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I meant to repoly to this thread a few days ago. A few months back, during a period of absolute gig famine, we booked a Thursday night at a small bar in a small town about half an hour away - given our semi-rural location this may as well have been an intercontinental flight away in terms of getting our usual audience out but we figured a gig was a gig and we might gain a new fan or two. The date finally came up last week but two of the three of us were full of colds, including our drummer/singer who has changed jobs this year and now has a long daily communte and no longer has the flexibility of self-employment. Needless to say, there was a great deal of negativity as we piled a slightly reduced set of gear into one vehicle and set off down the windy, unlit country roads. BUT IT WAS ACE. The bar has built up a regular Thursday night crowd for original music, the staff were friendly, the sound was as good as we might have reasonably expected, the audience was engaged, appreciative and even tried singing along in places. We got £150 (not to be sniffed at considering some of the fees we've had recently), a load of nice comments, videos on the venue's social media and two further gigs - one of which is at a small multi-venue "festival" that we've wanted to get into for a couple of years. Which is a long way of saying that what might appear to be a less than sparkling gig might turn out to be reinvigorating or door-opening or both. And it turns out that there are lively original music scenes in the most unlikely of places.

I have now almost completed the design for the next version. I don't think a single component has been carried over from V1. Some of the neck measurements and the plywood backbone have remained but every other element has been redesigned based on what was learnt from V1. It looks similar but thats about it. The original ideas for the first version were: 1. All my own design so nobody can claim I'm stealing their design. - That still stands 2. No glue. I hate glue, it gets everywhere - I am now experimenting with glue. I have a number of different types of glues from various superglues, Bostick Hard plastic Glue, and the current favourite FloPlast, a solvent cement from my local builders. 3. As there is no glue, all fittings most be as hidden as possible. - This still stands but I have significantly modified the structure to make it easier to print. I have removed most of the bolts and screws from the outside structures and am assuming glue will hold them together. Certainly Bostick Hard Plastics glue and FloPlast are very strong. 4. Must be modular. I don't know which bridge to use yet, I don't know which pickups I want and, importantly, I might want to change them or add three pickups without having to print everything again. Completely rethought how this works. Before, I would have to unscrew the whole guitar to change the bridge or pickups. Not any more, I've thought about this and now have a simple set of adaptors. 5. Must be able to take different necks. I don't have a neck I can use yet, so not sure what I'm going to get. I'm looking for a thin telecaster neck but not found one on eBay I trust to buy yet. Struggling to find one at the price so the Yamaha one off the proof of concept is going to be used. 6. Must be playable. The last guitar was light and easy to play. 7. Must be easy to print and fit on a 220mm x 220mm print bed. The Prusacaster one takes four days to print one part. No doing that This is still applicable. I have changed the design to make it printable without a lot of interventions from myself. I'm now down to four big pieces rather than five. 8. Must be able to use different controls as I have no idea what I'm buying, Telecaset and Stratocaster wiring is easily available second hand on eBay so thats a good start. This version is going to be based around a Telecaster Deluxe. I also think that a lot of the control sets on eBay are junk so am working with House of Tone to get a better set of pots and controls. 9. As few as possible supports for 3d printing. This has zero supports needed at the moment. I'm delighted with that Lesson learnt from the previous guitar is that I need to print the top of the guitar facing down to get the nice smooth finish that the Prusa satin plate provides. This means supports for the three modules in the middle. However as these are hidden from view, no so concerned. So I've picked up a pair of Tesla pickups, thought a lot more carefully about the design and parameterised just about every dimension so I can adapt as needed. The Tesla pickups are bottom mounted so are designed to fit to the guitar and not to the pickguard. That has spurred me to make the pickuops more modular. The same with the bridge, I've gone for a cheap and cheerful hardtail off eBay. Its not quite finished yet, but the second iteration design was a lot easier as I had learnt from the first one. If I take the pickguard off You can see a row of mounting points. The bridge uses these mounting points, in this case the tesla pickups do. They can be moved back and forward to change the tone. I could even get a third pickup in. There's a tiny mounting plate to make the Tesla pickup work. There's now a cable channel to the three way switch on the top. More routing ports to the four pots at the bottom. Learnt my lesson and provide a lot bigger space for controls. The back will have a simple plate that fits across it to hide the void. The strap button mount points are in. Things to do are: 1. The output socket channel. 2. Put the screw holes in for the pickguard. The pickguard will have to be printed in sections as it's too big for my printer. If it works, I'll get one made to measure. 3. When the bridge arrives, make the mounting points on the bridge. 4. Finish the neck mounting section. 5. Keep experimenting with glues just to check stuff like shear strength. Some of the glues are very strong, but how about if I knock it sideways or heat it up? 6. Hope and pray that the Tesla pickups aren't too high. I'm working in mm here and I reckon I have around 2mm spare. I do have a solution to lower the pickup by 4mm but it's a hack. Trying to finish this for Xmas, but have done no printing so far. Lots of test prints to check, but nothing real yet. Rob

