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Time for a story, sorry Many years ago lighting was expensive and I was broke. For our band I kibbled some lighting together, ahem health and what? Anyway I had two kitchen spotlight units with three different coloured halogen spots in each, a strobe attached to each and a smoke machine. It was all wired through a homemade footswitch to turn it all on and off. The smoke machine was tucked behind my massively over the top bass rig consisting of a bi-amped pair of 15's and a pair of 12's, aiming behind the drummer. When we did Motorheads Overkill I would stomp on the switch turning off the coloured lights and turning the smoke and strobes on when it got to all the false endings, if you know the song you'll know when I mean. At one gig I stomped enthusiastically on the switch at the correct moment which immediately fell to pieces leaving the smoke machine and strobe permanently on only able to be turned off at the wall. The drummer slowly disappeared from sight, then the guitarist and I and it stayed on for the remainder of the song until the stage area and crowd were completely lost in the fog and blinded by massive white strobes bouncing off the cloud. Oh how we all laughed, well apart from the drummer who was having some sort of epileptic asthma attack

Sounds a fun project, if you give us a call and chat to Dave Green(who designed the LB30)he will more than likely give you some advice(he normally does even when not asked...) on how to tie everything up... I’m fairly sure he won’t mind you being ‘inspired’ by his output stage... but sometimes he can be a tad grumpy so you takes your chances 😉

I had a Kay EB100 (tulip bass). It did go on the bonfire 😃

Kays are getting harder and harder to find these days, as anyone with any sense who had one would have spent an enjoyable afternoon pouring petrol on it and watching it burn!

A bunch of Indie halfwits, who are so talentless they are unable to join in with the opening theme, and instead just stand there with their arms folded. A proponent of world music, never heard of before or since, producing some unintelligible atonal drivel, which nevertheless is lapped up by the audience less they be accused of racism for not liking it. A former boy/girl band member trying to gain some real muso credibility to kickstart a solo career, but obviously finding live vocals a bit tough. A former legend living on past glories, much loved by the audience who are obviously saddened that the legend is past their best and the voice is not what it was. A re-formed but fatter and balder line up of a band, failing to make anyone interested in their new material. Plus a painful ‘off the cuff’ chat with a ‘friend’ or celebrity in the crowd.

Taken just now from Ebay.co.uk, used, 'BIN', with approximate postage costs. I've not selected on make, just availability, but not damaged, of course... Hi-hat £20 HH Stand £15 2 x Cymbal stands £30 20" Ride £25 16" Crash £25 Total £115 There are also packs of 'beginner' cymbals starting at £20 or so. Is that expensive as a 'get you going' deal..?

Some of that is harsh but true. However for an originals project 4 months to write and release 9 songs isn't unreasonable (depending on the songs of course). For the majority of new originals bands a handful of 25-30 minute support slots would the way to ease into gigging. No one is going to want to see an unknown band band with unfamiliar songs playing for any longer. IME originals bands don't need a PA. The venues they play nearly always have them. In the last 10 years of gigging with originals bands I have done less than a handful of gigs at venues that didn't have an in-house PA and engineer to drive it.

There were several episodes of spontaneous polite applause from the clientele throughout a very pleasant evening with my quartet at a restaurant/bar in Sutton Coldfield.

And don't forget, Bonfire Night is coming up soon... just sayin'...

Quite, Health and Safety. Or do I mean Health & Efficiency..? Anyway, the safest way to dispose of a Kay bass is to bury it (not in your own garden, obvs) or leave it in the boot of your car until you can drive to the coast and hurl it into the sea. If you're pressed for time and really can't stand the damn thing, wait until it's dark and throw it into next door's garden, preferably at that bloody plastic flamingo you don't like. Done!

I think it fits in just fine

His book, Kraftwerk: I Was A Robot is an excellent read.

It is indeed a Kay, as sold by Woolworths in the 70s. Didn't cost a lot then worth even less now although some think they are worth a fortune and collectable.

This is true. If there is a musician in the audience and you are playing like you don't care, you have probably lost networking and gig opportunities. Always give 101% even playing to one man and a dog. . . you never know who's listening in the other bar. I've been asked to join every band I've been in since 1985. I've picked up every gig and band because a band member suggested me or a band leader dropped in and thought I would fit into his band. So how you sound is important but how you play is even more important. Every gig is a potential introduction to more players.

Yer actual leg end, there.

