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I Told You So - Carrie Underwood

I was chatting with someone and there's a really cool job for a professional musician to work as the manager of the Rock Project in and around Bristol (Clevedon and Portishead). Details here: https://www.facebook.com/TRPBristolNorthSomerset Payment seems really fair, too and the job looks amazing. Sadly not for me as I have kids and it's around school kicking out time. Thought I'd share as opportunities for stuff like this don't come up too often.

Blame the guitarist, simples!

A pfffft sort of gig Satdy night up in Blackburn (and a single vital road closure added 20 minutes to the nearly-an-hour trip there), mostly empty pub ("Oooo, you're up against Eurovision tonight") and apparently a complaint later that the drums were too loud. I'm not surprised; the pool team is apparently the big thing about the pub, so they can't move the table, it having been professionally levelled or something, so we were in front of it, with a big chunk of empty pub behind us that had more natural reverb than a church. Tricky to keep as quiet as they wanted, but ironically the half dozen drunks in there were deafening before we went on in their conversational volume, literally shouting at each other while all sitting round the same table. They buggered off at some point, as did most other folk, but hey. Didn't help that I'd been out on the bike for a 130-mile blatt in the sun, and that took it out of me (I seem to recall riding a big bike was a lot less physically demanding when I was 21), so I hit the Energy Wall about half ten. Anyhoo, earlish finish, and we got paid. Last minute dep call for hosting a jam night in Tyldesley last night, which was good fun, tho I was the soberest person in the place by eleven (with a 25 mile drive home to do), and we didn't finish till pushing midnight. Used the QSC 12.2, but it was wayyy too much, I need to look at the EQ settings for a less bassy, more focused preset for using a foot from you on a small stage. No inears, my ears are singing today. 😐 Light Sonic P, Stomp, inears/QSC. Green Sketchers for both gigs.

Had that on one song on saturday, I was convinced the bass was out of tune as it seemed really off. Checked at the end of the song, it was spot on and I was playing the right thing - no idea what was going on there.

Two gig weekend this weekend. First was an evening gig at a local working mens club that we do a few times a year. Better than it sounds, it has a good stage, easy load in through the back door and a generally attentive crowd. I think numbers were a bit down on normal, but with quite a lot on that weekend around here, its not really that surprising, but the crowd were good, sound was good playing the spector for the first half and the #1 ibanez for the second half (to give my shoulder a break, the spector weighs a bit!). Went back to stereo IEM, and after taking my X18 in the house and going through it I found that the reason it didnt work well the last time I tried, Aux 5&6 that I was using for the IEM output was tied (for some reason) to the main output rather than bus 5&6, which is why adjusting them made no difference. Also I had fed the output from a multitrack I had recorded another time through the mixer again so I could offline concentrate on what I could do with the vocals of the singer - people have always complained he sounds muffled. I think I got it a lot better and he was really happy with how it sounded this weekend, in fact for the first time he said maybe it was too loud and clear! Noone complained they couldn't hear him. Sundays gig was an ourdoor pavillion, one of those venues that in the sun is fantastic, and in the rain is cramped and not so good. It was sunny so loads of space and everyone was in the mood for music. Setting up was easy, the cars are parked just on the left of the building on the grass, the bar part on the right and the crowd goes on a long way to the right in front of the bar. However setting up there was a panic as the original Evox PA on the left of this photo wouldn't switch on - we fiddled around, swapped leads etc, and nothing. In the end while I was looking elsewhere the guitarist and drummer noticed that when you rocked the pa forwards the power came on, and went off when it went back. so we moved it to be on one slab and put beer mats to make sure it was level and it stayed on for the whole gig. That si this weeks job. Didn't want to do the whole gig with just one evox 8 and there wasn't enough time to get home and get something else. Tried the soundcheck, my bass sounded terrible.Playing my Orange OLP, it was a summer day, that is a summer bass. Unfortunately there was no bass and it sounded weedy. I know it wasn't the battery as I had tested it during the week. Fiddle round, boosted the bass on the bass, and it sounded a little better, figuring that maybe a 10" speaker and Bam200 into the PA wasn't good enough for an open air (this is what I use all the time now), then I spotted it - the Bam200 as it is so small it lives in the gig bag, the bass and middle were fully anticlockwise, the treble fully clockwise, they just move in the bag. Put them all at 12 and suddenly I had a bass again (too much, turned the bass on the OLP down) The audience were in party mode and despite us doing exactly the same set list as saturday night and quite a few people from the previous night in attendance, they were really enjoying it, as did we. We have introduced 3 new songs in the last gigs, and they went well, I only messed up on some of the ones we have been playing for ever! So for info on the photo, that is my position on the right, microphone stand with iPad and sample pad (for pianos for 'In the End'), pedal board - mod dwarf, 12 step, critical mass vocals, going to the bam200 on the gnome 10" feeding through that line of wires to the PA (xlr from bam to mixer and jacks from the sampler and keyboard output of the dwarf to the mixer). The other leads are right speaker and ethernet from the mixer to the X-Control surface on the stand. This morning I woke up and feel like I lost a boxing match - too old for this shit!

They seem to really vary, which is what I can't get my head round. I bid on a sunburst one last week on Ebay but didn't win and it sold for £475. There's a black one on there that's been up for months on end at £800 and the same one's been on Reverb for a few years

Don't suppose you want to sell it?

Aye, you were lucky!

The opportunity arose a couple of weeks ago, when we played on a cramped stage where there wasn't really enough room for a double bass. I used my Epiphone Century, HPF and a bit of always-on compression into the Walkabout Scout and the Monza. EQ'd out quite a lot of the bass, boosted the lower mids a bit and it sounded rich, warm and authoratative. 2 bass players in the audiece came up and raved about the sound.

For portable amps. A few inches is enough for permanently installed horns, like they used to use in cinemas.

That's nothing. I was here back when the only strings you could get were made of stone. Awful for slapping.

i joined in 2010 but was lurking since 3100bc when I was looking for new strings for my Lute

Been there Usually lasts half a song. It's possible that it's actually someone else being a bit off...

The stand part is easy - it's for an NS bass and I believe it is this one: https://www.thomann.co.uk/ns_design_nxt_tripod_stand.htm The bracket on the bass was a bit of a project. From memory I think I bought a piece of square steel plate from a guy on ebay, and also a laser-cut steel disc. My friendly local car mechanic welded a nut on the back, and we drilled and tapped threads.

My first amp was a Carlsbro Wasp 10W "practice amp" bought in 1976 for £20. I used it for guitar and later bass - it worked well for a Peter Hook type sound at low volume and was used on the recordings that got CBS Records interested in signing my band in the early 80s. In the 90s my big bi-amped rig included a Carlsbro 15" Cab and a Carlsbro 2x300W PA amp.