Willl

Welcome to Basschat! I've just committed to buying a Stingray myself, so will be able to share a more well informed view sometime very soon...

+1 on the Roland Cube. It also has a set of Boss / Roland effects built in, and a DI, so you can hook up to the vocals PA for practices battling with Marshall stacks. Willl

I have a Boss GT6B which is full of goodies and great to use at home but when playing live I'm busy enough figuring out what to do with my two hands and very occasional singing to be able to use it effectively.

There's no easy answer for you on this one and I have no special qualification to assist but here are a few thoughts. You'll read thread after thread on here of people 'looking for that tone', chopping and changing gear to try and achieve it. The issue is that your tone is what you want to hear - just that. It may well change over time and it's influenced short term by many things - the basses and rig you use, the volume you're playing at, the venue, the track, the sound from the other instruments (where you are in the mix). You'll hear a lot of talk about cutting through, which is not just about volume but about presenting a tone which fits and which the audience can hear in the overall mix. Clearly that suggests there needs to be some give and take to find a mix which works for all of you as a band - and in the real world asking your guitarist to give up on some of the bottom end of his ego-charged super fuzz over-driven pedal chain may be tough. Equally, finding a tone which works when you are playing live is not just about repeating the sound you hear when you're practising. Try using that EQ - it's what it's there for - to find a tone which works for you. The Jeff Berlin MB is a single 15" with no high freq driver. Great for that bass clinic solo, or practise sound, but potentially not what you need when you're digging into a grungy rock track... or slapping through a funky number. I'd suggest that if you have wireless or just a long lead - walk out front and hear yourself playing within the overall band's sound - and make changes based on that, rather than focusing on boosting your practise sound. Don't hold back on aspiring to and getting the best gear you can, we're all fuelled by repeated bouts for new gear, and that's part of the fun of playing, but keep in mind what your looking for. It seems to me that a lot of the newer, and certainly higher end gear is focused on uncoloured clean sound, vs the traditional and then perfectly accepted house sound from each maufacturer. Witness the amp and cab modelling effects recreating 'That Trace Elliot Sound' 'Flip Top' etc etc. I can't imagine we'll be seeing the same effects in 20 years time recreating a MarkBass / Genz Benz / Ashdown Superfly digital amp sound. So, what I see is that means is that you can now create a decent volume with a wide variety of good new gear and use effects to get the sound you want. OK - now having rambled (disjointedly) for a while I'm not sure I've even started to answer your question - and you may have preferred a "Go and buy an XX head and cab" (and by the way I have one for sale) but I would suggest play a few different setups, with your current gear and try / borrow / steal other gear to work towards a tone you can be comfortable with but no one can tell you what that should be Will

Couldn't find any discussion about insurance anywhere else... so thought it might be interesting to get a consensus view... What cover do you or your band have, both for public liability and cover for loss or damage to gear? Do you insure as a band or as an individual, and in any case, who is the best insurer to use? Do you rely on extensions to house insurance or are there good stand alone policies available? I appreciate Musicians Union is an option - is that the best one?