Matt P

if you're looking for light gauge acoustic strings, I can highly recommend the Newtone heritage strings, they're lower tension and balanced, the total tension on their 12's is less than 11's from other companies, and the 11's will be lower overall tension than the D'addario 10's but without some of the tinniness i've found from very light strings. I've been using the 12's for 15 years now and have also got a few of my friends hooked on them as well. as a bonus you can get them direct from the maker.

we're just a pub 3 piece band doing the usual covers most of the time, we do have an alter ego as a folky 3 piece acoustic band though, when we're playing pubs its vocals only through the PA, when it's acoustic then it's vocals, acoustic guitars, EUB, and a bit of cajon in the PA. I doubt we'll ever need a sub, I'll probably sell the amps, the 15's and the foldback monitors and then buy another pair of the 310's to use as foldback monitors. the desk we've got is way too big as well so that will get swapped out for something smaller as well.

i'm using a pair of the iNuke 3000 amps for our PA, seems to be a similar setup the the OP, i've not found them lacking so far using a pair of old Mach 15's for mains and some peavey foldback speakers (one amp for mains, one for foldback) mine are in a 4U shallow case (Gator i think) and the 2 amps in the case are lighter than the old 2U power amp we had before. that being said we're moving to powered speakers (RCF 310's) and probably a small sub, the old speakers are just too heavy for lifting into the stands (and we had a situation before Christmas where a gig was booked but the speakers were locked in a house we had no access to so another pair of speakers was required art short notice and these were available locally at a good price) Matt

not really, current count is 7 basses (plus a U-bass and a EUB) and that's part of a collection of 17 or so instruments (the rest are mostly guitars with a couple of ukes ands a banjo) but having backups is a way to justify multiple similar instruments rather than them all being very different, if they're the same bass but a different colour or with slightly different pickups then they're obviously as backups for one i already have. My rule for instruments is the optimum number is D-1, with D being the number that would severely disrupt my current lifestyle (either by making me single or bankrupt) as long as i don't get to D i'm fine. Matt

I started out as a guitarist and my favourite guitars had floating Floyd rose trems, so a broken string meant that they went out of tune straight away, so a spare was essential (did one gig without when my spare was accidentally left at the rehearsal room and I didn't have time to retrieve it, possibly the most nerve-wracking gig i've ever played) due to this i've always taken a spare bass to any gig that was paid, I use a wireless and a pedalboard so the spare is plugged into an A?B box on the board ready to go, I've only needed it once when i'd forgotten to swap in fresh batteries to the wireless, occasionally i'll use the other bass for the second set. If i didn't take a spare bass to gigs then i'd have no excuse for owning more than one or two basses ( everything needs a vaguely equivalent backup) when we play as an acoustic trio i'm usually swapping between a bass and an acoustic guitar, if one failed i'd have no trouble playing the rest of the gig with the other so no backups are needed. Matt

on the north side of the Tyne i've used Stoneham Amps for a few repairs, both valve and solid state, excellent work every time. he's somewhere Wallsend-ish https://www.stonehamamps.co.uk/ Matt

for smaller guitars the Yamaha APX range are pretty good, I've been impressed by some of the smaller Takemine's as well, there are also some great options from Freshman, the few i've played have felt and sounded like much more expensive instruments. one of the best i've played in that price bracket though was an Aria Sandpiper, not sure if they're still available but you might find a used one. my friend has one and it's always a pleasure when i get to play it. Matt

we've done a tip bucket once, for our first gig we booked an upstairs room at a pub and to get some help filling the room we asked a water charity to join in, they did some promotion ffor us and then ran the door and took the money, the room was free (as long as the bar took enough) the only expense we had was to hire in some speakers for the evening as we didn't own any at that point, so we had a small bucket on stage with a label "tips to cover the PA Hire" we got enough to be able to put the extra back to the charity and all was good. The gig was to get us some experience as we hadn't played together live (although we had all gigged in other bands, most of our friends turned up and it was a good night all round. Matt

We're a 3 piece, and started as good friends before we were a band, I'm in charge of the technical side (PA, recording kit and helping to source instruments, strings etc) and the Guitarist/singer is in charge of the gig bookings. Our drummer has some health issues so he's just in charge of looking after himself (he was my best man and he's been one of my best friends for over 20 years so i'm well aware of his needs and allowances are made for him) Matt

Bought a set of strings from Steve, arrived very quickly and well packaged. Thanks Matt

bought a neck from John, excellent communication, posted when promised and arrived safe and sound. thank you Matt

some sockets have quite a deep taper/radius at the open end to aid getting the socket cleanly onto a nut from odd angles, if the nut is very thin (as it often is for a machinehead) you are likely still in that tapered/radiused section so won't get any grip. the choice is either to use an open ended spanner or to grind the last few mm off the end of a deep socket to get to the parallel section. I usually go for the open ended spanner approach. Matt