Leaderboard
Popular Content
Showing content with the highest reputation on 25/06/18 in Posts
-
Last Saturday we'd just finished playing Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac when a rather drunk punter asked us if we knew any Fleetwood Mac.8 points
-
So unlike me it's time for a preview of what's coming up, the headstock design. After some discussion with my friends we shortlisted down to two designs from which I chose the one below. I have always made my basses under the name "Dragon" because I'm Welsh but I was told it made them sound like a cheap Chinese copy of a BC Rich made for school kids to pretend to play metal in their bedrooms, so maybe a rebranding to the Welsh word for Dragon which is "Ddraig". Either that or at the American Luthier Bruce Johnson's suggestion I rename to "Daft Bat" which is a strong possibility. The design will be a Welsh dragon in white Mother of Pearl with the brand name Ddraig either in Paua or Abalone. I haven't got any Paua yet but I've ordered some and should be with me by the end of the week with luck.4 points
-
I'll call it a day now and come back to it tomorrow to decide about the edges. But you probably get the idea of where it's generally heading: With loads of wood still to remove - especially the heavy maple from the neck carve - and with all remaining hardware piled onto the scales, it's sitting at below 7lbs at the moment, so below 6 3/4lbs should be well within reach for the finished bass. As always, thanks for looking4 points
-
Those who have seen my other builds will know that I creep up on the final shape generally when I'm doing the body carve. While I have a general idea of what the final shape is going to be, I tweak it as I'm going along and do multiple checks ref the depth of carve and where the chambers are. This is after the first pass. Plenty more to go:4 points
-
The design is staying as it is3 points
-
So today's thrilling update, I know you're not sleeping nights wondering what will happen next First job this morning was to drill the switch and control pot holes, I did this perpendicular to the surface rather than to the back so the knobs don't look pink torpedo eyed. I looked at some Les Paul guitars in PMT Cardiff last weekend to see how they were drilled, strangely some were vertical and some where in line with the contours, it was the ones high on the wall that were angled so in hindsight they would have been customs as they cost an arm and a leg.. Next was to sand the body contours and make them look less like I attacked them with an axe, after that I did the sides and the back but only to 80 grit until the binding is in and all other work done then I'll take it down to 240 or 320 grit depending on how it looks. No need to go further than that on wood, the marks will never show even at 240 with clear lacquer, the problem with going finer is that the grits start removing soft wood rather than the harder and ripples start to appear, it's quite hard to stop that and to be honest there isn't any real advantage to do so on your average timber like Oak, Mahogany, Ash etc. The last job of the day was to check the necks for flat and yes they were, excellent news so a couple of wipes with the plane and then I sanded the headstock and glued the headstock veneers on, after an hour in clamps I trimmed the veneer flush and being the daft bat I am I stuck the bits together to have a first look at what they were going to look like. I won't comment on that, make your own mind up. The top of the neck body isn't flush thith the top of the body yet, I need to trim the bottom of the tenon but I'm leaving that until shaping time3 points
-
I always thought masonic ladies were known as maisonettes3 points
-
But I’m severely malnourished and I live in a tent ⛺️3 points
-
Played in a Free tribute band, during our second set, the venue owner asked if we did any Phil Collins.3 points
-
You wouldn’t believe what my acoustic duo gets requests for. We do a weekly pub gig where we encourage requests via forms we distribute on the bar & tables. We have lots of regular punters who know us well so most requests are reasonably doable. However you can always tell if the requests are from new punters as they vary from smart ar*e ( Bohemian Rhapsody etc) to obscure show tunes / heavy rap / metal / garage etc etc. Sometimes we do surprise them by having a go though.... 😄3 points
-
We only play requests when we’re asked.3 points
-
Clipping doesn't hurt anything other than tweeters, and they'll sound nasty long before they should blow. What you, and your (idiot) guitar'd player should be concerned about is hearing loss. I'd say ask Pete Townshend, but you wouldn't get an answer, he can't hear the question.3 points
-
I'll be selling my massively trusty Gallien Krueger Head, flightcased with a compressor, going through an ugly, but great sounding 4x10. This has worked flawlessly for 7 years in a variety of bands, but now moving house apparently means I can't have 3 amps anymore. Downsizing is the plan and a shiny new Markbass setup has taken over. It would be great as a practice room amp or touring rig. I've never considered having a backup, but some of the members here have some VERY nice gear. The head is a Gallien Krueger RB 400IV. I bought this years ago second hand as my first 'proper' amp. It's 'only' 180w (8 ohms) or 280w (4 ohms) but it is LOUD. Paired with a big cab, I've never needed more push. As far as I know, it's a Class A style amp, meaning a huge transformer and no Class D overheating issues. . I used to use it with a 2x10 too but gave up as I just didn't need it. It also sounds great, I've had