Dan Dare

The original question was who leads - bass or drums? The answer, imho anyway, is neither. I'm not being facetious here, but we - bassists and drummers - are the rhythm section (I'm obviously referring to bands). We don't "lead" (or we shouldn't, ideally). As such, we should support the melody instruments if a piece is instrumental, taking the lead from whoever may be soloing (if someone is), or if a song, the singer, again taking the lead from him/her. We should attempt to work together, with neither leading nor following the other. There will be cues that each may give the other, but that will change from moment to moment.

Neither.

Plastic beer bottle crate. Nice and lightweight.

Odd that, rather than him sorting out his issue, everyone else is expected to fit around him. I'd wager that, far from using a Brian May tanner, he is using a light pick and digging too hard into the strings. Used to play with a guy who did just that and who always broke strings because he pushed against them with his thumb in order to compensate for the fact that his cigarette paper pick would bend rather than shift the strings. Could never get it through to him that he needed to use a heavier pick and to improve/lighten his picking technique. But then, he was a guitar player...

Bill's advice is good. If you just want to add a bit of low end weight to a mainly vocal PA (I've done it in situations that didn't call for my main PA and subs), a bass cab can work, but watch the volume and don't try to put high levels of kick, bass, etc through it. As well as high passing the signal to the amp that powers the top cabs, you'll ideally need to remove mid and high frequencies from the send to the amp that powers the bass cabs. If you have a digital mixer, this is all simple to do, of course. Some analogue mixers can provide a low passed signal for subs and you can use a graphic to remove low frequencies from the signal to the tops. Reasonable active subs can be picked up quite cheaply used. Most have on board processing which will provide a high passed signal for top boxes.

Jack's Instrument Services in Manchester will make you pretty well any plate your heart desires. Good value, too. Have a look at their website.

J Retro is well made and versatile. However, I tried one in my J bass and removed it in the end. Although it gave a wider tonal palette, I felt it robbed the instrument of something. I couldn't get that classic J sound - the one where you run one pickup wide open and back the other off a tad - using it.

Given that a PA cab of sufficient quality, not to mention size, to reproduce bass properly costs as much as a decent bass cab and is no easier to transport, one may as well use the right tool for the job.

"Still has the name tag on. Don't touch it. Don't even look at it".

Get a finished one and let the kids kick it around in the garden for a week or so 😊

Probably wouldn't have mattered whether she had played whilst carrying him. If he has the genes, that's what matters. Of course, living in a musical environment is going to enable him to make the most of his abilities. Not really accurate to say someone with perfect pitch is "not musically talented". They obviously have innate musical ability. They just haven't used or developed it.

Have a look on the Warmoth website. They do a wide range of bodies and necks in various styles. eBay is a good source of stuff, too. Just search for bass necks, bass bodies, etc. If you want something of an established type (such as a P bass), you could buy a used one and fit improved pickups, bridge, tuners, etc.

I'm going to disagree with the majority here. It's not a museum exhibit and it's not in original condition. It's a mass-produced instrument and it's your property. Do whatever you want with it and enjoy it.

By building, do you mean starting from scratch with raw materials, or assembling using pre-made components? Obviously, I'm talking about wooden parts - body, neck, etc - not metal - bridge, tuners and so on. Unless you have a lathe and milling machine, can wind pickups, of course... I agree with BassApprentice above. Rolling your own is not a cheap route to the bass of your dreams. It's fun and rewarding, but you can often get a better result for less money by buying used and tweaking/modifying. As an example, my Bitsa P bass cost me in the region of £300 to put together. It's probably not much better than a decent used Squier with an upgraded pickup, if I'm honest. The problem with kits is that you are stuck with the parts the manufacturer provides. Improving on them (which you will probably want/need to do unless the kit was very expensive and used the best available parts) will add to the cost. Instruments with bolt on necks - Fender et al - are the simpler proposition. What did you have in mind?

Did you mean likely? Speaker outs are virtually always parallel.

Ideally, you should ensure the string runs straight over the nut to the tuner post and doesn't bend at the nut. For the sake of strength, avoid placing it too close to any of the tuners on the top of the headstock. If it's Fender style, Fender basses are common. Might it be worth visiting a shop, looking at a Fender 5 (which has the standard 4 on one side and the additional tuner located on the lower side of the headstock) to see how they place it and making a few sketches and measurements?

Get one of those wine carafes with the flared neck. You can discreetly pee into it quite easily. I keep one in the car for emergencies.

Tomastik flats are pretty much the same. The 70 A string has too little tension and you have to wind the bridge saddle so far forward it all but falls of the thread of the adjusting screw. Shame, because I like them apart from that. I've replaced the A with a D'Addario Chrome.

I have an old Garrard 401 now, which has the strobe speed indicator cast into the rim of the platter. That record sounds painful. If you want to really squirm, listen to the flute solo on California Dreaming. It's just slightly flat all the way through. Always hated it when I was younger. Used to have to turn the radio down whenever it came on.

If you want a Jazz, do try a passive one. They seem to have a certain something in the sound that active ones don't - to my ears anyway. Some pretty good bargains around at the moment, due to shops and people generally trying to sell stuff to keep some money coming in.

Having always played a Jazz since the 1980s, when I picked up a particularly nice, used '72, I bought a G&L L2000 - the Tribute model, but the dimensions are the same as the US ones - a few years ago as a general purpose gigging instrument. I had become a bit leery of taking a vintage Jazz to some of the more dodgy places I played. The G&L was a great instrument - very well made, versatile and the pickups were excellent, with a wide range of tones. However, I just couldn't get on with the wider, flatter neck. I tried, because I liked the noise it made so much, but gave up in the end, sold it and got a Mexican PJ (which has a Jazz neck). So I certainly believe you will find a Jazz more comfortable. However, I'm not you, so try before you buy.

PJB 4B. I have 3 of them, which makes a pretty potent and still portable rig and I have the option to use 1 or 2 if I don't need to make that much noise.

Are you certain about that? The 250ASX2 is a stereo module that gives 250 a side into 4 ohms or 500 bridged into 8. The Aguliar site states 250 into 4 or 500 into 8. I doubt they'd spend the extra on a stereo module for a mono head.

Have you got anything better in the pipeline? If not, what have you got to lose?

I'd hold on a while longer if I were you. By the time next year rolls around, there will be some really crazy bargains as shops try to maintain some cash flow. A number of musicians I've spoken to are starting to think about offloading gear because they don't see when/whether they are going to be able to use it again. If a lot of good used stuff hits the market, the price of new is really going to take a hit.