Dan Dare

Not great where I live (Hants), but I don't expect it to be. Specialised items tend to be thin on the ground away from major centres of population, unsurprisingly. Say, for example, that one in ten thousand people play the bass and so will have the occasional instrument to sell. In the Greater London area, with approx 10 million inhabitants, there are likely to be a few hundred to choose from at any one time. Move to where I live and you'll find a couple of dozen at best. Better players (excluding the rich and famous who have bought a mansion in the country) tend to live in major population centres because that's where most gigs are. Unless you want a used Squier, there ain't likely to be a lot to choose from.

This. we can only guess, which is not a good idea with anything electrical. Bite the bullet and take it to a competent tech.

Recording rehearsals is very useful. We always do it. We're fortunate, in that our drummer has a home studio in his garden where we can rehearse, so it's straightforward for him to prepare reasonable mixes of rehearsal sessions. But even a simple recording that isn't mixed is helpful. Just set up a portable recorder with a couple of mics. The result will, of course, depend on everyone playing at a sensible volume. I agree with comments above that people should learn parts beforehand and use rehearsal time to stitch it all together, iron out bugs, etc. A recording is valuable as an aide memoire and to check everything works, the key is correct and so on. It also gives you something to play along with at home.

Odd that nobody would bat an eyelid at buying and selling shoes (to cite a random and completely unrelated example) for profit. Why should basses be any different? Perhaps I'm missing something.

Once again, Bill goes above and beyond with advice and help. Mods, please make him a Grand Master. He probably won't be fussed, but it's the least BC can do. Edited to add: Have since found he's already a GM. Just wanted to record my appreciation of his generosity in sharing his knowledge and expertise. Good on ya, Bill.

I'm not putting down Chinese manufacturing per se, just the cheap and nasty end of it. The best Chinese-made stuff rivals anything produced in the world. Plenty of reputable firms have stuff built there, but it will be to their standards and you will have a proper guarantee and some comeback if anything goes wrong. The things I referred to were "50 quid Chinese no-name jobbies" that you can buy on Etsy, Temu and the like. In China, the nickname for such junk is tofu dreg. It's certainly true that you pay a premium for the name for stuff from AKG, Sennheiser, Shure and established brands. However, you can be sure it will do the job. You may well be able to find something cheaper that performs as well, but it won't cost a fraction of the price of the branded product.

Brings back memories of the time when I had Bassman 1x15 and 2x15 cabs and the 135 head. Great sound, but heavy and bulky. I ditched the stock rubbish drivers in favour of Black Widows. I added castors to the 1x15 (the 2x15 had them already - neat removeable ones that had a shaft that plugged into sleeves mounted in the bottom of the cab). I used bolts and nyloc nuts to secure them and never had any issues. You can get self-adhesive foam speaker mounting gasket tape on eBay. Just buy the length you need. Some of the hi-fi DIY firms sell it, too (I know Falcon Acoustics does - I've bought it from them).

AKG, Sennheiser, Shure and others offer wireless adaptors. Not the cheapest, but you can be certain they will do the job - see Phil's comments above. Avoid 50 quid Chinese no-name jobbies. Buy once, cry once.

Sounds grim. It appears from what you say that everyone pitches in all the time, which sounds like a recipe for disaster. All the decent jams I've been to and go to put together various combinations of some of those present to play a few numbers before changing the mix. It's one thing ensuring a jam is inclusive and that everyone gets a chance to play, but a total free for all from start to finish sounds ghastly.

Aaand just encountered another eBay scam. Not perpetrated by sellers, but by eBay itself. They charge a "buyer protection fee" of 7.5% on everything you buy. I've just "won" something (collection only and not too far away) and asked the seller it I pay cash when I collect. He would rather I paid through eBay, so I had to pay it. Wasn't a large sum, but it sticks in my craw. Were the item being posted and there was a chance it could be lost or damaged, it wouldn't be so bad, but it's collection only, so I don't need "protection". B@stards.

