BigRedX

I think that lack of snugness combined with the weight of the transformer in the plug and the fact that it was plugged into a horizontally mounted mains distribution board, all contributed to the failure. Normal 13A plugs on the end of IEC leads have all been fine. The worrying thing was that the 1-Spot only had to work itself a little way out of the socket before it no longer received any power. A quick feel inside the back of the rack, mid-gig didn't reveal anything amiss, but once I'd got everything home and checked it over the following day, it was obvious what had happened. Mine now provides power for the drummer's headphone amplifier. Now that it's no longer hidden away inside a rack case it's been fine. I think if I was going to use it in a rack system again, it would be glued/cable-tied into place to make sure there was no way it could move. BTW I replaced the one in my rack with one of these which IIRC was actually cheaper, and for my needs much more reliable.

Also they don't fit as snugly in UK mains sockets as they should. Mine, which was inside a rack case attached to a high quality mains distributor, worked it's way just loose enough for it to stop working randomly mid-performance, despite the fact it looked/felt as though it was still plugged in. Caused the rig I was using at the time to to go silent (including the PA feed) for no obvious reason having taken out both the wireless system and the Thumpinator - devices at either end of the signal chain. It was replaced with something more reliable before the next gig. For home use it will be fine but I wouldn't use one at gigs unless it was fitted in an easily accessible place.

Surely the most important things are that the gear sounds and looks right for the band and won't break down when used.

Yes, done the same way as the Gus guitars and basses which have a 2mm carbon fibre skin over a wood core.

I haven't played one since they debuted the original models, but the 4-string had a very V-shaped neck profile. Things like that don't normally bother me, so it must have been quite prominent. The 5-string neck wasn't as bad as the extra width had the effect of smoothing out the V-ness. IIRC the carbon-fibre necks are made by Simon Farmer of Gus Guitars.

The problem with wood is that every piece is different, and therefore has no uniform sound-making properties. You can see this in the construction of good quality acoustic instruments where the sound-board and bracing of each individual instrument has to be "tuned". If a particular species of wood had a definite "sound" once you'd done this process once you could then apply exactly the same refinements to every top you produced, but as any decent luthier will tell you this is nonsense. Each top has to created and refined individually. If "ash" (BTW which of the 40+ species of ash do you mean, where was it grown, at what age was it harvested, and how was it stored/treated between being harvested and being turned into a musical instrument?) had a definitely different sound to alder, then you could buy a bass with the "right" woods for you without needing to try it first, and it would sound exactly as you imagined it would. However so many times I see the same people who believe that a certain species of wood has a certain sound (without taking all the other factors above into account) also spend an entire afternoon in the musical instrument shop going through all the supposedly identical basses to find "the one". You can't have it both ways. BTW I don't believe that the body has no affect on the sound of a solid electric instrument. My position is that it is secondary to just every other factor in the instrument's construction, and that it's effect is mostly unpredictable.

Don't confuse acoustic instruments with solid electric ones. The role that the wood plays in each is completely different.

The most obvious differences of one piece of wood will make over another are the grain pattern if it is visible and the weight of the instrument, neither of which can be automatically implied by the wood species (not withstanding the fact that "ash" covers over 40 individual tree species). From the photo in the OP the grain pattern doesn't look too shabby and the joins between the different pieces of wood making up the body are not significantly noticeable. Weight can only be deduced by actually weighing the instrument.

Why? What difference will it make?

As has already been said cheap and lightweight are relative terms. My current Helix Floor into an RCF745 is smaller, lighter and cost less new than I paid for the second hand EBS and Tech Soundsytems rig it replaced...

Wood of some sort. It looks quite nice and the joins aren't too obvious. What else do you want?

Something low key and ambient that will gradually morph into our intro music.

BTW the same band that owned the 808 also borrowed a TB303 for a week to see if we wanted to get one now that the price had dropped significantly (in 1984). We were throughly unimpressed by both the sounds and the programmability and decided instead to save up for an MC202.

IIRC Vienna is a CR78, as are a lot of "808" drum machine parts.

