Dan Dare

If you fancy short-scale, go for it. Ignore the "real men play 34" scale" talk. 34" is only the default because that Fender fellow settled on it. Some 5 and 6 strings are 35" scale or even longer. If you are struggling with the stretch, don't give yourself RSI or make yourself miserable. I'm fortunate in that I have large hands and find 34" no trouble, but we're all different. I also started on the violin when I was very young, so had good hand and wrist flexibility before I even picked up a bass. Head for the shops or the home of a kindly BC member, try a few and see how you get on. It's what you like that counts.

This. Budget instruments are extremely good for the money nowadays. When I started in the early 70s, they were rubbish. £250 today gets you a used instrument of the quality we could only dream about back then.

In the size of room you have and with the requirements - no drums to compete with, etc - you describe, 100W should be perfectly adequate unless you want to shake the walls. Just about any decent quality combo rated at 100W or more with a 10" or 12" speaker would be fine. If you plan to record through it, an onboard DI would be useful if you want to capture the sound of the amp itself (although an external DI box would work for this if the amp has a preamp out). In your shoes, I'd visit a few local shops, try things out to find out what you like and then look for it second-hand.

Brown Thunderbird bass? That instrument is obviously black. Clear contravention of the Trades Descriptions Act. Shocking.

This. Pretty shocking, isn't it? The string is not even partially over the pole piece.

Even he has standards...

Make subjective judgments "apply more objectively"? Good luck with that. All the terms quoted are used in an attempt to convey sound via words. A bit like wine tasters attempting to describe taste/flavour in print. Doomed, I tell you. Doomed to failure.

Spot on. It's why I take nothing for a headache (nothing acts faster than Anadin, after all)

I think readership of magazines and viewing of magazine-type YT channels and similar depends on where people are in their journey. When I were a lad and it was all fields round 'ere, I devoured magazines, articles and anything else I find to help me learn. Now I'm ancient and reasonably satisfied with the gear I own and the knowledge I have, I only read/watch them if I'm thinking of buying something and want to get the lowdown on it. Either that, or I might come across something new (to me) musically and wish to pick up tips on technique or add to my knowledge (such as learning what a semi-parametric is and how it works) to help me get to grips with it. That applies equally to my interests outside music. I rarely if ever look at angling or hi-fi mag's any more, either. That probably isn't a great help to you. Apologies, but I guess I'm not part of your typical target audience. I guess what I'm saying is that the most interest in what you do will likely be from people starting out or those wishing to improve their knowledge. So it's probably not a bad idea to aim a lot of your content in their direction.

I read magazines/reviews when I'm contemplating a purchase and want to get some info about what it is I intend to buy. Apart from that, no.

I realise that and my question remains. There is no automatic right to make a living as a musician, dancer, artist or anything for that matter. I kept a day job for the great majority of the 50 years between leaving education and retiring whilst playing in the evenings and at weekends, with occasional, usually brief, spells of playing music for a (just about) living. There are many reasons why someone cannot make a living from playing music - including lack of ability, not wanting to play what people are prepared to pay for, not being fortunate to be in the right place at the right time (luck always plays a part - I know plenty of great players who just haven't had the breaks), face not fitting and so on. There is always a living to be made on the function circuit. Having slogged around playing functions and similar during my attempts to make a living from music, I can assure you that there are plenty of regular jobs that are preferable to doing that. Not only because the gigs themselves are not enjoyable, but because you can find yourself becoming fed up with playing music itself if that's all you have time to do because you need to put food on the table. The advantage of having a day job is that you can afford to decline the soul-destroying gigs you would have to accept if you were solely dependant on music, meaning you can look forward to the ones you enjoy and keep your interest alive.

Norman

Why? There is no escaping from the fact that housing supply/availability is very much a political issue. Why tiptoe around the proverbial elephant in the room? If you do, there is no prospect of meaningful discussion. Much truth in this. The last London house I lived in was worth serious money, but it certainly wasn't the first property I owned. I and my partner started out in a modest place in a run-down area, did some work on it, sold and moved up slightly, rinse and repeat. I moved out of London after retirement for the reason stated - I didn't want to be rattling around in a large place after my partner passed and had always fancied living in the country. Good luck with that. Apart from the fact that any government that confiscated peoples' lawfully owned assets would be committing political suicide, establishing a precedent (even if it were possible) that enabled the state to do so would be the start of a slippery and dangerous slope. How long before a government used the power for political reasons, say be sequestering assets of those it didn't like? You need to think through the consequences before merrily proposing such draconian actions.

