Rosie C

Something like the Behringer Power Play would do what you need I think. I've used one for many years to amplify my double bass signal for my IEMs. https://www.thomann.co.uk/behringer_powerplay_p2.htm

Similar to wondering why my amp is silent, when the Speakon cable is still in my bag.

Have you considered a bass ukulele? They're very portable and have a great tone. Before I bought mine I was told it had a "double bass sound" and I didn't believe that, and arranged to meet up with an old band mate to try his - and I was amazed at the tone.

Bass recorder and piano accordion. The acoustic accordion has the very cool 'Stradella' button board which lays out the bass and chords in 4ths/5ths but of course just makes accordion sounds. But I also have a digital piano accordion which can generate bassoon, double bass etc., or drive a MIDI synth. The bass recorder isn't that low in pitch, there are great bass and contra bass which actually get low down. In the picture below is the great bass recorder I used to own...

We have a very good keys player who deps with us, and I make his life as easy as I can. He was particularly pleased that each way on our PA is colour coded, the XLR cables have matching colours and the mics have coloured leccy tape on them. It doesn't make me sing any better, but setting up & taking down is a whole lot easier.

... and Icicle Works for me, a fair few years ago. I only made it through the first song. AC/DC were also loud, we were right at the back of the arena and I had my orange builder's ear plugs. Not loud enough to leave, but loud enough to to wonder about the people at the front without hearing protection!

We did one, where the head lining band provided the PA and sound engineer. It was so loud I did the gig with my 19dB ACS IEMs and 30dB ear defenders over top. That was the last gig I did with that band. When the headliners came on they turned the levels up, and even outside the venue it was too loud to not have hearing protection. Me at the gig, looking p***ed...

For an extra £3 or so you can get a gel holder for them, and the 4 pictured above have diffuser gels fitted to spread the light more.

Yes, they've enough light for a small venue, though I tend to point them at the ceiling rather than at eye level. Back in the late 1990s I was part of a heavy rock DJing team. Our main lights were on a goal-post shaped tri-lite truss with 6x 300W halogen PAR56s, 4x 250W gobo projectors with moving-mirror style mechanism, 2x 250W moonflowers, fog machine and UV fluorescents. In comparison I can get the same amount of light from a bunch of lightweight and relatively cheap LED units. That said, even though MP3s were more efficient, I missed dropping the needle onto vinyl when we moved to laptops instead of turntables. In the same way there's something about the halogen PARs I miss - even though they were heavy, and lighting gel melted every few weeks and the bulbs would break and cost a small fortune to replace. But I'm sure this nostalgia would disappear within minutes of having to load that kit again

For the last few years these 'Stairville' LED lamps from Thomann have been hanging from the ceiling of our practice space. But with a house move coming up, they're on a T-bar now, and ready for our next gig. We abandoned using a DMX controller and went with built-in automatic programmes. Two lamps are running sound-to-light, with slightly different settings. DMX cables let the 3rd and 4th lamps duplicate the 1st & 2nd. https://www.thomann.co.uk/stairville_mini_stage_par_7x4w_rgb_ww.htm

I was going to say J G Windows. My dad bought me my first bass there, around 1985. The photo doesn't have the shop name, but it's on the right with the "gramophone records" sign

That doesn't seem an unreasonable question to ask

I'll second this. I also have the 3-way one:

^^^ This is my tablet's contents this morning. I share the prejudice but learning tunes takes me so long! The worst offender is our church band with 135 tunes. Our community big band has 68 tunes, and our band's regular Christmas show has 54 carols.

Oh yes, I can add "people who call my octave mandolin a guitar" 😡

Bass guitars. Somehow I always feel I'm letting the band down if I turn up with my bass guitar and not my upright.

Having a Squier Jazz with Fender fretless neck, aftermarket tuners, and about to get aftermarket pickups... in retrospect I'd have bought a Fender from the start. Nothing to do with quality, just the branding.

Thanks Lemmy. The Entwhistle pickups are particularly cheap, definitely worth considering!

That's why I took it to my technician, who I've a good and long relationship with - she recommended changing the pickups and I'm happy to go with that I'll look into the DP123BK you mentioned though - as well as being locally available they're a chunk cheaper.

Yes, they were recommended because of the "adjustable pole pieces to improve the string balance". Also, six months ago when we looked into this, I think they were more readily available. Now I have the funds to go ahead, time has moved on and they're not as available as they were at the time.

Is anyone playing with DiMarzio "Relentless J" pickups? For a while I blamed my old amp that some notes seemed quiet on my jazz bass, but last time I was in the studio (she says casually, as if not a rank amateur) the engineer was grumbling that notes on the A string were lower in volume. My technician had a look and recommended changing the pickups and suggested: https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/jazz-bass-hum-canceling/relentless-j-bass-pair They're not cheap and not readily available in the UK, so I wondered if anyone else was using them before going ahead? I mostly play jazz, folk-rock and worship music.

I went to Firebird for a classical piano exam. But they had no piano and were at a loss as to why the exam board had sent me there. The staff were helpful and friendly though, and it looked a decent set up.

Which is what I was playing in church today - alongside piano, electric guitar, drum and cornet. OK the volume was set to '9', and the acoustics are fantastic, but it was loud enough.

I'm surprised I'm the only person with only fretless - though that has been helped by moving house and selling instruments I wasn't playing. I started playing double bass and viola/violin at the start of covid lockdown and haven't really played fretted since.