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There's something so energising about an audience up and dancing and loving your music! LA Mixtrax (@lamixtrax) • Instagram photos and videos Had a couple of great back to back gigs on Friday and Sat night, at two different venues, both of which left me and my crew with a happy grin on our faces. Could have been a disaster last night with our drummer having a flat tyre! But he managed to set up double quick, and we started our sets with only a 15 minute delay, and made up the time by taking a shorter break. Our PA/sound set-up is relatively simple: 2 x RCF 912As (no backline) which delivers a meaty low end without needing a sub, but is not as good as the higher-end RCF 932A's for mids so we probably will think of upgrading at some point this year. The band had a few line-up changes at the start of the year and we no longer have a keys player; so it's now a pretty basic instrumental trio of guitar, drums and bass with female vox fronting, but we're starting to figure out how to fill out the sound e.g. by making sure that any doubling-up of bass and guitar lines are kept to a minimum or me occasionally adding a little octave or synth when the guitarist is solo'ing. The current line-up all use IEMs (wasn't the case previously: guitarists, in particular, seem to much prefer their amps and backline to IEMs, whereas singers seem to love them - maybe because it shuts out the guitarists' amps? 😅). The band are all starting to appreciate the flexibility provided by our A&H CQ desk to give them their own personal monitor feeds and I'm sure this has been key in IEMs now working so well for us. I love the work that has been put in by the new band members to get on top of 5 hours of set material which allows us to keep things fresh/varied at our residencies for both us and our audiences, and we're all getting rewarded by the reception we've been getting when things fall into place, as they seemed to on Fri and Sat night.

New venue for Blockbustarz last night in Croftfoot Bowling Club in Glasgow. This was a special event for us as singer Lynn was brought up in this area and it was a special birthday for her and both her sisters came along with partners so we had an honoured guest Pat Bonnar goalkeeper for Celtic football team and he looked like he was having a great time along with everyone else. Small stage so both singers on the dance floor which I'm never comfortable with and that was justified when an over excited girl knocked over singers water which ran straight towards a mains bar. Quick mop up by club members and off we went again. Very hot last night even with the 18" fan on full I was still soaking wet. All part of the job I guess. All seemed to go well and we test run 3 new songs which were played well enough for a first outing. We just need more plays to get to the point you don't need to think about what you're playing. 2 x 1hr sets extended for the encores. Club wants us back same time next year as they are fully booked. Decided to use the Handbox WB100 again for this gig and what a difference an all valve amp makes. It's full, deep and warm sound just fills a room far better IMO and I'm always able to hear myself better. Had the gain set just right where I got a nice full warm tone when aying a little lighter but when I dug in for some songs I got that slightly overdriven edge with a bit of clank to go with it. Had my Keeley comp on just to limit my volume. Sandberg Vm4 into WB100 and Mesa cabs. Just glorious. Nice wee one hr drive home mostly motorway with no hold ups. Happy chappy this morning and will be using my HB more often. I think I'm just a valve amp guy. I always get a better sound. Dave

We had a lovely day yesterday. It was a VE80 celebration organised by the local council and the Royal British Legion branch. It started off at 2:30 with the Leicester Big Band. The decorations were fantastic and the room was packed. After that was a ukelele band in the other room (I was, erm, too busy to go and watch them 😜) So the evening was then split between our guitarist's brother's Beatles tribute band and us. We shared kit - most of it ours. I didn't get any photos of us, but shot these 3 that I've chucked together in a collage... I was quite pleased with that set of shots Usual Sire into Rumble. More importantly footwear were my custom suede Converse

Ok, the gig at Capones. Interestingly enough, someone was talking about places that aren't consistent with live music. Well, Capones has a lot of bands booked. however I didn't get the sense it was a music crowd at least not for us. I assure you we went into it with a positive attitude. We did the best we could. It wasn't a good gig. I mentioned we haven't played a bar in years. We felt like we had went backwards. The sound was awful. Boomy and and a lot of echo. We have another gig booked there on August 12th. We decided on the way home to cancel it. One good thing. It was an $800.00 gig. I really don't like complaining about gigs, but this one was painful. Daryl

