BigRedX

The re-issues like the one in the OP are 34". However the original 60s models are 31½".

For those people who absolutely HAVE to create music (or anything else) will always find ways of avoiding the obstacles in their way. IMO anything that discourages the casual dabbler who has heard a Coldplay or Sleaford Mods album and decides to have a go, is a good thing. There are far too many musicians playing in uninspiring bands, and if they want to have a bit of fun in the privacy of a rehearsal room that's fine, but lets not have them clogging up venues, Bandcamp and Spotify. I think that too many posters on here appear to have forgotten what it was like to be in their first originals band. You don't need half the stuff that older musicians seem to to think is absolutely necessary, and many other things are far cheaper in real terms than they were in the 60s, 70s and 80s. If you want to do something badly enough you will work out ways of doing it within your financial constraints. Firstly almost no originals band needs the hassle and expense of PA ownership. All the venues worth playing on the originals circuit have in-house PA systems and if you want to play somewhere different that doesn't it is still possible to hire a system for the gig. In 50 years of playing in originals bands I been two that had their own PA and in both cases that is because we had our own dedicated rehearsal space. The PA was primarily rehearsals and only used for gigs on a handful of occasions. These days everyone thinks they need personal transport but actually you can get a long way (pun intended) without car ownership. In my first few bands hardly anyone could actually drive and if they did, only a couple of them owned cars which were invariable tiny and unreliable. For local gigs we walked or used public transport. For out of town gigs we would hire a car or a van and if none of the band could actually drive we'd have at a least one fan who could and would be happy to drive for us. Remember that all the decent out of town gigs your band would most likely be supporting so all you'd need to take would be instruments amp heads and drum breakables. A four-piece band plus that fits into a typical car. It might not be comfortable but it gets you to the gig and back. If you put on a decent show you'll soon get better gigs with better pay and be able to think about buying a cheap van. I still go to local gigs by taxi. It's cheaper than the running and parking costs for the evening (especially if the gig goes on past midnight) and taxi drivers have no problem stopping in the middle of the street directly outside the venue while I load in/out. As has been said plenty of other aspects of being in a band are much cheaper in real terms than they used to be. Instruments and equipment are a fraction of the price for the same level of quality. In fact unless you buy something dodgy direct from China you are very unlikely to be saddled with the sort of unplayable crap that was all most musicians could afford when starting out right up to the end of the 80s. And recording (if you're not doing it yourself) is ridiculously cheap these days. For my first 3 forays into proper recording studios, we had to watch every minute on the clock otherwise we might not be able to settle the bill at the end, and there were always "hidden extras" like the cost of the tape, both master and multi-track, that you used. Back when I started gigging there were all sorts of free or cheap resources available to those of us who were prepared to put the effort in tracking them down. And they still exist if you can put in the time networking to find them. Four out of the first 5 recording sessions for The Terrortones were absolutely free because they were either part of some training initiative, the studio owner liked us enough to offer us a couple of free sessions when the studio would otherwise be empty, or paid for by the record label who were putting out a compilation album with the band on. Maybe the challenges that face originals bands these days are different to those when I was first recording and gigging, but anyone really committed to getting their music heard will find ways around them. You do have to be living and breathing and dreaming about music 24 hours a day 7 days a week if you want to treat it as anything other than a hobby, but IME that has aways been the case.

I know it's not entirely serious but, IMO the most important band member is the main song writer irrespective of what instrument they play.

It also helps if you play it on a short scale bass like Andy Fraser did, and not a 36" scale Overwater like I tried...

Not in my experience. It was by far the oldest member of The Terrortones, but since I was writing most of the music, was in good health and didn't have any problem doing gigs all over the country, my age was never really a factor. In a lot ways if you are of any age where bringing up kids is no longer a concern and you might be considering winding down your employment hours, being in a band is a lot easier with regards to other commitments. The last time I was able to put as much effort into being in a band was in the 80s when I was unemployed. After The Terrortones stopped gigging I had no problem finding another band (or two) to play in - one where the rest of the band are of a similar age and another where there is a much wider range of ages. Plenty of people to be in bands with. You just need to right attitude.

Unless you want to write and play chart-orientated pop music, age is no longer any sort of barrier(unless being old in itself actually impacting on your ability to play and create). A few months before my 50th birthday I joined what has turned out to be my most successful originals band (and I've been in bands since I was 15). We were gigging all over the country and released two EPs, a mini album and a full-length album. I had to quit the covers band I was also in, because the originals band was more active (and better paid). Now in my 60s I'm in two different originals bands with a busy gigging schedules (both have gigs up to the end of 2024 already in the diary). One band which is relatively new are currently recording our debut album. The other who are more established are writing songs for our 4th. Both of my current bands are post-punk/goth influenced so obviously much of our audience and fellow bands are of a similar age, but there are a lot of much younger people in the audiences and a significant number of bands with members in their 20s playing gigs with us. Age is only a barrier if you let it be one.

