Boodang

I've got 2 amps on stage, one either side of the drum kit so the guitarist can hear me. The spare left in car is an old HH and just seems indestructible!

In which case, my comment regarding Trujillo and the effort he went to is even more pertinent! Mind you, he seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot in footage of him playing the glued together bits of wood.... certainly not a 'meh' moment for him.

You're not alone! I'm totally paranoid about equipment failures. I use 2 amps on stage, just in case, and still leave a 3rd in the car. I use 3 to 4 basses live so no issues there but I've got at least 2 spare sets of strings for each. My pedalboard has a spare psu in situ just in case, and I've got a multi effects pedal programmed up as a backup in case there's an issue with my pedals. I'm an electronics technician so I've got a soldering iron and spare bits in the car as well. In fairness I've never had a failure at a gig of anything but all the spare bits I bring have proved plenty useful for other people!

Jaco's bass might have been in a thousand pieces and glued back together but are you telling me that if you had it in your hands you'd go just go 'meh'?! In which case Trujillo certainly went through an awful lot of effort for just some glued together bits of wood!

Interesting (and I'm going to use that word deliberately), an AMP BH-420 amplifier came up for sale a while ago that turned out to be supplied to Jaco. The 420 was Jaco's amp of choice post Acoustic 360 and was designed by the same people. Can't remember the exact price but went for somewhere around the $1k, so can't say how much the bass of doom is worth (although Trujillo might) but that's what his last amp went for. Have to say, if it came up again at that price I'd snap it up (maybe, if you licked the capacitors you'd get some Jaco magic!).

Provenance.

Yep, know what you mean by the download thing, it's the reason I can't get on with the latest source audio pedals. TC though do a thing where the toneprints can be downloaded by making your phone make noises like an old modem which you then hold over the pickups. Like magic the pedal gets the preset... no idea how it works but ridiculously simply. But get that it's not for everyone. One compressor that hasn't been mentioned yet, and one of my favs, is the Aguilar TLC. You can set the attack time and comp ratio which I find it quite useful. It needs tweeking a bit more than some other pedals to get your settings but as a result it's a bit more flexible. Anyway good luck at the weekend, you can't go wrong with the pedals that have mentioned so far.

Get your J and put the pickups in series!

Amps are not the only place to find a preamp! I do all my tone shaping on a pedal board, so yes, a preamp pedal can be a good thing to get. However.... there's a few ways you can do this. A simple preamp like a tc electronic spectradrive, an all in one like a Helix or the latest Zoom, or a series of individual pedals. Sounds like it's time for a bit of gas and some experimentation!

Ah, the compressor pedal rabbit hole! The thing to ask yourself, do you want a reasonably transparent compressor or one that colours your sound? A good place to start is the tc electronic Spectracomp, as A. It's v cheap s/h & B. The toneprints mean it's not a 1 trick pony, it'll do everything from subtle transparent to 3 band full on colourisation.

Maybe the guy coming out needs to invest in one of these.... https://gruvgear.com/products/kapsule

Regaltip Clayton Cameron signature fixed brushes. Also, check out some of the youtube clips of his playing, especially the Ted-x performance. http://www.regaltip.com/artist-roster/clayton-cameron

Combine my signal and effects by using an EHX tri parallel mixer. % of blend depends on effects... for overdrive it's 50% wet/dry, compressor into octaver is 100% wet but then combined in parallel with a 50% mix from another channel separately running an lpf. Same for envelope filter / lpf (not sure of the cut off frequencyas using a Seamoon funk machine to do the job and just turn the freq knob until itsounds good!). Echo, reverb and phaser are post tri mixer.

EC would sound so much better if he played air guitar.

For me, a compressor is dynamic eq and as such works better (for me that is). When I find a compressor that works for my style of playing and the specific bass (and consequently I have a different compressor for each bass I use live... all 5 of them!), I don't need to use eq. As the comp 're-acts' to my playing dynamics, I prefer this to just using straight eq.

PS my #poo bass... literally the worse bass in the world and always happy to lend it out as it's funny to watch people try and play it!

I'm always willing to lend my #poo bass but never the #1.

Phil Collins in Brand X, yes, but please don't say you like his solo stuff!!

Good point! I'd actually erased that from my memory... until you'd mentioned it. That took many years of therapy to forget!

Yes, but... (and this according to Graphtec!), we're talking standard tuning, standard 34" scale, with medium string gauges, one tone is an approximation. What they're really saying, and which I think is quite neat, is that each string has a different gear ratio as it makes sense to do this if you can be bothered. Which if you were having a custom bass done you might be. Actually makes tuning the E string easier.

I was massively influenced by Weather Report but not by Jaco's playing. Technically amazing BUT... his solo album tracks sounded like technical exercises and his live solos in a band context sounded like a drunk member of the audience had jumped on stage! And it's not because I don't like jazz, quite the opposite in fact.

Graphtec Ratio tuners. A neat evolution in tuner design where one turn equals one tone on each string.

The song 'Grandad' was a no.1 hit.... does that mean it's genius?! PS as good a bass player and all round nice guy as Herbie Flowers is, he still hasn't been suitable punished for inflicting this on us.

Well, you asked for it.... for me pretty much any music that has vocals in it I don't like! Vocals impose a structure which then becomes repetitive and repetitive = boring. This is compounded when A. the lyrics are banal and B. the musical structure is simple. Repetitive + banality + simple structures = excruciating boredom. Of course these days you can't do anything, like go shopping, without this kind of music being forced on you, so pretty much my life is hell! Of course shops could play jazz but then I guess they want to keep customers in the shop.

Why one pickup when you could have 3! Buy the Sire and get your local luthier to install a couple more... sorted.