BigRedX

I play powerful music too. I also used to have a very big and impressive looking bass rig (not to mention expensive), that was sold when I realised that for almost all the gigs I was playing, it was offering zero sonic benefit to either myself or the audience. On big stages I couldn't hear anything from it if I wasn't standing directly in front of it, and on small stages I was being asked to turn down so much, so as not to ruin the FoH sound that I could hear more of me from the guitarist's wedge on the opposite side of the stage, than I could from my own rig behind me. Going directly into the PA, I've never had a problem with monitoring that hadn't been sorted out by the end of the first song, and on multi-band gigs with quick turn-around times the stage crew love me, because my setup is simple to deal with. The rest of one of my bands can be quite picky about the on-stage sound, but we've always been able to sort it out quickly in the setup time available. Personally I'm happy if I can hear enough of me to be able to tell that I am in time and in tune with the rest of the band, and anything beyond this is a bonus. I've also always been of the opinion that if it has to be loud to feel/sound good, then the songs I've written aren't good enough and I need to go an write some better ones.

You don't need to explain wetware to me, it's on my business card! 😉

From experience at these size venues having a bass rig on stage for anything other than show is a complete waste of time. By all means set one up if your band image warrants having lots of impressive looking backline, but in that case you'd be better off with empty cabs that weigh less and look just as good. All these venues have excellent in-house PA systems with first-class monitors that will fill the stage with full-frequency sound. The moment you step away from being directly in front of your rig, you'll be able to hear more of yourself from the foldback for your other band members. And if you are so loud as to be able to fill the whole stage with clearly audible bass guitar from your rig, you'll be getting less than subtle requests from the FoH engineer to turn down because you are messing up the sound for the audience (and after all they are the people you are trying to impress). And you don't even have to go up to O2 Academy sized venues for this to be the case. Places like Camden Underworld, and Notthingham Rescue Rooms have good enough FoH and monitors to render your bass rig redundant. I'd even think twice about taking my personal FRFR monitor to somewhere as small as The Bodega, because I just won't need it. These days big bass rigs are for pub bands with vocal only PA systems, and for show. Nothing else.

Helix straight into the PA. Monitoring by the venue's foldback system. That's what I did last time I played the Leeds O2.

After a couple more emails back and forth with the Novation technical specialist, it was suggested that the problem might be down to the fact that the Launchkey wasn't getting enough power from the USB port on my Mac and maybe a powered USB hub would be worth trying. Therefore I gave it one more go plugged into the USB port on the back of one of my Apple Cinema Displays which in theory is a powered hub, although with other devices I often get a warning that there is insufficient power for them to work... and it works! The Control Surface Setup window popped up when I launched Logic, and all the functions I want to use so far work. I've just used it to add a simply synth lead part to the song I am currently working on. Panic over...

Thanks. The Glastonbury set list looks marginally better and he even did one of his novelty songs!

Here's the thing. I'm very much the target customer for this bass. I play in a post-punk/goth band with no guitarist and my bass lines are somewhat influenced by those of Mr Hook, plus the Shergold/Eastwood is the only bass VI with a suitably wide neck for me to play comfortably. I currently own an Eastwood and I'm the market for a second instrument (so I have a spare for gigs) to replace the now redundant Squier Bass VI and Burns Barracuda which both have string spacing too narrow for me to put up with any more. So do I buy another Eastwood for £1300 new, or do I buy a worn 40 year old Shergold that from a playing and sound PoV is not really any different and potentially has an inflated price, mostly due to the fact that it is old, and before the Eastwood appeared was a rarity?

So what does Sir Paul play at a pub gig (or on the main stage at Glastonbury for that matter) these days? Mostly Beatles songs? Mostly Wings songs? Post Wings songs (are there any good ones?)? Or is it all Rock 'n' Roll classics from the Hamburg days? Does he play any of his novelty songs? Mary Had A Little Lamb? We All Stand Together? Mull Of Kintyre? Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time? Does he do any of The Firemen stuff? Enquiring minds want to know...

Everyone should have a really good pre-amp in the input section of their amplifier.

Actually having played an original Shergold Marathon 6 sting bass back in the day and owning one of the Eastwood models I can say that unlike most of what Eastwood produce, this version is very accurate, and Peter Hook appears to agree with me. That means unfortunately you can also spin the value the other way and ask why you would pay a premium for an old battered bass when you can buy a very accurate brand new version of it for £1300.

More likely to be a Marathon 6 string bass. It will only be a baritone guitar if the neck is standard guitar width.

