Staggering on

Well your wife has the right idea and you are very lucky that way.Go for it!😉 Not particularly good pics but this is me with the Stagg I had and my Engelhardt Swingmaster ES9, not a very well regarded bass by some, but it looks great and sounds good for the music I play.

That is pretty strange, a lot of drop with the jack out. I didn't keep track of my batteries on a regular basis when I had the Stagg but did check them before each gig and replaced them if they had dropped much but I can't remember the details.The batteries lasted quite a while before they started to die and the EUB got quieter and quieter and finally quit, I wish I had checked the voltage at that point to see exactly where it quit working. I actually used the Stagg a lot, it was my first foray into the upright world and sounded good in my jazz quartet but when an SLB appeared with an unbelievably low price I just had to buy it and although some people don't like them it is perfect for me. BTW, I went even farther down the slippery slope last year when I visited England ( I'm Canadian ) and went to the double bass bash in April.That experience produced serious GAS and last June I bought a DB and use it on most gigs but use the SLB for rehearsals and gigs in venues with limited space. Be careful, upright is addictive, but so much fun! 😉😊

The Stagg I owned and the Yamaha SLB200 that I use now both have a power switch in the output jack and some owners are not aware of this and wonder why their batteries don't last. If the cable is plugged in the preamp is on. I assume from the work you have done that you know a lot about electronics and are aware of this but I thought I'd toss it out just so others with battery problems following this thread might find it useful before they look for other solutions. I liked my Stagg but I love the SLB 200, it works for me.

Well done!👏 From your description it sounds like more than a "minor success", most of us would be very happy to have a night like you had.Your future looks good...you will be much more relaxed and have some real fun next time!😊

I hope I'm not being rude but I can't be the only one who is wondering how the gig went...don't keep us in suspense any longer.😧 ...oh,maybe it's because the post gig party is still going on and you are also in intense negotiations with agents and others who want to manage your ascension to stardom...let's hope!😊

Yup, it's the EDB stand made for the Stagg. I'm in Canada but I just saw it on the Thomann UK site at a reasonable price, cheaper than it would be here.It is relatively heavy (to me that's good thing) and can be folded up into a reasonable size although I see in reviews that some people complain about the size. It worked for me with my Stagg and is great for use with my SLB 200. What is the problem with the bridge? In the photos when it was posted for sale the bridge looks OK. I have had some difficulties trying to get information from Yamaha on this side of the Atlantic also, in my case I was trying to find out what gauge strings they use and also some details about the preamp.You may have to see a luthier about your bridge, it seems Yamaha isn't being very helpful. I eventually got some answers but nobody at Yamaha seemed to know much about the instrument and most of the info I needed came from other owners on this site and others. Good luck!

I use my old Stagg stand for my SLB 200 and I assume it would work for the SLB 100 also. It came with a Stagg EUB I had and when I sold the Stagg I kept the stand.It is a lot cheaper than the Yamaha stand and I have used it at home and many gigs and had no problems. You got a great deal on the Yamaha,I hope it works out for you. I love my SLB 200 and use it for rehearsals and a few gigs where space is too tight for my DB.

I used Tru oil on a Hofner copy bass kit from Solo Music here in Canada.I put on at least 15 very thin coats with a cloth pad and sanded with grits up to 1000 I think.It is a nice gloss finish, foolproof (I did it!) and very easy to use. It did give the maple top and back a slight honey shade but didn't change it very much. In the second photo you can compare the colour with my Engelhardt blonde Swingmaster ES 9.

I got one of these from Gollihur Music, it's foam rubber and works great for me and is fun and can be used to toss at annoying people.I should have ordered two, one for the bass and the other for fun.It's on their website and they ship world wide.

A bit odd to quote myself, but since you were well prepared I was sure you would do a fine job and have fun! Live music is best...time to find a band or some friends to jam with.Congratulations! BTW, the fact that you found your way back to what the band members were doing shows that you've got good musical sense and a lot more ability than you may have thought, lots of players would have been totally lost and never recovered...well done!👏😊

Sounds like a fun night to me, you'll be fine once the music starts.Enjoy the moment, it might lead to great things!😊

If you bought your bass new it will have new strings which make more finger noise than older worn in strings.New rounds are very bright at first.

I love my KNA and use it for daily practice at home as well as band rehearsals and gigs but I did have a problem similar to what you are describing at one gig. When I installed it my bridge needed a fair bit of sanding to get two nice flat surfaces in the wing and until I got it perfect I had a variety of noises and sounds I didn't like but when I finally got it sorted it was perfect for several months and then started to act up at a gig when I was setting up. I wiggled the pickup and moved it a bit and it started to work just fine and has been good since then, which was about 4 months ago. I think I may have moved the pickup a bit when the bridge bumped into something in my car or when loading in at that gig, it is VERY sensitive to location and pressure. Other than that time no problems.I use a Schatten Design Mini Pre that has volume control only and use the EQ on my amp or the PA(Bose) so I know the problem was the pickup and the way it was wedged in the wing not the electrics in my case. Hope you get yours sorted out, these things can be awfully frustrating and expensive too. Glad to hear you are back playing after your heart problem,I've been through something similar and it's not much fun.

