Grant Harding

I got a Pan brand electric bass when I was about 10 or 11. It was a POS, but started my life of pulling guitars apart. Didn't get an electric guitar (Fender Mustang) until I was 14.

Hey OP - what do you think? Going to join the conversation or just trolling/spamming?

Depends on who's playing them.

Definitely no crisis for me. I've played solo and duo many times. It used to be a blast, but now you're mostly stuck in a corner like a fleshy mp3 player. Plus I've got a decent day job and I can't handle being told what to do by an event planner or bar manager. 😄

I hate perfection! It's just excellence with some extra wasted effort on top. 😎

It's always going to take a while to train a new platform. Thanks for that Phil.

Cool video. Some of the best acoustics I've played have been Martins. That's some serious company history.

What's better, fish or chemistry? Memories or tree roots? This thread still makes the same amount of no sense.

💩

I still have music joy, but it's usually recording and messing around with different sounds with my guitars and the Kemper. In the early 80's I was the "young gun" lead player in a funk/reggae band in the West Indies. We were like heroes. I can't imagine any current context for me that would compare.

Being in a band is becoming like being an opera singer in the 70's. There were lots of people that loved it, but it was niche and confined to older people. I get joy from jamming with like minded people and I avoid gigging now. The last thing I want is to bust my ass for people that don't appreciate it.

The phrase I like is "perfect practice makes perfect". I spent years doing unstructured practice and lots of noodling before I read that and I think it was too late to iron out the bad habits that engrained. Now I'm lucky if I play 2 hours per week, so I'm pretty much on a plateau, but still love playing.

I just hit 40 years of intensive practice and patchy gigging but I didn't even get a trophy.

I remember those old bungee ones. They work well. These are also old school, but adjustable: https://images.app.goo.gl/7eD8WhpXRdgPHKYFA

You say money is no object, in which case I'd get a powered (600w) Kemper and a nice cab. I realise that's probably way more than you want, but it's how I do bass. I use mostly Ampeg amp profiles and it sounds amazing always, plus I can add wah filter, chorus, compression, EQ, whatever I want per preset. The power amp is Class D, just neutral amplification, but the "amp character" comes from whatever amp was used to create the profile. In your case a good combo amp sounds like the right thing, but I'd go at least 200w if you're going to play with a drummer and not run the bass through a PA.