Depends on the strap and the case you put it it. Straps with hard parts (especially metal) have a tendency to damage the instrument. Ironically straps fitted with Schaller Straplocks will sometimes make the instrument too long to fit in a hard case necessitating their removal!

The only way you'll know if they are any for you is to try them. A 1 x 15" cab has no specific sound per se. The overall sound of a cab is made up of a number attributes, of which the diameter of the driver cone is one of the least important. If there was a "1 x 15 sound" there would be no need for multiple manufacturers to be trying to selling us their particular version.

IIRC the MU PL insurance only covers a band if everyone is a member.

TBH I found the new design of Schaller strap locks harder to fit mostly because I already have all the appropriate tools for fitting the old ones (a mole grip for holding the "cup" and a spanner of the correct size to tighten the nut). I didn't feel I was able to get the new design as tight because I worried that the allen key used to turn the retaining "nut" would snap before I had achieved the same tightness I could get under the old method (and which has never failed me), which pretty much renders the locking grub screw useless. Also the strap button with the built-in screw makes the new design useless for fitting to instruments not made of wood. I have raised both these points with Schaller technical support, but I they pretty much told me that's how things are from now on, I'm too much in the minority to be concerned with.

IME experience (with medium-sized gigs max) I've found that bands who originally date from before the 90s seem to be less likely to suffer from the boomy, overwhelming kick and indistinguishable bass guitar FoH sound, since this was never part of their live or recorded sound back in the day. Certainly at WGW the live sound is almost alway done in a sympathetic way to the line-up of the bands, especially those where the bass guitar is an important part of the sound from a melodic PoV.

The weight of rack stuff quickly adds up if you're not careful, and that light-weight class D amplifier will have a negligible impact on the overall weight of the rack which could end up being as heavy as an all-valve head.

Everyone will be recommending their own favourites. Don't bother with the knock-off get properly branded Dunlops or Schallers. I've used both (and my preference is for the Schallers) and they each have their strengths and weaknesses. The Schallers need to be fitted properly otherwise you will encounter problems. That means enlarging the hole in the strap to accommodate the the lock part of the mechanism, and that the button sits in the base of the cup when the bass is hanging from the strap and not the open end, and then that you tighten everything up securely. The Dunlops are such more forgiving about their installation. However the pin/spring part of the mechanism needs regular maintenance/lubrication otherwise it will eventually fail (like mine did). If you buy the Dunlop locks as spare parts they may come with that information. However the bass I had them on came with them ready-fitted and no information regarding maintenance which is which I treated them like the Schallers (fit and forget) and they eventually broke. Take your pick... BTW unless all your basses are exactly the same design, you will need different strap lengths for each one; so you loose one of the advantages of having an easily removable strap system.

Brilliant. We just need to keep it up and let people know every time the sound is inappropriately mixed, and maybe something will get done about it.

Because I don't really have the social skills to notice, I'm blissfully unaware of sales-people trying to make me feel unwanted in any shop. I'll happily take my time looking and touching all the items I'm interested in, and after all of that I may even make a purchase. However like, I suspect, a lot of people on here, I generally find myself more knowledgeable about stuff that I am genuinely interested in buying than most of the people trying to "sell" it to me.

My Helix is set up with one patch for each song and up to 4 snapshots (as required) for each patch. I have a two basic patches (one for each band) which have what I consider to be the core sounds I need and then I add and adjust the modules as required to give me the sounds for the music. The foot switches are set up so that I have 4 snapshots on the bottom tier and 4 patches on the top. I use the set list function to arrange the patches into the order we are going to play the songs, so I don't even need a printed list.

Yes, But simply knowing what the chord progressions are isn't what makes a song great. Also most of the time he's dealing with a specific recording, and what makes that great is a combination of the music, the lyrics, the arrangement, the performance and the production. The latter 4 are barely touched upon, if at all.

TBH in 30+ years of gigging with multi-effects I have never once felt the need to "tweak" my sounds at the gig.

The whole point of programmable effects is that you don't edit them on the fly. You do that at your leisure in the rehearsal room and then when you are gigging you simply hit the right footswitch to call up the right combination of effects.

But live unless it's a rig with a single cabinet containing a single driver and no tweeter, you are not mic'ing up the cabinet, you're just mic'ing up a single speaker which looses just as much of the nuances of the sound as using a load that is just resistive rather than both inductive and resistive (not that I'd want to use any of these devices with a bass amp running at gig levels).