numerous compliments from other bands and soundguys, It's got that lovely GK growl if you need it, but plenty of scope to clean up if you don't. It has a few scuffs as it's been used, some of the tiny button caps have been replaced with 3d printed caps as GK won't send you new ones but it's always been reliable to me. It comes in a solid SKB flight case with lots of spare bolts, as they're American, it's not easy to find those, with a 1U vent hole passing through a pair of custom made Neutrik cables to the compressor through the effects loop; The compressor is a DBX 266XL stereo compressor. I use the channels independently, so usually have the first as a softer compressor/gate and the second with some more aggressive settings. Either or both can be bypassed with a push button on the front for a pure sound. The upshot is you have a very cool lightshow whether it's engaged or not. This all goes through a big old Carlsbro Bass reactor 400. This will never get you any street cred BUT it really sounds great. It'll take 400w into 8 ohms, I think the drivers are eminence Delta's and it's honestly put some much more expensive cabs to shame. It's solidly built (read, 40-odd KG) and would take a beating if you needed a cheaper cab for a tour or practice room. The carpet is a bit scruffy, it's certainly been used but doesn't look too bad and you can always use it as a ladder if needs be. I'm based in Manchester but do travel to Yorkshire regularly, Collection is welcome but local delivery could be negotiated at the buyers cost. I'd prefer to sell as one unit but would consider splitting. As always, I'm open to offers. Kind regards Andy More photos! ;2 points -
once had a punter go up to the frontman to ask for a request during a song expecting his undivided attention whilst playing guitar & singing. The stock answer when getting daft requests was that we don’t do that song, but the next one contains some of the same notes.2 points
-
Just caught up with this. That is a very fine looking ‘instrument-in-the-making’ Looking forward to performing my test pilot duties if required...2 points
-
Both types, country and western2 points
-
That's how I've always done it.2 points
-
I like it.2 points
-
Am I not correct with both my Eden Metro combo and my EBS HD350 that I set the volume on bass to max, on the amp to zero and then feed in the gain until when playing my loudest notes (silently ) the clipping light just flickers. Then I adjust the amp volume up as required.2 points
-
There's no standard for clipping lights so it would be hard to say how much clipping would be acceptable. Heed Bill's advice about tweeters/horns. If the amp is genuinely clipping all that extra power pretty much goes through the horns. Some clipping lights are on the input stages rather than monitoring the output. That makes it easy to set up a little distortion and then adjust your levels with the same level of 'grind' at all volume levels. If you have an input level control (sometimes called gain) and a master volume try turning the master volume right up and the input level down and see if the light goes out, or even turn the volume on your bass down and the master up. If that is the case your input stages were overloading and the amp actually wsn't giving you a little more power to play with. Worth a try anyway.2 points
-
New toy - these don't seem to be readily available but managed to track one down on a bit of a whim. I 've got some gigs coming up with a band that run a fair bit of a wireless and don't want to be that annoyance that turns up with a load of wireless to complicate matters! Also, they are a bit less clunky than the studiospares headphone amps Ive got... and a bit less risky than taking a P9RHW. So here it is - Behringer PM2. I have to say, having used the Fischer sticks with a band that I also play for, the Behringer *ahem* version of it is equally well built... and dare I say it, I think I prefer the uncluttered look of the Behringer version. It's certainly less busy on the white lettering front than the Fischer. I paid just under £40 for the PM2. The Fischer comes in at just over £120. That's some saving there. So for those that don't know what they are looking at, it's a belt mounted headphone amp - better than trying to drive your headphones directly from an aux.... Plus it has the some basic mono/stereo switching (essentially if you don't want your mono mix just coming out of one ear on your headphones!) So, stereo or mono operation (there's a little switch inside that changes between the two modes) - combo jack on the bottom... so TRS/XLR for UNbalanced stereo, or TRS/XLR for balanced mono... and I'm guessing - not that I've checked... a TS will give you unbalanced mono also... (with switch in mono). So, in my gig bag of goodies, I've got a long XLR, a long TS cable, balanced dual XLR split to single unbalanced XLR, Dual TRS to single XLR and a TRS to XLR adapter... (a bit like this - https://www.kenable.co.uk/en/xlr-plugs-connectors/6096-kenable-xlr-male-plug-3-pins-to-635mm-trs-balanced-jack-plug-audio-adapter-006096-5055383460960.html - useful into plugging into the QSC desks that have stereo TRS auxes especially for inears) - that should cover me for most wired situations, I should think! Good stuff. With gadgets like this and the ZS10 appearing for the price that they are, why wouldn't you be embracing IEMs?! So assuming that you have an aux available on your desk, for under £75 (and maybe add another £15 for cables for your specific mixer - so say for under £100 all in)... there's no excuse to not be ragging your ears anymore. And the upside is that you can hear absolutely everything that is going on. Win, win.2 points
