BigRedX

I've been using effects on the bass pretty much since I got my first one back in 1981, but then I also play guitar and synthesisers and I've always been interested in "sound". These days I run a Line6 Helix which give me everything I need and allows me to tailor my bass sound to fit into each individual song for both my bands that have very different overall sounds (and for which I use very different basses).

Thanks for taking the time to do this and the results were pretty much what I expected.

But how much did that combo contribute to either the FoH sound or what went on the records? I got rid of my rig because anywhere I played that had PA support - which is about 99% of all gigs I do - the contribution the speakers make to what the audience hears is zero for all except a very small number right down at the front stood directly in line with it.

IME in a live band mix you are unlikely to hear any difference at all. What you tend to get with the more expensive DI boxes (that are just DI boxes with no features other than being able to take an unbalanced signal at a variety of different levels and convert it to a balanced line) is reliability and robustness. I have a couple of EMO DI boxes that I bought second hand about 30 years ago. One of them had obviously had a fairly hard life before I acquired it as most of the graphics on the casing had worn off, but it was working perfectly back then and it is still working perfectly now. Interested to see what exactly was inside, I once unscrewed the base to find that all the available space was completely taken up by the sockets and the transformers, with some fairly heavy duty wire joining them all together. There's no way any of the components can move and being a passive device housed in an extremely robust metal case, there's almost nothing that can go wrong. I've had "interesting" experiences with some of the more budget DI boxes in that they won't work properly with some equipment. Most notable was the Behringer DI that almost every PA seems to have that simply would not work with The Terrortones Etherwave Theremin. It wasn't an isolated experience either. If the PA was getting no signal from the Theremin, checking the DI box would show that it was the Behringer and replacing it with one of my EMOs would result in the Theremin signal getting to the desk. We never worked out why this was happening, but the theory was that the earthing system on the two devices was incompatible resulting the the output from the Theremin being shorted to earth. Not a good thing for a device that is supposed to sort out equipment interfacing problems.

It the bass line is anything like the average rock song probably no more than two.

I can't see the point. Instruments are meant to be played.

As a seller, I've encountered the maximum parcel size problem before when I tried to ship a guitar to an Argos address. There was no information from Argos itself and first I knew of it was when the guitar was delivered back to my address about 2 weeks after I sent it. Tracking showed that it had two delivery attempts that were refused before the courier gave up and brought it back. Since then I've simply removed the "click and collect" option from all my auctions irrespective of the size and weight of the item. I can't be bothered with the hassle.

I would completely agree from a presentation/visual aspect, but when you look at the price Vs a standard 4 page book and double-sided tray inset in an all-clear jewel case, it becomes much harder to justify the cost.

In the 45 years I've been playing in bands I think I have joined or formed bands by pretty much every method mentioned in the OP. I never actually actually answered an ad in NME or MM, but I did find a singer for one of the bands I was in by that method (after weeding out numerous weirdos first). A lot of the time one band would morph into another. I spent all of the 90s in a band that went through 4 different names, numerous line-ups including a 12 month period when I left the band and swapping from bass to guitar in the later incarnations, but with the style of music being played remaining consistent and I think when we finally split we were still playing at least one song from our first set. My first band formed in the mid 70s was just a bunch of friends from school who all had similar tastes in non-mainstream music and some degree of musical ability. The two bands I play in now... I found one through a Facebook post, although I was already a fan and they knew of me through gigs we had done together when I was playing with The Terrortones. The other is a morph from a band I joined through the JMB web site (although again they knew of me from previous bands I had been in).

A re-press on vinyl might be worth it if your cover artwork is fantastic and somewhat limited by the small size of CD packaging. Just make sure it is of high enough quality to actually look good when blown up to 300 x 300 mm.

IME audience surveys are about as much use as those Facebook event posts where people say that they are coming to your gig. At best you can expect 25% of those who want to buy a product in a particular format will actual shell out their money when said product becomes available. Even something that should be simple like basing T-shirt sizes on your audience demographic falls down because no mater how many skinny hipsters come to see your band on a regular basis, the vast majority of people who buy band T-shirts are size Large and bigger.

When The Terrortones released our second EP on vinyl back in 2013 it was new and different and the lead times were about the same as those for CD manufacture. The quality and production times were much better than the last time I made a record back in the early 80s when it could take several months from the cutting session to actually getting your single or album; and when you did the pressing was really thin and already full of pops, clicks and crackles that weren't part of the music. From what I have seen recently vinyl is starting to plateau. Production times are ever increasing unless you are prepared to pay a considerable premium, and from what I've heard the quality of the pressings is starting to come down as the pressing plants struggle to keep up with the volumes being produced. When the audio quality of vinyl is already below that of a CD, it cannot afford to be anything but the best possible for that medium. Without new pressing plants capable of high volume, high quality and low cost pressings, vinyl will eventually flounder as it reverts back to the bad old days of the late 70s and early 80s. Having said that as an artist, right now, I'd be stupid not to at least consider vinyl when it comes to releasing music even if it's just so that I can sell over-priced crap to hipsters. After all a sale is a sale irrespective of the medium, and unless you go mad with the packaging the mark up for an album on vinyl is much greater than that on CD. You do need to consider your audience though. I've done gigs where I have only sold CDs - at one we sold every CD we brought with us but not a single record on vinyl. I've also done gigs where most of the sales were vinyl although at these we've always sold CDs too. What I have discovered is that if you are selling vinyl you need to include a CD version in the package, as for many potential customers a download code is not sufficient. As an audience member/customer, I'd always go for CDs first and foremost. It's easy to transfer to my computer and then on to all my other digital devices. I'll buy a record on vinyl only if it comes with a CD version or at least an uncompressed/lossless download. However as soon as I have got my download and checked it's OK the vinyl will be up for sale "as new" on Discogs as I have no need to keep archaic physical formats.

