Dan Dare

I bought a decal for my bitsa that says Findus Sea Bass. haven't got round to putting it on yet as I'm rather fond of the Dinky Toys decal that's on there already. As far as the OP's question - why is putting Fender decals on bitsas allowed in the first place? - who's going to prevent it? Somehow, I can't see Fender or anyone else knocking on doors at 2 am and the Old Bill certainly wouldn't be interested. "We have reason to believe you have a fake decal on your bass. You're nicked, sunshine". Caveat emptor as always. It's not hard to spot a fake, unless it's so well done it's better than the "real" thing. Nobody moans about high quality copies from the likes of Limelight.

That's my experience, too. It doesn't sound that great when you're stood next to it. Not bad by any means, but nothing special. Out out in the room, it's a different story.

Fohhn LX150 plus XS22 subs (which contain the power amps and software to drive them and the tops, so the whole rig is active although the tops aren't on their own). Like a big hi-fi - very clean, with great projection/coverage. Not the most powerful low end, but plenty for the size of jobs I use them for and I love the clarity.

I'd put it towards the gas bill...

Same here. It's the overdone artificial flavouring/smell. As far as generally imposing your wishes on clients goes, it's your territory, so your rules. Clients can come and go/nip out for a smoke, drink or a munch, but you have to be in there the whole time. If you spill your tea on the gear, it's down to you to clean it up or fix any damage done. I wouldn't have a problem with a studio (nice looking set-up you have there, btw) asking me not to eat or drink in the control room. A few years ago, everyone smoked in them. Now we don't. As a smoker, I was happy with being asked not to indulge my addiction in studios before the law was changed.

Originally, the carpet covering used on cabs was Ozite, which was developed as carpeting for vehicles. Other "rat fur" type products are used, too, but they are all pretty similar. Being synthetic material, it isn't particularly absorbent and the glue layer beneath it (as referred to by JPJ) will help prevent any paint finish from soaking in. I think there's a good chance you'd end up with a horrible mess if you tried to paint a carpet cab with Tuff Cab, which is intended for hard surfaces. Imagine the finish you'd get if you tried to paint your carpets at home and that will give an idea of the likely result. There are articles online about removing carpet finish from cabs, but they all warn of the aggro involved in getting the glue off (again as JPJ points out), not to mention the carpet itself, which is tough stuff and won't peel away neatly (it tends to delaminate, leaving patches of black fuzz and glue, which is hell to remove). If it's still sound, you can revive carpet covering with a stiff brush which will spruce it up to an extent unless it's really badly worn. I've thought of removing the carpet from my Berg' cab for a while now and Tolexing it to match my other cabs, but have chickened out so far because of the potential issues and the fact that it isn't in too bad shape. I think I'll put it off until it gets to looking really awful.

Blimey. The studio must have had an enormous tape machine. Why not a sign saying "No food or drinks in the control room"? It's safer if there aren't cups of tea and drinks cans waiting to be knocked over the gear. As long as there's an area where people can eat and drink, that's quite reasonable.

I should imagine that, at somewhere named PMT, you'd be very likely to be told to eff orf because they were having a bad day...

Get a cheap thin foam camping mattress and cut a bit from it. Will cost you around a fiver. The foam is dense and closed cell, so it compresses, but doesn't squash flat. One mattress will give you enough to do hundreds of basses.

I used to have a bit of a collection of amps, but I sold them all and went lightweight. Now have an AG700 as main amp and Carvin B1000 as spare.

Developing on that a little, I like to set up a quick, simple drum pattern and use that as a click. It's still metronomic, but it feels more real and is easy to play with than beeps and boops.

In isolation, the best bass sound I ever heard from my instrument was when it was DI'd into a Neve console and listened to via some ridiculously expensive studio monitors (can't remember what they were). The "in isolation" was important, though. That hi-fi sound rarely works well in context in my experience. Add the rest of the band and the subtleties quickly get lost and/or clash with everything else that's happening. You end up boosting the upper mids, getting rid of a lot of the delicate higher frequencies, rolling off almost everything below about 80hz or so, etc to make it sit nicely in the track and hey presto, P bass with semi-knackered strings.

