BigRedX

This. All the instruments I have bought from abroad have been ones that would have been virtually impossible to buy without importing them myself.

Only one of the many short scale basses I've owned has ever exhibited any neck dive and that was down to the body shape rather than the scale length. On the other hand none of them have been even vaguely Fender-like in design.

I've done it once. Not a bass from the US, but a guitar from Japan. It helped that I was flying business class and arrived at the airport late - the guitar went into the suit locker on the plane no questions asked as they were desperate to get me seated so the flight could leave. At the other end (Heathrow) I was perfectly prepared to go into the "Something To Declare" section, as the guitar wasn't worth much but was something that was almost impossible to get hold of in the UK (IIRC the VAT and duty would have been less than £50), but, it was late at night and the one customs officer on duty was busy unpacking the suitcase of a middle-eastern looking gent, and simply waved me through. That not to say you should try to avoid paying your import taxes and VAT, but if HMRC aren't interested who am I to argue?

At one point I had about 50 guitars and basses, a load of synths and other high tech sound generating devices, plus a well stocked home studio. The studio stuff was sold after I discovered that my engineering skills were the weak link in the recording process, and paying for studio time with a good producer/engineer generated far better results for a lot less outlay, plus what home recording/composing I need to do these days can be achieved completely on the computer. I was then ruthless with all my other instruments, because I couldn't see the point of owning stuff I wasn't using. All the synths and samplers have been replaced with a small controller keyboard and the plug-ins that come free with Logic Pro X. My guitar and bass count is now 9. That's two 5-string basses (main and backup) for one band, two bass VIs (main and backup) for the other band and 2 guitars for composing and recording. I have two more guitars and another bass VI that will get sold when I get around to listing them.

As has been discussed in the Earth Loop thread there should be a difference between signal ground (which should really be signal -ve) and electrical (screening) ground. Unfortunately standard two conductor guitar wiring doesn't allow for this.

I've always used creating music as a refuge when my personal life has been less than brilliant.

I find that the amount of music I listen to is inversely proportional to how active I am creating music myself. When I'm being creative I find I simply don't have time to listen to other people's music. I can't do it while I work because it's too distracting (TBH anything other than silence I find too distracting), unless I'm working on something that requires very little brain power like drawing clipping paths for Photoshop cut outs, but even then I won't put any music on unless I know I'm going to be doing something like this for several hours without a break. At the moment I'm being particularly creative musically, so the only chance I get to listen to other people's music is at gigs (where one of my bands is also playing) or in the car with my girlfriend where the choice of music has to be something we both like.

I've had three periods when I wasn't gigging, but I've always had other musical things to keep me occupied during those times. First at the end of the 80s when my synth band split up, I made "demos" of the last few songs that I had written and spent some time working on my guitar technique which stood me in good stead when after failing the audition as a bass player for a goth band pointed out I could also play the guitar as was promptly asked to join! Again in the early 2000s the demise of the band I'd been in for the previous 12 years coincided with discovering that my very first band had a bit of a cult following in the US, and we were asked if we would be interested in putting out a retrospective "best of" CD by Hyped To Death records from Chicago. This was a project that occupied the best part of 2 years, firstly sourcing a decent reel-to-reel tape machine and then digitising and restoring 5 hours worth of songs, editing that down to a representative 80 minutes (with the help of the other band members) and designing the packaging for the CD. By the time I had done all of that I was ready to join another band and play gigs again. During COVID I was massively busy with work (most of the companies I work for went mad with their on-line retail businesses and I was kept busy creating larger and more interesting looking mailing packaging for them) and didn't really have a lot of time for music. However both my bands were in the process of mixing their next releases which of course took much longer when everything was done separately and remote; and I also somehow found time to work on putting out some old recordings form two other bands (which still hasn't been finished).

Do you need to set the MIDI channels on the BCF and XR18? They should be on the same channel.

I suspect that one of them will be for neck LEDs. The other two might be coil taps? The controls are most likely volume, blend and bass/mid/treble.

Have you checked that the neck pocket is at least close to standard Fender dimensions?

I've only been to NYC twice a tourist, but the impression I get is that for people who don't live there NYC = Manhattan, and the other boroughs especially those that require crossing water to get to don't really count. I'll stand by my analogy. Croydon is a borough of London and it's over the river from the part people who don't live there associate as the main bit of the city.

I don't think I'll ever be ready to give up. Right now I play in two great bands. I'll probably continue to gig until I'm no longer physically capable and then I'll just compose weird instrumental music and stick it out on Bandcamp. It's 3 years since I last bought any instruments, but that's because after 40+ years of buying and selling I have all the right gear that I need. I might buy another Eastwood Hooky just so I have an identical back-up for one band I play in, but unless I join a new band with a very different musical style and/or image, that will be it. I don't think there is anything wrong with giving up. People and their interests change, that's what happens. I just haven't lost interest in composing and playing music yet.

Very little. I didn't have a TV at the time so I didn't see it. I had found the BandAid single musically and lyrically cringeworthy and all of the bands I knew were playing were either too mainstream or past their sell by date IMO, so even if I had the opportunity to watch I doubt I would have taken it. I probably spent the day reading and/or working on composing new songs for my band.

Those comprehensive switch options are fine for working out the one combination that gives you the sound you want. After that you can hard-wire it in, and leave the switch as DFA to allow placation of unhelpful band members and studio/PA engineers.

