BigRedX

We’re the only support for that gig so hopefully we won’t be on stupidly early, 5 minutes after the doors open.

I'm surprised you're not doing your own sleeve artwork... I was part of the DIY, Weird Noise Cassette Scene in the late 70s and early 80s (at the slightly more "commercial" end). For some of us the Desperate Bicycles were too mainstream! Anyway good luck with the single and let us know when you have copies to sell.

But can you do it in real terms as cheaply as The Desperate Bicycles? I terms of keeping it pure/analogue that's a lot harder. A pervious band I was in tried to do an all-analogue release on cassette, but found that it added 50% to the mastering cost to keep the audio out of the digital domain, and that none of the small-run cassette duplicators would accept an analogue master tape. Same with your sleeve artwork. The first thing that will happen one you pass it over to the printers is that it will be scanned into a computer.

Unfortunately so. There has been no official disbanding, but Mr Venom has not been gig-fit for about 4 years now, and the last I heard he was looking at moving away from the UK, so any future Terrortones gigs or recordings are looking less and less likely. All the recordings are still available for sale...

Actually the best strategy is to do what The Terrortones did. Organise gigs in your home town. Put on reasonably well known bands who are doing a similar style of music to your band and who will play for less than £150, and get your band to open for them. Do this on a regular basis - every 4 to 6 weeks, make it into a decent evening with DJs playing appropriate music between the bands, promote the hell out of it. You'll learn lots from watching the more established bands go about their business (both what's good and what to avoid) and unless your band is dreadfully dull you should start building a decent local following. It also looks good on your band's "CV" for getting decent out of town gigs, when you've got a long list of impressive support gigs.

Yes, but... These days you are competing in much, much, bigger market place no matter how niche the genre of music you play. Gone are the days when having a record out made you band seem important, John Peel would play your single at least once, and Rough Trade would take a box or two so it was potentially in every independent record shop in the UK. Pretty much anyone can do it now, and you don't have to agonise over whether you can afford to have a second colour on the sleeve (or forgo the sleeve altogether for a bit of photocopied A4 paper folded around the paper dust sleeve) or printed labels vs plain white that you were going individually hand stamp yourself. It does mean though that the only way your are going sell very many copies is to do so at your gigs. It has been my experience that once the band stops gigging the internet sales drop of to a handful a year at best.

I don't know where this "soft-touch coating" has come from. The ones that I had that went sticky looked and felt exactly the same as their replacements until the plastic started to go sticky.

Not much use if your on-stage movement is much more than bobbing up and down on the spot...

That's interesting. The replacement stands I got had exactly the same design of grip, just made out of plastic that (hopefully) won't go sticky.

In real terms the cost of releasing music on vinyl has fallen since the late 70s, and the technical quality of the pressing and packaging has risen considerably. Whether it is worth doing when the main way you are going sell your records is to be out gigging every weekend is another matter.

And in case anyone in Nottingham is out on a “school night” my other band Hurtsfall are playing at the Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road tonight.

As a regular seller, adding a "Buy It Now" costs, whereas a "Best Offer" is free. I've had offers in excess of the starting price from people who were keen to secure an item before bidding starts.

Any extra-long rectangular hard case should do. I've owned 2 (both 36" scale five strings) and they fitted standard depth but extra long (by 2-3 inches) cases. I don't think you'll find a modern semi-rigid case to fit as they are all aimed at more conventional size and shape bases.

18th October at The Moon On The Water, Cleethorpes 26th October at The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham supporting Toyah 15th November at The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh 23rd November at Electrowerkz, London 28th November at Audio, Glasgow supporting B Movie 30th November at FAC251, Manchester supporting B Movie 7th December at The Royal Standard, Sheffield and then later the same day at The Library, Leeds

All over the place:

The Revelation Bass VI is still on their web site. The harley Benton one has been out of stock forever. ATM the easiest model to get hold of the Squier bass VI. If you are lucky you might find a Burns Barracuda, but the list price is considerably higher than the Squier.

If it's the sound of the bass VI more than anything else you are after, then you need the right pickups in the right places. That means a pickup arrangement that matches or is very close to that of the original Fender Bass VI. So you need 3 single coil pickups all individually switchable. Neither of the basses mentioned in the OP come close to this arrangement.

Got to say that's a boring looking bass, but then again it goes nicely with Hue and Cry's boring sounding music. 😉

The sickness of the height adjuster grip which will eventually lead to the plastic disintegrating, is AFAICS completely down to Hercules using the wrong, or a dodgy batch of plastic for some their stands and has nothing to do with how the stands have been stored, or used/abused. If the plastic is wrong the grips will eventually become sticky and then the mechanism will fail irrespective of how you look after the stands. The good news is that Hercules and their distributors have acknowledged that there is a problem and have been putting it right. The replacement stands I got 2 years ago for my sticky ones are still fine and have no problems at all.

TBH these days nearly all vinyl pressing is good quality, because it has to be in order for it to compete with digital formats. Certainly no-one is going to accept the appalling quality of pressings that were the norm in the late 70s and early 80s. And while there are plenty of brokers in the UK offer vinyl production services you'll find that nearly all of them farm out the actual pressing to plants outside of the UK (not that there is anything wrong with this - if they can offer a good service in terms of turn-around times and production quality) If Diamond Black do actually press in the UK it would explain why they are consistently much more expensive than all the other quotes I've ever had.

The plastic parts disintegrating is a side/effect development of the sticky plastic syndrome. I was lucky enough to get 4 of my Hercules stands which had developed sticky plastic grips replaced with new ones FoC by the UK distributor. I kept a couple of the dodgy stands as backups should I need them, as the sticky plastic while annoying was not really a terminal issue. A couple of months ago when I was doing a major tidy up of unused things in my house I came across these stands and the handles on both of them had broken in the manner of the ones in the OP. So IMO the sticky plastic syndrome while not being terminal in itself, will eventually lead to the plastic parts disintegrating.

I don't think there are any pressing plants in the UK anymore. IIRC the two Terrortone vinyl releases were pressed in the Czech Republic and France. They were handled through Media Hut and Mobineko respectively.

That's good to know. I just had a look at my Newtone Axion strings which are my current favourites for Bass VI and it would be very marginal whether or not they fitted a 34" scale bass. Having said that I'm sure Newtone would wind a custom set of Axions for a longer scale length.

Do cabs have a sound based on the size and configuration of the drivers? Certainly all the cabs I've owned that have had the same driver configuration have sounded very different to each other.

One thing to consider on a 34" scale bass that you intend to string E-E is how easy it will be to get suitable strings for it. Although bass VI sets tend to be longer than standard 30" scale to allow for the vibrato mechanism, you are going to be right on the limit as to whether they will fit 34" scale instrument. Having just measured the excess on my Squier Bass VI so long as the distance between the bridge saddle and the anchor point is less than 40mm you should be OK with LaBellas but probably not with the Newtone Axions which are tapered at the machine head end.