BigRedX

Not in my experience. My conventional "big rig" that has now been replaced by a Line6 Helix and an RCF745 FRFR at a cost of just over £2k originally set me back quite a bit more even though most of it was bought second hand 10 years ago. I've just looked up the price of one of the cabs I was previously using (EBS Proline 410) and new it costs more than the RCF!

IME you don't want to be hearing the fundamental of very low notes anyway, they sap too much energy away from the frequencies you do want to hear, which is why devices like the Thumpinator which attenuates everything under 35Hz are proving popular. Also IME adding 1 extra inch to the scale length of a bass does little to improve the low B. Its all down to neck construction and the neck joint. Laklands tend to be better made than Fenders which is why the B string sounds better. If you are after a better B simply through scale length alone you need to go to 36" or longer, although again the manufacturers making extra long scale basses tend to be low volume hand crafted, rather than mass-produced which means they will be better made anyway.

Try either 10.0.1.2 or 192.168.1.2 on the laptop and see if either of these work. If it's a peer-to-peer network with no router and just two devices you might possibly need a cross-over ethernet cable, but I thought that these day most devices were auto-sensing and this was a thing of the past.

I have one strap for every guitar or bass that use regularly, each one adjusted for length so that each bass hangs at the correct height (not always the same height depending on how I play it). Most are black, but I have a red one for the Burns Barracuda.

Sunday gig at Rough Trade in Nottingham with Hurtsfall supporting Rodney Bakerr/ Strange Circuits. No the best organised event. Four bands (with completely different equipment requirements) playing in the space of 3 hours. We were told to be there for a 4.30 soundcheck, only to find no-one else there and the PA engineer didn't turn up until just after 5.00. In the end everything went surprising smoothly. Playing second, just before Strange Circuits, meant that we had the biggest audience of the evening and went down really well. Strange Circuits were as usual fantastic, even though it was a set full of brand new songs that I had't heard before. I felt a bit sorry for Video Tape Machine who "headlined" and would have played to almost no-one if we hadn't stayed to see them. We weren't allowed to use our smoke machine as it might have set off the fire alarm so the ambience isn't as "gothy" as usual!

Unless they are Fenders where the finish seems to get damaged just by looking at it 😉

And this. Or fit underneath the keyboard stand holding the computer that is running the backing track. I can place a wedge FRFR almost anywhere in stage as it's footprint is minimal.

It's one extra thing to bring to the gig (or leave behind afterwards). And arriving 3 minutes earlier is no use when you have 10-15 minutes between the end of the previous band's set and the start of yours in which to set up. Like the gig I played last night where there were 4 bands playing (all with completely different equipment requirements) and the whole gig was only 3 hours long from doors opening at 7.00 to the music curfew at 10.00.

IME unless your band is massively loud on stage and you have FoH support for the bass pretty much any FRFR is going to be fine. I've never needed to run my RCF745 and anything like full tilt. With the angled cab, the speaker is pointing at my ears rather than my knees which does more for audibility than the power available from the built-in amp.

Remember that all the budget digital wireless systems work in the WiFi frequencies, so anything that affects WiFi will also affect your wireless devices. (Including too many people in the audience with mobile phones looking for a WiFi signal).

Personally I don't like detuners as the change in string tension puts me off. If the string is the right tension for E it's too floppy for D. I actually have a separate guitar for playing in drop D with the 52 E replaced with a 56 for tuning to D.

Which is why I've done it. Personally the only reason I can see for not getting a worn bass (or guitar) refinished is because you can't afford it. You don't see drum kits, keyboards or brass instruments that have been relic'd so why guitars and basses?

For me it depends on whether I need to follow the guitar riff exactly or not. Personally, given the chance I would prefer to play something different, so in that case the tuning doesn't matter, and in fact using a different tuning to the guitarist is likely to force my into doing something more creative than simply aping the guitar part an octave lower.

IME most hacks are a complete faff when you are trying to set up in a hurry. Best to have something that is properly designed to the the job you need. Plus for some of the bands I've played with in the past those 3 minutes saved are an extra song we can play in the set.

For the very occasional gig I do where there is no PA support for the bass the additional grunt of the 745 means I can be heard out front. Also because my sound come from the Helix, I don't want a "traditional" bass amp and speaker mucking up the audio with their particular baked in sound. Plus if I do get a PA engineer who is trying to give me the standard rumbly bass sound I can march then up onto the stage stand then in front of my speaker and and tell them that I want to bass to sound like what they can hear on stage but louder. Since I switched to the Helix and FRFR both the bands I play with have had a much better on stage and FoH sound. The wedge shaped cab means I can position it in such a way that everyone on stage who needs to be able to hear me from my cab can, and I have a lot more options for on-stage placement. One of the bands that I play with uses back run from a computer. This is housed in a flight case that goes on a smile keyboard stand at the side of the stage. My FRFR goes underneath the stand which means that the amount of room I require on stage for my gear is halved.

I got to admit I liked the bass sound, although I wouldn't be one I'd use all the time. Unfortunately everything else about this "song" was horrible. I've also come to the conclusion that these bits of music (Vulfpeck, Snarky Puppy, Dirty Loops etc.) are done as videos because if it was audio only 99% of the audience would be looking something to listen to after less than 30 seconds, as the music on its own isn't enough to hold most people's attention.

First I'd try a different lead, then I'd check that whatever it is plugged in to is supplying the correct voltage phantom power.

I think it really depends on how much your on-stage rig contributes to the FoH sound. For me when nearly every single gig I play has the bass going through the PA and whatever rig I carry is for stage monitoring only (and big stages not even that, since I can only hear it over the foldback when I am stood directly in from of it), going the FRFR route made total and utter sense. The big conventional bass rig might look good behind me, but when even I can't hear it over the sound coming out of the foldback because I've got to turn it down so far in order to not interfere with the FoH sound there is little point in having a dedicated bass rig. I haven't really noticed any lack of very low bass from my RCF745, but then again, it's not a frequency I need on stage in order to be able to hear what I am playing, and in fact it might even contribute to the fact that I can hear myself far better with the FRFR than I could with any of my previous bass rigs.

IMO all "mojo" is fake. Musicians who really cared about their instruments would have them repaired and refinish as and when it became necessary. A bit like having your car serviced.

What's wrong with a refin?

If you were really serious about natural “relic’ing“ on a modern instrument you could have the original finish stripped and replaced with nitro that will age in a sympathetic way.

Hurtsfall will be playing at around 8 tonight.

However you want. I use a Burns Barracuda with one of the band I play with which allows me to alternate between conventional bass line and higher pitched melody work (at which point the synth player takes over the bass duties). It varies the sonic texture of the songs. The tuning is the same as a guitar only an octave down so you get the standard 4-string bass range but with extra high notes from the top two strings. I have mine tuned EADGCE because I ned an open C string drone on a couple of songs we do. IME they aren't really suited to playing conventional chords on (I certainly can't get the same richness of tone while retaining decent note definition as I can on a 28" scale Baritone guitar tuned B-B) unless you stick to the higher strings or neck positions, and on the more "vintage" styled instruments the neck tends to be narrow even by guitar standards - think 70s-style narrow Stratocaster neck which combined with the much fatter strings doesn't make them the easiest instruments to play.

For anything recorded in the pre-digital age, if the tempo didn't feel right when it came to mastering, then the individual tracks would be vari-speeded to give the right feel with no regard for what it would do to the pitch.

No idea. I don't have a problem with it at all. In fact one of the basses that I use most regularly had a £850 complete refurb including stripping off the remains of the original finish and respraying in a (IMO) more attractive colour.