JoeEvans

For me, Jaco Pastorious is an incredible musician but I don't really like him as a bass player. His tone is too trebly and gutless, and he plays too many notes - it's like he's continuously trying to climb out of the space where the bass should be, and he leaves an empty hole behind him. I don't think I'm the only bass player that likes bassy bassists - people who sit in the centre of the tune behind and underneath everyone else, holding it all together; drive the rhythm along; provide a rock solid platform for everyone else to do their thing; and whose sound is big, solid, low-down and powerful.

Yes - you don't want to get it on anywhere you can't get it off.

Brasso is the stuff you want.

Carbon fibre is very good at that price range, I think. I would probably just get one close to the top of your price range from Thomann without worrying about the brand.

My fretless bass has clearly visible wear from round wound strings (from a previous owner, I use flats on it). You can actually see the marks of the windings.

I'd do that double bass style with a shift, either as Fishfacefour suggests, or 1 (shift) 4 - 1, 1 - 2 (shift) 1.

I think I'd try another valve preamp. I currently use an ART Tube MP with my double bass and it makes it sound just slightly better - warmer and more muscular. So possibly there's another preamp out there that would do the same but more so.

Sounds pretty good to me...

I don't like to be pedantic about such a beautiful plan, but surely if you're in the Champagne region, all champagne is local, and if you're not, none of it is?

Following various experiments I came to the conclusion that the best DB sound for me came from the right mic then as little as possible on the way to a good active PA speaker, or just straight into the venue PA. I'm not sure if bass-specific amps and cabs are the right thing for DB.

The trouble is, if we can have Danny Thompson (and we certainly should) then surely we also need Charles Mingus and that just opens a whole different can of expensive 42" worms...

Also, "All comparison is odious." - Don Quixote

Robbie Shakespeare? Bootsy Collins?

I really don't like the idea of relic'd basses, in principle. But I do like battered old instruments. So I think I could only buy a bass that had been relic'd if it had been done well enough and lightly enough that I could kind of kid myself that it was natural ageing... Also don't like five strings, pointy headstocks and classic Fender sunbursts.

I'm mostly playing double bass at the moment. I bought a Prodipe Lanen mic a while back and that, into an ART Tube preamp then straight into the desk, sounds utterly delicious, live or recorded. The sound and the simplicity of it has made me think a lot more about an amp free arrangement for electric bass now.

It would make no sense for every band to bring a PA then take the whole PA down between sets and put the next one up. If you've got a decent PA I would be inclined to offer to run the PA for the day and do sound for all the bands, and charge them £2k. They could then pay the other bands a bit less each so they wouldn't be out of pocket, the day would run much more smoothly, and you could hire a decent sound engineer for £400 for the day and split the rest between you.

If you can spare the cash, you can be pretty casual about buying secondhand - pick up something interesting and if it doesn't work for you, sell it again for what you paid for it. Good secondhand gear is basically almost free in the long run.

So you're saying that if I fire up the fusion reactor for few days first, that should do it?

Thinking it through, you could get meters installed for ten imaginary flats (7a, 7b etc) and get an Octopus account on each of them, book out 24 slots a day for each of them while you live off grid, and retire? It vaguely reminds me of the time when Tesco offered so many clubcard points on baked beans that one guy bought literally thousands of tins and made a pile of money out of it.

So could you install solar panels, a wind generator and a battery bank, then book out 24/7 no electricity use sessions? In theory, obviously...

Yes - the build quality of the Axstar feels closer to a Yamaha BX-1 than to a contemporary cheap Steinberger.

The headpiece is really neatly engineered, individual string locks and a cover over the whole thing to keep the string end from snagging on things.

If you're going secondhand, I recently bought an Ibanez Axstar fretted 4 string. Sounds great, the body is comfy sitting or standing and it hangs straight as it has an upper horn. Very slim neck and quite close string spacing, feels very well built. But pretty rare so might not be easy to find...

Since the set-up I've done some more work on it myself including filing the nut grooves down a tiny bit lower, thinning and reshaping the bridge a little and replacing the tailpiece. The sum of all these tiny adjustments is a bass that's much easier to play and that sounds loads better, so it's definitely worth the effort!

I got my bass looked when I bought it and the luthier offered to move the soundpost a little, saying that it was in a position that would emphasise the higher end of the register. I said yes and sure enough it came back sounding more full and bassy with a richer tone on the low notes, at the expense of a slightly less bright tone higher up.