peteb

I put together loads of them. I thought that they looked alright, but not a single one worked. I ended up getting a tech to re-do everyone of them. He originally said that he would just fix what I had done as a favour, but ended up saying he would have to charge me £5 a cable because they were taking so long to get them to work. Despite that virtually every single one failed after a number of gigs. I'm afraid that they are way too much of a hassle / risk for a very marginal gain, certainly not feasible for live work.

The story I heard was Chad Wackerman. I think that most of the band apparently hated Scott Thunes!

Yep, that happened to me, useless on a gig. No useful advice I'm afraid. After a while, I just cut my losses and swapped all my solderless patch leads out to Van Damme soldered ones.

If you are going to go onstage then you need to engage the audience. Having some level of performance skills will certainly help (OK, jazz maybe an exception). The ironic thing is that I didn't watch the whole of the video in the OP because... it was very boring...!

Win-win

Yea, way before 2008, it was when the Czech built Euros first became a thing. Always fancied an American Spector, but never owned one. I know people who swear by them. I played streamers for years; rock solid basses that worked really well for the hard rock stuff I was playing. I switched to more traditional Fender style basses when I started picking up more blues gigs, as they kinda looked and sounded more appropriate.

I was very underwhelmed when I played a couple of Euros when they first came out and didn't think that they were as good as the two Warwick Streamers that I was gigging at the time, but I've got a mate (a really good player) who swears by his American NS Spectors. I always fancied one, but couldn't justify the cost when I had a couple of Streamers that pretty much did the same thing.

Yea, I had this discussion with you when I picked up a bass from you. The Rebop isn't a bad bass by any means, but needs some decent pickups. Having said that, it just doesn't compare to my go-to Xotic basses.

I've got a 5 string Rebop. I got it for potential live work for a project that has an album I'm on. They are intending to tune down a whole step for gigs, so I got the Rebop as it has a 35" scale. Yes, it does have a bit of neck dive and the tone is nothing special (I may upgrade the pickups if the project really takes off), but it does play quite nicely. It's one that I will sell if the band doesn't happen (quite likely as it has lost a certain amount of momentum due to the pandemic / lockdown), so I'm afraid its not really a keeper for me.

Presumably you would have Rick Savage from Def Leppard in there somewhere - he was on Sheffield United's books as a kid.

The thing is, the more gigs you do, the more you know what the risks are and what you can easily carry to ensure the gig goes without any undue hassle. For example, I always carry a spare strap with straplocks and another cheap strap without. This is because a couple of times other people have had a disaster with a strap, or we have wanted someone to sit in on a gig and having a spare guitar strap to hand has saved the day. The reason I carry a box of batteries is that it is cheaper to buy a box of top quality procell batteries than it is to buy 3 or 4 ordinary duracells. If anyone else has forgotten to bring a battery then its no issue, nor do I have to remember to pop to the supermarket to buy an overpriced pack of batteries every time I have a gig and have had to change one.

As guitar players often do. If you ever play with one who uses a Floyd Rose you will want them to bring at least two spare guitars! To me, if you are travelling in a van or your own car, then its a no-brainer to chuck in a spare bass. If you are sharing transport or getting taxis, etc, or if you are playing festivals where you can always borrow a spare in an emergency and there may be an issue keeping track of gear then, sometimes you just have to rely of taking the one bass.

Not long actually. Active basses tend to work at full power then go very suddenly. I do change batteries long before I really need to. Boxes of industrial quality Duracell 9v batteries are pretty cheap on eBay.

Don't get me wrong, there are times that I only take a passive Fender to a gig. But usually I will take a spare, especially the big gigs. I've only needed the spare four times in 40 years, but that has included two of the biggest gigs that I have ever played!

If someone like @casapete brings a spare bass, then perhaps you should at least consider it too.

Changing a battery is not big deal, but it is not so easy to sort a jack socket failing or a more general wiring issue. As I said, four times in 40 years, but a couple of those were among the biggest gigs that I've ever played! When I first started gigging, I just had a P bass. When I first joined a band that really gigged a lot, a condition of them asking me to join was that I got a spare bass.

One spare 9V battery?? I always have a box of Duracell 9v batteries in my gigbag and another in my spares box!

You can't say it won't happen to you, because if you do enough gigs then eventually it will. Having said that, if I find myself obliged to take just one bass then I will bring a passive.

I even bring at least two spare tee shirts to the gig! This has come in use when the drummer spilt something on himself and had to borrow one to do the gig in...!

Yes, they all bring spares

For most gigs that is pretty much what I do. There are a few gigs where it is impractical to take all the spares you would like and you end up just taking one bass, but there is no way I would play a big gig without a spare of virtually everything. The last time I needed to use my spare bass was at at a big bike rally to 2,500 punters (somewhat bigger than the average crowd that I play to these days - it's always the big gigs where something goes wrong). Middle band out of three on the bill, no soundcheck as the headline band had turned up late then took forever doing their soundcheck, went on stage to find no sound from the bass (it turned out to be a wire that had come loose when changing a battery - £5 job to repair, but needed a soldering iron). I pulled the spare bass out of my gigbag and no one knew that there was an issue. So what would you have done if your bass had gone down in front of 2,500 punters??

I’ve been gigging for 43 years now and in all that time I’ve needed a spare amp or a spare bass four times each. Obviously, these have included some of the biggest and most important gigs I have ever done (including having to use my spare bass in the gig with the biggest audience I’ve played to the past fifteen years – the drummer didn’t even realise I had used the spare until he saw the video later). Fortunately, I’ve nearly always carried a spare bass unless there is a reason that makes it completely impractical. Carrying a spare amp is less practical, but I generally have had one to hand. These days I carry a DI and one of those Trace Elliot micro amps in my gigbag. It isn’t really loud enough for proper gig volumes, but it sounds OK and will get you out of trouble if disaster strikes…

I'm not so sure. There are lots of people who are sick of watching Netflicks and are itching to be in a pub with other humans. It could well be like 100 years ago after the Spanish Flu, when people flocked to live entertainment throughout the twenties. The massive demand for the festivals being announced seems to suggest that this is possible. Against that, you have pubs and other venues closing down and the real possibility of a long period of flirting with recession. The truth is that no one really knows how it will pan out. I suspect that there may well be a downward pressure of fees for bands, even if there are gigs going ahead. I was reasonably optimistic when they announced a pretty sensible roadmap of easing the pandemic restrictions following a vaccination programme that seems to be working out pretty well. But the idea of large-scale festivals with tens of thousands of punters going ahead in the summer is a case of much too much, much too soon. I’m hearing rumours of these festivals having potentially serious issues with getting insurance. I saw something on Facebook that said, ‘we’re going from two people staying six feet away from each to six people sharing a two man tent, sharing some dodgy coke they’ve just bought from a complete stranger’. For me, such large scale events should be at least a year away, when we have more idea of what the long term rates of infection are and have a better idea of what the ‘new normal’ will look like.

Back in lockdown by October then

I'm not really into this type of music, but I always thought that this was a cool track (feat. the Great Durga McBroom)