BigRedX

The problem for me was that if the amp and cabs are part of your sound you need to be using them for EVERY gig you do. About half the gigs I play involve some kind of equipment share with the back line which used to mean spending valuable sound check time trying to dial in the right sound from the cab(s) and/or amp I was having to use, and on several occasions having to admit defeat and go with what was the least horrible tone I could coax out of the rig in the time available. At the bigger gigs the bass amplification systems on stage make no contribution to sound I hear when I'm playing and the sound the audience hears FoH. I realise that perfectly flat amp and cab(s) are not really feasible, but the less the amp and cab(s) influence the sound the better IMO. I also find it weird that the bassists who benefit the most from spending time and money agonising over esoteric amps and cabs are those playing in pub band with vocal-only PA systems, to punters who are mostly too drunk to notice.

Indeed. The speed that the stylus travels in relation to the groove is almost 3 times faster at the outer edge of a 12" album then it is at the label. That affects both the amount of "detail" that can be carried in the groove and the frequency response.

But good luck finding a receptive audience to play it too in small town England back in the 70s.

The problems with vinyl are at the end of each side not the beginning.

But punk made it much much easier, and more importantly opened your potential audience's ears to the possibility of music that wasn't either "rock" or "prog". In 1976 there were two bands in my year at school - one playing rock covers (all the stuff that's now considered "classic rock") and the band I was in that would have probably been vaguely prog had we had either the technical ability or the instruments (in reality what we were doing was far closer to the Velvet Underground or the various "Krautrock" bands, but we simply weren't aware of them at the time). And between the two bands we were all the musicians in that year who weren't strictly classical. In the year following the "breakthrough" of punk, two new bands sprang up among my classmates who had previously shown no interest in playing music. But the biggest change was the what audiences would now accept. Before punk, the band I played wasn't taken seriously at all. We were considered weirdos who wrote our own weird songs and had weird instruments (many of which were home-made), but post-punk gave us a receptive audience and a few years later when the covers band had long given up, we had a record out being played on John Peel...

If I Recall Correctly

I think it very much depends what you like music-wise. I pretty much hated everything that came after glam rock in the 70s and the middle of decade was very much a low point for me musically (and my record collection at the time pretty much bears this out). The Sex Pistols and The Clash might not have "saved" rock music, but they most definitely opened the doors for the post-punk bands. I couldn't see any of them getting any kind of record label interest prior to "punk".

I thinks it fairly safe to say that Eccles and Chris Eccleshall are different luthiers, as their instruments have almost nothing in common. IIRC it was for sale at around £850 when I tried it. That was over 15 years ago though, and it had sold by the time I went back 6 month later.

Not really a Baritone with that pickup placement. More a Bass VI.

I don't like festivals much, mostly because IMO the British climate is not suitable for them. Last time one of my bands played a season of festivals it rained at all but two (it was actually so cold at one that our guitarist had to wear gloves on stage in an attempt to stop his hands from seizing up) and one of those where it wasn't raining, we were playing indoors and hardly any of the audience wanted to come in out of the sun to watch us play. The only "festival" I go to as a punter is WGW which is less of a festival in the traditional sense and more a weekend of gigs put on in the evenings in suitable indoor venues, the main event being 8 bands spread over the Friday and Saturday nights. In this case, up to now Brexit itself hasn't really impacted the choice of bands as have the various various travel restrictions due to Covid and the fact that bands have pulled out of gigs because one of them has a slight sniffly nose. Maybe I'll have a better idea come October 2023. On the other hand my bands have picked up some decent gigs in the last 9 months due to being able to fill in for last-minute cancellations by US and European acts.

The things that make me play well are that I can hear enough of myself and the rest of the band to know that I am in time and in tune, and the fact that the songs I am playing are awesome. It would be nice to have my perfect sound(s) on stage, but for bands that are mostly playing supports rather than headlining this is rarely possible in the time available for sound checking, and also some of the sounds I use that are right in the overall band mix are not the best for being able to distinguish what notes I am playing on stage. If I get to the stage where one of my bands is doing a headlining tour playing decent sized venues, then we'll spend a couple of days rehearsing with our sound engineer on a proper sound stage rehearsal space, and then I might start worrying about having a perfect sound on stage. Before that point, it's too much of a distraction.

If it did there would be a distinct 15" speaker sound. But there isn't. The final sound of the cab will be dependant on lots of factors and I would say that cab size and porting is more important than the diameter of the speaker cone.

IIRC the Ovation Magnum basses were both bolt-on and glued.

Speaker cone diameter size has no direct bearing on the sound of a cab.