-
I never did put my revised board up 😁2 points
-
With 2-4 gigs a weekend booked till the end of the year, unless they are all unpaid, you can get a whole lot of interest from unemployed or not very busy (band wise) drummers. A lot of them wont need to rehearse for weeks or months on end either. With that many gigs they should be match fit within a few weeks on the fly. We had a problem with our old drummers abilities and despite our fears, getting rid and replacing him was very easy as we had plenty of gigs on offer. Our new drummer is fantastic and we are so much better as a band with him on board. We also now have a nice dep pool of brilliant drummers too. Win Win. Get it over and done with and start enjoying band life again. Get rid of the clown ASAP.2 points
-
While playing in an originals folk/rock band we were asked if we could play Wonderwall. I just said that the next song was our reworking of the Oasis classic , we've given it a different tune and new words, we then launched into whichever of our own songs happened to be next on the set list and nobody complained.2 points
-
Shouldn't this thread be called 'Bi Curious Note' then?2 points
-
1980's - 3 piece covers band - keyboards, bass, drums, at a masonic function. Dear lady who was in charge of the function asked if we could "go from table to table, singing and playing" , like Spanish troubadours...........................🙄2 points
-
They have their place like everything else and each to their own after all we're all different thank God I wouldn't want them but I have wondered what LEDs would look like fitted behind Mother of Pearl block inlays to give a dim glow2 points
-
In case of use to any of my fellow BCer's: we ended up getting a Chauvet Gig Bar 2.0 plus a couple of small Chauvet DJ Bank LEDs. Including decent length power cables this came to just under £500 (new), all in. I'm guessing these will be available at a significant discount second hand on DJ sites. We unboxed and gave the Gig Bar a dry run today (see clip below) and the band seem very pleased with the choice. If you have a limited budget and want to get just "one" lighting rig, I think you could do a lot worse than this. Chauvet GigBar2.0 (18-06).mp42 points
-
It’s in the next set mate, then at the end, oh yeah we ran out of time/ will play it next time. Life’s too short to have conversations with people like that.2 points
-
Yesterday I worked on the Rosewood fretboard, got it inlaid. Turned out that the new binding cutter I bought wouldn't do the fretboard because the bearing was too far down from the cutters so today I just cut both on the router table and stuck the bindings on with CA. I started with a thick gel type with a slow setting time so I could get the inner edge of the mitre exactly in the right place then used a thin CA to do the rest, horrible stuff, gets everywhere, made a right mess of my finger nails After that I scraped the bindings flush and sanded the faces through to 3000 grit which looks very good. The Mother of Pearl is stunning and no filler used at all, feeling a little smug about that LOL I finished off the day by putting a thin coat of Lemon oil on the faces, will give a couple more before fretting them2 points
-
Recording the gigs and playing back afterwards can be a useful tool - sometimes people don't realise quite how fast they are playing.2 points
-
Did a dep last night with a power trio - the drummer was also a dep, who I'd never met before. I was slightly nervous 'cos it was a big-ish room, the band are loud, and everything but the bass was through the PA. I only had a 120w valve head, so I turned it up and hoped for the best. It was fine. Lots of dodgy moments, but we carried it off...2 points
-
It's been something of a struggle getting all of the band in the same place at the same time in recent months, what with work, family, etc., etc., but we've finally managed to pin everyone down and restart regular rehearsals (woohoo!). The rehearsal room also has a recording studio, so we booked a recording session & finally laid down the 4 original songs we've been working on to "tape". The engineer sent us copies of the raw mixes of the songs, and I have to say that they sound seriously good, and should sound excellent after mixing. We're in next week to get a better vocal take, some guitar overdubs, depending on the time another bass take on 1 song, then start mixing. When that's done, it's a case of touting it around to get some gigs. Feeling very enthused about the band just now, big grins all round! :)1 point
-
You're in good company then. Even the pros have their moments of doubt.1 point
-
You're welcome. Now that you mention it I've only clocked on to it the last couple of weeks, but it's possible before that I've just thought I'd left the sound on or thought I had the media volume up (still happens with the media volume muted)1 point
-
Maybe pick up a secondhand sound module with a good selection of pianos/synths on it and just run those patches from any MIDI controller keyboard? Some of the Roland sound modules are pretty cheap secondhand and if you can find ones with expansion cards for 60s/70's keyboards and classic synths you will have a ton of decent patches to play with and can mix different patches together in 'performance' mode (16 voice polyphonic) to get just the type of sound you want then store that 'performance' patch in an easily accessed stored area.1 point
-
