Norris

Borrow a 5er and temporarily remove the G string? You could stick a thin line of tape down the fretboard to make it look like the string is still there 🤪 I'd lend you mine but I need it for gigs

Glad you got to the bottom of it! Also glad there's nothing wrong with your Sire - I love mine

Well you didn't mention that carbuncle... 😂

Similar to Baloney's suggestion, a hair band/elastic band wound around and in between the tuners will help eliminate those as the source of the rattle

No, I feel the same to a certain extent. It's great to play when I gig though - love it! I just don't really want to touch in between gigs

I gig quite frequently, so it's nice to have a couple of weeks off. I very rarely touch a bass between gigs and really don't miss it

Our rehearsal rate is certainly less than one per year. Most stuff we just listen at home and play at the gig There's nothing more demoralising imho than rehearsing just for the sake of it - because every Wednesday is band rehearsal night or whatever

One done well. Three at most, unless they are familiar/easy songs

If you're on a tight budget it's worth checking out the classified ads on here. There are always sets of pre-loved strings available in all sorts of brands and gauges. Personally I'm another d'Addario XL user

That's the ticket! Best strap, best length 😂

You've been playing for 20 years and still need to look at the fretboard? Have a word with yourself 😛 The lower, the cooler. However I have mine kind of medium though - comfort is king

When the remote button on the smoke machine gets gummed up with old beer and sticks on, and you only notice when your bandmates are yelling you from inside the bank of fog... 🤣😂🤣

Higher grades still count towards UCAS points, certainly in classical music exams

Shhhh! Everyone - stop keep recommending Rumbles! Otherwise everyone else will sound as great as I do

I've never carried a spare bass in nearly 40 of regular gigging. Strings, yes. Batteries, yes. Spare bass, no. The only things I've ever had go wrong apart from very rare string breakages, were amp/speaker related. I don't carry a spare one of those either, for the 2 or 3 failures in 2000+ (conservative guess) gigs

"Love the idea! I'll make sure my phone is fully charged up so we can live stream it" ...should stick a nail in that coffin lid

Apologies for the pedantry but "WD" actually stands for water displacement. Yes, it lubricates. Yes, people use it to try to free up rusty parts. However you'd do much better with a dedicated penetrating fluid like Plus-Gas if your nuts are seized up

I made the last one from a piece of bone from a luthier supplier. Use hacksaw, metal files and progressively finer sandpaper for shaping. Beware - it smells while you're working it. Sticking the sandpaper to something flat will help greatly (small MDF offcut perhaps?). I find aluminium oxide sandpaper nice to work with and you can buy quite fine grits for lovely smoothness Use proper nut files (Hosco are good value). They are slightly spendy. Don't be tempted to buy cheap ones - they will be rubbish Top tip for getting the slot depths right: sand a pencil down half way, so it's as if it's sawn down the length. Place it flat on top of the frets then draw a line on your nut. Cut to just above the line, don't go too deep at first - you can take more off, it's not so easy to put it back on. Try it with strings, take them off and fettle: rinse & repeat until happy. Finally use a couple of dots of superglue to hold the nut in place - it will hold it firm for general use, but still be relatively easy and clean to take off if you ever need to

We've used a pair of Mackie SRM 450's for quite a few years. We only have vocals going through them and the occasional hint of kick drum, but they have been great. Around £300ish each second hand - bargain. Ideal for the pubs and clubs we play in

The chap's opening sentence was "I'm getting an old git". Please think of his poor old back. TEs are so heavy they have their own gravitational field! You wouldn't go far wrong with a Fender Rumble though. Lovely and light. Squier are pretty good, as are the Harley Bentons (Thomann's own brand). Buy second hand if you can and you'll be able to move them on with very little financial loss if you change your mind

If you want to play a 5-string after playing 4's for some time then you really need to "take the plunge". I bought myself a lovely Sire P7-5 back in January (I wanted an affordable 5-string "P") and have played it exclusively since. It probably took 2-3 months to feel properly comfortable on it, and took a fair change of technique in my plucking hand. Gone is the "hard anchor" thumb on the P pup and I'm now a lot more fluid, using a lot of floating thumb too. It's a lovely bass btw. Be nice to your band mates though - just because you can play a low B now doesn't mean you need to spend all of the gig down there

Absolutely not. I feel like I'm playing better than ever - after 38 years of gigging... and counting. So, I may not feel like it every time I load the car up, especially after a full day's work on a Friday. I always enjoy it though and I'm far from ready to call it a day. Buying a 5 stringer in January has given me something new to focus on this year and has done wonders for my technique too

No Venues like that don't deserve to survive. You'll be doing yourselves a disservice, and every other band that plays there Unless you need a free rehearsal session... Edit: £40 per person for a gig?! I wouldn't put the kit in the car for that! Have some self-respect please