TheLowDown

While I like the look of some basses, I don't think i'd buy it unless it served a purpose and added something extra. Needs more than wants because basses are tools for me. That attractive turquoise hammer and burgundy lawnmower with green trim never quite did it for me either. I always found I got bored of looks quickly. After it sits in the corner of the room it seems to become more and more like part of the furniture unless it provides some extra practical value, because that practical value is the only thing that's important in the medium to long term.

I've seen various ones on Thomann for around £30-80, and which include a bass stand. For those standing, a quick but deceptively taxing exercise called the plank is useful for strengthening core muscles, which in turn help to take the pressure off of your back.

I quite like the Harley Benton B550FL for about £148. https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_b_550fl_bk_progressive_series.htm Is this an "Ibanez design"? I don't know what is meant by that.

I don't see any reason why humour shouldn't be in music. Music is a communication medium.

Perhaps the percentages shown are of the RAM that is being used rather than of total RAM available(8GB).

I would definitely close Edge if doing anything heavy. Edge browser uses an open source version of the Chrome engine, and which has always been a dog for RAM usage. I would probably advise a minimum of 16GB RAM on Windows for music processing which tends to be quite resource hungry, although you may get away with 8GB if you're frugal.

Can confirm.

Mine are in a narrow price bracket at the lower end of the scale, and the ones that I have serve their purpose. Probably the biggest obvious advantage of having a higher budget is merely having a wider variety of choice, but currently I don't have any reason to spend more than I have done.

It looks like an attractive design but I would have to read up about it to see if it offers any practical advantage.

When selling things I always found that I missed them far less than I thought I would. I would just keep the one that you got for your 21st and sell the others.

The vinyl van has long since passed. I'm very much into streaming now. not least because it drastically cuts down on clutter.

"Fender". Pass.

I just use PlayerPro on Android. It's a full music player that allows balance(for split channel recordings), equaliser, and ability to separately adjust pitch and playback speed. It doesn't have looping thought which is done in another app.

I lean it against a corner.

I would look at your diet because it's so often overlooked, especially adding foods that encourage good blood circulation and prevent inflammation, as suggested above. For the gloves, I recently got some fingerless ones for £2.95 being the cheapskate that I am.

I think the Harley Benton's are decent. Pretty much any under £400. The HB Marquess is particularly nice in playability, quality, and looks

I don't measure things like that because a bass is just a tool. Unless it helps me to become a better player, then I will consider myself unworthy of a Fedora or Dingwall or similar.

I've got a 0.115 for my B string on the 5 string. It's a vast improvement over when I was using a 0.135 and 0.130, all nickel plated. I'm using a stainless steel 0.128 B string on one of my 6 strings which sounds considerably better, brighter, and similar in timbre to all the other strings. The heavier the strings, the more woofy and vague the B string will sound, at least for nickel-plated comparing like for like. The 0.135 will start to sound woofy much lower down than the 0.115.

This is so true and what so many people don't appear to realise, even now. There are still people who believe that all things made in China and the East is of low quality, oblivious to the fact that it was the parent company who instructs the manufacturing arm to make cheap quality gear, and this is why China had in previous decades, undeservedly got a bad rep. Almost all of the world's manufacturing are in that area of the world now and they will produce everything from low quality rubbish to high quality perfection depending on what they're paid and what they're instructed to produce by the company's name written on their products. This also applies to the individual factory, most if not all of which are capable of producing everything from cheap quality to perfection depending on what they're told to produce. With products like basses and the level of machining available now, I can't see anything being of anything other than very decent quality at a minimum.

I don't think the quality of the B string has much to do with whether the bass is budget or expensive. It appears to be more to do with the correct setup of the strings such as avoiding them being twisted, using a reasonably balanced set, and using stainless steel strings (nickel and nickel plated B-strings always sound awful to me, as if it was from a different set of strings that went dead years ago).

The Bugera Veyron tube is pretty decent for an amp head. Some people prefer to measure in RMS but this is often not the best measurement, but it's estimated at around 700W RMS and the cost about £270. For cabs you can try the ones from Trace Elliot and Phil Jones which weigh around 7 kg each for about 300W. at 8ohms.

It's good to have a focus and ignore the distractions. No point in playing EB if it doesn't interest you anymore. Good luck!

There are no 'benefits' in the same way that there are no benefits of the cello compared to a bass. It's just different. I don't bother with mwah and sliding all over the place, and definitely don't want to play it like Jaco did(I hate that tone and it does nothing for me), and these are things which can be done far far too much on the fretless. I don't play it much differently to how I play the fretted. Most of the reason why I play fretless is for ear training so I bought an unlined. And I suppose I sometimes like the more organic sound too and the potential for more expressive playing for home projects. Whether lined or unlined is a moot point. The side dots on a lined are the same as fretted, but on unlined they're where the frets are. If you just like the sound of fretless and nothing else, get lined. If you want the full experience and want to help train your ears too, go unlined. The beauty of the unlined is it helps you to see better with your ears and rely on them more than you would with a fretted or lined fretless.

The B string is definitely an improvement if you're not using well balanced strings on parallel frets. I've realised now that I'm not keen on using scales above 34 inch for comfort reasons. Other than an improvement to the B string without lots of tweaking necessary on parallels, I don't see them as having any real advantage and are therefore best staying a niche product.

I suppose it depends how the band formed. If it was originally one singer who initially aimed to sing to some random backing band or session musicians, then they would have to use their own name to advertise their 'brand'. They would have been new to the music business, so as time went on they may have learnt enough to realise that maybe they want to have a regular backing band for stability. It's not always about ego, but marketing.