BigRedX

It does very much depend on how you look at things. From a music PoV my computers are essentially free as I needed them anyway for my day job. Even so, over the past 15 years I think they've only cost me around £3k - thats £200 a year (although that does take into account what I have made selling off the old models when I've upgraded). On top of that I've paid an additional £400 for Logic, a controller keyboard and the Simmons drum plug-in. All the other music hardware is part of my live rig and was bought first and foremost for the purpose of gigging. Because I work "in the box" and have made a decision to stick mainly to what comes free with Logic, my system never becomes obsolete. My current set up will continue to function until the Mac has a terminal problem, at which point I'll probably upgrade to a Mac Studio or similar. The cost of the computer will be absorbed by my business, so by biggest expense will be when I need to buy the next version of Logic. When that happens my current projects will load straight into the new version and continue to sound exactly the same as they did before I upgraded (as has happened the last two times I upgraded). There's an assumption that hardware never become obsolete, which may be true, but unfortunately there will come a point one day when it will cease to function for no apparent reason at which point you will normally find that it has become impossible or too expensive to be worth repairing and that there is no modern equivalent that sounds the same and is able to load your data from your old device. There's nothing more obsolete that that! And I have discovered this the hard way. Out of interest to everyone using a hardware drum machine how are you backing up your user data (sounds and rhythm patterns)? Do you have a strategy for what to do should your current drum machine suffer a terminal fault?

To me that sounds more like a limitation of your chosen DAW and/or computer. I used to have a dedicated home studio full of musical hardware in it's own room, but these days my studio is my Mac on the desk running logic. Everything is done "in the box". Most of the time I monitor on headphones, but the Mac is also connected permanently to a decent amp and speakers via the optical output which I use when I listen to music while doing the less mentally demanding parts of my work. Programming is mostly done with the mouse and QWERTY keyboard, and the MIDI keyboard only comes out when playing something in is quicker (it connects via USB for data and power and is automatically recognised by Logic when plugged in). For the limited amount of audio recording I do everything goes through the Helix which would be set up anyway if I was playing guitar or bass. I've done composing and programming before just using a laptop and a pair of headphones, and for me the main limitation is the small size of the screen rather than the lack of peripherals.

It probably just meads the truss rod adjusting to compensate for this flat would strings.

Boss made one in the mid 80s - the DF-2 Super Feedbacker and Distortion pedal. I had one which I used with my synth to provide guitar-like sounds. IIRC the "feedback" was generated using a pitch detector to drive a simple sine wave oscillator, and you held down the pedal to activate it. However once activated you were stuck with a single tone feedback and none of the instability you get with the interaction between the amp and guitar. Good for what it did, but not as versatile as a guitar and amp working together, which is why guitarists who want feedback tones and sustain still use a small valve combo located in a suitable place on the otherwise "silent" stage to achieve this.

The two circuits are electrically identical. For me the second one is the more logical way of joining everything up, but the net result of both methods is the same. This illustrates why it is useful to be able to understand simple electrical circuits and not just blindly follow wiring guides.

Cocktail sticks.

But the OP was interested in equipment insurance in the first instance, and while the MU is very good for public liability insurance, IIRC their equipment policy is less good value once you need to cover more than £2k worth that come free with membership.

The Reverend Rumblefish basses had a similar construction, although IIRC the central block ran the whole length of the body.

Joking aside, if I can do it, then anyone can. I made two instruments while I was still at school in the 70s, when information on how to make an electric guitar was far harder to come by then it is now. It was all done entirely with hand tools, except the roughing out of the body shapes which was done by the woodwork teacher on the bandsaw. I probably spent more time sharpening chisel and plane blades then I did actually shaping the wood, but the end results were a perfectly playable solid electric guitar and a balalaika.

But it's not £10k worth of equipment insurance without paying quite a bit extra.

I've also owned basses and guitars made out of all sorts of materials. All of them were perfectly playable and sounded fine. The cheap acrylic-bodied bass I owned out-preformed the more traditional and more expensive wood-made instrument that was supposed to replace it, in every aspect. Wood is also much easier to work that most other materials while still have the necessary structural integrity to withstand string tension. Anyone with a set of decently sharp hand tools can make a usable guitar or bass.

Of course the number of cabs you take to a gig makes no difference to how much stage area you take up and you don't HAVE to plug them all in, plus you'll only really be able to hear to top cab. The Terrortones used to do a number of gigs with a traditional style rock band who had double Marshall cabs stacked all round no matter how big or small the gig was. Their reasoning was that the stack took up no more room on stage than a single 4x12 cab, it lifted the top cab in the stack to ear height, and besides they were all using PowerBrakes as their volume control. That way they had backline that suited the image but could tailor the on-stage volume to suit the venue no matter where they were playing.

Those who want guitar feedback still use an amp albeit a very small one. That's what I've seen recently.

You'd be better off replacing the jack socket on your bass. Use of this type of plug is the reason why it doesn't work well with others any more.

