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Hello everyone,

I bought a Warwick Star Bass from Andy. The bass is outstanding, as described, really well setup, and love the research into it's history as well. Andy was really helpful and thoughtful the whole way through with great comms. It was an absolute pleasure spending some time with him talking music, basses, and gear. Would definitely deal with him again in the future.

The band was out of commission. I gave my resignation but the guitar player who was to take over guitar duties so the guitarist could play bass no showed the afternoon of the big restart in fancy expensive rehearsal space. As the band can't function without bass I agreed to bring my gear as well as the charts. I enjoyed it so much I rescinded my resignation. The guitar player was only the reluctant bassist so new guitar boy misses out and I kept the charts.

Clearly you need to play a better class of gig. I worked a lot of festivals where 15 minutes was the standard turnaround time between acts. A festival patch and good communication makes it pretty easy with just a line check and quick monitor mixes setup.

I like those Ovation acoustics. Daryl

Our drummer has turned down seven good 2026 gigs in a row. We don't know why. BL called me for input on how we move forward. There's no easy answer, he was great with backing vocals and a great " pocket" drummer.. I guess he didn't like playing with us. We have two dep drummers to cover all the bookings. I know that finding a full time permanent replacement would be too much of a challenge. I suggest we find another dep drummer we can put in rotation. I know a guy that I think would be good, but I don't really know him. I think he does a lot of depping. We can offer good gigs with good pay. I'm afraid to reach out to him. I keep thinking, what if we bring him in and he turns out to be a " flake ". That would be on me. Daryl

When EQ'd for the same frequency response you cannot tell the driver size. You can have a dozen drivers of the same size with a dozen different frequency responses. When cabs have the same cone displacement, be it from one larger driver or more than one smaller drivers, they have the same maximum output. The only factor that's attributable to cone size alone is the dispersion angle, it grows narrower as the cone grows larger. Even that can be tweaked, and for that matter a pair of tens placed horizontal will have narrower dispersion than a single eighteen. In the end one factor, be it cone size or any of the more than a dozen factors that sum to give the end result, doesn't determine said result. It's that sum total.

Bridget (Riley) The Midget — Ray Stevens

Nah 15 minutes is often how long it takes as an audience member to get served/go to the loo/go out for a quick cig in between bands! Tbh though those are rarely the gigs where I have had or heard the most egregious issues. Rough and ready is fine, it's when they have no interest in improving the sound as they go within the realms of the possible. The process seems to be (rant time): 1. Get the drums huge as f**k, especially subby reverberant kick with a beater click that sounds like clipping. Add Phil Collins snare. But it's a funk band? Doesn't matter. 2 Sit a thin, heavily compressed vocal firmly on top. 3. Get something else (who knows what?) rumbling indistinctly through the subs (and subs only) to destroy any semblance of rhythmic tightness. 4. Sit back and chat to the lighting guy, scroll on phone, or visibly do nothing for the remaining 45 mins even though the actual music is sounding awful and you can't hear the guitar, keys and bass that between them are providing all harmonic context and melodic counterpoint. 5. (Optional) log on to the livesound subreddit and establish dominance. 6a (Very optional) belatedly notice that two of the instruments you can't hear are trading solos on what turns out to be the second-last song. Turn up the mids your preset had previously carved out until they're actually audible, in time for the solos to end. 6b. Leave it like that for the last song just to tantalise the audience with what might have been. Once in a while though you get someone really good and it's an absolute joy to behold. Suddenly these compact line arrays sound fantastic, the instruments are all beautifully placed in the mix and the vocal is so perfectly balanced it makes you want to cry.

I'm joining in on this resurrection... I bought my first Stingray this year. Adore the bloody thing but sometimes struggle with the sound. I had the weak G problem but it was massively improved by adjusting the poles in the pick up. I have now settled in using flats on it, I just adore the vibe of it. Flats on the Stingray is wildly underrated if you ask me.

Interesting idea Mark 😎

The Go-Bos W.A.S.H. The Bailers The Rolfing Stones Finger (Winger) Modness NBC (ABC...) Wing Chung

We finally got a Jive Deluxe to see what the hub bub was all about.

The oldest carol I know - we performed it last Saturday and we'll be doing it again on Friday! Anyway, here is Steeleye Span performing it:

I had never heard this, so I just did a search and I'm quite happy to never hear it again. 😂 Mark