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All fair enough, but ultimately it's our job to entertain them. If I'm being ignored by the punters then it might be because they're all self-obsessed, selfish Mr and Mrs Silly Billy who should have been drowned at birth. Or it might be because I'm not doing enough to entertain them. Just saying ...

BOURNEMOUTH Mid 80s and our soul/Motown band is expanding, we are looking for a keyboard player. Get a call from bloke in his 40s who tells us of his talented daughter. Our guitarist took call and explained all the relevant stuff. Dad assures him that she can blow through this material - no problem! Family turns up at guitarist’s house with keyboard, stand, armfuls of music scores. Pretty 17 year old sets up behind singer but no amp - keyboard has built in speakers we are told so all will be good. We show her set list and she counters with one of her own including “tie a yellow ribbon” and “viva España”. Smirks are beginning to appear on faces of various personnel but no one seems to have the heart to say anything. Guitarist is just about to when girl cranks up her built-in drum machine and launches into “España” in a hideously tuneless voice. Some band members attempt to tag along musically and both girl plus both parents are grinning enthusiastically as she blazes on oblivious to the suppressed laughter emanating from behind. Trumpet player is overtaken with mirth and just manages to get outside the door before he explodes into laughter. We find him 10 minutes later weeping uncontrollably by the stairs! When song ended it was a difficult moment for all but our ever diplomatic guitarist explained we were perhaps doing the wrong material for her talents. The family seemed very satisfied with the explanation and left the house beaming from ear to ear! To this day I feel guilty for the poor girl but in reality there was little that could be done. We went on to hire the fabulous “Mr Amazed”, but that as they say, is a story for another day.

RCF über alles - no, not at all. I will reiterate, it's just those particular models and components that are in them. I'm actually a L-Acoustics, D&B and Danley nut... but realise they are perhaps another tier above the average PA speaker. I spend a lot of time looking and trying stuff out and these (73/45s) are unique among the competition for the reasons I've mentioned above a couple of times. The QSC and Yamaha stuff (and I guess JBL, EV and all the other likely candidates at that price point) is certainly of comparable quality but not performance - and if you ask and 735 or 745 user on here, they will all tell you the same, they never struggle for headroom or getting vocals heard. First hand experience with other cabs has shown me that not to be the case with other manufacturers examples in that price range. If any other brand put the same quality of components in any model of their cabs, I would be singing the same praises. I've shared a few conversations with @stevie about these specific cabs - we aren't quite sure how they are managing to manufacturer and sell them for the price that they are. They certainly don't appear to be making much profit from them per unit - or at least, we can't really figure out how they are doing it if they are. OK to clarify the subwoofer situation - the 735 or 745 will allow you to push out some serious bass without subwoofers. You wouldn't use small subs, so don't use small tops when you are expecting them to shift a lot of hard hitting bass. When I mean serious bass, I mean gig volumes of bass and kick drum. The 310s will definitely not do that... or at anywhere near he same volume. My experience with the 745s is that you can actually sack off all the backline, run IEMs and let the FOH speakers do the amplification for the whole band. This means less bleed on stage and better dispersion for say, guitar, where guitar amps are typically very unidirectional. If you are a member of the audience standing in front of a guitar amp, you are likely to be blasted. Two steps to the right or left and the guitar amp may be unbalanced with the rest of the band. By putting the whole band out of the FOH, you don't get any of these problems. My pitch for the 735 or 745 is that it can form half of a formidable PA but if you need a combo, it will more than happily do the job of a traditional rig also. I think there's a dual conversation happening in this thread which is muddying the water a little for some. EBS haven't done anything for a while... certainly nothing that makes me sit up and take notice! Still love their amps though - the HD350 is still my fave bass amp of all time and I'll still take it out on a whim from time to time (usually a dep where they aren't geared up with a beefy PA and IEMs)... although my personal main rig is now a Kemper (no speakers) and inears going into a beefy PA? Why, because it sounds better on stage (my IEM mix is coming from a dedicated mixing desk with full stereo, compression fx etc)... and sounds clearer out front (nothing to bleed apart from the drums into the vocal mics). Who wouldn't want to change?