This is our band's philosophy. We dont play out of the county we all live in. We dont haul our own gear and band PA up any stairs. We dont do weddings. We dont do pay to play. We dont play for less than £250 for our 5 piece. Unless it's a Green King pub, ( our agent deals with those monkeys ), we get paid on the night. End of. We're happy to play a gig per month, because that's what we want. On a rare occasion, like 2 weeks ago, we had back to back gigs on a Friday and Saturday. But it's rare, and that's ok, but we dont make a point in doing such double gigs. We're not bothered if if we get a small crowd, because our fee is still the same. No one can really predict such things anyways. It happens. We still get paid. Our agent has had great feedback from venues, and we get repeat bookings. Our diary is ok upto April 2024. We stick to what we want. That's it in a nutshell. We wont be hassled into this or that. Thing is, we have fun, first and foremost. No one gets rich playing in a pub / covers band, so gigging is for fun only, but with some small reward. If we get a sniff that some venue would be a disaster, we say NO. Period. Our band is made up of 5 non egotisical blokes, who all get on. Even rehearsals are a laugh. That's rare in itself . Life is good

......... ........ A Harley benton mm84a direct into the PA! Can't believe it. Not even a Di pedal used. No amp, no Di pedal, no emulators. Just a second hand 70 Harley benton straight into the desk.....

We often do an extended version of Hey Jude at the end of 'Hulla' gigs, usually because of audience participation but occasionally singer inebriation. At the end, once I've exhausted the main bass part and variations thereof, I will ascend to the dusty end and start alternating between a slow version of the melody of 'Norwegian Wood' and the main 'Day Tripper' riff. Often with full psychadelic flange. 😃 I'm careful not to go too loud and I'm guessing half the punters never notice. But it makes me smile.

9. - Drake (after 8 🙄)

If you are in to your guitar based blues (or any derivative thereof) then tip your hat or raise a glass today to the amazing John Mayall who is 90 today. A little clip to enjoy from 20 years ago at his 70th Birthday celebration concert:

Hello bass chatters. Only recently found this forum but it's great. After a few years playing bass about 20 years ago I have been playing a bit more the last few years, and recently got set up in a band with a couple of mates. Played a Squier PJ, until splurging on a Cort which I fell in love with, and I've been playing it more and more. Now in the process of getting a 'proper' amp, which is how I found the forum, researching the options. I'm now eagerly awaiting delivery of a used Vanderkley 112MNT and a Hartke LH500. Medium term plan is probably to use the Hartke as a stopgap until I have the spondoolies for something fancier but it seems decent so we'll see! Anyway, thanks for the useful forum!

Bales Of Cocaine — The Reverend Horton Heat

Exceptional artist. Worked with some great players, producers and arrangers. Love the drums on Just a Little Loving from Dusty in Memphis. Probably overlooked for many years due to her personal life which is very sad.

Not Vader Way — Buddy Holly & The Crickets

I could be wrong but someone trying to shift wedges of dodgy money is probably going to flag up well in advance of a meet up i.e. they'll not be ar5ed about haggling or may not even care about the instrument. To top it all off there are probably more counterfeit F*nder basses than their are counterfeit notes! Just saying.

Perhaps it was a tonedesk?

It's a legitimate club with around 2000 members, with an annual membership fee of £35. So doesn't seem to be a massive budget thing but also isn't a bunch of chancers. However these clubs are usually headed up by a committee so tend to have quite a lot of inertia when it comes to making decisions. Looks like they do it every year and have a few spread out in different regions. I'd firstly make sure you're talking directly to the organiser and not someone who is just making enquiries about what you would charge. That way you get all the information and can negotiate. Once you have all the information, only then can you put a fee forward and make sure you include terms and conditions regards the PA use and your arrival and departure times.

No - Little Mix

My first question is "will the bar staff be working for free?".

