BigRedX

WGW is a completely different ballgame, because of the audience and the fact that it is very tightly run on the nights. I'm a regular in the audience - I go to most unless the lineup is particularly weak. The best way to describe it is a professionally organised multi-band gig in the big venue with a good stage and PA. Are you down for October/November this year? BTW don't expect to see many "exotic Steampunk chicks" in the audience for the gigs. They are too busy parading around the town for the photographers.

It really depends on exactly how your band approaches playing the songs they have chosen. If your role in the band is to play a bass guitar part that fits the song, and rhythmically holds down the bottom end, then as EBS_freak says, DI into the PA and use the superior facilities of your mixer to compress and EQ your sound to suit the band mix. On the other hand if you need to accurately nail the specific tonal characteristics of the bass line of each individual song, then you are going to need a good programmable multi-effects and probably also a keyboard synthesiser.

As you can probably tell I'm not a big fan of festivals. The only one I've ever really enjoyed was the annual Rock and Reggae festival in Nottingham mostly because it was free to get in to and I lived less than 10 minutes walk away, so if the music or weather was not to my liking I could simply go home until it improved, without feeling that I wasn't getting value for money. The Terrortones had one year where we managed to score a decent number of festival slots. The only one that had other bands playing that I actually wanted to see, kept getting cancelled and then was back on again, and finally we decided to tell the organisers that we couldn't do it partly due to the uncertainty and partly because I had the opportunity to go an all expenses paid holiday that included the festival weekend. I think in the end it didn't go ahead. For the others it rained (often quite heavily and occasionally on the stage) except for one that was held indoors on a brilliantly sunny day, so of course everyone was outside enjoying the sun and virtually no-one saw us play. I'm sure festivals in countries that have decent weather are great. I remain to be convinced about their desirability in the UK.

IME Japanese-made basses that require a special case due to size and/or shape, generally come with one.

If it's not deflatable at the flick of a switch like the BassMute, then I really can't see what the advantage of it is over a piece of foam under the strings.

For me the whole point of a Rickenbacker bass (or any other bass for that matter) is that it offers something different to Fender P or J and their copies. It seems to me that most of those who try a Rickenbacker and don't get on with it really want something that plays, feels and sounds like the Fender but with the 4001/4003 body shape holographically laid over the top.

It’s essentially the same thing. I got rd of my Gramma Pad because it didn’t make a significant difference to my on-stage sound at most of the venues we played, but it did make my stacked rig extra wobbly on some.

Normal bass strings may not fit the machine heads or tail-piece. You need to get short scale strings at least, but proper Bass VI strings with a 95 or 100 E are the best.

There’s a whole thread about improving Squier Bass VIs in the Bass Guitars forum somewhere. Two things you need to do: 1. Replace the standard strings with some of a heavier gauge. LaBella and Newtone do round wounds and LaBella and Piccato do flat wounds that should make a big improvement. I’m a round wound fan and have Newtones on both my Squier Bass VI and my Burns Barracuda. 2. Raise the bridge to decrease compliance of the string and make it feel stiffer. You’ll also need to shim the neck in order to keep the action suitably low. And don’t forget to raise the pickups correspondingly or it will sound rather weedy compare with before. You can look at after-market bridges and term locks, but for me these two modifications made my Squier Bass VI much more playable and I haven’t bothered modifying it further.

Firstly apart from the Lightwave system which uses LEDs and optical sensors, what are marketed as "active" pickups are simply normal magnetic pickups with a pre-amp circuit built in to the pick up casing. The pickup windings might be low impedance to suit the noise or tonal characteristics of the pickup designer and require the circuitry in order to present the amp with the correct impedance and for the pickups not to sound weedy, but there is nothing active about the pickups themselves. Other than that I would second everything that Doctor J has said.

New studio album out later this year.

Hasn't the mad boss gone? Or has he been replaced with a new mad boss?

Bridges that are designed specifically for a particular instrument shouldn't need any adjustments other than individual string intonation and overall string height. Everything else - individual string height and spacing - should be fixed to suit the fingerboard radius and neck width/pickup pole spacing of the space so there shouldn't be any need to adjust these if the bass is made properly. Of course after-market units need these adjustments because the manufacturer has no way of knowing what kind of bass the bridge is going to be used with.

The Cure are massive. They filled Hyde Park at their 40th anniversary gig last year.

Festivals are my idea of hell, both as an audience member and is a performer. If I was on at Glastonbury, I'd want to helicoptered in 5 minutes before I was due on stage and out again the moment the last note of the encore was finished. Having said that I wouldn't mind seeing the Cure, but I won't be going to Glastonbury to do it.

I don't (and haven't ever) play either. What category does that put me in?

My first bass - a Burns Sonic - very much shaped my playing style for many years. In the early 80s, the only easily available short-scale bass strings were Rotosounds, and on this bass the E string was essentially useless, so I tried as much as possible to avoid using it. This, coupled with the fact that I was very much into Joy Division and other similar post-punk bands meant that I mostly played higher register melody lines on the bass. My next bass, bought in the 90s, was an Overwater 5-string and having 5 useable strings meant that my bass lines became more "conventional". These days I play 5-string bass in one band and bass VI in another, and although there is some overlap of styles (there are some songs that I could play on either bass), I do write and play in different ways depending on which bass I am using.

Assuming that this is a serious question and not just trolling... Using your ears is fine for practicing at home where there are no other sonic distractions, and TBH is good skill for all musicians to acquire. However at a gig, tuning should be done quickly and silently. That's only possible with an electronic tuner. The "tuning song" is one of the most unprofessional things a band can`inflict on their audience, and having an electronic tuner solves this problem simply so you be stupid not to take advantage of it.

All the Terrortones releases were done by Formation Audio, and I was completely happy with the results.

It might mean that the second hand prices of Pedulla basses will start to reflect their actual value. When I bought my Buzz bass the new price was around £3k but sellers were struggling to get more than £1k for nice looking examples in good condition.

TBH I think most tuning mis-haps are down to user error rather than the tuners themselves being inaccurate.

One thing you need to watch if everyone is using their own tuner is that they are all set to the same A reference frequency. I once did a gig where our guitarist had managed to accidentally change their tuner from the standard A=440Hz to either the minimum or maximum setting, which meant that they were almost a quarter tone out of tune with the bass. The sound on stage was not particularly good and the only person who could hear the problem was our drummer who kept telling us to check our tuning. Of course each instrument was perfectly in tune with itself, just not in tune with the other one, so we kept telling him the tuning was fine. It wasn't until our next rehearsal where everyone could hear all the instruments properly that the problem was discovered and fixed. Strangely enough we got a brilliant review of the gig despite the fact that we were so badly out of tune.

And here are my two bass VIs: Squier VM Bass VI Burns Barracuda

IIRC the BBC licence is for broadcast to private listeners only, and anyone using their radio in a public area are effectively rebroadcasting and also need a licence. The PRS licence will be required by the organisers of the event and has nothing to do with the band(s) playing - unless they are the organisers.

Boundary effect is more noticeable than physical coupling with the stage (unless the stage happens to be hollow and very resonant). You have to have your cabs several feet away from floor, walls and ceiling to break the boundary effect.