing tracks, and the unit allows you to set a playlist for all the backings tracks(which are stored as individual projects), so their drummer would take the headphone output with backing+click to his IEMs and they would feed the main outs to FOH + rest of the band IEMs.

Tim has a good reputation as a luthier, definately ring and check what he has available before travelling(his website isn't updated often). If you are planning a road trip to the midlands, Bassbags isn't too far from Tim and definately worth a visit.

@Rabbie is spot on - the flat side of the bridge should be towards the tailpiece. It is pretty easy to turn the bridge round to the correct orientation - the first time you do it however take some time over the process, if you are ever in a situation where your bridge has been knocked out of alignment or knocked over and you need to sort it out at the gig what you learn about the process now will be invaluable. You might want to let people know whereabouts you are based, as there might be an experienced DBer locally who could help you with this if it seems a bit overwhelming. Before you start, check that the soundpost is still in position (you should be able to see it through the G side f-hole), if it isn't there and you can hear something rattling round inside the bass, you'll need to detune the bass and get to a luthier. First you need to lay the bass on its back - don't use the floor, the bass needs to be resting on it's back, not the neck, a bed is ideal as you can let the neck over hang the edge. Second you need to apply some weight to the top of the bass to avoid the soundpost falling - big heavy books are ideal. Third slacken off the tension on the strings (not all the way, but enough that you can easily remove them from the string grooves), remove the E and A to the E side and the G and D to the D side. Swap the bridge round so the flat side is facing the tailpiece, take this opportunity to lubricate the bridge and nut slots with a 2B pencil. Replace the strings back onto the bridge A,D then E,G. While the strings are still at low tension line the bridge up carefully (inner f-hole notches should line up with centerline of bridge feet, string position should be centered on fingerboard looking down the neck, bridge should be perpendicular to bass top, strings seated correctly in their grooves at nut). Slowly bring the strings back up to tension, checking that the bridge is staying in position and not being pulled towards the fingerboard - the following video is a pretty good guide to adjusting the bridge, but as you can see from the way Herve-Jean places the bass on the floor, you couldn't weight the top of the bass to prevent the soundpost falling.

Mainstream commercial modern music is getting more formulaic as a result of the music industry being more risk averse in the face of the way technology has changed their revenue streams, but the same technology is also allowing independant artists to be adventurous and able to distribute their work without having to make creative concessions, so depends what you listen to really.

In the studio you can spend time eliminating LF phase issues between the DI and mic'd signals, it isn't really realistic to expect a house engineer to do this in any situation where soundcheck time is limited, or to expect them to reconfigure the desk channel layout to accomodate you. Getting a better sounding DI source is a much better bet - if you want your band to sound good, making the engineers job more complicated is an approach that will be self defeating most of the time.

I've used both, but with quite a gap between, so making an accurate comparison is a little difficult, I suspect that the superflexibles are a tad darker, but I don't know whether the set I have are 3/4 or 4/4 and I'm comparing by memory to the 3885 spiro weich set for 3/4. Tension wise the Superflexible set is heavier going than the Spiro set. General finish of the strings doesn't vary between the two, and arco performance is similar, can't yet comment on overall lifespan. Worth noting also that I haven't played both sets on the same bass, so pinch of salt and all that. One thing worth mentioning is that spiros come in many tension variations, but Superflexibles don't have a lot of choices, so check the tension data carefully to make sure you are not going to end up with a string which is too stiff.