Jeff Lynne's ELO at London O2 Arena last night! Wonderful songs, fantastic musicians and vocals, stunning light show and an atmosphere of smiley, happy people singing along..... oh, and my 'young at heart' Mum by my side enjoying very minute. Precious moments for sure :)

There is a different switch available, maybe thats more for you: I have a mopar purple NG-2, and have experimented with the pickup configurations a lot... as you might know all the recent Combustion and NG models have all three pickup cavitys routed already, so it was easy to switch positions. After all the testing, my ideal NG-3 switching would look like this - if limited to four positions..: middle/bridge in series middle only bridge/neck in parallel d-bird type all three Neck only sounds worse imo to the middle only. Comparable character, just less tone and definition to it. It has a bit more low oomph. neck/bridge in parallel sounds absolutely cool. Mind that the Combustion and NG models have different preamps. I like the gritty Tone Capsule a lot.

Wolfgang Flur, (ex Kraftwerk) last Friday night, in a small club in Cardiff He's now over 70, but still full of energy (more movement / dancing than he did in Kraftwerk) Great songs & accompanying videos, met him afterwards for a signed CD + poster. Nice fella too

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9 songs in an originals power trio doesn't seem enough to gig with. You need to be looking at 2hrs worth of material to gig unless its a support act or a shared gig with other bands. I normally allow 6mths to get a start up band gigging. I'll wait a year if the band are excellent and i'm enjoying it enough but if no sign of arranging gigs or preparing for it you have to ask yourself if its what you really want from a band. My current band is about 8mths into rehearsing altho its been a very inconsistent rehearsal regime due to other band comitments from them. That was made clear at start of the year that they had bookings with other bands and we would need to work around that until bookings are clear and slowed down a bit. You simply need to sit and think about what you want from a band and base your decision on that. Hopefully it works out for you. Dave

I like it... looks good! 👍🏻

Definitely more than an element of this, I reckon. The only way they're going to banish the nerves is to just do it. Definitely time for a cards-on-the-table talk with them. Tell them how it felt before and after YOUR first gig, the relief and elation. Tell them you're booking a gig because that's the whole bloody point, that you aren't going to be made to feel guilty over any imagined pressurisation, and that a band that farts around practicing but never gigs is not what you signed up for. Only maybe say it a bit nicer than that

Great smooth deal on set flats! Many thanks

You may! I have just acquired (as scrap) a Carvin Vintage 33 combo. The cabinet is more than a little distressed, the speaker is blown, but both transformers work. My plan is to take the existing chassis and transformers (and some other useful working parts e.g. switches, pilot light) and convert it to a 30W bass head with the following features: Output section based around four EL84 valves, because that's what the OT is suited for - hence my interest in the LB30 schematic; Preamp based on a 1964 Amped B15 channel; That's about it! I need to make sure that the pre-amp will work with the power amp (i.e. that phase splitter has enough beans to drive all the EL84s), so I will be working on my understanding of push-pull amps and hitting up the forums . Here's the innards as I got the amp, and the almost-gutted chassis:

An extreme example, and it's an anecdote I've repeated before, but this one surprised me: in our originals band, we had a couple of songs which were kinda atmospheric (cue the 'OOOoooOOOooos...I knowwww), and I'd thought about it a good deal, and picked up a 12-string bass to use for them. We went through them in rehearsal, and after we'd run through the set, over a coffee, I said "So, whaddya think about the new bass?" Cue shrugs and non-committal, "S'OK, sounds fine" type of responses. These are seasoned, talented musicians we're talking about here, not Yer Average Pub/Function Punter. Now, I wasn't expecting to be carried shoulder-high from the rehearsal rooms to a chorus of cheers and have a street named after me, but even so I was surprised. Seeing the rather tragic shape my face was assuming, the BL said "Don't worry about it so much; it sounds great, but it's just the bass..."

He has been a guest on the Radcliffe and Maconie show on 6Music - a really entertaining and funny man.

Our guitarist does most of the sound engineering so if he's busy I tune his guitars up for him and set his amp up, last gig I plugged them into my setup (Fishman Pro Platinum EQ > QSC K10.2), switched to guitar eq mode and played it at decent volume - sounded amazing, much better clean sound than his amp. Nice to know if I ever need to play acoustic guitar live I have a fantastic rig ready and waiting! Can imagine it would sound incredible with proper amp modelling.

Just outside Shepton, advertises himself as guitar tech but has serviced and repaired amps for me. Highly recommended. http://www.theguitarklinic.co.uk

Just moved over to spector ..got a couple of 5 string legends classics Best bass ive ever owned ..... Would love a euro 5 hence why ive a selection of bass's for sale...

Wal MKII... for me...

