Hellzero

With rockers, you would have got an instant ... fight. I'll get my coat ... like the mods. 🤦‍♂️

Congratulations, there are some mates here that are in a wedding/covers band, so I guess they will propose their services. That said I love the idea of a punk band playing at a weeding. 🙃

There's nothing wrong with a lined fretless but the problem is that you'll end up playing with your eyes instead of your ears and often out of tune, because you'll rely on these lines more than on what you're hearing especially if the rest of the band is slightly out of tune, which happens more than often. 😉 Should I recommend you to listen back to early recordings of Pino Palladino and you'll notice that his intonation is not perfect at all and he's the first to say it... Practice is the only known secret with developing your ears with anything that helps being it lines, opened strings or a strobe tuner (a strobe tuner is better as it's so accurate you'll start hearing even very very slightly out of pitch notes or chords and it will improve your intonation or get you completely nuts 😉 ).

That's why I said to learn the most academic way as for me it's now too late to go back to the correct double bass technique as I'd have to relearn all automatisms linked to the muscle memory (I'm now learning the piano at 56 years old since September with a private graduated teacher, so the classic way and I love it). Furthermore I have never had any issues with the way I play the double bass as I've always been careful with my tendons when it comes to playing, I also can really stretch my fingers easily and I can play what I need to play effortlessly, BUT I wouldn't advise anybody to do so as it can get you into big troubles and issues, hence my recommendation to learn the orthodox way.

My deepest condolences is all I can say.

The 1-2-4 technique is a double bass technique as the spacings are much wider (41 inches scale vs 34 inches scale). That said I use the one finger per position technique even on double bass, which is academically wrong... If you have very small hands, you can use the 1-2-4 technique on electric bass, otherwise take your time, stretch your fingers slowly with warmed up hands (tendons don't like being stretched when cold) and you'll be able to use one finger per fret (or position or case) even in the lower register. You'll also have to give more strength to your pinky as it's your weakest finger. The thumb is a neck guide and you should be able to play without even using it. We all started with this "difficulties" to face and ignoring them might be worst than you might think when you'll make progress, or if you decide to take lessons and you'd have to start all over your technique because it's completely wrong and a teacher will tell it to you within the first minute.

The preset bias and grading valves idea is a way to get people to buy your valves if they want to be sure that their amp will run the proper way, when it's so fast and easy to correctly bias an amp when you know how to do it. I also know that you've done this to avoid people (bad techs included) to put their hands inside a valve amp and die because of an electric schock, which was, hélas, quite common during the all valves items era. Thanks for confirming your valves rebadging and selection system, which is a clever idea (the late Aspen Pittman was a visionary) as you do the good tech job, but being more transparent about it would be a great step forward. That said, I still love the Mesa Boogie 400 and 400+ heads which are still terrific today, just like the Studio (and DC too, of course), the Rectifier and, of course, the Mark series.

There are no stupid questions. Your Peavey TNT 150 equipped with a Black Widow (BW) 15 inches speaker is already a really good combo (a head with a cabinet). I'm not sure the Behringer BDI21 adds something, on the opposite, as the 9 bands EQ + plus Bass and Treble and the Punch button of this combo are already excellent and it has a very good integrated chorus too. I would use the Behringer BDI21 for what it's intended when it's needed : a D.I. box. Here's the manual for you great (but really heavy) combo : https://peavey.com/manuals/80300755.pdf Check the proposed settings as a good start up for your sound.

Hush, hush, or everybody will take my place when going to a concert ! 😇

Middle one !

Next time, don't forget to put Fender strings on your Fender bass, use a Fender pick, plug it to your Fender amp using a Fender lead and wearing a Fender T-Shirt, otherwise it won't work. 🤪 Come one, this is utter nonsense ! Show this to any amp maker or repairer and he will laugh for hours : Beware Mesa Boogie amps only work with Mesa Boogie valves !

Always use the one finger per case technique, you'll thank yourself later.

And so is the magnetic battery backplate...

Looks like a push-pull issue. Check the knobs first, yes the knobs, as they might have moved and are blocking the correct contact of the down position.

Becoming lazy ? 🤣

🤣 🤣 🤣 Mesa Boogie valves are rebadgeg Chinese or Russian valves... Valves are valves and as long as they are quality ones, they are the almost the same with minor sounding differences, but sometimes microphonic (a 12AX7 is a 12AX7 and they all are interchangeable). The only big difference is the way and where they are made. The military grade 7025 for instance is a ultra high quality long tested with very low tolerances and measurements 12AX7. Do a simple trick if you don't believe me : take some acetone and remove the rebadgeg Mesa Boogie logo and you'll see the acid engraved original Sovtek logo or Electro Harmonix or another brand, or simply a superb Made in China ! At some time, there were only 3 places left in the world making valves : Russia, China and old communist block. The rest is pure bullsh*t marketing. The totally fixed power valves bias à la Mesa Boogie is not a good idea at all, but again a marketing trick as power valves must be biased when changed (or getting old) to become perfectly matched, especially if you're using a push-pull designed amp, but a fixed bias is, in fact, a variable bias that becomes fixed when the bias is correctly adjusted. It bears the name fixed bias by opposition to the automatic cathode bias. The preamp valves are cathode biased, but could also be "fixed" biased for a "perfect" sound if you wanted too, but (again) you would need to change the bias system to a fixed bias one which would be useless as the cathode bias in itself is perfect. Check this : https://www.ampvalves.co.uk/cathode-bias/

I'm still using the 60/40 0.8 and 1.6 mm wire that my father gave me some 35 years ago. I finished my first kilo of wire a few years ago (I was making loads of repairs) and I don't think I'll see the end of the remaining kilo I still have (500 grams of 0.8 mm wire and 500 grams of 1.6 mm). My soldering iron is still the same JBC SL 2300 I bought at the same time, some 35 years ago... And it still has the same soldering pin ! I've tried lead free, but it's simply awful. Here is the wire I still use :

There's only one person saying the NS Design are not good sounding. I found them very good sounding and very close to a real double bass if you know how to dial an EQ...

Check this, maybe it's what you're after. Don't bother the stupidest haircut ever...

Are you Jacob Collier ?

And still can't play with other musicians the correct way today...

For that "orchestral" sound, you can try a shimmering effect, that will surely sound big. Not that easy to use, but worth giving it a try. And don't forget a good reverb too. Strange that nobody mentioned this.

I've been a touring guitar tech, and I can tell you that Mesa Boogie's do have their shares of issues. And dry solders are some of them... An old valve will compress your sound more and more and more, but they rarely really die, except if there's a break in the glass (or crystal for some). But you can have a loose connection in the socket which happens sometimes If that's the case, don't try to fix it yourself as there's a potential risk of death if the capacitors are still fully charged. That said simply taking the valves out and back in will remove oxydation that can also cause some similar issues.

Now, with your new explanations, it sounds even more like a dry solder. 😉

Very old dead nickel round wound strings can really sound like flat wound strings. For glissandi, nickel is way smoother than stainless steel that are real cheese grates.