TheRev

I bought my late 60s Musima for £500 and over the years have spent about £400 on a finger board reshoot, full setup, new endpin & soundpost. It's perfect for me and I very much doubt I'd find a bass as good (for me) for £900*. All the work was done by Bristol Violin Shop. * Not including various experiments with strings and pickups, amps and cabs. That's a very different number that I don't want to talk about.

Personally, I don't have any bass through the monitor as there's too much risk of feedback, but it depends on how loud your band is on stage. An acoustic trio, plus HPF and F-mutes should keep everything well under control, but I'd try to place yourself or the monitor so that it fires at the side of your bass, rather than the front or back - that will reduce the chances of a random frequency setting off a sympathetic resonance in your bass. If, even with all of the above, you do experience feedback issues, then get the monitor up on a stool/chair and pointing at your ears rather than your bass.

It's never run out on me so I don't know! I've done 2 x 45 min sets without a recharge. Usually I only recharge it between the soundcheck and the start of the gig - so 30 min or so, and it's fine for the rest of the night. It has a feature where the transmitter shuts itself off if there's no signal for 90 seconds (or thereabouts). You wake it up again by playing a couple of notes. It's a useful feature which helps reserve the battery, but I've been caught out a few times when our singer has gone on a bit with his audience banter and I haven't noticed it's shut itself down.

We've got one of those - the band would be much worse off without his ability to engage the audience. He's also totally ego - free and values the input of everyone in the band. Some of our guitarists have been tw@ts mind, but the current one is a good'un.

I use the Line 6 G10ii. Of all the bug-style wireless units I tried, it sounded the most transparent. I also used to suffer from unintended lead removal - I installed a locking jack socket and used a velcro cable tie to secure the cable to my tailpiece. Wireless is the better solution though.

10 years ago I'd have slammed me nadgers in a drawer rather than play a bass with a '51 style scratch plate, but now I quite like them. Especially when they're sexed up a bit like this:

Does anyone know how much audio (i.e. minutes) will fit on the 32gb card if you're recording all 12 tracks?

That opened up a whole level of options i didn't even know existed..... Tidy.

In my experience, there are two essential features that you need from a preamp for double bass - a high impedance input (10MOhm) and a high pass filter (HPF) to roll off the really low end frequencies which will really help in the battle against feedback. The Fishman and K&K preamps both have 10MOhm input impedance, but only the Fishman units have HPF controls. I find that with a good preamp with HPF, your choice of amp is much less critical, so in your position I'd go for the Fishman platinum pro EQ pre and then look for a second hand combo like a TC BG250 208 as suggested above. The Fishman pro EQ is all the preamp you'll ever need, unless you start using two pickups or blending a pickup and mic, so it will see you well along your playing journey. If you still want to squeeze the pennies, then look for the previous version of the Platinum pro EQ - the Platinum Pro. These can be found used for around £120 and has the 10MOhm input, HPF, 5 band EQ and a DI. If you're really lucky you might find a used Fdeck HPF or similar clone for about £100 - this is a real bare bones preamp with a high impedance input, gain and variable HPF, in a tiny box that can be mounted on your tailpiece.

Stentor 1950 or Student/Student 2 basses are decent, in your price range and reasonably common.

You could sand the bridge feet, but it's easier to sand down the top of the bridge. The feet are shaped to fit the top of your bass. If you sand too much off in the wrong place you won't get full contact between the bridge and bass and that will affect the tone.

Annoyingly, I've been so busy with work that I haven't had a chance to use it in anger yet. I'd hoped to compare both side by side at a little festy last weekend, but Phil brought his M32 instead of the Yamaha. From the few minutes twiddling time I got in the Yamaha last month, it's obviously a much more comprehensive mixer than the QC12, and if you absoutely have to have proper faders, then it's no contest. The display on the Yamaha is bigger, so you can have a lot more information available 'at a glance' than you can with the CQ12, but I've found the CQ12 interface very easy and logical to navigate, and pretty much all of the information you're likely to need while mixing on the hoof is only 1 button press away. One thing the A&H does that the Yamaha doesn't, is the ability to multitrack record direct to a 32GB memory card. The Yamaha can record stereo to a USB stick or multitrack via USB to HOST, so it's just a bit more faff involved in using the desk for recording.

Is that your Musima? Noice. I have the cat installed on the treble side of my Musima - it's brings out the upper mids better.

I've (briefly) played a Duke Peacemaker and the build quality and sound was very good. If I was in the market for a new bass, I'd be looking at the Two-Tone or the Duke Special - I've not heard anything about composite basses that would encourage me to pay the additional cost. If you need tough, touring workhorse....that's what laminate basses are for!

The linings, scroll, tuners and proportions look a lot like my East German Musima. Loads of them were imported in the 70s as high school level basses, so they're not uncommon. They're good, solid, ply instruments - real workhorses.