Happy Jack

Now me, I'd have gone with LED side dots ...

The biggest problem with pretty much every rehearsal room I've been in is volume. You have a room roughly the same size as a single garage and you fill it with stacks by Marshall and Ashdown, plus a PA that could handle the main stage at Glastonbury, and then the band plays at gig volume. Well gig volume only works at a gig, in a decent-sized room with carpets and furniture and stuff, and above all with dozens (perhaps hundreds) of bodies absorbing the sound. I've never understood why so many bands are so stupid about this. The only thing that gig volume is good for at a rehearsal is hiding the mistakes ... so why bother rehearsing? Grumpyguts, try insisting (just once) that the whole band turns down to a sensible level. Turn the singer down on the PA to the point where he's at home stereo level, you take the bass down to match, force the guitarist(s) to follow suit, and then the drummer has no choice. I believe that you'll be very pleasantly surprised at the result. And your ears won't be ringing the next morning.

That's pretty much identical to mine, which I bought recently for significantly less than £999! I'm aware of two more of these for sale in the Home Counties right now, both of them listed at £1200. One has been listed for a couple of months now, and the other for nearly a year ... These are staggeringly good basses, though. If you're near Bolton you could do worse than pop in and make an offer.

The Low B string is, in some ways, not like the others. Expect to notice a difference in how flobbadob the Low B is depending on string choice and on scale length. Personally (and YMMV of course) I won't bother with any 5-string bass unless it has a 35" scale length.

I believe you, oh I believe you!

And you're in E. London? Where are these gigs - Wolverhampton?

Mmmmmm ... anal probing.

Erm ... Shirley, that Brandoni bass is made from an acoustic bass guitar, not a classical acoustic guitar. Or am I missing something?

I don't have a UBass any more, but I've played this exact rig using a custom 5-string Howlett uke-bass and also using a DB. It works really well, but in a rather different style than, say, a Barefaced OneTen. My old OneTen was very much a Barefaced. It was ridiculously light, and far louder than you'd expect, the sound projected a long way into the venue, and it worked really well IMHO for rock and similar. My Crazy 8 is a very different beast. The sound is somewhat mellower, but what I really notice is that the sound is far more 'localised' ... it doesn't project so much. This is NOT a criticism. What it means is that, with the cab close to the bass, it just sounds as if the bass is considerably louder. From a DB point of view, especially at smaller venues, that is exactly what I want. It is actually very easy to forget that the DB is being amplified. I bought my Crazy 8 pre-loved, and it turned out to have a 'top hat' fitting. That has proved to be very useful indeed. I can put the cab on a spare PA pole and either use it as the main amplification for a DB gig, or as on-stage monitoring for a rock gig where I'm going through FoH. In this video, that's my Crazy 8 directly behind the guitarist's shoulder: I was sufficiently impressed with the Crazy 8 that I commissioned Guy to build me a Crazy 88, and that very neatly fills any gap between the Crazy 8 and the Markbass 210.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hofner-182-bass-early-sixties-made-in-Germany-vinyl-covered/292592813862?hash=item441fe40726:g:wxAAAOSwQz1bFo~F For me, that's a tad overpriced. They do come up from time to time.

Been gigging long, have you?

Especially the strawberry pink ones ...

Is that tone crystal, or does it just have the usual healing powers?

It's worth remembering that some 'classic' guitar amps started their lives as amps intended for use by bass ...

I wasn't suggesting a re-issue - far from it! Buy an original. It may need some TLC but it will be better in every way, and it will keep its value.

Yup, electrical tape is the way to go. Anyone who thinks it's smart to voluntarily change the settings on their pedals between songs has no business being on stage - get your sound sorted out before the gig, not during it!

Spin cycle ...

All basses are black in the dark. Anyway, why would you be looking at the body of your bass when playing it?

Sorry mate, there's no way that the colour of the bass will make it sound different.

After all these years, I still find myself wondering how Fender can possibly have re-invented such a simple instrument in so many ways. Does an American Standard Player Artiste Roadworn Signature model really sound any different from any other Precision? IME the only things that makes one P sound different from another P are (i) string choice, and (ii) fitting a hot pickup.

No, it doesn't attach, but it IS small enough to fit under the handle of many cabs! I've rehearsed with mine many times, and gigged it a few times (usually when playing gigs where I'm mostly going through the PA), and I haven't had a problem yet. Linus, there's a country band I play with that rehearses at loud but less-than-gig volumes, right on the cusp of should-I-wear-earplugs? I play a Precision through the Elf into a Crazy 88 and it's (i) more than capable of holding its own, and (ii) utterly righteous. Like any good, small cab it's significantly heavier than you think. My Crazy 8 weighs less than my old Barefaced OneTen, but not by that much. The Crazy 88 is definitely heavier.

Really? Can't say as we noticed ... [Whistles unconvincingly, whilst shuffling feet]