BigRedX

Interesting about the new springs being too big. I suspect this may be due to the Squier having a slightly thinner body compared with the Fender models. I found that this was the case with my Squier VMJ when I tried to fit a John East J-Retro pre-amp and discovered that the control cavity was too shallow and I had to very carefully route an additional 1.5mm depth in order for it to fit properly without shorting on the shielding. I would suggest measuring the overall body and vibrato cavity thicknesses and see if you can do the same just where the spring fits without compromising the structure of the body. I'd be interested in knowing how you get on with these new springs. On both the Bass VIs I have with vibrato mechanisms, the heavier strings and increased break angles have rendered them too stiff to operate easily. Also have you tried adjusting the pickup heights to compensate for the volume differences between the different pickups? I had to adjust all of mine when I shimmed the neck. However I also use a bit of compression and drive on all my sounds along with using different pickups with very different effects combinations, so any differences in basic volume for each pickup are not really noticeable.

IME bass guitars require a degree of dirt to make them sit properly in most band mixes. The first time I heard a selection of isolated bass guitar tracks from classic songs I was surprised by just how much drive/distortion they had on them even though in the mix I had always thought that they sounded clean. These days the main reason for having a "clean" bass amp is that you want to apply a specific drive sound to the bass using some other device and don't want the sound of the amp to interfere with that, and TBH in that case you are probably best off with either an FRFR or going direct into the PA. Maybe if the OP could supply some examples of what they consider to be a classic "clean" bass sound that would help?

IIRC my Squier VMJ bass was a very snug fit in both the Hiscox standard bass cases I had at the time. However the cases were all supplied with padding specific to the instruments I got them with (Gus G3 bass and FretKing Esprit Guitar), so a generic standard bass case might be different.

The only way I will go to any kind of festival is if I was playing, and be there only while I was playing.

I have one bass and a spare for each of the two bands I play in. I play completely different bases for each band (5-string for one and Bass VI for the other) and there is very little crossover between the two. At a pinch I could use the Bass VI for both bands but it wouldn't be a pleasant playing experience for the band where I use the 5-string. My two 5-string basses are essentially identical both being Gus G3s, but I tend to use the red one because it looks better on stage. My bass VIs are completely different which is a bit of problem, as I use the Eastwood Hooky most of the time, and it's backup - a Burns Barracuda - has much tighter string spacing. I intend to rectify this by selling the Burns and buying another Hooky as soon as funds allow.

If there are more than 4 Snapshots available in a Preset but you don't have access to footswitches for more than 4 of them on the device, you should be able to get around this using MIDI messages and a suitable MIDI foot controller. I don't know about the HX Effects, but on the Helix Floor MIDI CC69 is used to access Snapshots within a Preset with a value 000 for Snapshot 1, 001 for Snapshot 2 and so on. I use this function to gain access to Snapshots 5-8 on the Helix Floor without needing the change my switch assignment from Snapshots 1-4 on the lower row and a full bank of Presets on the top row. However I do all my Preset and Snapshot selection from the computer that plays back our drums and second synth backing, so I can't give you any advice on a suitable foot controller. However have a look at the spec for the Behringer FCB1010 which seems to have a good selection of features.

I went to "folk guitar" evening classes for 3 years when I started playing at the age of 13. The first year was pretty much useless as my £10 catalogue guitar was virtually unplayable and I didn't really find the songs we were learning very inspirational. However during the summer I got hold of The Beatles Complete songbook and something clicked and I went almost overnight from being unable to play anything to being able to competently strum my way through all the songs in the book that I knew. The following two years of evening classes were also pretty much a waste of time from a learning PoV since I found I was now by far the best player in the class (that's not saying much), but I went with a couple of school friends who would end up being my first band so for me it was mostly a social thing. Since that first year I have taught myself everything I have needed in order to be able to play guitar, bass and synth, by reading about it, by watching and asking others in the various bands I've been in, or simply by figuring it out myself by trial and error. I'm still pretty average technically, but I'm good enough to be able to play the sort of music I want to play, and most things I want to do that aren't within immediate technical reach can be achieved by practice. I have enough "theory" in order to know what notes ought to work best in a given place in a piece of music, and know what most of the dots mean on a score even if I can't decipher it fast enough to be able to sight read.

I get a lift off our synth player - he lives less than 10 minutes drive from me. Between the two of us we own all the gear the band need to play or rehearse. If I just needed to bring the gear I play (bass, Helix plus leads) I'd either walk or get the bus for rehearsals and local gigs. For out of town gigs the whole band plus our roadie/merch seller and all our gear fit in the synth player's car.

