All Activity

This.

Id love a Status. Ive had headless basses over the years (still got a spirit), but never owed a real Status or Steinberger. To me those aren't custom or boutique basses, as there were loads of them around back in the day. I still get the impression that its more the hobbyist that likes to spend shed loads of money on boutique, rather than the working bass player. obviously that's a blanket statement but im just going by things ive read on here. Ive also never seen a bass player playing anything more than 5 in a live situation. Then again I dont go to see many bands these days.

Guilty as charged!

I’ve had a similar thing. My ear openings are quite different, one fairly normal size and the other quite a bit smaller. Using plugs to protect my ears would often result in them hurting a bit, especially the smaller side. I have different sized plugs for each ear too, and am always careful when inserting and taking them out. Using plugs also compacts the wax in my ears a bit too, meaning regular visits to have them cleared. I also use light olive oil sprayed into my lugholes, do it once a week which seemed to help. Anyway, I found the ultimate solution - I left the loud band where I needed to wear ear protection!

Yeh, amazing gig, although I thought it could have been louder, which is a first for me! Same Wilkes is amazing but the keys player really stood out to me. Incredible solos I've seen Louis Cole in various guises a few times. I am very into drums and drummers. He has the machine-like chops of JoJo Mayer but with the groove and feel of Benny Greb. It seems to me he's renowned in jazz circles but you don't see him mentioned in drummer circles very much at all. Absolutely incredible musician.

If you’ve seen the viral videos being spread on social media that say Kier Starmer is bringing in new banking rules so that bank transfers over £800 will be frozen for 24 hours from 1 October to allow for advanced AI checks, reporting to HMRC and preventing scams, this is not true. I don’t know who is responsible for making up and spreading this 🐂 💩, but the world would be a much better place if that kind of person didn’t exist.

Me too -Aluminium tape is ideal and a decent thickness so you only need a few wraps.

Two Tribes - Frankie

Hi - I get this as well sometimes. Do you use the comfort cream when you put them in, as I find this helps a lot, along with pulling the top of your ear up and out as you put them in. How long have you had them, I have to change mine every few years due to changing ear shape. I once had to have a pair remade as they weren’t quite fitting correctly. ACS have great customer services and adjusted them for me, and they were much better.

I meant no office, but those are my thoughts. It's not so much the strings that I think look silly, they just seem to have such weird body shapes. I feel the same about single cutaway basses/guitar's. I appreciate sometimes you do need a certain tool to do a certain job, so I get that you need those type of instruments to do what you do, although I will ask who's holding down the low end while you are doing it 😎

I've used a SmoothHound system with both a Shadow piezo pickup and a Krivo magnetic and it seems to work fine with both, so I'd infer that it's working at a higher impedance level, although I don' t have a way to measure it.

Hi all, I've got a super pair of custom made ACS ear plugs. They work very well but the day after wearing them my right ear hurts like hell. The pain subsides over time and by the day after that it feels normal again. Anyone else experienced this problem? Could the pain be caused by me not inserting/removing them carefully enough? Any thoughts welcome. I hope I can continue using them as they are 1000% better than any other regular musicians ear plugs I've tried over the years.

Double Trouble - Eric Clappedout

Sold an amp head to Paddy last week - easy, pleasant sale and a lovely chap to deal with.

good to see you all!

I've been able to be in bands for almost 50 years now without owning a car and for much of that time without being able to drive. Technically I can drive, but I didn't start leaning until I was in my 30s, there was no point before as I couldn't afford lessons let alone the cost of owning and running a car, and it took me 2 years of intensive lessons before I passed my test on the 3rd attempt. TBH I'm a terrible driver and the roads are safer for everyone without me behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, so I don't drive. As others have said, it very much depends on where you live and the sorts of bands you want to be in and the sorts of gigs you want to do. It may also depend on what other skills and resources you can bring to your musical ventures. I have chosen to live in a fairly large city with good public transport and taxi services which is more than adequate for getting to rehearsals and local gigs. In fact for local gigs getting a taxi to and from the venue is far more convenient and often cheaper than driving myself would be. Taxi drivers have zero problem stopping in the middle of the road directly outside the venue for me to load in and out. I don't have the hassle of trying to find somewhere to park that isn't going to cost the earth and if the gig goes on past midnight there is a very good chance that two taxi fares will be less than the cost of parking anywhere close to where we are playing. Any band I have been in that regularly does gigs in other parts of the country has had dedicated band transport, often with a driver/roadie, and IME it makes more sense if travelling any distance for the whole band to travel together. Remember that you can't finish setting up and doing your sound check until all the band are there and invariably if you are travelling in multiple vehicles, at least one will get caught in traffic or some other incident. Otherwise what else can you bring to the band or musical venture other than yourself and your bass? For about 20 years I lived somewhere where it was possible for any band I was in to rehearse for free. I also had what started as a simple 4-track recording setup that eventually grew to become a fully-fledged home recording studio where we could record everything except an acoustic drum kit. All available to whatever band I was in at no charge. Also in my day job I am involved with graphic design and can produce imagery for all the band's visual identity - posters, flyers, CD and record covers, T-shirts and on-line graphics - for free and able to get the print at discount prices or for free too. Do you have any other musical skills? Can you sing backing vocals? I currently play in a Goth/post-punk influenced band as well as playing bass I do all the drum programming and much of the sound design for our songs. I also provide all the hardware for the playback of the drums and second synth parts when we gig. All these things mean that the bands I played with since I first started gigging have been more than happy to help me with transport where I can't sort it out for myself.

Most of them are not professionally designed or built. TBH most "professionally built" boards have normally available pedals and power supply and a common board type and the only bespoke thing about them is the patch cables that have been cut to size accurately. Of all the things in music that might need professional assistance, assembling a pedal board is very low on the list.