Leaderboard

New venue for us, and one that only usually puts on solo singers with backing tracks - the landlady said they'd had 'a loud rock band with a really loud drummer' a while back, but they'd cleared the place in half an hour. Our BL had convinced her we were worth a try. She mentioned loud drums twice before we'd even set up. We were to be an 8:30 start, but with the match running over ET and penalties, that didn't happen, tho once the bouncing throng had calmed down and dissipated a bit we were able to get in and set up quickly. Slight rehash of the setlist (we started with the more acoustic songs), second set was as usual; decent gig (plus they left some of the tellys on so I got to watch the Turkey Netherlands match), good venue, lots of dancing from pretty much the get-go (I'm sure the early start to the drinking helped - I've always said 'the more you drink the better we are') and the landlord/lady were both delighted, and have given us another couple of bookings for (unprompted) more money. Blimey.

Played on Friday night with Stray and Saturday night with Verity Bromham at Alfold Rock and Blues Festival. I went down on the Thursday and camped for the first time in many many years. Sadly the weather wasn't kind and the camping part was an uncomfortable experience, mainly because the camp bed my drummer promised to lend me didn't fit in the tent! We played two really enjoyable sets. Organisation was fantastic and despite the rain all went well. I played my 64 AVRI Jazz into an MB500 via a small board consisting of a Zoom B3n, a Donner Compressor and a Joyo Orange Crush. I've changed my philosophy a bit on my sound recently and rather than getting a core tone from my amp, I'm now getting it from my board and using the amp's eq just to shape the sound for the room. I'm then giving the FOH a pre eq Di and using in ears just for the bass using the tuner out from the amp. This seems to be working well and I had some nice compliments on my tone from some other musos. We had a couple of issues yesterday. On load in our drummer's snare stand went over and a foot of the stand went through the bottom skin of the snare. Brave Rival's drummer bailed us out with another snare. I went to get my bass out of it's bag and the zip was buggered and I couldn't get it out, so had to sacrifice the zip (and the bag) - dang! Highlight of the weekend for me in terms of other bands was the Zac Schultz band. Great entertainers and a phenomenal bass player - Ant Greenwell - who was very nimble and had a lovely tone - Looked like a P Bass but through a Fender Rumble Combo - but it cut through like a Stingray - really nice - I wonder if Ant uses this Forum? Anyway, I was gonna stay til monday morning but missed my creature comforts so pitched down yesterday afternoon and drove home after our set. Happy Daze!

Had a great time yesterday in Ipswich at Rock Against Leukaemia, held annually at the Steamboat Tavern. Unfortunately our slot was 17:00 and apparently there was some sort of football match on at the same time 🤔 It was only a 45 min set so was over in the blink of an eye but the punters enjoyed it, and we were tight. Because the backline was provided I only took two basses and my pedalboard, so felt underdressed and worried all morning that I’d forgotten something 😆

Played with Nine Lives at Wilsons in Aberdeen last night. No gear photos, sorry - some muppet left his phone at home, d'oh! Gig went pretty well, we're still getting used to the new PA speakers so took a couple of songs to get the levels etc. right. A few fluffs here and there but no-one seemed to mind. Plenty busy in the first half - maybe a bit too busy - had some woman grinding up behind me during one song, not so much as a cigarette paper between us but oh well, at least I didn't get groped. Grin and bear it - the perils of performing at floor level I guess. Second half was quieter, but we hardened up the rock a bit and they were digging it. Also our guest "guitarist" Gordon came up for a few songs, so that was fun. Gear was the Sire D5 followed by the Reverend Triad into the usual rig - Markbass Mini CMD121P IV + New York 121

We played an hour busking gig at Summerfest today. Dep percussion. I'd give us a 5 on 1-10. Bastile Days coming this Friday night. Daryl

I own the PA. I'm not sure anyone would want to play with me if I didn't

There's no shortage of people on Basschat with way more band experience than me, but ALL my experience has taught me that there is simply no substitute for personally owning all the gear you use. In the (three) bands I play in, each member owns their own instruments & backline, a couple even own their own mics and stands, but pretty much everything else is owned outright by @Silvia Bluejay and me. Sure it costs more money that way, but there has never once been any sort of argument - or even discussion - about shared kit, who owns it, who's not putting in enough money, etc. We could start those rows tomorrow by announcing that in future we would be taking an extra 'share' of the gig money as a fee for supplying the PA, an extra 'share' for the sound guy (who is, of course, Silvie), and deffo an extra 'share' as our finders' fee for bringing in every single gig played by all three bands. But we're not going to do that, are we Silvie? Silvie???

