All Activity

Touring, like everything else to do with bands, is what you make it. There are always ups and downs, but if you're serious about playing in a band, think you've got something for an audience and if you've chosen the right guys, you'll make it work. As Charlie Watts said when the Stones were celebrating their 25th anniversary, "5 years playing and 20 years hanging around!" IMO the end justifies the means. 8 hours driving to a gig and 8 hours driving back again depends on the gig. A good gig and it's worth it. A bad gig and you put it behind you and look forwards to the next one. If you can't do that become an accountant etc.

On a Knock Off tour, we played in Antwerp, Belgium. First off when we drove through the area where our hotel was we saw some rather mean looking people on guard duty at various properties, complete with machine guns. Turned out we were staying in the diamond district. Hence said machine guns. At the gig itself, at about 9:45 when we were nearing the end of the set this chap in a police uniform (later found out he was the Antwerp Chief of Police) got up on stage and started speaking/shouting at me. Now my Flemish isn’t that good, as in don’t speak a word of it, but I could tell from his tone of voice, expression, and hand hovering near his right hip he didn’t want an autograph. So we stopped playing. Our singer had the hump and went to have it out with him but I just said it’s the first night of the tour and said policeman has a gun so don’t Fosters him off. Turns out the venue had a 10pm curfew, and after a chat with the owners the Chief allowed us back on til 10pm. We didn’t ask him which song he wanted, miserable so & so!

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift

What happens on tour stays on tour... I did a full year on the road over 97/98 with a charity/fund raising/gospel band linked to https://www.mercyships.org.uk mainly in Europe but also South Africa and Ghana. It was fun especially for an 18/19 year old. Started off as a roadie/sound engineer but then got promoted to bass. Learned a few things: 1) No amount of hard work/practice will put you in the same league as naturally talented pro musicians with a good ear (and when you find them just play what they tell you) 2) Gear breaks/goes missing all the time so the simplest set up that ideally someone else has paid for works best 3) Make good use of caffeine especially if you are voluntold to drive the van 4) Music is a fun hobby but too much hard work for not enough reward to do full time

That will be it, thanks 🙏

I Just Want To Make Love To You — Etta James

Thanks for the powersoft pointer, however i did consider one before finding the Synq but they are full rack depth and i'm looking for a replacement for my shallow rack setup. As for the Blue Aran i will contact them this week. Thanks guys.

Did you make those modifications and if so was there a discernible difference before and after? I ask because as mentioned previously my Ray35 (no mods) is all the way Stingray to me through and through as-is☺️

Thanks, that's interesting, I do use chrome so that could be contributing.

That is just the ticket! Bit expensive, but does the trick. Do the internal measurements shape up against the official ones? The bass is 132cm long...that's the main thing. Internal Length 1384 mm Width 254 mm Depth 152 mm Lid Depth 51 mm Base Depth102 mm

To complete the nerd/fanboi collection I bought these two Master Effects pedals - Transmission (apes the EQ of Hooky's early Yamaha basses) and Golden Ratio (chorus based on original Clone Theory circuit; little bit noisier than I would ideally wish but sounds authentic)

Ambition - Raye/Stormzy

Windows only allows a single instance of usb MIDI so that can cause issues. Can happen if you have chrome open too as it allows usb MIDI.