Here's a thought... Is your rig responsible for 100% of what the audience hear for the bass guitar or do you also go through the PA? If you are going through the PA, the chances are the only people benefiting from the "sound" of your rig are yourself, maybe some of the other members of your band (depending on how loud you are on stage) and the few audience members at the front directly in the line of fire of your cabs. In that case there is little point in having a massively expensive set of cabs. I was considering replacing my very big, heavy and expensive cabs with equally expensive but smaller and lighter cabs, until I did a bunch of gigs where I was asked by the PA engineer to turn down on stage to such an extent that I could hear more of "me" from the guitarist's monitor on the other side of the stage than I could from my own cabs directly behind me. After that I sold off all my amplification and replaced it with a Helix and a powered FRFR PA-style cab. I actually came away with a (small) profit after this, and now I have a much more versatile system. At a pinch the FRFR is loud enough to cover FoH for the smaller gigs I do, and I don't even need to bring it for the bigger ones with decent on-stage monitors. Of course if your rig is required for the audience to hear you ignore everything I have said.

The band I was part of in the early 80s had an actual 808 drum machine (at the time when it was cutting edge and expensive) and we spent most of out time trying not the make the bass drum sound like that.

If you've got electrical continuity between pieces when fixed in place I wouldn't worry about it.

I made a very effective isolation platform from stuff I had going spare - and old table top with quite a deep lip to it (about 3") turned upside down and filled with layers of old carpet underlay. Then a piece of 1/2" plywood rested on top of the underlay, but not touching the sides of the lip, covered with carpet. We were able to fit the whole kit on this except the drum stool which was heightened up to compensate. Completely removed the kick drum pedal "stamping" and all the other mechanical drum noises from the room below.

Electronic drums may not be anywhere near as loud as their acoustic counterparts but they can still generate a lot of irritating noise, especially the kick drum pedal which if the kit is located in an upstairs room will sound like the occupant is constantly stamping on the floor. I've rehearsed at home with a drummer using an electronic kit, and at non-neighbour offending volumes the sounds of the sticks hitting the pads was louder than the drum sounds they were generating through the speakers. Also we had to build an isolating platform for the whole kit to prevent the kick drum pedal and other mechanical noises from transmitting through the structure of the building.

Regarding plug-ins (VSTs). There's a great temptation when you first start to grab every free plug-in going and build up a sizeable collection. However AFAICS every DAW and many audio interfaces come with a good set of bundled plug-ins which should cover most of your needs. So start by getting to grips with those first, and only look for more once you've exhausted all their possibilities and you've discovered that you really need something that they can't provide.

It appears from this thread that most of the time when a cover is "better" than the original is when the original is not nearly as well known. Also it's very easy to consider a cover "better" when it has been done in a style that you are more receptive to than the original version. There's plenty of covers that I like a lot that have been done in very different styles to the original songs, but I can't in all honesty say that any of them are truly superior to the original.

Unless you already have suitable tools they are most likely going to be more expensive than the materials needed to build a bass. I've got a tool box full of stuff that's suitable for jobs around the house, but I don't think I'd want to use any of them for building a bass, without a lot fettling first. And while good power tools are not an absolute requirement, it's a lot easier and quicker if you don't have to do everything using just hand tools. You will however learn a lot about how to best sharpen chisels and plane blades.

Listen with your ears and not with your eyes. The great thing about modelling technology is that you can put the bass signal through anything without worrying about potentially damaging it. The worst thing that can happen is that the results won't sound very good. On my Helix most of my bass patches don't have any amp or cab sims in them, just EQ. When they do a lot of the time it's a "guitar" amp, and it's normally been picked for it's drive sound rather than the clean sound of the amp so it's being used as a distortion effect rather than simulating whatever amp it's supposed to be.

"Hanging on the Telephone" by Blondie. Makes the original by The Nerves sound like a bad demo. I also much prefer The Sunday's version of "Wild Horses" over the Rolling Stones.

Most of the providers that allow you to build a website without needing to know any coding (like Wix and Squarespace) allow you to create a free account and play with the options until you are ready to publish it, so try them all and go with the one whose interface and features work for you. A few things to bear in mind: 1. Buy a domain name to use with your website. It looks far more professional than using the address the provider gives you for free. 2. If you use Wix buy the domain elsewhere, as buying through Wix locks you into them for as long as you want to use that domain. 3. Also if you intend to use Wix, check first which domain extensions they support directly. You can use one of the others but it's a lot more faff to get it to work properly (.co.uk is one of the extensions they don't yet directly support)