We played a new venue for us called Inside the 22 in Rugby. So not only a reference to the game of Rugby in the town of Rugby, but the postcode is CV22 @Bluewine - the Zip code Daryl 😊. Nice big stage, decent PA and the sound guy Oli (also the owner) was excellent. We bashed through our set and included 3 originals, which went down really well. It's funny and flattering watching an audience trying to sing the words of an original cos they think they've heard it before somewhere. Used my goto rig of Mike Lull P4 with my Handbox R400 and matching cab, with the thumpinator in the effects loop. Band is called Southern Frontier Country Band so no prizes for guessing the genre. Here's that old chestnut Country Roads - actually one of my favourites to play - the middle eight really makes it. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/EkEq7M1eDtAWkSs2/

I joined this group yesterday, picking up an ABM 600 Evo IV DR. Holy heck, this thing has some volume. Still dialing it in, but sounds great so far.

Just back from the Borough Blues Festival with Bluesfire. Not a huge event, it's basically a club that puts on a dpevial day each year with a couple of pro bands and a handful of local bands. I got stuck for 30 minutes on the M4 and Al was playing another festival with his other band finishing at 5, but we managed to get set up for 6. We got the middle slot of five bands and the place was nicely filled up. I felt I was sloppy after a week of feeling very under the weather, but it all went well and we got lots of positive feedback afterwards. Managed to get back by 8:30, including a McPlant meal, cappuccino, mozzarella bites and apple 'pie'. So now watching very good local soul band (Dansette) down the club. Have switched to Jack as my guts are full...

Village People?

Would love to say I was killing some Kreator when this was taken but knowing me it was probably something saft like Def Leppard 😆

Not at all...the band is Defunked, and the basses...given the possible post-match drunken shenanigans and it being a new venue, I took the cheapest basses, just in case; the new Squier Sonic P (which was a lightweight joy, pics on another NBD thread here) and the BB414, which is a fallback now, and did indeed stay in its case (Mono double). If I'm playing a venue I know to be good, or it's a more upmarket gig (wedding, corporate, etc), I'll take one (or two) of my Shukers. If its a rock gig with another band (which doesn't go out much), I'll take my Shukerbird... I have to say, though, that on the last two gigs (the first two with the bass) the Sonic P was so good (a P that looks good, sounds like a P, J neck and weighs under 8lbs? All boxes ticked for me) that it'll be my go-to for a good while to come.

You’re trying to do your best and entertain, but I could feel the enthusiasm draining from body. As we weren’t our normal compliment and line up, we couldn’t even view it as a paid rehearsal. The band leader is back there today to pick up some PA he had to leave behind, I wonder if he’ll get any feedback? If it’s, “You guys were great, really looking forward to having you back,” I’m going to spit! There was one upside, the load in was as easy as pie, parked opposite the side door, next to the stage, in, out, nay bother. However the stage was quite raised, with no stairs and all of us struggled to get on and off a couple of times .

Just back from a local gig with the Glam band. It was a challenge as our drummer of the last 9 years quit with no notice last Sunday. Fortunately we were able to sort a dep who was a star and managed to enable the birthday party that we would’ve sadly had to let down.

Did she pluck your G string?

Small snippet for you, Daryl; there were only 7 people in the Bastille when it was stormed: 4 common counterfeiters, two chaps with mental illness and a Count who'd been locked up at the request of his family. It was more of a gesture than anything, the place had started 300 years before as a royal prison, but by 1789 was like a cross between a posh security unit (fully furnished rooms, wine was on the menu, prisoners could bring their servants) and an asylum.

Far easier and less controversial to de-retire and re-join the job market... Er, no to all. 👍

Glad you were able to resolve it. If I were about to join a band and they said "by the way you owe £x for a share of a well-used PA", I'd walk away and find another band. Does anyone else feel like that?

It took longer than planned, and in the end my local luthier did everything except designing the graphics. But it is fantastic!

Oh, bugger. At least there's still Debenhams 👍

Picked up a couple of 2x8 TC Electronic Cabs here and took them straight out for a test drive. Unbeknownst to me we were playing outside last night so they had their work cut out. I sat my Orange Little Bass Thing on top and stacked them vertically. The height was my primary motivation for buying them. They were excellent. Clear, articulate sound and above all really helped me to hear every nuance of what I played.