That's fair enough. My computer is also used for my day job so it is permanently switched on and it just takes a couple of seconds to load Logic and I'm ready to work on music rather than graphics. Besides I work on my song ideas on the bass or guitar first and don't involve the computer until I have at least the verse and chorus music worked out and a good idea in my head of what the drums and any other instruments are going to be doing. When I went back to using the computer with my bands I made a conscious decision that wasn't going to use any third party plug-ins, because the ones that come bundled with Logic were more than adequate for everything I would want to do, and IME there are more than enough options available for the composition process. I did break that rule once because I wanted Simmons drum sounds and I didn't have the right variations in samples I made when I used to own an SDSV so I bought a plug-in that emulates this in a fully adjustable way. I also found that hardware was the quickest way to designed obsolescence. I used to have a lot of high-tech recording and sound generating devices bought when I was building my "home studio" during the 90s. Over the years the vast majority of these have failed usually in some very expensive and/or non-repairable way and often the only way to replicate what they were doing was to buy the same thing second hand and hope that it lasted a little bit longer. Also most of them took all their sounds and settings with them when they stopped working, because although I tried to back them up when ever possible I didn't remember every time I created a new sound/patch and for most the backup would only be of use with another identical device. I also learnt that I simply don't have the skills to be a good enough recording engineer to ever be happy with something I have done myself, and therefore, for me, composing and recording are now two entirely separate operations.

In the days when I did play in a noisy band with boisterous audiences I spent most of the time trying to tune them out (especially when they all decided to bounce up and down out of time with the drums). IEMs would have been more useful than ever back then. It has always been my rather harsh opinion that if you need "trouser flapping" sound levels or audience feedback to get the appropriate level of "excitement" as a musician, then the songs you are play probably aren't good enough.

What do you want the drum machine for? Stand alone units are mostly for performing live when you don't want to take computer on stage, although all modern drum machines are essentially computers anyway and so are no more or less reliable. Alternatively they are for people who want to tweak the sounds and play the pads over the top, while a basic pattern is playing. For almost everyone else, using a DAW with full MIDI capabilities it far more flexible and versatile. In this case Logic can't be beaten for built-in features. For sounds you have Drum Kit Designer and Drum Machine Designer; then there is Drummer (which will create a drum part based on the rhythm of the instruments already recorded), as well as full MIDI manipulation of the note data for the drum parts. To get the best out of your DAW drum programming you do need to be using one that has its roots in MIDI sequencing, such as Logic, Cubase or Performer, rather than one which is basically a multi-track recorder with some MIDI functions bolted on (Reaper, Pro-Tools). One of the most useful tools I've found for replicating the feel of a real drummer is to sample a drum part that has the right "groove" and using a beater detector (I use Recycle! because it's what I'm most familiar with but most good DAWs now have similar functions built in) which turns the timing information in to a MIDI pattern which can then be used to quantise the feel into your existing drum parts (and other other MIDI instruments you are using).

One of the bands I play with made the decision to completely ditch the backline last year. Since the lineup is just Synth, Bass VI and Vocals with the drums and second synth player being performed by computer it was a fairly easy decision to make. It also looks as though we'll be on IEMs before the end of this year.

Unless we are playing music that absolutely requires a particular specialised bass guitar we could all make do with a modern budget precision bass and anything else is simply vanity or pretension. Also half the punters at a typical covers band pub gig wouldn't notice if you turned up and mimed with a tennis racket.

For one band we have ditched the backline completely and just use the PA foldback for on stage and FoH for the audience. It has resulted in a much better overall sound both for the band and the audience. Having had a discussion with the synth player about it, we'll probably be on IEMs before the end of the year. For the other band I play in I have an RCF745 powered cab which I use for rehearsals and for the occasional gig where the quality of the foldback is unknown or where we have been asked to supply backline for the other bands (I have a couple of generic bass amp patches on my Helix for them to use). However most of the time we are playing reasonably big venues with excellent FoH and foldback systems, so I rarely have to take the RCF to gigs.

And the plastic bits and the carbon fibre bits and all the other non wood or metal bits...

Like this? Made by Sandberg. Fantastic finish IMO. Pity it's been applied to such an otherwise boring looking instrument.

It's still a visual copy of someone else's design. My method of deciding who is going to build a custom instrument for me (I've had two guitars and two basses) is not to seemingly pick a luthier at random and persuade them to buy into my vision, but to go to someone who is already producing something very close to what I want and just add little tweaks to their basic design. These days there are so many luthiers all building unique instruments that there will already be someone somewhere producing something that is 90% of the way there. You'll always get a better instrument if yours has had the required number of prototypes made first rather than going for something never made before and trusting to luck. AFAICS all the other features have been done elsewhere and before. The hidden fret ends is nothing new, it's always been possible if the manufacturers were prepared to take the time and effort to do it. However mass-produced instruments are built to a price point and hiding the fret ends is simply not economic if you are churning out 100s of instruments a day on a production line.

But Roger Sadowsky's USP is that his basses are essentially sup'ed-up Fenders. He's said as much in interviews. There's nothing wrong with Fender copies if that's what you want (I don't). But I aways wonder just how many versions of basically the same thing with slight variations the market can stand and how you decide on one luthier's Fender copy over another.

If you are not already a member you need to join the "It's Goth Up North" Facebook page which cover most of the gigs in and around Sheffield/Leeds/York.