No. I disagree completely. We're musicians. As I said the music should be the most important thing. The fact that it was never even mentioned in the OP is enough for me to be worried. If you think the music is utterly irrelevant I wouldn't want to have you in my band either.

My first encounter with Sleaford Mods was when they played an all-day "festival" at a local music venue. They were lower down on the bill than the band I was in at the time, and IIRC they played to a mostly empty room. My recollection of the gig was that it was interesting for a couple of numbers but that was it. Personally I couldn't really see the attraction of a fairly incomprehensible shouty bloke and his mate checking his email (but that's just my musical taste). The point is that there was a time when most of the audience at their gigs wasn't that bothered, and they would do well to remember that.

What is it you want out of being in a band? An outlet for your artistic expression? An extra £50 a week? Simply the chance to get out of the house for an evening? Where do you live? In a large town or city with a vibrant music scene, or somewhere out in the sticks, miles from any venues and rehearsal rooms? What kind of music do you want to play - originals or covers? and what genre(s)? and if it's originals do you need to have a major creative input? What can you bring to the band other than a bass guitar and (hopefully) the ability to play it? Only once you have answered all those questions can you start to look for the right band for you. Interestingly in the descriptions of the bands in the OP, absolutely nothing was said about the music each was playing. Reading between the lines I'll assume that the first was originals and the third covers but I still don't know what genres. But that says to me that the OP is lacking in musical direction. As someone from the other side of the audition process, a lack of musical direction is nearly always a massive problem, because the musician won't be sufficiently focused on the specific music the band want to play. For me the music always comes first and I'll worry about the other things afterwards - that's what the audition is for you are auditioning the band as much as the band is auditioning you. From my own perspective, I've never had a problem either finding a suitable band or finding suitable musicians to form one. While I live in a decent sized city, it's not really on a par with others for well-known musical talent, I'm quite picky about the sort of music I want to play and I'm at best of very average technical ability, but none of these things have been a obstacle for me. However IME as a musician you need to be aware of the music scene in your locality and in particular amongst the kinds of bands that you would like to be the bassist for. It is my experience that most bands like to stick with people they know, but that can just as easily be the bloke who come to all their gigs as well as the bassist that one of the band has worked with in the past. For the two bands I currently play in, I knew one of them from having shared a couple of gigs with them in my Terrortone days, and having enjoyed their set was following them on Facebook so I saw when they advertised for a bass player. I probably wasn't the most technically proficient bassist they auditioned, but the band knew who I was, and in turn I knew about the kind of music they were playing the direction they were talking about taking the band. The other band I found by placing an ad on JMB where I was very specific about the kind of music I wanted to play and the level of commitment I was looking for in a band. It took almost a year before anyone got in touch, but they were exactly the sort of band I wanted to join, and unsurprisingly I was exactly the sort of band member they wanted.

Minging.

And if the flow of the set on stage is important to you, I'd also suggest that unless your two basses are very similar, that you do at least the occasional rehearsal just using the "spare" so you can be confident that you can dial in any EQ and gain changes it might require and that you can play everything in the set using it. For one of my bands I play Bass VI and my main bass is an Eastwood Hooky (Shergold copy) and the backup is a Burns Barracuda. The Burns has much narrower string spacing than the Eastwood, and for that reason is a lot more challenging to play. Until I can afford to replace the Burns with another Eastwood, I make sure that I can play everything to a suitable standard on it even if it's just a play-along to the drum track at home once a month.

In 40+ years over gigging I've only ever had to cancel twice due to not being able to get to the venue. The first was when the band van broke down just outside Stoke on the way to Liverpool. RAC were unable to get us going and by the time the recovery truck arrived the gig was over so we got them to take us back to Nottingham. The second was when I woke up feeling very rough on the day of the gig. Normally I'd have taken a handful of painkillers etc and played my way through it, but this being a couple of months post-lockdown, I didn't think that was acceptable behaviour. The band waited until mid-afternoon and when I still didn't fee any better, told the promoter we couldn't play. Other than that the bands I have been in have always been able to get to the gig somehow despite the weather and/or adverse traffic conditions. The next worst was going to a gig in Birmingham when we were stuck on the motorway for 2 hours due to an accident, and missed our performance slot. Luckily the promoter was able to persuade the band who should have been playing after us (the much better-known Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons) to play first and we got to the venue just in time to get our gear on stage and play, before the headliners were due on.