Agree, a contrast to when we were young and every teenager had a guitar or bass. What will it be like in 25 years? I guess that's the way things go with popular music. It could be compared to the the piano market(real piano, not "keyboard") that existed for the better part of a century and every home had a piano and kids took piano lessons and the sheet music market flourished. In my part of the world(Canada) lovely pianos are being sold cheaply or given away and it's been like this for years. Times and tastes change,I'm glad I was around when the guitar boom started in the 60's and I'm still playing, totally changed my life.I have met many fantastic people, including the mother of my son, while gigging or jamming and hope to continue as long as I can.Still gigging in two bands and in my 73rd year. Oh, and we "older men" often have a bit more cash to invest in overpriced instruments to support the market. You know how it goes..."now that I have paid off some debts and am a bit more comfortable financially I'm going to buy the (insert toy of choice here) that I always wanted".Been there, done that and I'm still doing it!

Great to hear that you finally got your hands on the new bass and that you are are now truly on your way to the heaven and hell that is playing DB. Keep us informed about your progress, it sounds like you have already had some fun!👍😁

Nope, the dots are on the side of the fingerboard facing me. I play standing up and they are easy to see. As I said above, I just use them for a quick check now and then if I'm a bit unsure of the intonation due to band volume or my basic insecurity.😟

I use one of those White Out pens that is used for correcting typing/printing errors. It's simple to use and easy to make exactly the size of dot you want. It lasts a long time and is easy to remove. Gollihur Music and other dealers sell stick on dots that are neat and easy to apply and remove.

Ah yes, but it feels so good!😊

When I had a Stagg it was set very high when I bought it and I lowered it to the more or less "normal" DB string height of 5-6mm for the G string and about 8-9mm for the E, measured at the end of the fingerboard and it worked fine for me.You might want to check the height at the nut too.Paul made a good point about slacking off the strings a bit before you use the adjusters, it will make it a lot easier. Of course the condition of the neck and fingerboard, what type of music you play and the condition and type of strings should be considered also. If you Google around a bit you will find a lot of threads about setting up a Stagg and there is a lot of good info out there. Good luck and have fun!😊

I'd say go with the dots, at least to start. The anti-dot movement has never made much sense to me. Every guitar and bass (except for some fretless basses) have dots and inlays on the fingerboard and I've never heard anyone saying that they shouldn't be there and that you will rely on them and hence be a worse player and probably a "bad musician" too. Not only that but guitars, basses,mandolins and banjoes have frets to make getting the right pitch easier! I have put removable dots on my EUB and DB and find them useful sometimes in the heat of the battle to just check occasionally so I actually know I'm in tune, which isn't always easy when playing in a band as opposed to practicing alone. I don't play with my eyes focused on the dots, I'm reading a chart or playing from memory and rarely look at the fingerboard, but it's nice to know the dots are there for a quick reference. ...shuffles off to work on intonation...

Two gigs this week. On Thursday the jazz standards quartet played four sets of "wallpaper music" music while about 150 of Canada's mining company executives mingled and networked and ate a stand up banquet of seafood "finger foods" in a large ballroom and drank lots of booze. Nice crowd and several came over to say nice things to us about our music and we had several enquiries re future gigs.The organizers have already booked us for next year. We play quite a few gigs like this and while it may sound like a really boring and thankless job it is interesting to watch toes tapping in the crowd even as they talk and eat and to watch someone walking around doing a bit of grooving to our "background" music which some would call live Muzak. We look at these gigs as paid rehearsals and play a lot of music we don't get to play at our normal gigs and often stretch the song and our solos by adding a few choruses so it is actually fun, believe it or not. You have to have the right attitude to survive these gigs and the fact that we were well paid helps. Last night the seven piece "little big band" played two sets of swing(me on DB) and a set of Dixieland (me on tenor banjo) in a smallish function room at a craft brewery.We drove through a snowstorm to get there and were worried about the turn out but the room was almost full(about 40 something people) and we had a great night with a standing "O" at the end and are booked back for a date in August. All in all a good week and my Engelhardt Swingmaster ES 9 sounded great using the KNA DB 1 pickup into a Schatten Mini Pre (input gain and volume control only) that goes into our Bose PA so I don't even need to take an amp.😊

I'm Canadian and I'm not offended, at least I don't think I'm offended. What's wrong with my vowels, eh?😉

....ahem...sound "person" perhaps?🤔

Congratulations on moving to DB! Many of us have done the same thing and you will get lots of good ideas and advice on here, there are other threads about this topic on this site. It is definitely a different instrument than EB but it is so much fun to play you will love it. Good luck!😀

Yup, just lucky I guess.😉