Watcha think? Too bling?

What a sound. What a drummer and great attitude also.

The year was 1982, I was 9, I had been given (second hand) a 70's Bontempi Hit Organ and Yazoo's 'Don't Go' was riding high in the charts. I fired up the Bontempi, which roared into life with its overbearing fan noise, and I learnt how to play the opening riff of above song. I was the coolest person ever While not the best 80's song, this brings back fond memories. Back then everything Vince Clarke did was magic to me, I'd never heard these sounds before.

I always felt everything was OK when Howard Jones and Nick Kershaw were about.

I agree, though for some punters it may be less transactional than that. I suspect some of them believe that the most interesting thing about the gig is that they are in attendance, hence the importance of communicating this fact to the world at large. This plays into my nascent theory entitled 'Arrested development and self-aggrandisement in a connected world: the curse of the under-60's' but I shall leave all that old tut for another day.

Imagine being born in 1959. Not only is there little choice in maker, the price would be extortion, plus they're almost certainly wrecked over the years and sound poo as the development was in it's infancy

And if your name is Harley....

Brother and sister

Looking good. Definitely leave the headstock maple. I'd amber tint it, but that's just me.

I've always thought that if a punter can have a conversation without seriously raising their voice then we're not loud enough. Or as a guitar player I used to play with (who also owns a very successful PA hire / installation company) would occasionally announce to the audience "tonight ladies & gentleman, we will be using volume as a tool... and if necessary as a weapon"...!

You've seen Coldplay, then?

Ah now, the big advantage of open mics is that the audience is also the other performers. If they make a racket during your 'turn', revenge is just around the corner.

An old version of my board...

He only wants to edit his PM messages as he sent me a picture of his willy (geezers hung like a donkey) and had after thoughts but to late I cant unseeit lol

Aside from the records often having 3 part harmonies they didn't want to bin him when Smith re-joined. Proper friendship.

One might even say they recorded some of them with[out] a little help from their friends... I'll get my coat.

Any system is only as strong as it's weakest link and there's some understandable confusion regarding the FRFR being used just for bass monitoring on stage, as backline without pa support and backline with pa support and all the variables of the pa system. Strangely neither me nor EBS_freak use the setup we're harping on about as such, I use either a small combo or a bigger bass amp and he uses in ears mostly. We both use RCF as foh though and we both own our Pa systems rather than band shared so the option to use the pa as backline or monitor for other gigs where we either dep or have full professional pa support would allow us to use the RCF kit. With your current kit essentially you would be governed to a venue where the drums and bass can cut through and the stage area volume has to be loud enough for people at the back to hear.

Dont, I still shudder after 35 years

My 5th wheel vote. Liam Gallagher with Oasis. He was lucky enough to be in his brothers band.

Nice try but It was John who said that, and it was a typical Beatles p**s take. Ringo was the one drummer the Beatles chased to join them, and put the final piece in the jigsaw. Ringo was the one they begged to come back when he walked out and said he was leaving the band. Same goes for Charlie Watts. The Stones chased him for ages to get him to join. Kieth has said many times "Charlie is the musical bed I lie on" They bribe him with gifts and platitudes to Tour as he is not keen on life on the road. Listen to pop drumming before Ringo and Charlie, then what they brought to the party will become obvious, unless you play drums then you will be blindingly aware of what they brought to the respective bands.

Yes. Chas Smash

And if you start with 17's like I did and find it's a bit much (we are not a loud band) then within the first month you can have the filters changed for no cost. I ended up with 15's, but you might need 20's. And The difference with the proper filtered ones is you can have a conversation without taking them out and hear every word. YMMV.