But still ridiculously overpriced.

I think you'll find that anything that packs down small enough to fit in your bag will be equally flimsy. You might need to treat it as a disposable item and just buy another when the previous one wears out. One of the advantages in playing in originals bands is that the PA is always supplied and they generally have spare mic stands that I have been able to use for similar requirements - Theremin or Tenori-On.

We had a similar attitude with The Terrortone in the early days when we did every gig that we were asked to play often at less than a week's notice. Having established ourselves this way we could afford to turn down gigs later on, but generally because it was too far to travel for the money being offered. We did sack a guitarist and drummer because they turned down to opportunity to play a fairly high profile gig (WGW April) with a week's notice. The band had been approached at the beginning of the year about our availability to play, but ultimately we weren't chosen, but that meant for a couple of months it should have been pencilled in everyone's diary. What particularly annoyed me was they made no attempt to even see if whatever else they were doing that evening could be re-arranged and neither appeared to be particularly bothered about not doing the gig. I attended the weekend as a punter and while I was away Mr Venom told them they were no longer required for the band and when I came back he had already lined up a new guitarist and a temporary drummer.

IME the problem is members with limited availability, you can't afford to keep turning down gigs that you would like to do because some of the band have other commitments. Venues and promoters will generally give you 2 chances (maybe 3 if they really like you), but after that they'll stop calling and ask bands who are always going to say "yes", because they are less hassle.

It's not a mic stand if it's just holding your tablet. Get the K&M holder that fits to the top of the stand (rather than the side) and the appropriate K&M "mic" stand to got with it. IME the K&M stands and accessories are virtually bomb proof and should last you for the rest of your gigging days.

"Tempo" and "feel" are not the same thing.

I've done it twice to keep a bass playable and twice in the hope of some improvement. Keeping the bass playable: My first bass was second-hand 60s Burns Sonic which had already been heavily modified by a previous owner. My changes were partly to remove the unwanted modifications - there was an extra socket and two controls added to scratch plate which were obviously for controlling some piece of external gear, but of no use to me - and to keep the bass playable as both the original machine heads and the bridge were on their last legs. The bridge was especially problematic as due the design of the bass, the saddles needed to be much higher than possible with the standard BBOT system. I went through three different bridges before settling on a modified 8-string bridge for the string spacing fitted to a 10mm thick slab of mahogany for the height. I also replaced the very scratchy controls, although this wasn't really essential as I never touched any of them - by far the best sound was with the volume and tone controls on full and both pickups on which wired them in series due to the nature of the switch used. I also had a Hondo Alien which is a copy of Kramer's The Duke. The Schaller look-alike machine heads and bridge were very low quality and there therefore replaced with the real components. Trying to make an improvement: I had joined a band that suited fretless bass and had bought a defretted Wesley Acrylic bass for £60 off eBay to see how I got on. Having decided that I could get on with fretless bass I was looking for something better than the Wesley and the Squier VMF Jazz was getting good reviews. I tried on in one of the local instrument retailers and liked it. Unfortunately when I get it home and compared with my other basses the output was very weedy compared with everything else I owned and very lacking in low mids compared with the Wesley. I went through all the standard Fender modifications - Badass bridge, J-Retro Pre-amp but while both were an improvement, it still wan't right. I was contemplating replacing the pickups with some Bartolinis when a Pedulla Buzz came up for sale at a price I couldn't ignore, and Squier was returned to it's original condition and sold. My first 5-string was a Washburn B-105. I thought I'd improve it by replacing the stock pickups and preamp with an EMG system. It made absolutely no difference to the sound at all. Based on all of this I no longer bother with upgrades and modifications to my guitars or basses. If they are not doing what I want I'll sell them and buy something that does. Most of the time the combination of features I want means a custom build is generally better and less hassle.

This is always the way I've done it with backing an live drums. Only the drummer has the click. The rest of the band plays to the drummer. However, this has caused problems in the past when I used to be in a band with a drummer who was to all intents and purposes a human metronome, and had to be reminded that not everyone had is perfect sense of tempo and would need counting through the parts with no drums. i.e. four stick clicks count in wasn't sufficient for me to be able to play 8 bars of guitar intro with no drums (or anything else) and still be in the right place at the start of bar 9!

Playing faster live can also work against you. A friend's band had finally found what they thought was a suitable replacement drummer fro their previous very excellent one. Unfortunately at his first gig they discovered that he suffered terribly from nerves and played MUCH faster than he had in rehearsal. What should have been a 45 minute set was completed in a little over half an hour. The venue wanted to dock their fee because they didn't play for long enough.

Not always. Some songs need the push and pull of variable tempo. Whenever The Terrortones were due to do some recording we would run through all the songs with a click to work out which benefitted from a steady tempo and which didn't. Generally it ended up being about 50/50. We did try programming a variable tempo click to cover the changes, but could never get the transitions to feel right and TBH it was more trouble than it was worth. What we did find very useful was every so often playing all the songs at a much slower speed - usually around 75% tempo, which worked wonders for generally tightening up the playing as a band, and particularly effective when your slowest song was around the 140BPM mark. Also I currently play in two bands that use backing tracks live; one with a drummer playing to a click, the other with programmed drums on the backing. The one with programmed drums has several tempo changes within the course of the songs. This is down to the way we write, as I tend to work out most of the song just by playing the bass line, and therefore I'll unconsciously introduce tempo changes between sections because that's what feels right.