The new one is 'Alexa! Next!'... 🙁

Gmail email account, PayPal friends and family, you provide the PA - the signs are there...

No More Heroes - The Stranglers

It would make no sense for every band to bring a PA then take the whole PA down between sets and put the next one up. If you've got a decent PA I would be inclined to offer to run the PA for the day and do sound for all the bands, and charge them £2k. They could then pay the other bands a bit less each so they wouldn't be out of pocket, the day would run much more smoothly, and you could hire a decent sound engineer for £400 for the day and split the rest between you.

So what bits of other songs do we transplant? Our guitarist switches to Third Stone from the Sun in his solo during Take Me To The River, so I've started playing the bass from Hey Joe over the chorus 😁

Which to be fair, is better than "Play something you know!" as we used to shout at a mates' band... 😁

That's fighting talk! Don't make me invade again, I've only just got back!

Learning to play to a click track released me from band politics 😎

Bundy Monday ～ The Mamas & the Papas

I have not and honestly, I don't really care anymore. It's a great bass so I'm over the look of the headstock.

I believe this is a great song. I love the way it keeps bouncing between major and minor. I love the slightly unusual rhythm pattern unlying it. Hard to imagine a vocal performance better than this.

So ... The lovely @Chimike welcomed me to his Aladin's cave of most things bass yesterday and kindly shared his skill in trying to resolve the issue. After a listen, he described the sound as 'chuffing' rather than a rattle. Dissapeared into the treasure trove and when he emerged he popped 6 screws into the holes in the C4's back panel (Where the skids had lived). No more chuffing! Playing my bass/head, my bass his head, his bass his head ... all sounded OK, tho there was some power tool noise from adjacent workshops and we were outdoors (To avoid any resonance from all the gear he has ... it seemed to go on for miles, but in reality was probably just kilometers) so hard to guage, but a good sign. I arrived home to late yesterday too try it out, but late afternoon when I got home from work I hastened to get my rig setup ... and it sounds fab! A very happy camper! Thank you all for your suggestions. By the way, the seller (Top man and why BC is THE place to buy) totally lived up to his glowing feedback, despite not having experienced the chuffing himself he had offered to either refund me or cover the cost repair. @Chimike refused to let me pay for the screws (Or his expertise). I'm delighted that neither were required. I've fallen in love with the my dimunitive C4 and, whilst it is heavier than I had aimed for in a cab, a hand cart will easily sort that! S'manth x

I’m fine to record to a click, the track might vary a bit throughout but it reins it in a bit and keeps it largely under control.

You need to rehearse to a click track before turning up to the studio and expecting everything to just work.

Get Wookie ～ Daft Punk

I Got Chew(y) - Split Enz

This wins the internet today

When I remember to, I turn the ‘fast freeze’ on a few hours before the saving session, then off again when it starts. That way the freezer uses no power while it warms back up to normal temperature over the following hour or so. Also that way there’s no risk that I turn it off, forget to turn it on again and ruin the contents.

In isolation, the best bass sound I ever heard from my instrument was when it was DI'd into a Neve console and listened to via some ridiculously expensive studio monitors (can't remember what they were). The "in isolation" was important, though. That hi-fi sound rarely works well in context in my experience. Add the rest of the band and the subtleties quickly get lost and/or clash with everything else that's happening. You end up boosting the upper mids, getting rid of a lot of the delicate higher frequencies, rolling off almost everything below about 80hz or so, etc to make it sit nicely in the track and hey presto, P bass with semi-knackered strings.

Labellinq anything requires compromise, so it really is best not to get hung up on them. They're descriptions of similarity, not definitions.

Extra 50 quid from me if you finish with a Carpenters medley.

I’ve got a TE-1200, and yes, this is a thing. Just dial in your gain until it sounds bad. However, this is something that has been brought up with the Trace team at Peavey, and will probably be addressed in the next iteration of the head. They’ve actually been very good in soliciting feedback on their products, and seem to very much be open to suggestions. Some smaller, lighter cabs would be nice too - updated versions of the 1153/1210H cabs would be ideal - something that would fit in the back of the average hatchback rather than the back of a big American SUV!

Classic band mixing, everything louder than everything else. More than once I've had the situation (as engineer and assistant) where the mix sounded great and about to be mastered, the vocals got turned up, so the the guitar goes up, then the keyboards and then 6 hours later you're walking out into the morning sunshine thinking what the hell just happened!