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How was your gig last night? - Mixed. There were good bits and terrible bits as I'll describe. We were playing the St Lucifer 10th anniversary gig and the only band in the lineup that didn't include previous members of St Lucifer. There was a last-minute change of venue due to the place we were originally supposed to be playing being flooded. Luckily an alternative venue could be found so we were upstairs at Gulliver's on Oldham Street in Manchester instead of underwater at Fuel The Music. Apart from having one of the most inconvenient load ins ever - from a narrow street with double-yellows both "sides" so we do get everything out of the car in double quick time, set up and sound check went smoothly. For a change the sound on stage when we started playing was the same as when we sound checked. Everything was going brilliantly with plenty of people in the audience dancing and singing along to our better-known songs. Then during the penultimate song the drums on the backing track cut out. No error messages on the computer which is what normally happens and the track was still playing and outputting MIDI data, just no audio to the PA. We played through to the end of the song without drums which got us an extra loud round of applause, but after that it proved impossible to get the audio to work again. Time was tight and after two unsuccessful attempts to make it work we had admit defeat and not place our last song. Really gutted, especially as up to the point where the backing failed it had been going so well. There were at least two people who'd come from Nottingham especially to see us play and we felt that we'd let the audience down. Of course now I'm back home the backing plays fine with no audio cut outs. Still extensive testing to do before our next gig on Saturday at The Berliner in Beeston as part of the OxJam festival (BTW I've started a thread about it in the gigs section and if any other Basschatters are playing it would be great for you to add your venues and playing times to it). In the meantime here is a collage of photos from the night including one of us while everything was still going well:

Ouch!

Yep, I've driven loads of Land Rovers as I used to work in a scrap yard and used to move stuff round in them and deliver stuff. Normal steering action was the steering wheel would move around 45 degrees from the vertical and you;d still be driving in a straight line. They were slow and used to break half shafts all the time, to such an extent, we used to carry them in the back. Now of course they are terribly desirable and go silly money, especially Series 1's (the headlights are inside the wheel arches). We'd have to set off now to get to Taunton by Oct 12th by my reckoning. Rob

Our first gig for the duo ( since our annual break ) was yesterday afternoon at a local vineyard, playing for a 60th birthday party. Great venue set on the edge of the wolds, overlooking the Humber estuary. Only about 40 guests, and a surprise do for the birthday lady so we played ‘Happy Birthday’ as she walked into the room. Not many requests, but the family were big Fleetwood Mac fans so it gave us a challenge to sort some keys out for a few of the female led vocal tunes, some of which worked and the odd one didn’t! Still, some dancers towards the end of the afternoon so we just kept the well known material flowing, along with the sparkling wine which was delicious! Used the Fender Kingman into my Rumble 100v3 combo, more than adequate in rather lively room - barn like with bare wood everywhere. Home by 6pm, well paid / fed / watered etc. We have 3 more gigs this week, so back with a vengeance!

The word over at Talkbass is that Fender has bought/is buying G&L.

Stupid. They could make 18 if they only used four strings per bass!

I'm liking what I've heard so far. The bass pedals sound amazing.

Colors - Machine Head

Famous last words

That's because they're essentially a passive bass in the first place. The EQ is fully passive and cut-only. The only active bit in the L2K electronics is the boost circuit. They're a bit of an oddity in that sense. Other active basses usually have active tone controls that also boost certain frequencies, and which can be bypassed. Some add active pickups to that package which have a preamp built into the pickup itself that needs power at all times to function.

"Dynamic pricing" All our clicks suggest interest and push the price up. Leave it in your basket and wait.

Wait to see the price of the whole set... 😉

Thank you all for the help - feeling the love

Wow, that's some useful links - I have some Hipshot HB6's with all 4 coming in at 220grams. Four of those Gotoh's (minus bushes) are around 142 grams, saving of 2.8 ounces. Haven't looked at the bridge yet.

I'll PM you today, many thanks

At the Sarah Moore on Saturday night. The 'performance area' in this pub is rather cramped for a band of our size, but as we were a man down (Liam, our co-lead singer was unavailable), it meant I had the opportunity to move from normal 2 square feet stuck behind a guitarist and move up front next to Jenny as I was doing the majority of backing vocals. And I have to say, she did a fantastic job covering both her and his songs, including a couple she had never sung lead on before. This was the first time I used my new Darkglass Anagram outside the house. I decided to tempt fate and leave the Helix at home. I needn't have worried, as the anagram sounded great; besides, the pub is only 5 mins from home, so I could have gone home to get the Helix if I needed it (and I keep a Sonicake Boom Ave in my bag just in case). I still need to tweak several things with my presets and get midi control from Bandhelper up and running. Pressing two footswitches simultaneously to change presets is not the easiest thing to do. But I really appreciated the much smaller and lighter unit by my feet. This will be very useful in tight venues. The gig itself went well, but the pub was a bit quiet. I put this down to being the last weekend before payday, and the month after, many people have had expensive family holidays. But the manager was very happy with us and hoping to get us back next year, lease pending. Next week, our regular overseas stint at Starr Sport on Canvey Island.

Silver, Blue and Gold - Bad Company