This. If I buy second-hand stuff, I don't expect it to be delivered to my door. I collect, inspect and pay cash. Obviously, I wouldn't buy something worth £20 if it was 100 miles away, unless it was the bargain of the century and hugely under-priced.

That makes the efforts of an individual who cannot be named on here look like lutherie.

These YouTube "best of" vid's are almost always AI generated rubbish, complete with robot voice-over. I've no doubt they simply parrot manufacturers' sales literature.

Given that it's a very low-powered practice amp with an 8" speaker, does it matter? You couldn't gig with one.

Nice, but spendy for a backup.

I know I bang on about this on here, but, unless you are running bass through the PA, onstage sound is less important than in-room sound. What sounds good when you stand next to your rig can be terrible out in the room. The classic mid-scooped tone with a little low and high end lift can sound like mud in the room. I often find I have to lose some low end and boost the mids to the point where it gets a bit honky for it to work in the mix and in the room. Sound-checking with a long lead or wireless can be very revealing.

Naughty boy, Tim. Someone is bound to take the bait...

The words "art" and "artist/e" have acquired a lot of baggage, as is evidenced by many comments above. A lot of people seem keen to say something along the lines of "Artist? Me? Nah, mate. I'm just a regular geezer who plays in a band". Music is a form of art. Therefore, those who make it can be considered artists. It's up to them whether they choose to refer to themselves as such, but beware inverted snobbery.

Don't know if this will be helpful, but we all have to accept that we have limits. They may be physical - you say you are coping with an old injury, which is bound to slow you down/limit you. They may be due to time - there are only so many hours in a day and if you have a lot of other demands on your time, you con only spend a limited time on practice/playing. That will slow your progress, especially if you can't spare the time every day. 10 minutes a day is better than an hour every 3 or 4 days. They may also be due to ability, potential and realised. We are not all born equal and some have the potential to be better at things than others. I had to accept that a long time ago and face the fact that I was never going to be as good as I would have liked to be. It's often said "You can do anything you wish if you try hard enough", etc. Sounds great, but it's a myth. A one legged man or woman is never going to win Wimbledon, no matter how much effort they put in or how much they want it. Counting one's blessings is important. If you are much better than you were a couple of years ago, be grateful for that and keep working at it..

I used to work for the Department of Health and so had access to some interesting stats. All the area of high anti-depressant use are in the North. Possible reason we suverners are so miserable and norveners are so chilled... 🙃

Wood that be the Oddfellows, by any chance? I've played there a few times. Nice pub.

Thanks for the reminder. That was hilarious. Peely, bless him, was pretty much tone deaf. Couldn't carry a tune to save his life.

Bill's advice is good. Mini line arrays are great if you have a reasonable budget, but you really need two for all but quiet gigs, so the cost gets a bit steep. Quality 10+horn boxes on poles and a single decent sub on the floor will have minimal visual impact and can be very capable. Incidentally, Bose are not a true array, in that the drivers in the columns are angled to each side, rather than all pointing directly ahead, which gives good coverage at close to medium range, but lacks the 'throw' of an array. RCF are always a safe bet, as Phil suggests, for good but not pricey PA speakers. They occupy a sweet spot between budget and costly. For £2k, you could get a pair of RCF ART310s plus a 905 sub, which would be a very tasty system and would, I reckon, out-perform your Behringers, especially when it comes to clarity.

You could do a lot worse than a Bugera Veyron. I had one as a backup and it was fine. I didn't notice much, if any, difference between it and my Aguilar AG700. Get the mosfet version if you want a more neutral sound (handy as it's a bit cheaper than the valve - only in the preamp, not full valve - model). They're about £230 new, so used ones are not expensive. Ignore the ludicrous claims about 1000w output (you won't need anything like that with a couple of BF 110s, anyway). Half that is probably closer to the mark and the power reserves will keep it clean if you need to push things a bit.

Life's too short to get upset about it. If people want to make themselves look stoopid, it's a free country.