Agreed. The biggest problem (imho, of course) is that we don't have a healthy public/affordable housing sector any more, since many publicly owned properties were sold off. A healthy public/affordable housing stock acts as a counterbalance to the cost of private rented and owned housing, because people have a choice and aren't compelled to pay ridiculous prices to rent or buy privately. The crazy increases in the cost of private housing has coincided with the decimation of the publicly owned housing stock. If you suggest doing anything about it, people start frothing at the mouth about "socialism", etc. I don't think anything can be done about treating homes as assets. Put simply, they are assets. That would be true even if they cost a fraction of what they do. Property prices are a simple consequence of demand massively out-stripping supply (in areas where people want or are able to live). People have no choice other than to pay the prices demanded if they want to live a realistic distance from where they work. The only thing that will change that is a massive increase in the supply of housing, but land is in short supply in populous areas, so where do you put the new homes? Population growth isn't helping, too. Afraid I don't think anything will change, either.

Given that they are not SVT sized lumps and you aren't bothered about the money, I'd keep both. Always handy to have a spare tucked away.

Are you really motoring for £2.5k a year all in? As Tim points out, motoring is one of those drip-drip expenses that builds up to a tidy sum over the months without you realising it. £5k works out at only £100 per week. As an all-up cost, that's not a lot. If you're covering some miles in a 2 litre estate, how much are you spending on fuel? My car is 2.4 petrol and I live in the country, so I use it quite a bit. I'm spending at least £50 a week on fuel, often more. Like you, I buy old cars for cash (so no loan repayments), do my own servicing and keep them on the road as long as I can, but even then it works out at around £100 a week all in by the time I've factored in insurance, VED, repairs I can't do myself, etc, which is the figure Tim stated.

I agree that £5k a year is about right for the total running cost of a vehicle. It's about what I spend. The original point that I disagreed with was that one can't buy a decent vehicle for less than £5k. My present car cost me £2300 four years ago. It's 20 years old now, not a wreck by any means and is large enough to carry me, my bass rig and PA easily. It's a bit thirsty, but I service it myself and carry out minor repairs that don't require specialist equipment or a hoist, which saves money. I've always done so. When I started driving, the only way to motor on a tight budget was to buy a banger and do your own maintenance. Many these days are unwilling to pick up a spanner. Agreed again. My current PA is 2x750W and I have a 700W bass amp. I certainly didn't start out with that. I had the obligatory HH 100W PA amp and a 100W bass amp. By the standards of today, it was crap, but it did the job and got me going. Since then, I've gradually upgraded to what I have now. Fair enough, really. There has to be some reward for working for 50 odd years. A lot won't, which is one of the reasons many music venues are half empty. Why would people stick around to hear terrible stuff at ear-bleeding volumes?

Anything worth having is hard graft. The world owes us nothing. Everyone has to find money for fuel, food and accommodation. They all have to tax and insure their vehicles. What makes musicians exempt from this? "Forced into a job"? What makes a musician so special that he/she shouldn't have to work for a living? If you want to do or become something, it's perfectly normal and reasonable that you work for a living and treat that something as a side-line, hopefully building it up to become a profession over time. Work on it in your free time in the evenings and at weekends and don't expect a free ride from the rest of us whilst you "make it". You can buy a vehicle that will get you about for a lot less than 5k. Of course, you may have to lift the bonnet and get your hands dirty occasionally (horror of horrors - don't you know I'm an artiste and have to protect my delicate hands?) to keep it going, but tough.

Blimey. 775W a side into 8 ohms would be well over a kilowatt bridged. You could vaporise your PB300 with that... QSC power amps are very good. I used them for my PA until I went down the active cab route.

Ah, you're running it with a Flightcase combo. That must be a nice rig. I got into PJB stuff via picking up a used Flightcase. I liked the sound, but wanted more of it, so got a couple of C4s and drove them with a power amp fed by the Flightcase. Eventually sold the Flightcase and got three 4Bs, which I like a bit better than the C4s, plus a couple of 2 ohm capable amps. I mix and match according to the requirements of the job. I'm not so keen on PJB heads. I find them a bit too hi-fi when used with PJB cabs. I realise super clean is the PJB design intention, but I prefer my Aguilar or Carvin with them. YMMV, horses for courses, etc. You could pick up a used power amp for not much money if it's only temporary. Wouldn't stack neatly with the Flightcase and PB300 (you'd probably have to put it on the floor behind the rig), but would do as a temporary fix whilst the PB300 amp is being repaired and used power amps are pretty cheap.

Absolutely. I also hate the way they over-enunciate every word.

Roadwork? As in dragged behind a car, I assume.

"I do this as a hobby to keep dimentia, arthritis and God knows what else at bay"... Quite. One suspects he will be keeping buyers at bay, too.

The built in amp on the PB300 is rated at 250W, so you won't need a powerhouse to drive it. Do make sure you connect the drivers correctly. They are probably wired series/parallel to give 6 ohms (or so) impedance. Individual PJB drivers are normally rated at 8 ohms. My four driver PJB cabs are all wired series/parallel to give 8 ohms total impedance. They claim 400W power handling each, but I Find they are happy with a little over half that. Removing the plate amp from the back of it it will leave a sizeable hole, which you will need to fashion a cover for. A piece of ply with a Speakon connector let into it should do the trick as a temporary fix.