BigRedX

I Feel Love by Donna Summer Der Mussolini ny DAF

as an impressive looking technique tapping is great, but then I think I could spend hours working on it or 5 minutes programming something into a sequencer that will sound exactly the same.

Never found that at all. However in my case it proved to completely impossible to access anything off Spotify without an account so I signed up for the basic free one. I also have an artist account for one of my bands which provides useful information about the streaming of our songs.

I don't think so. That's probably why there's a limit on the number of time you can stream a track without buying it. I've never seen Bandcamp listed as a source on any of my PRS royalty statements, and the only payments I get directly from Bandcamp are when someone buys a physical or digital copy of my music.

You do need an account to use Spotify, but unless the terms have changed for new sign ups you don't actually have to pay anything, although they probably will try and steer you towards a paid-for account. The free version has ads, but often you don't get any for hours (or at least I don't)

You could do Spotify - that's free and probably has a larger selection than Bandcamp. Also IIRC you can only stream each track a certain number of times (3?) on Bandcamp without buying it.

It really could be anything, although if it has to be available on Bandcamp that will limit the choices. I've just done 5 SHFLs and got a very eclectic mix of classical music, avant garde, electronica, pop, and a film sound track...

I'm sure that my technical ability is limited by my taste in music, but for me it doesn't matter in the slightest. I'm a composer first and foremost and technical ability is only an issue if I come up with a musical idea that I can't play, in which case I practice until I can play it. If it really turns out to be stumbling block I can always let the sequencer play it and do something else over the top. Because I am a composer I only write music that I like, so techniques and musical styles that I am not familiar with will never be an issue because I simply won't write like that.

Count me in.

There are plenty of mixers that don't have phantom power. My band played at a venue the other weekend with such a mixer. Everything we use goes straight into the PA. If we had DI boxes that relied on phantom power to work we'd have been stuffed. I've never noticed any signal loss with the EMO DI boxes we use, and IME they are way more reliable than the typical budget active DI boxes that the in house PA engineers supply in that they work first time every time with every sound source. Every time one of my bands has had a DI problem it has been down to the DI boxes supplied by the PA and swapping them for one of ours has fixed it. I don't have a problem with active DI boxes, but if they don't also offer the possibility of being powered from either an external PSU or internal batteries, there will be a time when they won't work.

VAT and any other import taxes are included in the price. However you should read through the couple of threads about returns problems before committing to an expensive purchase from Thomann. Currently this is the (very) weak link in the process with the UK carrier DHL being very unreliable especially when it comes to picking up large and/or heavy items. Until that gets sorted I wouldn't buy anything large or expensive from them.

Pitch-bend wheel on a keyboard synth.

Bluetooth has too much latency for real-time audio transmission. There will be a noticeable delay between you plucking a string and hearing the note in your headphones.

Requires phantom power for operation, and AFAICS there's no PSU or battery option, so won't be suitable for every situation.

Well having listen to a couple of tracks all the way through and at least a minute of everything else, I can't see what all the fuss is about. I certainly didn't find it "difficult" or "challenging". However I did listen to a lot of prog rock and fusion in the mid 70s while I was waiting for something more interesting IMO like punk rock to happen, and therefore it's not the sort of thing I chose to listen to these days. TBH based on what I have heard before I found it rather formulaic and dull. As others have implied it would probably work quite well as background music for a 70s pastiche TV show. On the whole it sounds to me music where technical ability on the instruments is more important than compositional skill, and that's not what I want to hear, a bit like the Knower track on another thread. At least that has vocals.

The "True Value" of anything at any given time, especially used items, is whatever anyone is prepared to pay for it. That's not what the seller thinks it is worth, or even the classic half what it cost new. The Basschat market place while technically selling to a focused target audience, doesn't by any means reach as many people as eBay, and IME the more esoteric stuff isn't really popular on here. And if you're out gigging you'll know that bassists who know about Basschat and more importantly use the site regularly are still in the minority.

Because we have no guitarist in the band I compose a lot of music so it sounds reasonably good with just the bass which means using a lot of 2-note chords and alternating drone string melody string plucking. In this case using the A string as my drone always sounds best - D is generally too light on bottom end and E can be too muddy once I've added synths. Because we're a post-punk/goth influenced band that tends to mean A minor rather than A major. I've just gone through our current set and most are in A minor with a few in D minor, one in E major and one where the main riff and verse are in B minor and the rest in A minor.

While there is nothing wrong in itself about the mainstream, surely as creative people (musicians) we should be prepared to look beyond. Why are so many of us seemingly afraid of standing out? Besides I though you had me on ignore...

I have a Helix. Most of the time I don't both with cab sims (or amp sims for that matter) as IMO adding one always seem to make my bass sound worse. I do however find that the model of the Roland Jazz Chorus Combo works well with my Bass VIs. Therefore if you are determined to use amp and cab models don't be afraid to try ones that you wouldn't consider using for bass if it was actual hardware. You might be surprised.

At least it's not boring. That's a far worse crime.

Depends entirely on the cab design and what sort of bass sounds I'm favouring whether or not I need tweeters. I did briefly own a TE Bright Box in the early 90s - for the length of time it took to pay for it, get it home, plug it into my rig, discover that it made zero difference to the sound I was using at the time, and take it back to the shop for a refund.

But that is really bad. I suspect most covers bands would be embarrassed to be playing such a well known song so poorly at the Dog & Duck, so why is it OK for Mr Page to be murdering it?

While most of the time the wide string spacing at the bridge will also mean wider string spacing at the nut, this isn't necessarily true as the above shows. Also the bass I've owned that had the widest spacing at the bridge also had the narrowest spacing at the nut, and it was a 5-string. Don't assume anything. If the measurements are important get all of them, as the bridge spacing may only be a part of the story.

IME ping-pong delay effects are particularly bad live because for some listeners it will just sound out of time. While we use some stereo effects on our live backing, I always tell the PA engineer to pan them at 9 and 3 o'clock maximum width. Also all the tracks have been checked listening each side of the stereo on its own to ensure that hearing one louder than the other won't cause "out of sync" effects as often the PA top can be louder than the foldback on stage depending on where you are stood.

There is nothing "stereo" about a stereo DI. AFAIK all are simply two single channel DI units in one box. For my band we have both two channel and single channel DI boxes. The two channel ones have the advantage of being a single box and are only less versatile if you sometime need to use them for two single channel sources that are a long way apart. BTW I assume this is for live use - is there any real benefit to having a stereo feed from the keyboard? IME there is little point in stereo for live use as only a few people in the audience get the full stereo effect, everyone else will hear mostly one side or the other, and this can cause it's own problems with some panning options.