All Activity

On a carousel- Hollies

Hi Tim, Using wi-fi links sounds really interesting, winding up DMX cables every gig is already getting very boring on top of the XLR's. I'd be really interested to know how that works out.

Here is my recently refurbished 1998 Stingray 5... was originally a trans red finish but has been stripped and professionally finished with a buffed open pore nitro clear coat with a subtle brown wash. Tuners and bridge changed to black to match in with the scratch plate and knobs (3 months wait for the bridge from EB!!) Well chuffed with the finished result. Finally strung it up and played it today and it made me realise why I love a SRay5!

This is what I do, including using a pick where the song calls for it.

Ride My See‐Saw - Moody Blues

For years I worked on a mobile 'heavy rock' disco but we didn't want the disco flashing light thing, we wanted to created a mood. The lights were all DMX controlled and we had a PC in a flight case with a USB-DMX adapter. From memory the rig was 6 x PAR56 on dimmer packs with rainbow gel selection 4 x gobo scanner 2 x moonflower Each PAR can was one colour of the rainbow and we worked out which gobos were which, I wrote simple programmes that were just red, or just orange. Some move complex ones that moved the scanners, flipping gobo as they changed direction. But it was all very low key. We retired from that game a long time ago, but a couple of years later someone asked us to do one last gig. We didn't have the PC anymore and had to borrow back the lights from the local high school we'd donated them to. I found that with only one scanner running a built-in pattern, the other three set to mirror it, we got 4 scanners all with the same colour, all moving in a sequence and it was fairly low key and not flashy. The dimmer packs let us put the PAR cans on a slow fade between channels - maybe a minute to move around them, and that worked OK. So looking back I probably wasted a lot of time programming fancy light shows - the built in stuff could be tweaked to be OK. Of course this is going back years to the days of single-colour halogen lamps.

I have a Chauvet Obey 40. It's only been used at home so far but I did use one in a band about 20 years ago and setting up 5 simple chases and using the 'rate' slider to vary the speed of the chases was all I needed. Select a different chase each song. About to buy some WiFi transmitter/receivers as the amount of long cables that have to be run and packed up. It'll pay for itself in cables and time. Currently only DMX control is 4 mini spotlights linked together with one as master (and sound to light) and everything else is just sound to light solo. It can look a bit manic.

I have 4 8" led Par Cans 4 mini Led spotlights 2 Moving head lights. We have a laser with coloured lights in it as well. I link the 4 mini Led lights together spread across the front to illuminate the band. 2 of the par Cans on stands either side. The 2 moving heads linked together and they mimic each other in reflection. It's ok but the sound to light just means random flashing lights all over the shop. I also have a Chauvet Obey 40 controller. I've played with the controller at home with everything connected but it's too many cables to connect. Next purchase will be WiFi DMX transmitter and rechargeable receivers. My plan is then to take everything off sound to light and program some simple chases where everything is a bit less manic. Will leave the moving heads in auto as programming sweeps with them is challenging using the Obey.

I get that this is somewhat sarcastic, but now that we have almost all the information about everything ever at our fingertips, why wouldn't you spend a few minutes looking up some musician who people on here think is significant and having a listen to what they have played on? Then you can make up your own mind whether it's worth listening to more or depart with knowledge that what they do is not for you.

I would hate to be in a band that did that. But as you have done 6 gigs in not much time, it doesn't seem his availability is that good, so maybe come to some arrangement about which gigs to do, as long as it is all up front.

I am eagerly awaiting his forthcoming video where he quotes from a load of old blokes on one of those old fashioned forums, and finally answers the age old questions; What bass is best for metal? Which is the best Jazz or Precision? Rounds or Flats? Can I mix cabs and heads?

Further to my previous comment, I should add that I'd much rather watch Danny than the smelling-your-own-farts w4nkery of Berthoud etc. I get nowt from that stuff (YMMV obv).

I did the 'Boss pedals on a Boss board' thing a while back and it was... alright. I like the BC-1X compressor and still have it on my main board (and the TU-3 is in the cupboard) but I sold the rest of the pedals as either I was bad at using them, or they weren't inspiring me to try. I didn't like the plastic board either.

I know Danny a bit. He used to live above a bar that I used to go to occasionally and now he's moved to the next town, I bump into him every now and again in the supermarket. Funnily enough, the last time I saw him, he was asking me about the tribute band I'm in, rather than talking about his more illustrious online career! He's actually a nice guy, even shorter in real life than you might imagine and a very good bass player! I don't really bother with online bass influencer types as a rule, but his clips are OK / mildly amusing. I do agree with some of the things he gets on his high horse about, especially the Mohini Dey / AI thing.

If I were into pedals I would try and do that. But even carrying one Sansamp around I now consider to be a mammoth task.

The band I had to leave back in March (due to me having a brain-bleed stroke) has been very supportive since then, kept in touch about my recovery and since then have asked me to do 5 or 6 dep jobs with them covering gigs my replacement on bass couldn't do. Latest was last Friday 28th November at a private party in a nice pub in Sherborne. It's gratifying that I still remembered the chords and arrangements for all the numbers I used to do, and could busk the new ones, although I must admit 'Fairytale of New York' unrehearsed was hard going - never played it before and frankly never liked the original! My short sax set (One step beyond, Geno, Tutti Frutti) went down well too; I suppose sdditional saxophony is my unique selling point! Following on from one of the other threads on this forum, the other band members would clearly like to have me back, and were thinking about hiding some gigs from my replacement so I could play them instead. I must say I felt conflicted - I would love to gig regularly again but I've had this sort of thing happen to me in the past but the other way around. Hmm... advice please!