Also note that the Kramer has has the pickups repositioned on that new body. This has the "neck" pickup in roughly the P-bass position whereas it would have originally been much closer to the neck.

"Stiffness" and "tension" are not the same thing. What we should really be measuring is "compliance".

But is only accurate for D'Addario strings.

TBH I don't think I've ever heard a Bass Guitar being called that unless it actually had a "Fender" logo on the headstock. When I was getting into music in the early 70s the bands I liked were more likely to be be sporting bass guitars by Rickenbacker or Gibson as they were Fender.

One of my bands do this: It's mostly D with the occasional A and C, so dead easy to play. I just have to remember to count the bars of 2/4 to come in in the right place. My other band has just released our own composition Christmas song called "December Snow": We don't have any gigs coming up so we won't be playing it live. Maybe in December 2024? However we massively changed the structure of the song once the lyrics had been written, so I'd have to relearn the bass part from scratch as what's on the final mix only has a passing resemblance to what I originally recorded.

If I want to show photos from Facebook posts I save them onto my computer and then re-host them somewhere more universally accessible. Regarding Spotify payments - it's not a fixed amount per play. From looking at my data from this year the amount depends on both when and where the stream occurred. In the UK earlier this year I was getting several months of over 0.5¢ per stream. Last month each US-based stream was only worth 0.2¢. However extrapolating my figures to 1 millions streams would have netted me around $5000 after my aggregator has taken their cut. And that's only for the "mechanicals". One of my bands has managed to get a song onto a fairly popular Goth playlist which is currently getting 50-100 streams a day. If it's still getting that kind of attention this time next year that will give a far better indication of what a decent amount of streams pays. Of course the real money is in the performance royalties for the songwriters, and streaming even from the better paying services is minuscule compared with what a couple of plays on National Radio will bring it. Best get writing those Christmas songs....

All I have bought this year are two sets of strings for my Eastwood Hooky Bass.

He’d use whatever was the cheapest.

Thanks everyone! "December Snow" is now available on all the major download and streaming platforms. Also we have an animated lyric video to go with it:

Also the only USB-A to USB-B cable I have is the one that came with the Helix. I have a load of other USB cables but no others with that particular combination of connectors.

Logic X runs perfectly happily on my 2010 MacPro. It's not the very latest version of Logic X but it does everything I need it to.

And GarageBand which will probably be more than enough for most users needs is free.

Full price for an SY300 is £650 and for that I would expect a USB cable as well as the correct PSU for the country where it being sold.

The Line6 Helix comes with a USB cable.

If you venture regularly into the for sale threads you find an entirely different set of users who rarely post on the rest of the site.

I use one of the reverbs on my Line6 Helix for a solo part that I play on a Bass VI on a quite up-tempo song. However at that point the arrangement breaks down to kick drum, sequencer synth, and a simple synth pad, and the Bass VI part is massively pumped up in volume:

If you are a Mac user, the moment you spend more than £200 on 3rd-party plug-ins and samples to go with Reaper, you might as well have bought a copy of Logic. Just the instruments and effects that come as part of the installation are more than most people will ever really need. I have broken my "Logic only" rule twice - once for a Simmonds Drum emulator and once for Helix Native. However, while they do make life a bit easier, neither of them are essential - I could recreate all the electronic percussion I want from drum machine designers and the various synth plug-ins; and having Helix Native allows me to manipulate my guitar and bass sounds after recording, but I could either use the hardware to re-amp the direct recorded sounds or simply tweak the Helix settings and re-record the part as required. For everything else I do - drums and synth programming for the live backing of one of my bands as well as recording Bass VI parts Logic does way more than I will ever need. Some years back I did fully orchestrated Christmas Carols for a high-profile web site's seasonal promotion using just the instruments that came bundled with Logic and some vocals from the marketing company's employees.

Who you know is always key, but I have found that you get to "know" more people by making your band more visible - by networking and promotion. It's a sad fact that getting on the BBC these days means having music that appeals to one of their "gatekeepers" and if they simply don't like you or think your music isn't a good fit then there's nothing you can do about that until your band becomes a lot more famous to the point where they can no longer ignore you. However I have found that they will take you more seriously if you actually put out our music on a physical format like CD or vinyl. After all anyone with some audio files and $50 can get a "album" out on all the major download and streaming services, so just having something on-line isn't really that impressive any more. If you are serious about upping you Spotify plays then you need to get your songs on some decent Spotify playlists. Unfortunately there are no real shortcuts and it will involve a lot of hard work doing research and pitching your songs to the most appropriate playlists, and even then you'll still need a bit of luck. One of my bands recently managed to get a song on a very popular Goth playlist which means that it now gets over 50 plays a day and as a result of this the listening numbers for the rest of our catalogue are slowly increasing. However this was the result of several months of hard work identifying appropriate playlists and then having the right song to pitch to them.

Also lots of quite large dings and dents on the body edges and fingerboard. Missing the bridge and pickup covers. No photos of the back, or any showing the amount or lack of fret-wear. I wouldn't want to exchange money for this without inspecting it in person.