The direction you face won't save you. It's your proximity to the sound source that matters, and on a stage you're in the middle of an ear drum's nightmare. I can't say what filters would be good for you but I started with ER15's (I was advised that these were the base level recommended for bands. That was good advice). I used them for about 8 years. With these I could hear a whisper on stage and survive a crazy loud guitarist. I've now got the PRO17's and they are working well from the quietest gigs to the loudest. As I say I have tinnitus and don't want to retire so the cost of hearing protection is the least of my concerns. I'd go with the 17's. They work very well for me.

next time accidentally step on his left hand before the gig...

I'm by no means a prude as I love a good old swear from time to time. However, at my gym they play hip hop far too loud with tons of swearing. Not a fan. Personally find it too aggressive in an already testosterone fuelled environment. Asked them please could they either turn it down a bit or roll some of the bass off so I don't hear/feel it when I am listening to my music. They said "we don't always play hip hop, we also play garage and r&b" Like there's a difference to me

He maybe now ? Shame I sold him a bass neck on Ebay and as he was in the US, he sent Clive Bunker round to my home to collect it for him What a lovely guy Clive is too.

Assuming that they are half decent and have a modicum of stage presence, then why not??

Trafodbas Hyfryd!

I've gone in a slightly different direction to get to the same place. We put the PA at the back of the band so we do not need to carry monitors - that means I stand between the PA speaker and the drummer and I can't hear my own rig. I started with a belt-mounted upmarket 'me/them' mixer like the Behringer P1, but I found that my budget in-ears did not keep out enough stage noise, so I sent that back and went for a small (cheaper) desktop mixer and an upgraded pair of in-ears. I now use the Shure SE215s, but I had to get the optional 'chistmas tree' type plugs to get good isolation. I take a feed from the nearest PA speaker through a resistive attenuator: a feed from my speaker output through a resistive attenuator; through the mixer and into my IEMs. Studiospares do a figure-of-8 twin microphone cable which gives me a 'bass to amp' feed on one side and a 'headphone left and right' on the other side. A belt-mounted plastic box holds the plug/socket adaptor to get from stereo jackplug to 3.5mm jack socket for the IEMs. The reason for taking a feed from the bass-speaker connection is that I want to know if it fails. David

Cream with the 70's style white pickguard is the winner for me! The cream looks awesome by the way, is that the erm.. finished finish? What are you using for the fretboard? If it's something dark like rosewood I'd colour match the headstock, but I'd probably leave it natural if using a maple board.

It’s become urban legend that the comment came from the band themselves but it actually originated from a 1970s Jasper Carrot sketch.

I'm a Big fan of Black pickguards against cream/off white bodies!

Bore Da Phill, Another South Walian here (near Caerphilly) I'll check your blog out later Hwyl

That's more satisfying, but it requires more skill to make it look accidental in front of many witnesses. Still... worth trying if you couldn't get at him earlier!

I'm another satisfied user of the ACS pro 17s, had mine for nearly 5 years now and still going strong. I bought a pair of 20db filters last year and use them for particularly loud gigs, otherwise the 17s are spot on. It takes seconds to change the filters, and a spare set costs about 40 quid, from memory.

I once bought a 1967 Volvo 123GT from a chap in North Devon. Whilst on the phone to him asking his location (pre mobile phone and Internet days) he told me, "A small village called Woolsery", he pronounced it 'Woolsree'. No matter how much I studied the map I couldn't find 'Woolsery'. I said, "All I can see in that area is a place called Woolfardisworthy". "That's it" he said, "Woolsree". Turns out 'Woolfardisworthy' is pronounced 'Woolsree', who knew? Even the signposts up there have Woolfardisworthy, with Woolsery bracketed underneath on them.

Air guitars?? Sorry...now where did I leave me jacket???

Also while we're on the subject, it's Häussel or Haeussel not Haussel. Really cringe-worthy when folk make such simple spelling errors: makes you kinda think they don't care so long as folk understand what they're saying?

I wish I could get my old Sei fretless Jazz back. I sold it back in 2012, cash was not abundant at the time and it was a case of "last in, first out". It was a stunner, and sounded amazing. Weighed practically nothing too. Although, of course, I could always commission Martin to make me another one.