Boodang

PS my very portable setup consists of a Mackie DLM12 and for when more volume is needed I also have the 12s sub. A very compact and flexible combination.

Haden and Metheny in perfect harmony, not a note wasted nor a note superfluous.

Do you need anything on the combo (eq, drive etc) to give you your sound? I get my finished sound from my pedalboard, send the di to the desk and the unbalanced to a small active pa speaker for onstage. If you're not using the combo to sculpt your sound it doesn't have to be a bass amp and pa speakers are cheap s/h. The one bass combo I have kept and still use occasionally is an SWR Baby Blue, albeit with new speaker units. You don't see them come up s/h very often unfortunately.

Ok, so not strictly a preamp and more a 3 channel, foot switchable, mixer, but something I find indispensable and is at the heart of my pedal board. Send and return levels on each channel help keep volumes in check and the ability to use effects in parallel is surprisingly useful. Tri mixer in situ.

A tri band compressor would definitely give you more control. The great thing about the Spectracomp is that it's cheap and you can use the app to take full control of all parameters. I have a setup where I use 2 Spectracomps, one at the start of the chain in tri band mode, and one at the end acting more as a hard limiter.

I used to play exclusively fretless. During this period I got recommended for a band, at the first rehearsal as soon as I started playing the band leader called a halt, went out to his car and came back with a fretted bass and said 'play this'! Fretless bass has a different note attack than a fretted and for some people/genres/tastes, it's just not what they want. So yeah, for some bands it just might not be what they want.

A few changes to the board... the Aguilar TLC is replaced by the Photon Death Ray and the MXR bass fuzz has been added after the Fwonkbeta. So that path on the board goes Photon, Octamizer, Fwonkbeta, Fuzz, all switchable using the Bright Onion pedal. The Supa Funk and Seamoon get a channel each on the tri mixer as they work best without compression, and the Grape Phaser, Flashback and Slo finish it off.

I now can't be bothered with the back ache that comes with standing for a whole gig, so instead I play sitting in a wheelie chair. In fairness if the audience want movement I do invite them to come up at any point and push me around the stage.

It seems a lot of parcel couriers have an issue with the length of a bass guitar..... except Parcel Force who seem to understand that parcels can be long and have no issue with it. And they're cheap. Use them all the time and they've been good.

Where on the string are you using the pick... near the bridge? In the same way as when I use fingers, I use a different point on the string according to what tone I need. For the most part, to get that fatter tone, I use the pick much further up, around the 19th fret.

Get your blues chops sorted with plenty of variations to the turnarounds as there are bound to be plenty of 12 bar going around. Also ii,v,i progression lines to back the improvisors and to break it up in case there's too much 12 bar going on.

I was in a jazz groove trio (no vocals) and we ended up doing only festivals... not Glastonbury size ones but small festivals up and down the country and sometimes Europe. In a small venue we wouldn't go down that well, unless it was a jazz club, but the same audience at a festival would love it. Mainly I think because you've got a variety of music so now they have time for you. So we put our energies into doing odd ball small festivals mostly in the summer. Quality gigs and a responsive audience, plus as you say, you get to enjoy the other bands.

Quality audience is my preference. An audience that's into what you're playing and reacts well will overcome many shortcomings of a venue or low pay.

Musicians care about things like instruments, the listening public however don't give a monkeys how music is produced and are only interested in the final result. Will the bass guitar survive? Well, if you can make music with it that people like then yeah.

That's a shame. And as you've experienced the resale on a custom is often not that good. I've never thought about resale value when I've bought a bass, the only considerations are, can I afford it and how much do I like playing it. I've been lucky with my customs though and they've always ended up as something special.

Sorry, that statement doesn't compute!! As soon as I got my latest custom made (which I justified by saying it'll be exactly what I want), I was planning the next one!

I agree, but unless you're a collector surely you buy a bass to play rather than look at!

Actually, I'm going to revise my statement... it's not so much that Fender are taking the p*ss as it's not such good value for money as, say, a locally made custom. As has been pointed out, a local luthier isn't going to have the transport cost, import duties, staff and other overheads. Given the value for money I think a local luthier gives, I'm surprised it's not a more popular option. A lot of bassists just seem to think in terms of what they can get off the shelf. Or maybe I'm wrong and it is popular, or not value for money... what do others think. I can feel a new thread coming on!

For mass produced basses made on a cnc machine, I agree it's taking the p*ss. Instead, find a luthier, get something special made and you'll still have change in your pocket. My custom walnut jazz costs way less than a Fender and couldn't be happier.

Stick a MusicMan pickup in there. It'll need some routing, and won't exactly look standard, but it'll give you what you need. Any MM will do, I've currently got an EMG on a short scale and to say it has balls is an understatement.

Aguilar octamizer into a Mr Black Fwonkbeta. The octave filter tone goes from smooth to edgy, the more edgy the heavier the synth tone with a slight overdrive tinge to it. Delay from the TC and / or textured reverb from the Walrus adds lots of balls! Have found that you can't use the phase and envelope filters together as the peaks add and you get clipping. I have an MXR bass deluxe fuzz which I'll add as well to see if that adds even more balls.

The Doc Lloyd is an amazing bass comp. Of course there's also the TC Spectracomp, plenty of toneprints and if you can't find one to suit, you can use the app to get exactly what you want, and it's tri band if you need.... and cheap!

I play drums as well as bass. Whenever I do a gig with a house engineer I have to post someone at the desk to stop them turning the kick drum into a hand grenade!

You would think that with the plethora of mixing and recording options available today there would be more variety but maybe there's something about the digital work stream of modern software that precludes that.

... go figure!!!