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Good call!

The monitor mix

Hey, I have somehow landed a new bass. Was looking at an RBX but this came up locally and I snagged it for a great price. I have absolutely no idea if this bass is decent and know no history of the company. Has anyone played or owned one of these? Many thanks.

Great post.

I wouldn`t say it was diva-ish to want your own sound if it`s a specific aspect of the band, giving JJ of The Stranglers a James Jamerson sound for example is not going to do much for the known recognisable sound of the band, nor for the fans who may really love JJBs tone and feel shortchanged for not getting it. It`s mainly for this reason that I`ve moved away from having a specific identifiable tone gotten from a specific pedal to that of a more generic tone achievable from pretty much most bass amps, I can easily get what I need plus it requires less carrying and setting up as well. I also then can essentially not bother the sound person too much (if at all) and let them get on with the most important bits, which to me are the vocals.

Yamaha BBs are solid workhorses. If you see a bassist with a BB, they know what they're doing.

ordered!

I had one of the SPB4s in a bass I bought for a while, it`s a decent sounding pickup but quite a bit different to the SPB1 - I found that the 1 had a huge mid-scoop whereas the 4 seemed to have the opposite. Re the distorting bit, well in general it`s mids that this seems to work on so I would think that the 4 would take this better than the 1.

I was a sound "mixist" in the late 90s/early 2000s and I can say that there are some useless sound people and some prima-donna d**khead band members out there too. My rule was pre-amp DI wherever possible, but if it was obvious the "sound" was all being done in the amp, I would take it post. A bit of discussion with the band always helped, unless they felt they were too important to speak with you. I can remember the bass player who insisted on using his own home-made preamp thing which appeared to output DC and melted the voice coils in the event's shared backline 8x10, or the guitarists/drummers who insisted on playing all the time when soundchecking. However, I have also been playing gigs where I have had to show the sound person how to operate their own desk, or get rid of some really bad resonance on stage, things like that. As for backline - I was never sure if this was an urban myth or not, but I remember a guitarist once telling me of another guitarist pal who once turned up at a venue with his amp that kept cutting out, only to find the venue had the same one so he swapped them after the gig when they weren't looking and left his in place of the venue's good one!

The Bards

Hi all, I am trying to power my Chocolate Plus MIDI pedal and GP-5 via the power supply I already have - standard 9v daisy chaining thingy. Not expensive but I don't have loads of pedals. Chocolates will only run via 5V USB so I need to adapt my 9v PSU to run a 5V supply. A friend of mine (also read this online) told me a standard USB cigarette lighter will work with 9V so try one of those. I had a spare, took the innards out, fashioned (quite crudely) a 9V supply via a 9V battery and YES! It came alive! I wanted to double check the output was 5V - so I plugged in an old USB cable, stripped back the wires and measured across the red and black and yep - 5.10 volts. Perfect. It's stepping down the 9V to 5V. Just what it should be doing. To be sure, i plugged the same stripped cable into my PC which I know powers and charges the Chocolate plus and again the voltmeter reads 5.06 volts. Connect the chocolate to the PC USB port and everything comes alive. Chocolate charges and powers up and the Valeton GP-5 also comes on. Connect the same cable to the 9V powered USB and the chocolate will charge but as soon as I plus in the USB host cable to power the valeton, the charge light goes out and the GP-5 it doesn't power up. Is there not enough in a 9V battery supply? Will connecting it to the mains 9V power supply make a difference? I am at a bit of a loss here - both outputs read the same voltage - one works and one doesn't. Is the battery not man enough to maintain the voltage when the draw is too much? I am going to try it out connected to the 9V power supply but wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time before I did so! thanks for any advice guys! Carl.

Because as others have said, if anything good was supplied it would get abused, broken and/or nicked. IMO if you are in a band that regularly plays these sorts of multi-band gigs using house or shared kit, being able to play with enthusiasm no matter how terrible it sounds on stage is a skill as important as being able to play in time and in tune with the rest of your band. Being able to make the best of every situation is what will get your band more and better bookings and able to move up the bill (assuming that all other aspects of your performance are up to scratch). I'm now at the point that so long as I can hear I am in tune and in time with the rest of the band I'm happy knowing that the songs are great, and if it's not brilliant on stage I can play through it. Being a bunch of divas moaning about not being able to get "your sound" is unlikely to get you another gig at the venue. Trust that it will sound decent out front and play your heart out on stage.

Are we saying that many sound mixists are convinced they are the main attraction.

I'm 67 and have been thinking about how long I have left of doing this. The last few years have been very very uncomfortable at times band-wise, due to a band member who was arrogant and awkward, but who has now thankfully left. When that happened, I questioned whether to carry on or not, and after a day or two I decided to not let the situation defeat me. We auditioned a new, much younger, guitarist and we are playing with a new-found excitement and chucking lots of new material together and playing what we hope are very good shows. Where this becomes very relevant to this topic is that our drummer is unwell and has been out of the band since July. We have a reserve drummer covering, but it seems more and more likely that our own drummer will not be returning to the band, except to maybe do a couple of occasional short 'guest spots'. That is something that we haven't been able to discuss. He's been very determined to play, but sadly his mobility and medication have interfered with everything. That is an enormous stress for me as he's my friend and we have been in the same band for ten long years, persevering and supporting each other through some rather awkward times to keep things together. 'Do it while you can' is very much my motto these days. You don't know when it's going to be taken away from you.