Dan Dare

Bill's advice is good. If money's really tight, a Celestion Vintage 30 is a decent choice (they are what is used in the Harley Benton cabs tauzero refers to above). A bit brighter and slightly less full/mature sounding than the Greenback, but a good driver.

This. Pickups are the electric guitar/bass world's equivalent of hi-fi's magic cables.

Oh, you know, humour. If it traumatised you, go and lie down in a darkened room for a bit and I'm sure you'll be fine.

You'll have to try it and see. A lot of preamp pedals do not produce enough output to drive a power amp directly. With that said, many PA speakers have mic-level inputs, so it could be fine.

Much has been said about playing for payment vs. playing for the love of music. I get that, but there is an important distinction to be drawn. If I can play whatever I like at times of my choosing in convivial surroundings to nice people, I am happy not to earn money from it. However, if I have to play stuff I don't care for (or even actively dislike), wear a DJ, watch the clock, put up with grief, etc, etc, I expect to be paid. The amount I expect to be paid will be directly proportional to the amount of grief I have to endure. Doesn't seem unreasonable.

It's tragic, isn't it? Even people who have enough nous to acquire some wealth don't seem immune to being fleeced. I have no doubt that PubCos have ensured their contracts are legally watertight, even if they don't conform to any standards of decency. To be fair to my village, there is little of the distrust towards new pub tenants to which you refer. The pub in question is the most popular. It's a nice enough place and people use it. It's better than the other two, one of which is the local four ale, where the lads go to play pool and have a scrap on Saturday night, whilst the other flies the flag of St George and is patronised by those who don't like foreigners - i.e. anyone from more than 10 miles away.

Fair points. I'd add another, which is the emergence of PubCos, which sprang up when breweries were required to sell their pubs. PubCos lease the pubs and tie tenants into contracts that force them to pay huge rents and buy all their food and drink through the PubCo at grossly inflated prices. At the same time, tenants must pay for maintenance, repairs and improvements out of their own pockets. One of the three pubs in my village is owned by a PubCo. In the three years I've lived here, it has had three tenants. Each year, the pub will go dark and signs will appear outside the building, saying "Business opportunity. Low cost of entry", etc and another gullible couple, with little to no knowledge of business, thinks "We've always dreamed of running a pub. It's a licence to print money". So they sink their savings into it, re-decorate, fix the leaking roof, install a big screen telly with round the clock sports, yada, yada. A year later, the rent (which was pitched low to attract them in the first place) suddenly gores through the roof and they have to throw in the towel. They leave to lick their wounds and stack shelves in the local Lidl, getting back none of the money they sank into the place and the PubCo advertises for a new victim. Not really a thread derail, because it's one of the reasons pubs have little budget to spend on music, etc.

True in some cases, but there are more originals bands than there are decent venues to play, so supply and demand has an effect. A band with little to no following that wants to get its music in front of people has little choice a lot of the time.

If you want a very compact head, that means a small case (little metal to conduct away/dissipate heat and certainly no heat-sink), components packed tightly together (little to no air around them to dissipate heat), it's going to need a fan. If the fan has to be very small to fit in a tiny amp, it will need to run at high speed to move sufficient air, which will make it noisier than a larger fan running at lower speed. Class D may run cooler than AB, etc, but it will still build up heat over time and that heat needs to be got rid of. I played through an Elf for the first time the other week at a jam night. It was paired with a couple of BF 1x10s. It was competent and did a decent job for its size, but I wasn't hugely impressed. Given that "normal" class D heads are pretty small and light, I don't see the benefit of going really tiny.

This is pretty much how it is for me. I have had brief periods of playing for a living, but most of the time, I've had a reasonable day job. Now I'm comfortably retired, I don't need to earn from playing. On some occasions (a friend's wedding, birthday bash or similar), I will turn out for nothing and offer my sound system for the disco to save them hiring someone in, but I expect the other members of my band, who don't know the people, to be paid, obviously. For the rest, it depends on circumstances. If I can play whatever I like in a nice place to people I like who treat me well/feed and water me, I will play for little money. If I am expected to play what people want, dress formally, put up with drunks hassling me, etc. the price goes up. Like Chris, if someone is making money from an event, I expect a share of that. That applies to "charity" gigs, too, which we get asked to do sometimes. If it's something I believe in, I may do it for little or no fee, but I don't expect to make an actual loss and will insist on petrol/expenses at minimum. If they want my PA, however, I want paying (it cost me well into 5 figures and I don't schlepp it for nowt).

You aren't really running a pre/power rig if you're expecting your bass to drive a power amp directly. I've not come across a bass that will do that. Onboard active pre's do not deliver enough poke to do the job, in my experience.

Dirty Poops

The M (MOSFET) version is about £70 cheaper than the T and there is little difference (basically a 12AX7/ECC83 valve on the input stage of the T). I had the M and could hear virtually no tonal variation between it and a pal's T. Great value amp.