I've never had a bass fail at a gig, only broken strings, and while I could fit a new string mid-gig, you can guarantee it won't go as smoothly as it does at home, and it looks completely unprofessional. Plus when you've only got 30 minutes for your set you don't want anything unnecessary eating into that time. It's only happened 3 times IIRC, but the first time it happened I'd never even considered that it might be a possibility, so not only did I not have spare bass, but I didn't even have a spare set of strings, and ended up having to use the headlining band's bass which was a Violin Bass copy strung with ancient flats and on a strap so long in hung somewhere just above my knees (at the time I wore my bass at chest height and used a twangy round-wound sound). Before the next gig, not only had I bought two sets of strings, but also a spare bass. Since then I've always taken a spare instrument unless if there has been no room for it in the band transport.

For me the vibrato unit problem was two-fold. 1. Once I had fitted the heavier E and A strings the various forces required to cause the vibrato mechanism to function, and even more importantly to return to the correct pitch, simply became too great. Ideally heavier strings should mean a stiffer spring and that would make the mechanism even more rigid. 2. Even with the original lighter strings the degree of "wobble" was still so subtle that it was essentially lost in the band mix. I had exactly the same problem with the Burns Barracuda, which has a different (more Strat-like) vibrato mechanism.

Not my experience at all. In the days before Speakon connectors I used 2 core orange mains cable to make up speaker leads for my band so it was obvious what they were and wouldn't get used as signal cables. The last time I went looking for any it was all 3 conductor only.

For me a set of Newtones and a shim was sufficient to get it playable enough to use. I found that as soon as I fitted the heavier strings and increased the break angle over the bridge and the vibrato mechanism became inoperable. If you really want to make sure the bridge doesn't wobble about at all have a look at fitting collars made from plastic or metal pipe off-cuts around the bridge posts. Much cheaper than a replacement bridge. As for upgrading the pickups it will depend how you intend to use it. I have 3 Bass VIs (Squier, Burns Barracuda and Eastwood Hooky) and play Cure/Joy Division/New Order type bass in a post punk/goth band where, even though the bass is prominent in the mix, by the time I've applied the appropriate amount of EQ, drive, chorus and delay using my Line6 Helix the different basses are virtually indistinguishable from each other. I've now abandoned my Squier in favour of the wider necked (and much more expensive) Eastwood Hooky.

I'd rather have this Travis Bean bass.

Depends on the gig and how the band are getting there. Ideally one and a spare, but sometimes if we are travelling light there won't be room. TBH in over 40 years of gigging I've only needed a spare bass on three occasions (and didn't have one on only one, where I didn't even have a spare set of strings and I had to borrow the headlining band's bass), unlike when I was playing guitar and it was a rare gig when I didn't break at least 1 string. The most I've taken to a gig was 5 - 2 fretted and 2 fretless basses and a spare guitar for the guitarist who didn't have one.

I think @Bassassin would be interested in this and may have some additional information.

The passive tone control rolls off the top end (based on the value of the capacitor used). It also adds a very slight resonant peak at the cut off frequency.

Personally I'm glad that my "rig" has been reduced to a single FRFR which hardly ever leaves the rehearsal room as most of the time the PA does all the "lifting" for me. Regarding reliability I've owned valve, solid state and class D amps. Nearly all have worked perfectly. The only failures in over 40 years of playing have been an all-valve amp that went pop in quite a spectacular way mid set, and a class D that suffered from a well-known design fault.

Live albums occupy a weird niche in performance terms. Most of the time if you make a mistake playing a gig it's over and gone in a fraction of a second, and most of the audience will never even have noticed it. However once you capture that performance for posterity, it's a different proposition. If a mistake is obvious, then I think most musicians would want to fix it before making the recording available to the public. Even if none of the performances required individual attention, the recording will have been mixed at leisure, often with the same attention to detail that a studio album would have received. On top of that most live albums will have been compiled from multiple gigs - in the case of WOA the just under 2 hours of album represents the best taken from 90 hours of recordings - so there is always some degree of artifice.

The concerts that made up Wings Over America (album) and Rock Show (film) were recorded on multi-track tape (probably 24-track) using one of the many mobile studios that were popular for live recordings in the 70s, so having a different mix to that heard FoH with the bass guitar louder would have been simple. How does the mix compare with the audio only version on WOA? Like most "live" albums of the time, various parts were overdubbed afterwards, in the case of WOA specifically the backing vocals, but anything else that required attention would have been touched up if necessary. Both releases were complied from multiple concerts and in the case of Rock Show it is possible that footage from a different performance to the audio was cut to fit, if the best audio and visual performances didn't come from the same gig. Very few "live" recordings of any kind are done direct to stereo, even when they are being broadcast in real time, the broadcast mix will be done separately to the FoH mix, and nearly always recorded to multi-track to allow for the possibility of fixing errors and adjusting the balance at a later date for release or rebroadcast.