1U space pretty much means Class D only and there are very few available in that size that are any good. Making another 1U space available gives you a lot more options, and as has been said power conditioners are pretty much irrelevant in the UK where our mains supply is far more reliable and consistent than the US.

Compared with $50 to get your album on all the major download and steaming services, producing a CD is expensive. However it's still cheaper than the alternative physical media. However remember that there is a big difference in longevity between a manufactured, glass-mastered CD and a CDR. I have CDRs from less than 10 years ago that are no longer readable. So while it might be tempting to go for a low-cost short-run CDR, they really do not last as well as a proper CD.

Unfortunately multi-fold cardboard sleeves add another 25-50% to the production costs.

IMO the feasibility of not using a rig on stage is all down to how good the PA and monitoring is. I can think of only a couple of gigs I've played in the last 3 years where having a bass rig has been essential for hearing the bass guitar on-stage and FoH.

As other have said it very much depends on the genre and the age of your audience. What I have found though is that you need to be gigging in order to sell physical product, and you sell most of it at gigs. I did the figures for The Terrortones once and it was something like just under 90% of all music sales were physical product - CDs, records and cassettes - at gigs. Next came on-line sales of physical product, and very distant last was downloads and streams from all sources. Now that we've stopped gigging we sell about 10 CD and records a year, and no downloads only streaming. If you are after reviews bear in mind that some places will only consider your release for review if it's on CD or vinyl (or cassette) as they use it as a way of weeding out artists who show less commitment to their music. After all anyone with a recording and $50 can realise a download only album so it's hardly a big deal any more.

Played Electrowerx in Islington last night. Second on the bill of 4 bands all with massively different line-ups (we were by far the most conventional and that's saying something). Reasonably big stage although by the time it came for us to set up there wasn't much room left. These days I have an FRFR cab for on-stage monitoring, but decided that trying to find somewhere for it on stage and then having to move it for the opening band was going to be too m much hassle. So I simply gave the PA engineer a DI feed from my Helix and asked for some bass in the wedge in front of me. Had half a song soundcheck to get the mix right and we were done. Absolutely no problems. That's the second gig I've done recently where I haven't bothered with any dedicated speakers for my bass on stage and both myself and the rest of the band have had no problem hearing it. I'm seriously considering not taking the FRFR to any of the larger gigs any more. It's one less thing to go in the van and on stage, and cuts down my stage set-up time by about 50%.

IMO it depends on the bass, the nature of the break (and what caused it) and the quality of the repair.

What sort of stage do you call "bigger"? IME once you get to something the size of Camden Underworld on-stage rigs are virtually useless unless you spend the entire gig stood a few feet directly in front of them. What you hear through the PA foldback is likely to be louder. Big rigs for big bands are completely for show. The bass will be DI'd so at the most the pre-amp of just one of the amps will be doing anything you can hear FoH, and if the band aren't on IEM then they'll still hear more from the monitors then they can for the backline.

Remember that if your bass goes through the PA the your speaker cab(s) are making a negligible contribution to the FoH sound.

So where else would you prefer the show to be held? Some anonymous shed outside Birmingham where there’s flip all else to do once you’ve exhausted the possibilities of the show? At least in London there are plenty of other attractions and entertainments if the show turns out to be dull. If you can’t see that your are probably already dead inside.

I've played Charlie Jones' Crimson Plexiglass bass (the one with the plexiglass neck and body) and it's pretty horrible. Big, clunky and heavy and up close it doesn't look particularly good; none of the interior surfaces have been polished so it's full of very distracting opaque regions which ruins the overall effect of having an instrument made out of a transparent material. Fine for a video shoot, so long as you could take it off or sit down between takes but I wouldn't want to do even a 30 minute gig with it. Plexiglass is fine for guitars with their smaller bodies, the Shaftesbury branded Dan Armstrong guitar I tried in the 70s was no heavier than a typical Les Paul, however the extra material required for a standard P or J bass body makes it much heavier. The best acrylic bass I've played was surprisingly one of the cheap Wesley branded models that we prevalent on eBay about 15 years ago. I picked up a purple acrylic J-style bass which had been defretted, second hand for £70. It has a much smaller (and slightly thinner) body than a standard J shape which allows it to be a similar weight to a typical wooden-bodied bass. The body shape also allowed a 24 "fret" neck and decent access to the upper reaches of the fingerboard - both pluses IMO. Also these instruments came in variety of transparent colours as well as clear and IIRC there were both 4 and 5-string versions available. The body would make a great starting point for someone wanting to make a decent plexiglass/acrylic bass that didn't weigh a stupid amount.

The headstock shape difference is simply because one is the Gibson style headstock and other a Epiphone one, surely? And AFAICS the pickup is simply a more modern, higher output version of one of the originals that JC liked. Not a massive difference then.

I have zero interest in my signature bass appealing to anyone other than me. The whole point of having a signature instrument is that it provides something that is not already available or easily achievable with DIY mods. That's why I mostly fail to understand what is "signature" about most Fender signature instruments.