Nicko

I had to think about that for a second.

I went through this exercise a few years ago and tried all the small twin channel valve amps I could find. I ended up with a Hughes and Kettner TM18, which has a power soak allowing 0, 1 5 or 18 watts output. It was the least heavy metal sounding of the amps I tried. The clean channel with the drive just backed off sounds absolutely stunning with my telecaster in the middle position, and almost as good with my 339, especilly if I boost the input with a touch of EQ from a pedalboard. I dont have a strat but suspect the position 2 and 4 would sound similar. Originally it was available as a combo or head/cab. Sadly they have now discontinued this model, and had already discontinued the 5 watt version and the smallest they do now is a 20 watt deluxe which is out of your budget even in head form and no cab. You may find a 2nd hand 5 or 18 watt one somewhere. If that miracle happens theres a speaker emulated line out so you can gig with it too. By sheer coincidence our guitarist has just bout the TM36 second hand and is now gigging with it in place of her old Bugera which weighed a ton, mainly using a PRS and it sound great too. Bugera also do a single channel 5 watt valve combo and a multi channel 5 watt head which both seem ridicuously cheap and would be worth a try at that price (£209 ea at Gear 4 Music).

Bass, A Fender P, Hi Mss bridge with a neck somewhere between a modern P and Jazz - essentially a J profile but a P width. Candy apple red with rosewood board and a black scratchplate. Passive.

Last gig, all set up and soundchecked when a punter knocks over my mic stand which broke the mic clip clean in half. The stand and clip are possibly the only component that I cannot live without. If my amp fails I can DI, if my bass fails I have a spare, if my pedal board fails I can live without it. We have spare mics, spare cables etc. Fortunately I only do backing vox but we missed them. If the PA fails (mixer or speakers) we'd be shafted. How far do you go with spares and whats your weakness?

See my profile pic, which is my original sketch of the one I had done.

Yes, train your ears to recognise intervals. Do this ny playing an interval and thinking about a song or piece of music that features the interval (eg a simple semitone is the Jaws theme, a whole tone is the first two notes of the James Bond theme, and so on). I find tab extremely useful, but not only is it often incorrect, learning by tab alone will restrict your ability to play confidently. Its kinda like reading a book in a foreign language - you can make the sounds of the words but have no idea what they mean.

The basic chord theory should be simple for a bass player as we're supposed to know what chord tones are in the harmony to begin with. Know your scales, and the rest is easy.

This.

Sony Xperia sound and camera capture is frankly amazing. Footage from mine Apologies for the post production nonsense.

We have a gig arranged via a booking agent who has advised that the venue wants to pay using the Invapay system. I've had a look at the website but there doesn't seem to be any info on there for the supplier of the service and what we need to do to collect payment. I've contacted the Invapay people but not had a response yet. I've worked with teh booking agent before and have no reason to suspect this isn't absolutely kosher. Is there any BC wisdom on this payment mechanism?

I applied for a job with the Government a few years ago when I was in my late 40s. The job was verifying COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) registered sites were complying with the requirements of their license. I've been involved in Oil, Gas, Petrochemicals and Pharmaceuticals since leaving school and visited my first major faciity at the age of 16. I'm a Chartered Engineer with over 30 years experience in this field. I thought I could make a contribution to society by doing this and I'd become disillusioned with the working methods of my clients anyway, The job was advertised with a salary about 60% of my last salaried position - although I'd been working on a self employed basis at more than double the salary for a few years. It took over 2 hours to do the online application. Within minutes of submission I got a rejection stating that I had insufficient experience. I did check that they'd read my application and CV and apparently they had. I got the distinct impression they had already selected an in house candidate and were advertising the role because they were obliged to. If they'd said I had insufficient experience of something in particular, or an element of the job that I'd misunderstood I'd have just accepted it, but the stated reason was so clearly incorrect I was gobsmacked. Their loss.

Habe just gone through this and ended up with a Behringer XR12 with Mackie Thump 12s for FOH. The Thump 12s are not overly heavy, and the mixer is ridiculously portable. We run 3 x vox, acoustic guitar, and bass throuh the PA. Guitarist hasn't decided which way to jump yet, but we set a channel in the mxer that goes to monitoring only. Collective wisdom here says I should have got the XR18 because it has loads more monitoring options (ie more aux outs), but it depends how many different mixs you want on the floor monitors. I have to say the functionality of the XR12 is incredible considering the price.

If that were me I'd think I'd died and gone to hell, not just grown up 😊

To be fair the OP says he thinks they are ready, but some of the band do not. FWIW I'm in a band for the social element, and wouldn't really mind if we didn't gig that often but I think that I'm in a minority and as the rest of the band want to gig I will do it because its a necessary part of being in my current band. However, a few minutes social in a 3 hour session is enough, chat afterwards or meet up in the pub. BTW our usual rehearsal room costs me around £10 plus a gallon of petrol. Three hours in my local would be considerably more and by the end of 3 hours I'd be talking utter crap.

I don't get the "They're crowd pleasers so they stay in the set" thing. Find some other songs that would be equally popular and swap them in and out.

In response to the OP sounds like the band is looking for reasons to rehearse rather than gig. We try to get together once a week, but with busy lives it seems to be once a fortnight for 3 hours. Having said that we are a covers band and have 35 or so songs. Recent sessions have all been polishing stuff that we're not happy with or learning new stuff. We have a gig coming up next week, and practice this week will be a full set run through - that will be the first time we've played some of the songs since our last gig. We agree what we're going to work on before the session, but often get sidetracked by our singer insisting on trying songs she really wants to do. I think i preferred it before Whatsapp messages started flying around such as: Singer 2 days before session "We should try XXXX" Me "We have four new songs on the go, don't really have time to learn it properly before next gig" Drummer "I agree. Four new songs is enough" Singer "But its really easy" Guitarist "Yeah, three chords" Singer "Even I can play it" Me "My parts not easy" Singer "Shall we try anyway" Me "F*ck off, or perhaps learn the bassline yourself". Bite lip. So last practice ended up with half an hour playing songs I haven't had time to learn properly.

Well, the one thing you can guarantee is that any fine won't go to refund people who bought overpriced gear.

My previous band used to use two lighting stands and a piece of 1.5" PVC pipe suspended between them, but it seemed a bit over engineered.

As per the title, suggestions for how to get it up welcome. Guffaw, guffaw.

Blacklight We set up for a photoshoot, and after the photographer went home my mobile captured this. Don't ask why the flashing lights were added.

I play through an amp and cab, no DI to the PA. I generally back off the volume a touch when setting up, because I use a mix of fingers and pick so my volume isn't constant anyway. Some songs need more bass in the mix but I normally do this through an EQ pedal which boosts the mids and cuts through the mix slightly more.

When we get the mixer the singer and guitarist are coming over for a trial set up, and I have convinced the guitarist to try my (rather lovely) low power guitar amp via the PA. My amp is only 18 watts but has power defeats set at 0, 1 and 5 to give the full nuts tone at low volume. I'm fairly sure it will be easy to convince her to go to the desk for monitoring even if she's not convinced on using it for FOH.

We have a gig coming up in less than 4 weeks and currently have no PA. We need some time to figure out the mixer when we get it so now is the time to strike. We've relied on friends goodwill so far and used borrowed gear but I think we'd be taking the mick to go another few months before sorting ourselves out, and risking the possibility that we are gigging the same night as our mates and end up with no PA at all.

I just want to clarify that your advice isn't falling on deaf ears, but as its a joint purchase and we're already over budget we will have to live with the restrictions - of which I hope we are all aware!

I have explained the limitations to the band, they seem comfortable with it.