IME the EQ settings on the amp are both to get your "sound", but also to compensate for the short comings of a typical bass cab. If you use a different cab you need different EQ settings on your amp to get the same sound (if you even can). Therefore if "your sound" is what you hear from the cab, then your cab is an essential part of the signal chain. If the PA engineer is going to bypass the cab, then they might as well bypass your amp too (and many of them do either by putting the DI box before the amp input or by asking for a pre-EQ DI out of the amp). Then your amp and cab(s) is simply a personal monitor and all that time you have spent choosing the perfect amp and cab(s) combination is potentially wasted on the people who are the most important - your audience; as your sound will be mostly at the mercy of what the PA engineer thinks is right. For bigger stages unless you are anchored in front of your rig, you'll probably be able to hear more bass guitar in the foldback, so the rig has now become for show only... Of course it's nice to own good quality musical equipment, but if you get to the point that I did where my very expensive choice of amp and cabs made zero contribution to what the audience was hearing, and on many stages zero contribution to what I was hearing, then you start to question if that money spent was worthwhile. Especially if it is also large and fairly heavy, taking up valuable space on stage, in the band van and in the rehearsal room.

Have a look at this thread. Also I believe that Jens Ritter has made at least one bass from a single piece of wood.

If that wasn't the one I tried in The Gallery in about 2005, then it was very similar. And I would totally agree with @Russ's comments. I thought it looked great and tried very hard to like it because of that, but I found the sound very underwhelming, and I wasn't that impressed with the playability either. Construction-wise, to me it looks as though it could have come from the late 70s at the very earliest. @Andie84 is that what your Dad's bass looks like?

Just remember that there can be a difference between "stereo" and two channel, and the latter is what you want. Some stereo signal paths never truly isolate the left and right signals which means there is always the potential for bleed between the channels, especially when chaining multiple effects together. I play Bass VI in one of my bands which means I'm swapping between "bass" and "guitar" sounds. I had been considering a similar set up with the two types of sounds being processed separately, but then it occurred to me that I'm never playing both at the same time, so I simply change patches (or in the case of the Helix "snapshots") when I change from bass to guitar and the Helix does all the required processing. I don't even both with dual outputs. I supply a single feed to the PA, and simply make them aware that they will be getting both bass and guitar type sounds from that feed. Since everything has been EQ'd and balanced in the Helix they shouldn't need to do anything other than EQ for the PA and balance me up against the rest of the band.

It strikes me that the "features" that are being toted as advantage of bolt-on neck construction are there to correct the deficiencies in the design and build of the instrument in the first place. If the heel and/or the neck pocket have been cut properly in the first place your bass should never need a shim. Any bow of the neck due to climactic conditions should be adjusted with the truss rod. Shimming the neck is not the answer in these cases.

Playing low will date the music too, eventually.

I've already sorted out my "tone" before it gets to the amp or speakers. I don't want additional "colouration" to my sound. For a start every time I do an equipment share gig with a different bass rig, I'd have to re-EQ everything to get it to sound right, and what happens with the PA sound that is going to bypass the cab(s) and maybe the amp as well depending where the Di feed is taken from?

Ideally not bolt-on mainly because for me it restricts the upper fret access - although plenty of set-neck and neck through options aren't particularly good in this respect either. The differences in sound in the context of a band mix are minimal and not with getting bothered about IMO, so go for what suits your playing style the best. Of course if you never venture above the 12th fret then it really doesn't matter at all. BTW to the OP, why aren't you interested in set-neck as an option? And where do you place constructions like the Gus Guitars and basses, where the underlying construction is set-neck, but then the whole thing is covered in a carbon-fibre skin which makes it look like a neck through. And IMO necks are wonderfully resilient, and unless the wood has been poorly chosen anything that causes the neck to break is likely to affect the body too.

Hardly minimal. I could distinctly hear at least 3 (maybe 4) simultaneous synth parts plus the drum machine throughout most of the song. On the other hand it does explain where J-Pop band Capsule got most of their inspiration from:

However that means in order to get your proper sound you always need to use your complete rig, and if it's going through the PA then one of the speakers needs to be mic'd up otherwise you are loosing what is to you, an important part of the signal chain.

IMO amps and speakers should simply be a method of getting an instrument level electric signal converted into sound waves loud enough for the audience to hear. They should not add any "colouration" to the sound. The fact that they do is entirely down to poor mechanical and electronic engineering. I don't want amps and speakers to give me "my sound" I want my sound to be created and defined before it reaches the amplification stage. That way there are less variable to have to consider.