Silvia Bluejay

Watch out for politics-related derailments, guys, please. Thanks.

That's quite a sizeable audience, if you decide to play there again...

It's a small private wood, with lots of beeches and a few oaks and fir trees. The guys played for the cameras (recording for band reference only, not intended for publication), for yours truly behind the cameras, for Jack's couple of hundred thousand bees in their hives, and for the occasional jogger or dog walker stopping by for a few minutes. Good fun.

It's not a matter of being easy or difficult, it's the right kind of compliance that I'm after. For instance, Thomastik Infeldt strings are softer/easier than either Chromes or Labellas, and I do love them, but for certain kinds of songs/styles/genres they are too floppy. (I have them on my Hofner violin.)

Roundwounds? Certainly not the case with flats.

D'Addario Chromes and LaBella Low tension flats are my go-to strings. I'll keep your suggestion in mind if I feel like a change.

It's not you. They are unnecessarily stiff. I tried their flatwounds, light gauge, once - and once only! - and they stayed on the bass for half a day before being thrown in the bin.

Excellent stuff.

Lovely.

When you're forced to shop online, as I am, you can always send it back if it's not to your liking - as long as you realise quickly.

Being left-handed, and preferring to buy new rather than second hand, necessarily means buying online unseen. Having started playing in my early 40s means I was old enough to have a reasonable idea of what I liked from the start - no Fenders, no big bodies, no muddy crappy P-style pickup, thin neck, modern sound, 34 inch scale, minimal string spacing. Every bass I bought myself (as opposed to generous presents from @Happy Jack) has been from Thomann, with only one exception (PMT). I've had to send back a couple of defective instruments, which Thomann replaced quickly and with no quibble. The only bricks-and-mortar shop I can think of, which almost every time I visit has a lefty bass I might be interested in buying, is Wunjo's.

My basses all sound different from each other, but I'm damned if I can say for sure that's due to the pickup/strings, active/passive combination as opposed to the actual woods they're made of...

Same here, replaced the original chrome security strap buttons with normal, 'mushroom-shaped' black ones. The screws are a very common size.

I have no knowledge of the Soundcraft, so I can't offer a comparison, but I do use the Behringer XR18, and you can find a lot of favourable comments about it, including mine, in this thread.

Re-do the intonation and adjust the action/saddle height to your liking. There is usually a marked difference between rounds and flats, on the same bass, even when their gauges are similar. Takes a bit of patience at first, but Chromes settle rather quickly.

No, it doesn't, and I believe that is quite normal. The other side has the bass bar. NB, mine's a lefty.

Couple of crappy photos just to show what mine looks like:

My understanding is that the bridge must be level with the f-hole marks, but that's not the end of it. What seems to make a big difference to intonation and playability is the angle of the bridge with respect to the body. Luthier Gary Edwards, who created the instrument, recommends the following. The shape of the bridge is such that it's fully in contact with the body when it (the bridge) leans slightly towards the endpin. In other words, the bridge must not be straight. This is the reference web page in its entirety.

Warwick provides/used to provide one of these in the toolkit that comes/came with their basses. The rounded tip means the truss rod can be tweaked even when using the tool at an angle.

Dear oh dear...

Except perhaps a low F#? @Dood knows what I'm talking about!

If you don't mind the narrower string spacing, playing a 5er allows you to play across rather than along the fretboard. Some people don't see any point/advantage in that, others love it. (I'm in the latter camp.) Nothing, but nothing beats the majesty of the sound from a good, properly amplified, open low B from a 5er.

" Dio's musical career began in 1957, when several Cortland, New York musicians formed the band, "The Vegas Kings". The group's lineup consisted of Dio on bass guitar, Billy DeWolfe on lead vocals, Nick Pantas on guitar, Tom Rogers on drums, and Jack Musci on saxophone." From his Wikipedia page. I knew that, because he would occasionally mention being a bass player in interviews, usually while talking about the rhythm and delivery of his singing lines. Sorely missed. RIP.

Ronnie James Dio.

All the action on this topic is now happening HERE!