2 gigs today with Stevie Daniels. First one was an afternoon noon car show somewhere deep in the fens. (Why do all those fenland towns look the same?). We were placed on a flatbed stage across the entry road from the bar and the crowd. As a result, very little crowd interaction and lots a dust every time a new vehicle came through. And, we were facing the sun…hot!. Second gig at the Burleigh Club in Peterborough. Nice pub and small but enthusiastic crowd. Used the Dynabass, trace head, and GB 1 12’s. Footwear was Justin western boots. No gigs now until the end of June.

Gig yesterday afternoon. Multi band outdoors community event. Nothing special to report about the gig, but it seems the pa guy was kinda stitched up as to the nature of the event. So we took along our Soundcraft Ui24 which we use for gigs (which we run a silent stage). We also use this for rehearsals with IEMs. So we all plugged into that as normal (Roland Electric drum kit), gave him a stereo feed with our ipad for mixing and took our aux feeds as normal. Worked a treat. Great sound on the IEMs and had a hassle free fun gig. Win win

Well I did it. After watching this one for over 2years online with the local agent, I pulled the trigger and bought myself the one bass I will never put down. I have promised both myself, my long-suffering better half and most of my mates that this is genuinely the last bass I ever buy. Feel free to screenshot this post and remind me if you see me lurking 🤣🤣🤣 But anyway, here she is: One N.O.S. 2021 American Pro 2 Jazz bass 75rh Anniversary FSR Dark Night with Rosewood board. Genuinely cannot describe how beautiful this thing is, all around. It feels amazing in the hand, sounds exactly like a Jazz should and it has the most beautiful rosewood I have ever seen on any neck! This is a pretty good place to end my GAS Odyessy 😎

Just back from playing a solo gig at VE celebration in a local pub beer garden. Personal best - 3mins door to door from my house yay! Scorching hot afternoon but my acoustic guitar miraculously stayed in tune despite the heat (I took a big cloth to cover my kit when not in use). First time there but it went down well enough for the gaffer to ask me about coming back, so that’s a win.