A chap called Shane Wesley. I see them at the borderline 2 weeks ago he was using a Fender P through a marshall stack thing it sounded monsterous

Only 1 FX pedal. that's just wrong!

PS Taking the lid off the amp and applying Deoxit to any obvious jack contacts may save you a few bob. YMMV etc

Someone needs to tell him to go FRFR - Spandau have been killing rock and roll for years already...

I’ve always heard good things about the Focusrite interfaces. I use a Native Instruments KA6 & cannot fault it. I believe that there are some preamps out there that have XLR and usb outs.

We know. If you took the French and German out of the English language we would only be able to grunt at each other.

Absolutely right - massive endorphin rush on the purchase - I've bought 2 guitars and an acoustic bass in the last fortnight because they were bargains not because I needed them. I've owned and sold much better quality guitars than all 3 of these previously. GAS would make for an interesting psychological research study.

Bought a cracking Kluson bridge from Mark. All round top chap to deal with. Cheers, Mart.

+1 for the Focusrite interfaces, I have a Scarlett 18i20 and it's excellent, I just plug basses directly into the interface.

Well, there are a number of us female bass players on here - one of them is even a mod, and she can reply to locked threads! While we are all very, very pretty indeed, most of us are not exactly 'young', so our reaction tends to be a weary shrug of our shoulders, before moving on to another thread or back to practising on our basses.

Nice! Yeah, all the Ormat stuff is pretty clean. I’ll bet you could rattle the fillings out of your teeth with the right cabs. Im disappointed that it’s all going, but I should be left with a good wedge when it’s all gone and that’ll be used for something sensible rather than more gear (famous last words). Cheers for the congratulations too. I’m chuffed to bits.

Matt Pike releasing a new Sleep and High On Fire record in the same year is quite impressive

I own three Peavey B-Quad (original owner). Two 4 stringers fretted and one 5 string fretless. The two 4 stringers are 2 of the first 12 pre-production prototypes (Violet & Teal). I have a personal letter from Hartley Peavey stating so. These were on USA dealer tour at select Peavey dealers featuring Brian Bromberg himself giving a seminar/demo. It was a fantastic experience being able to sit just a few feet away from Brian as he just blew everyone away with his virtuosity. The 5 string fretless I have was custom made. It's one of the very last B-Quad made (see extended story below) I had to contact Brian to get permission for the changes (no fret lines, side dot markers placed were the frets usually are, and no "B" at the 12th position). Surprisingly he approved it! It's black, black hardware. If Darth Vader played bass this is the bass he would have. The pre-production prototypes have electronics and piezo bridge saddle pickups that were designed and hand built by Rick Turner, co-founder of Alembic. I don't know how long Turner continued to make the pre-amp for the B-Quads. I do know that he wasn't happy with the Peavey relationship at some point because I had to contact him for a piezo bridge saddle pickup replacement for one that failed. He had ONE in stock and kindly sent it to me for FREE (Thank you so much Rick!). The custom 5 string was a disaster. It took 18 months to arrive. I had to repeatedly complain and inquire "where's my bass?". It turned out that because of the above mentioned "custom" modifications, someone at Peavey thought it was a defect and had tossed in pile of other defective components. When it finally arrived, it had the wrong hardware (I originally ordered gold), and the batteries were dead. It had different electronics, different piezo bridge saddles, sounded way different, and I never really liked the way it felt. BUT - it sure looked cool. It always draws comments from the audience with the shiny fretless, almost glass-like black fingerboard. At the time I bought the first one I really had my heart set on a Modulus. The sales guy suggested I try more instruments including the B-Quads. I hadn't been playing for a while and was just getting back into the music scene. When he left I decided to try a B-Quad. To my surprise, my wife who was with me suddenly said "I like the way you play this one. You're playing things I've never heard you play before". I was stunned. Why? Because at Brian Bromberg's demo one of his pitch lines was "This instrument will bring out music in you that didn't know was there". I thought "holy s***! talk about taking the words right out of the horse's mouth!!" So I bought it. It was nearly a year later and the other B-Quad left behind from Bromberg's tour was still sitting there. I was surprised no one had bought it yet. The store manager knew I had bought the first one and caught me eyeing it again one day. So he said "give me a figure - take your time". So I thought about it and finally gave him a rather low-ball figure. He then showed me his calculator. My "bid" was $50 higher. He sold it to me for the lower price.

I refuse to engage in this debate as it is, by its very nature, sexist. A players gender is of no relevance to his or her playing. You'll be asking who is the best gay bass player next. The best Muslim player? The best Socialist player? The best player over 65? Nonsense.