Fair points and I admit to having a grumpy old git rant earlier. The endless labelling and naming does get irritating, though. Certainly, general terms are useful (as pointed out by the OP), but the sub-categorising and sub-sub-categorising is beyond silly. Whether it's useful to the consumer beyond general terms is moot. It's just word salad after a certain point In the end, it's impossible to convey music or art (or any sensory experience) using words. Hence my dig at music journo's, who make up a lot of froth to fill column inches and justify their existence. The nonsense isn't limited to music, of course. The same happens with visual art, food and wine (we all have a laugh at the b/s wine writers come up with - "herring and cranberry overtones, with a hint of burning tyres"), etc. In the end, you just have to experience something for yourself. Labels could even be limiting to the consumer, in that they may ignore something because it doesn't bear the right descriptor and miss out on something they could enjoy.

It'd be more accurate to say that b/s evolves. All this "genre" tripe is invented by music journo's who can't play but are desperate to carve out a career in music and make it appear that they know something. Judgemental? Dismissive? Me? You bet.

Any of the above recommended 350-400w into 8 ohm heads should do you fine. Your budget probably rules out some brands, such as Aguilar, Darkglass, etc, but there are quite a few others that should be within reach if you buy used. Fwiw, the best sound I've heard with a C4 was with one of the GK mini heads. A head under 2kg with the power output you want in your price range could be a big ask, but even 4kg is less than 10 lb, which is not exactly a back breaker. A quick suggestion about your cab choice. A single C4 isn't going to do "thunderous" (I'm a C4 and 4B owner/user, so I'm not anti-PJB - far from it), regardless of the head you use with it. The smaller PJB cabs need to be used in multiples - I use at least two and quite often three - to give any degree of heft or weight. I love their clarity, but they are quite inefficient, which means they soak up amp power. They are remarkable for their size, but physics, Jim. I found by accident - mixing and matching my cabs - that a C4 plus a decent 1x12 makes a great compact but pokey rig. The C4 for clarity, plus the 12 for some weight. Any chance you might be able to add £100 or so to the budget? That should get you a used head plus a reasonable 1x12. If you can find another used C4, that would be nice, too, but they are likely to be a bit dearer.

I learned the violin (and later the fiddle - they may be the same instrument, but the uses to which they are put are very different). My family was London Irish, so I got into traditional music in my teens. Friends started getting bands together and I wanted in. The trouble was, back in the 1970s, playing violin/fiddle was not cool, so I had to find a way in. One day, I heard Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown" on the radio and the bass part leapt out at me. It drove the song (I originally thought it was Jamerson, but learned later it was Bob Babbit) and I thought, "I want to do that". The bass turned out to be a good choice. Virtually everyone wanted to be playing guitar, so bass players were in more demand and I found myself being offered gigs quite quickly. I had some technique from the fiddle I could adapt, which meant I could get round the neck, could read and had a decent ear.

Put a thumb rest on the instrument? You can position it to suit where you want the hand to fall.

It used to be a problem with the old hard and brittle nitrocellulose lacquers. If you opened the case in a warm room when the instrument had been cold for a while, the finish would craze. These days, everyone is using polyurethane lacquers, which have some flexibility, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Is the amp in question a TC? If so, reduce claimed wattage figures by around one third...

I was under the impression that was the whole point of this site.

The Speakon sockets on the C4 are attached to a small PCB, to which the cables for the drive units are soldered. There is quite tightly packed wadding inside the cab, which should help to prevent mechanical rattling. The rear panel is permanently attached. The C4 is quite a solid thing, with small panels and fairly substantial bracing. Access to the inside is only possible via the front, necessitating removal of the drivers. The noise on the sound clips posted above sounded more like break-up or distortion than a rattle to me. Is the bass active? Does the battery need replacing? One would expect a rattle to happen all the time, rather than on certain notes. The cab looks to me to have been well used. I'd try it with another amp. If the problem persists, I'd ask the seller for a return/refund. If you go poking about inside it, it could be claimed that you've caused (or worsened) the issue yourself.

How about a bit of white gaffa tape with what's inside scrawled on it with a permanent marker? Leaves you more money to spend on beer 😁