There was some interest in my new Hauptwerk organ and set-up at the NW Bass Petting Zoo yesterday, so I thought I'd write a bit more about it. Over the last 25 years or so, various software developers have worked to create 'virtual pipe organs' using MIDI. In short, someone goes out and records every single pipe individually, including its reverb decay in the acoustic. You recreate the organ console in the software. Physically, you have MIDI keyboards and pedalboard. The stops of the organ are controlled either through touch screen, or (if you have plenty of money) you can have physical stop pistons that you pull out. When you press a key, the recorded sound is what you hear. The whole organ is loaded into RAM so that there is no lag. So, if you have 30 stops drawn, hitting one note means 30 sounds are simultaneously sounded for that one note. If you're playing four-note chords in each hand AND two pedals at the same time, then that 10 x 30, in this case, so 300 sounds to play... except it gets worse... Some stops are 'mixtures' so if you sound a note, it ALSO sounds a bunch of other harmonics of that note e.g 12th, 19th, 21st. Usually there are at least 3 harmonics sounded with a mixture, but 5 or 7 are common, especially with French 'cornet' stops. So, if you had a 5 mixture, those ten notes become 50 notes, sounding say the root, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st.... of EVERY note you're playing. This is part of what creates the complexity of organ sound - it's an analog mechanical synthesiser. I decided a while ago that I wanted a major retirement activity (yes, I know I have lots of music already with cello, saxes, basses, viols...). I've never really been a keyboard player as I never had lessons. I bought a piano when I moved to Shropshire 25 years ago (a 1970s Yamaha upright). I had some lessons then, but not many. I've always been a fan of organ music. Sadly, the sound of many English organs is quite boring as they lack the reeds which add character to Dutch, French, and German organs for example. The English organ sounds specialises in creating a uniform sound across the main diapason/principal ranks. My organ was built by a guy who specialises in building bespoke Hauptwerk set-ups. I opted for a 'positiv' style case as it was going to be in the lounge and I wanted a 'nice' piece of furniture. The main frame structure is solid English oak, as are the 'cheeks' of the manual stack, the organ bench seat, and the expression pedal tops. The pedalboard is recycled from a 60 year old organ and the pedals are solid maple. Some other parts are oak veneered MDF which has been painted so you see the wood grain. The main large flat panels are painted MDF. They were primed and had three coats of paint. The speaker grill design was chosen by me from a sample of 500 designs. I opted for an Art Deco quasi Lutyens 'sunburst' design, rather than something more gothic/Victorian. That was cut by CNC machine. The screens are all Iyama - two 22" mounted vertically for the 'stop jambs' and a 24" in the music desk which can be used for PDFs of music (pages can be turned with one of the toe pistons). All touch-screen. There are 8 general pistons and 24 divisional pistons, 8 per manual. There are a further 8 pistons which can be defined and I've opted to make them pedal pistons. There is a 1,000 step sequencer. This is used for example to set-up a recital - you assign all your stop settings to values. For example, if I had a piece which needed 5 changes of stops then I could pre-program each set of stops and assign them to say sequencer steps 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24. As I need ot hcange registration, I just have to hit either one of the + thumb pistons, or the + toe piston to change to the next registration. I kept the number of toe pistons down to five: three couplers and a + to advance the sequncer, and a page turn for the PDF on the music stand. Toe pistons are expensive items as they're about £50 each for nice brass ones. I ruled out having a further 8 for the pedal divisional pistons. If you have multiple users of an organ, you can assign ranges to specific players so that say Fred uses 100 - 199, Bill uses 200 - 299 etc. Custom built computer has 128gb RAM and two 1tb SSD drives. The sound output is to active Neumann studio monitors. A pair of KH310s inside the box, a pair of KH120s externally on stands, and a KH750 sub. If you want to see the guy who built it getting excited over the first sounds out of it... this is a short 1 min video. Finally, why didn't I just buy say a Johannus, Content, or Viscount off the shelf? Whilst some models are cheaper than what I've paid, most are significantly more expensive and even £25k ones are vinyl not real wood! Despite the cost of mine, the end result is a much superior cabinet and significantly better sound system than you'd get for a commercially available home system. https://drive.google.com/file/d/154ZAxxZ0N0JOuuf9byiSqP-uMdwtq7Xs/view?usp=share_link

Second practice with covers band I'm depping for went ok but I struggled a bit with some numbers, still not great at Love Her Madly and totally lost it in While My guitar Gently Weeps but also some success with a Moody Blues number The Story In Your Eyes. No keyboard player this time but hopefully get another practice the full band before the gig. Used my eb3 again as I thought it sounded pretty good at last one and I love it. Bit of vid if anyones interested. I love watching clips whenever anyone posts.

So the neck pocket has gone from this: To this The shorter end to the left cheek of the neck socket is to allow for a piece of ply to be let in to repair the top. Looks a bit neater now

The Vista King. Try loading onto the 2nd deck of a touring boat on Lake Michigan. Daryl

As mentioned in the SGC Nanyo thread, I have joined that gang - yesterday I acquired what I think is an SB310 with a Glockenklang preamp. Spent the afternoon restringing it (it came to me strung BEAD - my poor little brain can't handle that!) and giving it the once over - a clean, lemon oil on the fretboard, new strings, full setup, sorted out a little niggle where there was an odd screw in the bridge which stuck out because the head was too big to fit in the hole - found an M3 machine screw in my spares which had a small enough head to fit in the recess. Chrome instead of black, unfortunately, but it's a lot less noticeable than before! Only thing left to do is new knobs - these are press fit knobs but the pots on the Glockenklang are solid shaft so they kinda work but want to keep turning after the end of pot travel. Got some tasteful black flat tops coming in which are set screw fitting. I tried to find period correct ones but it seems the bevel topped ones with the white dot like the ones which SGC Nanyo used back in the day are only available as press fit - boo! I might revisit this though, been looking at ways to convert press fit knobs into set screw... Anyway, enough guff, here are some pics:

