Dan Dare

Used bass off the 'Bay? Should be plenty of bargains in January when those who have Christmas credit card bills to pay start looking for ways to raise a few bob.

Not a good strategy. The old man/drummer will support her even if she's terrible to avoid getting earache at home. If she turns out to be decent, they'll be thinking about easing you out to make the gig money go further.

Joe Ely wrote a song about that.

Forgot to add earlier. Look for used, rather than new. eBay and similar are stuffed with used Pacificas, Squiers and the like at bargain prices. People often buy a guitar, for themselves or a youngster, intending to learn. After finding out it ain't as easy as they imagined, the instrument goes in the cupboard, until one day they decide to sell it. Either that, or they (or the youngster) make good progress and decide to upgrade relatively quickly. In both cases, you get to pick up a used instrument in good shape, ungigged (how many beginners gig?) for not much money. If you look after it, you can move it on for not much less than you paid for it when the time comes for you to upgrade. A repairer friend often picks up such guitars for silly money from eBay, gives them a clean, set-up and new strings and sells them on at a profit.

Yammy Pacificas are always a sound choice Can't go far wrong with Squier, either and they sell easily used when you want to upgrade.

If an item was discounted, I wouldn't worry about a few marks. If I liked it, I'd probably try to get a few quid back and keep it.

It's a practice/starter combo. As it's from MB, it's going to be decent, because they have a reputation to protect. Whether it will be enough for you to gig with is something only you can determine. Practice amps don't usually offer a simple upgrade path (for example, by allowing you to run additional cabs), so when/if they are not sufficient to do the job, you have to sell and start again. The market for used practice combos is limited because fewer want them. The new price of the MB is not far short of what you would pay for a more capable used combo. It won't be a bad choice by any means, but it may be a limited one in terms of what you can do with it. I'd advise trying one - plenty of shops carry them. Don't buy on spec' or on the basis of reviews/recommendations.

If you're looking to save weight, modular - several smaller, lighter boxes, rather than one large heavy one - is the way to go.

I love it when people who plainly know nowt about something come up with tripe to boost it - "Whether you're a seasoned musician or a beginner, this Music Man style bass guitar is sure to meet all your needs"... Yeah, right. I wasn't going to buy it, but, having read that, how could I not do so?

I'd say a smidge above. I converted a fretted to fretless and filed the slots to be slightly above the board. If you like a lot of relief in the neck, you may get away with level. A DB may have them level with the board, but remember its action is much higher than an electric. Best to experiment, rather than file them right down from the off.

You don't need to centre subs, but it is best to place them together. Frequencies become less directional the lower they get. Depending on room acoustics, it can be better to place them at one side to take advantage of boundary reinforcement, floor coupling, etc. One good sub will easily outperform two average ones The problem with large, one box cab's is that they can be a bit precarious when put on poles, which you have to do to get the best coverage/dispersion of higher frequencies. If a drunk punter crashes into a stand whilst dancing a bit too enthusiastically, things can go pretty pear shaped. It's better to have compact top boxes on poles and keep the sub(s) on the floor, from both performance and safety standpoints.

Closed back cans are better because ambient noise can't cause problems. You generally get a better bass response from them, too, which is handy. I have an ancient set of Beyer 770s that do the job for me.

Aguilar Tone Hammer?

As you don't play yourself, I'd be wary of buying something expensive on spec'. It's difficult to get it right when buying something for someone's interest that you have little knowledge of. As it's not a main present, I'd keep it simple. Programmable strobe tuners are all very nice, but are a bit expensive/overkill for a young guy with his first instrument and amp. The TC clip on tuner at a quarter the price would be fine and you could add a decent strap and gig bag and still spend less than the the cost of the Peterson suggested above.

Now that's one occasion where a round of applause when they'd finished would have been in order...

A wise move. Incidentally, when you say you've seen a bass for sale that you owned as a teenager, do you mean the same make and model or the very same instrument? That's intriguing because most teenagers don't own massively desirable instruments (unless mum and dad are minted).

Good advice. With multi driver cabs, you should normally mic' one driver only. They should all sound the same, so for the purposes of mic'ing, that's the way to go. It can get a little more complicated - the BF multiple 10" cabs for example, where some drivers are fed a different signal and obviously cab's with tweeters or mid-range drivers. No such issues with the C4. Be aware that with close mic'ing, you are not getting any cabinet sound, but just that of the driver itself. For live work, I'd agree with Phil and others that DI is the way to go.

You should experiment to find the sweet spot on cabs that have no tweeter. On cone drivers, if you point the mic' directly at the centre of the cone, the sound will be brighter. It's often better to point it more towards the edge of the cone. If you're mic'ing a cab in a live situation, you want to get the mic' as close as you can to minimise spill from other instruments, drums, etc. Using a hypercardioid mic' helps. They pick up in a narrower/tighter arc and are better at rejecting sounds from the sides and back. It's also important to aim the axis of the mic' at what you want to pick up. In other words, ensure that the capsule diaphragm is flat/180 deg. to the sound source.

It wouldn't make much sense for brands to make their budget offerings too good and take sales from their higher priced lines. Often, companies will own other brands that cater for different price points - Yamaha owns Nexo, which is a pro' audio PA brand, for example.

There's a clip of the new cab up on the BF YouTube channel. No sound, just someone showing how easy it is to lift it.

Surely it's a practice tool. Handy if one lives in a flat, where even the sound of sticks hitting pads can be annoying to neighbours or flatmates.

Took the words out of my mouth. If I'm paying, it's my business and I'll do as I see fit. As for the "someone's paying" point in a pro' situation, I've been there, too. We didn't expect everyone else to be in the control room, hooting, hollering, high-fiving and "engaging" during tracking/overdubs. It would have been pretty naff, actually.

Yep. That massive low end may sound good in isolation and at low/practice/studio volumes, but use it in a live situation and it's usually mud city.

I'd rather poke out my eyes with sharp sticks.

Depends on the individual. I prefer to be left alone to work on something without half a dozen pairs of eyes watching my every move. You can't generalise..