BigRedX

Was that LaBella Steels? I've found that for me these pretty much solved the problem. Since then I've had decent (although not quite as good - but then they are half the price) results with Warwick Black Label (taper wound B) What I have found with other strings is that you need a much heavier low B to match the rest of the strings. I'd be looking at 135 as a minimum (to go with standard 100-40 E-G) for strings other than Warwick Black Label and LaBella Steels. Is your bass 35" scale length? That may limit your string options. If you haven't already, get in touch with Newtone and see about getting them to make you a clone of your favourite LaBella set (that's what I would have done if the Warwicks weren't a acceptable compromise for me).

As a 5-string player since 1989, I'd say that it's a combination of both the bass and the string and how they react to your playing technique. What works for me and the basses I currently use, is a very stiff neck with through-neck construction coupled with a taper-wound B string. Unfortunately as you have discovered what the combination that works for one player won't always suit another. First things first. What bass(es) are you experiencing this problem with?

This is what makes a professional sounding recording. Someone with a good set of ears who is going to objective about the songs/arrangements/sounds and whose job it is to coax the best possible recording out of the musicians playing on it. Since I've stopped trying to have my own studio, the quality of my recordings has improved massively, not only because someone with the right abilities is now at the controls but also because I can simply get on with playing knowing that the technical side of making a recording is in a safe pair of hands (and ears).

IIRC the sound used is exactly one of the pre-sets that came ready programmed into the synth when you bought it.

In: Some new strings, A case for my Line 6 Helix and a stand for flight case that holds the computer that runs the drums/backing track Out: some old strings.

While I am sure there will be a number of people recommending Reaper, if you are already familiar with GarageBand and like the way it works, then Logic is by far the best upgrade for you. Reaper may be technically free, but the amount and quality of the bundled plug-ins is not a patch on those that come with Logic. You can quite easily cover the £199 cost of Logic just by considering what additional software you may need to buy to get Reaper up to the same level of functionality you are already getting from GarageBand.

Go to a professional studio to record your bass parts. Seriously. I see this all the time in all sorts of situations - not just recording - where the suggestion is that with the right hardware and/or software anyone can can do anything and get fantastic results. It simply isn't true. Perhaps if you spend many hundreds of hours working at it you may find that you have the right aptitude and ability to produce great recordings, but it's more likely that you will spend a load of time and money and not be any better off at the end. Trust me, I've been there. I started out recoding at home because back in the 70s if you had very little money there was no alternative. Most of what I produced from a technical PoV was rubbish, but because the equipment I was using was low quality, I was able to easily convince myself that with a better multitrack/mixer/more outboard gear I would be able to produce recordings as good as those of the bands that I liked. By the time I got to the 90s, the gap between the "home studio" and the professional one as regards equipment had all but vanished, and finding myself in a position of having lots of disposable income, I threw a lot of it at building up a very serious recording set up. However, no matter how much money I spent, my recording still didn't come anywhere close to the quality of the records and CDs I was buying. It turned out that I simply didn't have the ability to produce recordings of the quality I wanted. This was brought home to me with a bang when I joined a band with a drummer with an acoustic kit, which I didn't have the facility record at home. So we went into a proper studio. There the engineer was able to produce a great sounding recording almost instantly and using equipment that, technically, was actually slightly lower quality than what I had in my "studio". It wasn't a one-off occurrence either. Every studio I went to over the next 5 years the story was the same. Eventually I had to concede that the weak link in my studio was me, and that I had wasted the best part of £30k over the past 15 years, buying hardware and software that I simply did not have the skill to get decent results out of. Since then I've sold almost everything (at a considerable loss) and my studio exists for me to do drum programming for one of my bands (something that I can do well) and very basic demos for songs, where the sound doesn't really matter so long as all the instrumental parts can be clearly heard. If all of that hasn't put you off then I suggest the following: 1. Don't spend any more money. What you have already from a technical PoV is probably far superior to the equipment that was used to produce some of the most memorable recordings of all time. Learn to use what you have, and get to know all of it inside out, before even contemplating opening your wallet. 2. As others have said, the weak link in your recording set up is most likely the listening environment. Learn its strengths and weakness. Spend hours listening to your favourite recordings on your set up so that you know exactly how they sound. Only when you are completely familiar with how great recordings sound on your system can you start to make objective judgements about your own recordings. By the time you have put in the hours doing the above you should be able to tell whether you have the aptitude to make recordings yourself that are up to the standard that you require. I know if I had my time again I'd take all the money I spent on my "studio" and hired a proper one along with a decent producer. At least that way I'd have come out of it with a finished album that sounded great, instead of a handful of recordings that I have never been completely happy with and a load of half-finished tracks that are lost forever. I'd probably even have enough left over to spend on effective promotion.