Always been curious about those parametric eqs, specifically that one or the slightly larger one he makes. I'd probably also get the tiny DI he makes too ... How are you finding it? Great pedals but have to ask, what are the connectors/cables? In other news I finally got around to putting my QC on a board. I have been using my Stomp-based board through essentially inertia as everything was already set up, but as I find myself not actually in a band, but depping for 3 bands and rehearsing with a fourth, it's all getting a bit messy. Decided to start from scratch, and now with 267% more buttons!

Another Zoom fanboi here! A Zoom B1-4 was at the heart of my gigging pedal board for five years. I've not used a Boss Gt-1B, but have recently switched to GT1000 Core and am loving it - it's incredibly good at certain fx that the Zoom really couldn't get close to (e.g. drive / fuzz) and I have managed to strip back my pedal board considerably as a result, so I'd be really happy to recommend the GT Core as another multifx for you to put on your shortlist!

It should work. I wrapped an EB-0 pickup in matt black vinyl with the help of a hair dryer. It took 5 minutes.

A trio of triumph! Spent the day with all 3 and the SVT. JOY!!!! Fairly confindent in the assertion that this will genuinely be the last bass I buy 😎😁

...why do I get the sense I can guess the maker......?

After 33 years, my covers band, The Three Amoebas, grind to a halt. Admittedly we've done naff all for the past few years, with just the odd gig here and there. The band has always been a complete laugh and piss take, doing rock/metal/punk covers the way we want. People have always liked us, possibly because they're usually mates😄. We've been good friends since the eighties, but sort of drifted offvto do other stuff life wise, musically and job wise. The drummer's on Talksport and Planet Rock, and recording his own stuff, the guitarist has his other bands, and I'm doing old school death metal. Our last ever gig is in June. A bit bittersweet, but hey, life goes on.

Ok, so here is my Sandberg trio. Current favourite is the blue one, especially after the Sonar 3 pre implant which calmed down the hi-fi sound of the bass. I was close to moving it on.

He started to get called out 5 years ago. He promised he would stop. He didn't.

This reminds of a quite similar situation: I went to buy (only 250 kilometres round trip, but twice, read below for the funny part) an Ashdown CTM-300 with its dedicated made in U.K. 8x10 cab, and came back with an Ashdown CTM-100 with an Ashdown 1200 Watts made in U.K. 4x10 cab as I own a stupid Peugeot 508 with a trunk and not a hatchback, so I had to put the cab on the back seat as it couldn't get in the immense trunk and the head in the said trunk. That said, eventually, the 100 Watts head coupled to that 4x10 cab was more suited to my taste, so a win-win situation. Now, the funny part: I had to go back there the next day has I had forgotten my jacket with my wallet at the seller's place and only noticed it when back home, you know the "new toy syndrome". 🤦🏻🤪🫨 My wife who accompanied me both times was laughing like a child and I had to pay the restaurant on the second day. 😉

Hee hee, I joined the club, and it's all this thread's fault (only kidding, I've been well aware and curious about these beasties for many years) Proper NBD later, but here's a starter for 10. I think it's a 310, it's a 1991 model and it has a Glockenklang preamp in it.

Musical integrity!

Guess the Ampeg got the night off then......

Good fun last night in Nottingham at the Tap and tumbler. Wasn't sure how we'd go down but seemed to be really well received. I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction....accidentally wore a random black shirt somehow....I won't go onto detail. Anyway, sound was great and and a good night all round....