24 Hours from Balsa - Gene Pitney

Yeah, I looked at just about every headless in Christendom on my search for lighter basses, and even bought a Hondo Alien, which is a cheapo clone of this (there's a chance it could be a Hondo, but with a band of that quality I very much doubt it), I'm pretty sure they didn't do a purple one, then again there's not much to paint... Here's a black one:

I genuinely don’t get inter-band squabbles about ownership contracts and all that nonsense. You have to trust each other and accept that some expenses are lost as soon as they’re paid out - or you don’t have a band. We have a simple system. We as a four-piece all own our own gear. The PA belongs to the band, as does the lighting rig. They’re sunk costs. Money from gigs goes into a band kitty/account, and will be used to buy any merch, plus strings, drum skins, sticks etc. If anyone leaves, they owe the band nothing. The band owes them nothing except 25% of the kitty as their share. This stuff should be kept simple, and friendly - no good comes from arguing about what percentage of equipment you ‘own’ as an individual.

Last night. I finally got a sound out of the Retroglide that reminded me of my old silver faced ABM head. I was chuffed to bits.

I expect there’s a level where one person can get the freely available schematic and get together a pcb and make batches of decent pedals and sell at a profit - where a larger corp would end up sinking more money into R&D (in wages) and electrical testing and then need to sell cheaper so distributors can take a decent cut too… so the economic model might not be there… esp when there’s the risk behringer might come in with a £50 version. I hope he realises he will get as much interest from bass players as much as frusciante-worshippers

From PastFX: I’m hopefully have another batch in about 3-4 weeks assuming no cockups in my part

Bit poor with the drummer of 9yrs. Don't understand people that do that. No need for it unless a massive blow out over something but when there are gigs in the diary you should still offer to honour them until a replacement is found. Hopefully a full replacement can be found quickly. Dave

Like the Elf plus a lot more extras with the awesome dual band compressor Truly great amp

Re-tubed Monique , I had picked it up used and had no idea how old the tubes were. Noticed a difference in the way the eq responded. And tried out some different cabs. So I’m very glad I did it. The clear winner for cabs was my 112 Bergantino.

Right on the tails of the brill sounding filter in the Source Audio Abstrakt, past FX go and release a shrunk down Moog MF-101!

I may just keep them as they look a handsome pair stacked and nice sounding rig. Very convenient having the extra four feet fitted to the ends for tall stacking and preventing damage when sitting them down on their end ( opposite side to single handle )

I wont be mean and ask name of band and brand of basses😈 That would really be nerdish…

I'll kick off. This was a gig with my four piece Blackout City but with a last minute dep singer due to our Emily not being well. Pub was the Old Pier Tavern in Burnham-on-Sea great place for a band with a bit of a stage with plenty of space and a bit of a 'green room' and a loo behind the stage are so space to store all the guitar cases and bags after your've det up. PA was my trusty RCF 745's. Monitoring is usually just in-ears for all for of us but dep singer didn't use them so my RCF 310 served as her monitor. Normally only the guitarist uses any back line a 1x12 miked up for the PA and to be fair run at a fairly low level. last night I took a 1x10 with a Warwick Gnome just to add a little ambiance on stage for the singer. Sound check was 'interesting' until I remembered I'd been interrupted and hadn't connected the speakers to the mixer! Mixer is an RCF (again) M18 digital stagebox thingy. Plugged in and ready to go it sounded great from the off with the settings from the last gig. Floor monitor was run off the same feed our regular singer has set up for her in -ears. At her request I gave our dep a tiny bit of extra bass and guitar as Emily never really pushes in her in-ears and lets the stage sound filter through. I'm loving this set up, the 745's really cope with everything with plenty of reserve, I've never been able to run them flat out even outdoors yet. The opening sound is just there, no obvious nasties or artificiality and feeedback issues are really rare nowadays due to a smooth response. the eDrums sound massive. After the sound check a musician in the audience came up and asked me seriously where I'd placed the subs as he couldn't see them. At the same time being able to recall your best ever settings is so great and I no longer line check, I can see the mics and so on working and pick up any dodgy leaads just by looking at the VU's on every channel. I'm feeling very smug before things start to go wrong. Suddenly in the first song the mixer isn't working. I can turn things up and down on the iPad and nothings changing at the speakers. Panic, it's been acompletely reliable mixer for four years, not a twitch and now nothing works. Turned out I had my phone in my pocket and the Ipad had decided my iPhone was a better partner and had cut the connection to the mixer. It was probably only 30secs but God that seems a long time when everyone is watching you and waiting for the show to go on. Halfway though the set someone rushes up and says we can't hear the singer, and to be fair she's started to fade in my in ears. Our drummer's partner mixes for us and she had the iPad so I couldn't see what was going on so I'm gesturing to get the IPad back; eventually it comes up and she's about 20db down from where I set her level. She's got her own radio mic and the output was almost line level so I'd reset the gain. I'm getting nothing from the radio mic now so I toss her my mic and we just play, I'm now mic-less and of course its the song where I do the bulk of the bv's so I plug a spare mic into her channel and we do the song. Guitarist hasn't noticed and says my vocals are all he can hear in his in ears and turning me down won't work and he can't hear his own vocals. Well it won't work because I'm on the channel labelled Emily and he's adjusting the one labelled Phil. Fortunately someone takes her radio mic away and comes back with it fixed (the battery was flat) I discover I'd unplugged Rob's vocal mic in the confusion and we finish the gig with everything working. I need to calm down when things go wrong, and I need to think about re-labelling the mixer. At the worst moment I had four black mic leads and four empty sockets and no way of remembering which lead corresponded with which mic. On top of that my glasses were at the other end of the stage so I couldn't see very much. On the plus side Emma the dep singer sounded soooo much better through my mic (Sennheiser E935) and I'm going to add the same reverb and delay that I use to that channel for the next gig.