Keep forgetting to post in here. Double header last week. We had a "Ladies day at Ascot" party on Thursday. Everyone smashed by the time we got there. Early start (6pm) and early finish (8pm). Played 2 hours straight by request. Not a good sign though, when you've just loaded your gear in, haven't even started setting up, and the owner says "you're going to have to keep it quiet you know?!" Probably best you didn't book a 5 piece band then mate! Very surreal. It was based in a Victorian mansion, that had been renovated, big stone walls surrounding it. Set inside a brand new housing estate?!?! WTF?!? Amazing venue, and honestly, when you're inside, you could be in anywhere. Open the big wooden doors to get to the "outside", and there a dog pissing on someones bin bag. Really weird. Saturday was a bit more of our normal affair. Wedding in a big marquee set outside in a field. Lovely1 point
-
Plus one for this. I add an Eden Glowplug through channel 2 (eventhough said channel is the valve pre-amp channel) to give as much or as little valve tone as you could need plus an Ampeg SVT 115 at larger venues. Really sounds great. Plus Ive added casters so not too bad a loadin/out.1 point
-
I was lucky enough to be able to play with a perfect drummer. Solid, groovy, articulate... He’s fantastic at any kind of music. He’s got lots of experience with a big band but also lots of pop, rock, gospel, funk, hip-hop etc. Unfortunately, he lives in a different country than me so we can’t play in a band together. That sucks for me, because I am convinced a drummer like that only happens once in a lifetime... I wish for every bass player to play at least once with a drummer like that. Puts things into perspective. The band automatically sounds super tight when the drummer knows what to do.1 point
-
And the fretboard is on! So tomorrow is officially designated top carve day1 point
-
I sometimes change bass in the half time, just so I can try different ones. Too much of a faff changing. Although with the delay for tuning between songs it wouldn't be so hard.1 point
-
That's a good one... they just wander over and start yattering "can you play xxx?" I just nod and say - yeah - later... as if, we're not the friggin' jukebox! Or another variant is the 'I'll just leave my drink here - and put it down on the singers' lyric sheet I've started building walls of gear to push the buggers back, fed up of kicked over drinks (theirs - we keep ours well away) singers having their teeth knocked by stupid tw4ts knocking the stands - our band has two girl singers and we do a motown set which involves a it of co-ordinated movement -so they can't hold the mike stand when 'that bloke' gets up and starts.1 point
-
Awesome two channel tube pre amp. Really enjoyed using this for the past year as part of an ampless rig with in ears, sounded great! In great condition, I've photographed the worse scratches but it's working 100%. Velcro underneath. Comes with power supply and box Inc manual. Thanks.1 point -
1. Guitarists who make miniscule, imperceptible adjustments to their sound in between songs, delaying the start of the next song and killing any momentum (and emptying the dancefloor in process). 2. Members who have a long list of reasons why they can't possibly drive or help bring any gear to the next gig, because they're drinking/meeting friends there etc - so can you take all their stuff instead? 3. Alternative to 2, "So can i borrow your guitar/amp/PA etc instead for the gig?" 4. In the case of 3, then won't lift a finger to help you set up the gear that's for them, or pack it down or load it out afterwards. 5. Musicians who pick songs for the band to do 'because they are easy' rather than 'because they are good.'1 point
-
I can particularly relate to this with the one very specific example of a venue that insisted we use the house backline because our own amps hadn't recently PAT tested. Then, as the gig drew nearer, I chanced across something on Facetube to the effect that their house PA had given up the ghost earlier in the week. I got in touch with the guy to ask, was this going to be a problem for our gig? Should I arrange to bring our PA to the venue? No no, he said, there was a problem, but we'll have it sorted. Not exactly reassured by all that I'd heard so far, I reiterated my offer to bring our PA, if he could let us know ASAP. On the night of the gig, I arrived at the venue first to find them frantically trying to get a new desk to work. Unsurprisingly, it didn't. The guy suggested, well the other night we just put the vocal mic through a spare guitar amp, it worked fine. Not when at least two of the bands have backing vocals, it chuffing won't. I 'phoned the others to say, turn the car around, we're going to need the chuffing PA after all. Was he concerned about whether our PA was PAT tested before we set it up, about an hour before doors? Was he c**k.1 point
-
For heaven's sake, man, where's your sense of aesthetics? That overhang is shocking.1 point
-
How do you titillate an ocelot?1 point
-
Don’t get me started...1 point
-
Band members deciding to take a swig of water just as we’re about to start a song where said individual leads off; cue everyone waiting till they’ve finished. Wait until it’s a song where you don’t come in straight away and have a drink during the guitar intro. Said individual then, on a song he leads off on looking round at everyone before he starts, going ‘ready?’, ‘ready?’ Yes I am funking ready, because I had a drink, tuned etc when there was an opportunity to do so in a section before the bass comes in, I’ve honestly lost count of the times I’ve raised this most moot of points; it really gets on my thrupennybits.1 point
-
Band members playing along to the music coming from the juke box while others are setting up.1 point