Considering how bad a lot of modern statues are, this one is an exceptional likeness. I've nicked this pic of the statue in the workshop, because it's the only image I've found so far that clearly shows the face. Nice detail on the hands too "Cast in bronze, the statue portrays Lemmy with his Rickenbacker 4001 bass, his head tilted up towards the microphone, playing the opening chord to their 1979 hit Overkill" Excellent job,both the artist and Stoke on Trent should be delighted.

This is what my uncle used to say. Lovely bloke, terrible ringmaster.

Good rhythm section there - Rick and Joe.

I guess you mean the HeadRush Gigboard or MX5, why not moving to the newer versions named Core or Flex Prime or even the Prime, but it's a huge beast. I'm using the Core and I really like it, easy to use with its wide touchscreen, and the tuner is very visible. Check Nate Navarro's video of the Flex Prime... Ok, this guy could make an air dryer sound like an Alembic on steroids.

We used to do the odd gig on a harbour tour boat. Lurching around on the boat was always fun , sometimes the power was iffy , and it could be packed. One night after loading out the drummer noticed some movement by the dock and cried out “Hey ! A squirrel!”

Yeah literally plugged the usb into my phone and hit record on the native camera app, didn't even need to change any settings!

Back on topic, but firmly in the psychology frame of mind still, yes what a brilliant post. Good quality, informative, helpful and honest YouTube content doesn’t reach anywhere near as much as controversy, click-bait, desperate validation and the look-at-me folk’s uploads. What is depressing is the amount of people who are sucked in* by this fakery. Isn’t it obvious when guitarists aren’t playing, when A.I text has been used in a review? I find it extraordinary that whilst A.I for example is still improving, folk can’t tell the picture of the girl they are ogling over with thousands of heart-likes isn’t real. *or willing to accept it and not call it out maybe? {edit} Whilst on the subject of depressing, and I’m on a roll.. YouTube OF-bait dressed up as quality content gets way more traction than those putting in hours of work and effort to produce actual, well thought out and produced content. It pays to lie about your intentions, to fake and put aside integrity for likes 🤑💰.

Although in my ramblings, I’m mistaken i was referring to Wall-E not Up 😂 Those who have been at the receiving end of a narcissist relationship (work/personal or otherwise) will know these tactics all too well and, once you’ve experienced it, for the worse, it will certainly incite a mental health trigger response. The trick after the fact is to use it to your advantage as the internal BS meter goes Chernobyl when you smell it.

That's what I love about my Orange Terror, it's easy to find the 'golden zone' for different basses.

Not a bass, but the longest journey I’ve taken is to collect a bass speaker cabinet that a member* generously donated for a teenager jam-night I was hosting. It was a twisty, spectacular drive into the beautiful heart of Wales. I also have a cautionary tale about the trip. Having looked up the specification of the cab I carefully measured the inside of my hatchback Hyundai. It was going to fit, just. However, I didn’t check whether any casters had been fitted to the bottom of the cab. They had……🤭. Got it home Ok. *I can’t remember the user name of the kind member. He lives, or lived, inland of Aberystwyth. It was a few years ago and it’s no longer possible to see the messages we exchanged.

I played a bikers’ bash gig on a flatbed, I had to vacuum my pedal board out after, it was caked in dust.

The latest (and final) addition

One last pair 22 American Pro II Jazz in Mercury 21 American Pro II FSR Jazz in Dark Night

Great picture, so much character.

London to Cornwall for a Hondo II Rickenbacker copy. Went by train, met the seller in the railway station car park and straight back on the next train to London. Then there was the sheer insanity of going by train to collect an absolutely huge and heavy organ from North West Wales. It was in a tiny town on a branch line, so involved numerous changes and a trolley jack to shift the beast, a very rare Logan T249.

Fender bass 6 has a trem too… Look it up 🧐

Wonder if they'll get an angry letter from John Hall's legal team for the shape of the bass?

Picked my Euro LX from the tech this morning. LHZ-03 preamp installed and some luminlay fret markers installed too. Only played it briefly through my headphone amp, but the LHZ sounds fab! Have to wait about a week to hear it cranked through my GK amp, but I think I’m going to be impressed 😊