Same here. Maybe I've been lucky, but In over 40 years of playing (mostly covers), I've only ever learned songs by ear, from repeated listening and playing along. Never had to write anything down.

Weirdly if you add a disclaimer at the bottom of your ad on Facebook “no scammers - I won’t let courier collect for an envelope of cash, or your cousin who’s passing on business cannot collect etc” it seems to reduce the volume of scammers

As I told Dave a few weeks back, I played with the Led Zep cello band around 2019. They are very good and it`s something different but it took them bloomin ages to soundcheck!

Gear that is collectively owned by the “band “ is always a headache when someone leaves or the band splits . I think your quite fortunate in getting your share of the gear paid back to you , my experience has been very much the opposite . I now leave all PA purchases to the vocalist , If I buy any peripheral purchases , they come home with me .

Having started this thread back in April I now own EICH T900 very nice ASHDOWN RM800 EVO II lovely EBS Reidmar 752 .. very versatile and lovely amp

I've just left a band too, so I sort of know how this feels. The 13th is only a week away. I personally would not expect the rest of the band to buy me out of the gear before that, it's a very short time scale. I'd be more likely to agree a couple of months. In my "band leaving situation", the PA is entirely owned by me, and there's a gig on 27th July. I'm going to let them use it, it's already at the drummers house, I'll go and collect it sometime afterwards, unless they want to buy it off me. I'm also having one-to-one sessions with my replacement (who they have found), to bring him up to speed, and to help out the rest of the band. I don't like burning bridges, it's much easier if we all get along and accommodate each other. Rob

It just sounds to me like a really good vintage P-Bass, with the tone set mid-way so there's just a bit of clank and bite but still some warmth in the overall tone. My 77 P-Bass I had sounded exactly the same. I'm also going to say he's probably using rounds but I could be wrong.

A bit late here, but on Saturday we played a cancellation at The Chadwell Arms in Grays. A slow night, but we played well and added a couple of new songs to the setlist which went down well. The landlord/lady had a good chat with us after and told us how much they love having us down. They’re increasingly frustrated with the low numbers (was relieved to hear that it’s not an ‘us’ thing 😀). Despite the turnout, the punters had a good time, and wanted an encore to our encore, so we were pleased with our night’s work.

Nice frendly 50th birthday party. Not a large crowd, but they were up for a dance and we had a nice stage and a proper green room as it was at a community centre used for plays.

A fairly quiet one at a social club on the outskirts of Huddersfield last night, a bit of a come down after last weeks bikers rally. Our singist really had to work it to get them up an running and even more to keep em up. Still nowt wrong with the odd paid practice. First outing with the new Sandberg Lionel, didn’t have chance to change the stock strings to my short scale slinkies but they did the job. Amazing how much difference they can make the sound on identical basses in a gig setting…first time I’ve done a direct comparison at a gig.