Dan Dare

Rock and roll is literally an old man's game. Those who were in their teens and 20s in the 50s and 60s, when rock and roll was in its pomp, are in their 70s and 80s now. A pal of mine plays a lot of care homes. The residents want classic soul, rock and roll and similar because that's what they listened to in the halogen days of their yoof.

If you're referring to surface area, the figures are - 2x10 = 157.1 sq in, 1x12 = 113.12 sq in. You square the radius and multiply by pi to get the area of a circle. As you say, there are many other variables - efficiency, etc.

Good suggestion. And make sure you are using genuine Speakons. I've had trouble with copies in the past.

Living in Hants as I do, I'm in if I don't have a gig in the evening.

Barbie flesh, I believe he called it.

Exactly. Even a line saying "reasonable offers considered" would let potential buyers know there's room for flexibility and wouldn't make it an auction.

August is a slow month for sales of virtually everything, bar ice cream, of course. Anytime is a slow month for sales of things that are priced too high. If you don't get bites, try lowering the price. Some of the prices on Marketplace items are a little optimistic. It's all well and good saying "but I saw an identical one for sale at the same price", but that has probably been up for months with no takers as well.

As the saying goes, one door closes and another slams shut in your face...

They're all much of a muchness. The design goal for all will be in identical - make a small, low powered, low cost practice amp. Try them and see which you prefer.

That's another bit of the equation. How we are feeling, expectations, atmospheric conditions, etc all play a part. I find humid conditions make it harder to get a decent sound, which is to be expected, I suppose, given that air is "thicker" when humid. It's easy to end up chasing your tail.

This and it applies to any player, not just Dave Richmond. It isn't just down to the instrument, either. The sound you hear on records is produced in a studio, where there is access to a pile of eq options, outboard/mastering gear, etc, etc and where the acoustic environment can be tailored to suit whatever you are trying to achieve. You can also run your rig at any volume you like in a studio and route the sound via cans to the other musicians if the band is playing together. If individual members are tracking their parts, you don't even need to do that. Just play in the control room and listen via the monitors. It's one thing to dial up the ideal sound at low volumes, when your rig only has to make enough noise for a microphone a few inches from the cone to pick it up and is working well within itself. It's a different matter when you are trying to recreate that sound live, in a less than ideal acoustic space at high volumes. Often, the bass will have been DI'd. People spend a fortune on old Ampeg B15s to try to get the "Jamerson sound" because "that's what he used in the studio". He did, but the amp wasn't mic'd. It was only used so the rest of the musicians could hear the bass. His recorded sound was DI'd via a custom preamp/direct box. As meterman says, it's futile.

Is all your gigging stuff massive? If you have a small head/cab, you could get a small head/cab to use with it. I use my AG700 (which is only the size of a couple of books stacked on top of each other) with a single 4x5 PJB cab at home. Works well at low volumes.

Me too. I have a number of small cabs and can use one for home practice or multiples for gigs - the number depending on how loud I need to be.

If you have money to spend, the Phil Jones Double Four is nice.

I'd look at music theory more generally, rather than music theory just for the bass. It's all part of a greater whole.

Agreed. They're more likely to say "Hey look. A corpse". Some of the Botox/fillers techniques have their roots in the mortician's trade, where cadavers are prettied up to look good in the casket for the wake/funeral.

This is great advice from Bill. The contribution of a sub should be such that you don't notice it of itself, but you would miss it if it wasn't there. I'd suggest that, in average sized venues - pubs/bars, clubs, etc - quality 10 plus horn top boxes, augmented by a suitable sub (singular in most cases), are all you need. I learned this some years ago, when my band was playing a wedding. The venue was a large hotel banqueting room, holding several hundred guests. The DJ showed up with a little Nexo system - two 10+horn tops and a compact sub in a bandpass type enclosure. He was driving it with some fairly serious amplification and a Nexo DSP. It blew our much larger (and cheaper) system out of the water, not just in terms of power, but also clarity and dispersion. It sounded like a giant h-fi in comparison to our gear and it all fitted in the back of a small hatchback. Smaller tops have less visual impact and are smaller, lighter and easier to carry/lift onto poles and if the worst comes to the worst and one gets knocked one over (I've seen it happen), it's less likely to kill whoever it lands on, which is a bonus.

I change them when they won't intonate accurately. I find they lose it and become indistinct when they get really worn. I find longevity depends on the brand. La Bellas do seem to last well. I prefer Chromes on my J bass. I got 5 years of constant playing - using them virtually every day - out of my last set. I've just changed them and now have to contend with weeks of clank until they bed in.

Much truth in this. I no longer like much of the music I listened to when I was an introverted teenager. It was of its time and suited me and what I was then. We change as we age and so do our tastes.

Hilarious, especially your closing sentence. If a venue has acoustic anomalies, we have to adjust to suit them. We can control the sound we are producing. We cannot control the construction/shape/size/acoustics of the venue. Unless we believe that "I am the main attraction. Everything else is just my supporting act", of course.

Mic'ing the bass rig in any manner is not the best way to go, imho. DI is better. Before anyone starts talking about "my tone/sound", it needs to be realised that the sound that works onstage often doesn't work in the mix out in the room - different acoustics, different rig, etc, etc. It's better for the sound man/woman to have a clean slate to work with.

Pretty well every band. I don't expect to like everything any artist produces.

Everyone knows that. The clue is in the name. 40 tons.

I used to have a BBE bass pre' that I sold. Was decent. They turn up used occasionally.

This, but name and shame anyway (assuming he's operating under his right name, which is doubtful) in the hope someone else may be spared being scammed. And never pay by bank transfer. Ever. Who doesn't have PayPal these days?