Got to agree. That body shape is minging.

As someone who has mostly played on originals bands, and who always submits a set list for the songs we play, I can recall only one venue played in the last 20 years that was not covered by a PRS licence and that was a house party one of my bands did, and which I didn't bother reporting anyway.

There’s more to music than just funk.

Technically "Jingle Bells" isn't a Christmas song

Works fine under High Sierra and Safari for me. Personally I don't see what the problem with the website is. It might not be bang up to date with all the latest HTML, but it does the job of showing you what is in store and what can be ordered along with all the salient information about the products they stock. What more do you want? There are plenty of much nicer looking websites out there, that use all those new flashy graphics to try and cover up the fact that the product(s) they are selling aren't really up to much. The website for that vapour-ware footswitch that's recently popped up on Basschat is a prime example of looking flash while obscuring the details.

Post Punk. Anything you like. Ideally something so obscure that (in the late 70s and early 80s at least) nobody other than the most ardent gear nerd had heard of.

Does it still make the same noise if it is completely unplugged from the mains? Somer gear never properly switches off unless unplugged/turned off at the mains socket.

The problem with the initial M1 Macs is that they only support 2 decent-sized monitors, and Logic works best with as much monitor real-estate as you can give it. I run a 3x24" set up with arrange and mixer on two monitors and an editor and plugins on the third. My current graphics card does support a 4th monitor but I currently don't have anywhere sensible to put it. Also depending on what else you might be using you computer for, £500 isn't a lot for anything that will do more than show you the CGI. I certainly haven't come across any colour accurate ones at under £500, and even some of those over that price are pretty bad for light-leakage and colour variations across the screen.

Not my experience at all. The two gigs I have attended as a punter recently were rammed, and the five I played in my bands have had audiences of a similar size as before the pandemic. As a performer, if someone buys a ticket and chooses not attend I don't mind. I've still got their money. Both of my bands were seeing this before 2020. For the gigs were we organised the ticket sales ourselves there was always a number of people who bought tickets but didn't turn up on the night.

Two things to consider about the budget digital wireless systems. 1. They tend to be come less reliable in situations where there is a lot of mobile phone activity (i.e. any well-attended gig). I was using one of the better models but decided to stop using it after two occasions where the transmitter mysteriously switched channels mid-song for no apparent reason. Always take a good lead as a back up and have it in an easily accessible place on stage. 2. If you use any digital effects you may start to encounter latency issues as the delay caused by the number of AD/DA conversions adds up. I personally won't be using wireless systems until I'm in a position to be able to afford a professional-standard low-latency one that doesn't operate in the WiFi bands.

AFAIAC an iPad (and the iPhone for that matter) is just a handy device for browsing (but no really interacting with) the internet, getting email and using a few apps that are iOS only. If I want to do anything serious (including things like typing this reply) I do it on one of my Macs which has a suitable interface for such things.

If that's a serious question the answer should be where Happy Jack wants them. My preferred positions are on the "fret line" for unlined boards and either on or between the fret lines for lined boards.

Actually selling something like this without also supplying a UK mains lead is against consumer law. There should be no need for you to go and buy one. Personally I would expect Andertons to get me a suitable lead in the post for next day delivery or threaten them with Trading Standards.

UK consumer law states that all mains powered equipment must be supplied with cables with UK plugs on them. Alternatively a UK plug that fits over the EU one and is held permanently in place is an acceptable substitute. Plug in adaptors are not allowed. Technically the OP has paid for a UK cable so one should be supplied.

Fernandes do a travel bass with a built-in amp and speaker called the Pie-Zo (Nomad in the US), which at full volume and with a new battery in the amp is powerful enough to drive the strings. Personally for the bass I'd be looking at getting a Gizmotron

Surely the Shergold version of that idea (as used by Mike Rutherford) pre-dates this by several decades?

Just for UK made basses then? None of that Fender nonsense?

That's interesting. However my Ebow won't even switch on until it is in the presence of a magnetic field (like a pickup), so that won't work for everyone. Also IME having to pre-excite the string, removes a lot of the expressiveness from using an Ebow.