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So I thought it would be interesting (decide for yourself how interesting!) to document the setup of a new band... Read on if you want to, or don't if you don't. I've always wanted to have an 80s covers band. Ideally I would be the lead singer and bassist, alas my vocal chops just aren't there. I tried once in the past to set up a band using people found on joinmyband and other sources and it wasn't a great experience but a valuable one. Earlier this year my main band, a 2000s covers band, had a hiatus and the drummer and I cooked up a scheme to do something as a side project. This is one of the big lessons I learned a few years back: work with at least one person you already know! Well, that makes bass and drums... I contacted a guitarist I was in a band with four or five years back, I love his style and attitude and we have remained friends loosely keeping in touch, he was excited to join in. In the middle of August we met up with a handful of songs to bash through. I found it a real struggle to sing and play, my voice was knackered at the end of it, but we agreed we had something that worked and if we had a singer and ideally a keys or sax player we could really have something worth progressing. I got too excited and advertised for a singer much earlier than I had wanted to. I got a handful of responses: a guy aged 28 who sings modern metal, a classic rock vocalist in a covers band id heard of, a female singer who recently left an indie band, and a lady who only wants to do backing vox as she doesn't want to fully commit. I have not yet met the singers, we want to get the songs tight first. But we have rejected two of them already! Now, the lost of songs we are working on is a handful of "male" songs and two "female" songs. The classic rock singer contacted me to say words to the effect: "you do realise that Holding Out for a Hero is written for a girl??? You know it's about a Man???" That told me all I needed to know about this person. Didn't say "hey I might tweak the words" which I'm happy with, just basically came across a bit old fashioned and hinted he could be difficult to work with. Luckily, the recordings of heard of his vocals weren't great so I was comfortable saying we had better fit singers already. Also, he didn't notice, or at least raise, that "I wanna dance with somebody" is also a female perspective song. I have no issue if a man or woman wants to change the gender perspective of a song, or keep it. But we had not at this point said we want a male singer, or we want a female singer. We just wanted a good singer and to do good songs, so we have a mix. Anyways, onwards and upwards. In the meantime we wanted to get the songs tight but also I kept hearing sax in a lot of the great songs of the decade so I advertised for a sax player. I got a great response from a guy local to where we rehearse who plays sax and keys. I sent him the long-list of possible songs and five mins later got a reply of "f me that's my childhood!" And I just knew he would do for us. This week we met up again and invited our sax and keys player. We also had a friend come along to sing so I could concentrate on bass and arrangements. Magic happened. We did two or three runs through of each song, had a ten minute break for a chat. We instantly bonded with our new multi-instrumentalist: a decent person, a proper musician, and he LOVES the genre. There are still details to work out such as better transition to solos, proper endings of all these fade out songs, but we were really solid and the keys and or sax just really added something. It felt special. We will meet again in a few weeks' time, now with a handful more songs that really prominently feature the sax. Our best candidate for singer isn't available until mid October so hopefully we can be really tight by then and ready for him. I'm getting quite excited about this side project! Playing with a drummer and guitarist I know really helps, and striking gold with a chap who plays sax and keys is just sheer good fortune. More to come soon....

D is the original solid state preamp, compact chassis. 350W or 800W WD is Walkabout, class D, 800W BD is Bass 400, class D, 800W TT is Tri-Tube Topology, class D, 800W (I wanted to name it TD, but that name is already trademarked by Lab Gruupen, used in class TD) 😥

I had a 200MB for years, the original speaker expired and I put a replacement in that wasn't as good, eventually found I could get a Pyle speaker identical to the original so got that and it was good again. I eventually found I wasn't using it any more and sold it. Now I find that a tiny combo weighing just over my 10kg limit would fill my needs for some things I'm doing, and @Thornybank pointed me at one at Fair Deal Music. Dropped in there today, gave it a quick whirl (I'd forgotten just how loud they go), and took it away with me. Jam night tonight so that'll be its first outing.

The band version of my 80s duo set is as follows Footloose Power of Love (Huey Lewis) Addicetd to Love You spin me round Jessie's Girl Every Breath you take Maneater Roseanna Eye of the tiger Take on Me Through the Barricades Together in Electric Dreams 2nd set Karma Chameleon Rio I'm still standing Wake me up before you go go I'm your man Don't forget about me (simple minds) Give it up (KC and the sunshine band) Rebel Yell Summer of 69 Respect (Erasure) Vienna Never gonna give you up Everybody wants to rule the world Relax Two Tribes Come on Eileen the duo has all of the above but we have a total of just over 100 songs The ABC songs Some Depeche mode, more Wham!, Yazoo stuff, Kim Wilde, Adam and the ants, Genesis songs (Turn it on again and Invisible touch) It Bites, Kraftwork, Men without hats, Spandau Ballet, more Duran Duran stuff, Guns n Roses, Bon Jovi (we can rock it up if needs be) There really are some cracking songs from the 80s, in all genres

If musicians want to play some music that's strongly identified with a culture, ethnicity or race that's not their own then that's a wholly positive thing. Whether they make a good job of interpreting and performing the music is an entirely different discussion, but to say that certain music is out-of-bounds is ridiculous. You can't use potential offense as a yardstick for what is and isn't permissable. All kinds of people get offended about all kinds of things. Individuals have a right to cause offense. They may be justified in doing so. Human beings are capable of infinite subtlety and music is one of the sublime expressions of that subtlety. That so many people would give such conscientious consideration to a dogma that places offense and historical grievances above all else is an ominous development. Even if those things were true they would not justify compromising anyone's right to freedom of expression. . If you want to play Fela Kuti then play Fela Kuti. If it sounds crap and/or you look ridiculous playing it, we'll let you know. The responsibility for making a decent job of it is yours.

Just saw this. As someone who owned a Bass 400+ back in the day (probably the best-sounding bass head I ever owned), I love the look of it and I'm looking forward to trying one out. Now, how can I persuade Mesa to make a lightweight version of the old 1516 cab? @agedhorse How about a downsized version, with 1x12”, 1x8”, 2x5” and a tweeter, with lightweight neo speakers? With the proper Mesa/Boogie badges, not the Mesa Engineering ones.

Not sure that the fade is the main reason why this bass looks iffy…

Just to bring you up to speed with the last 15 years. It's the same people, chatting the same chat but the gear got lighter, GAS got more intense and basses became a lot harder to sell. Other than that, you've not missed anything. 😀

A few years back my band did a a couple of gigs where we played some jazzed up versions of reggae songs and reggae versions of jazzy tracks. I had a couple of superb white female singers from a local folk band, whom i'd depped with on bass, to cover a couple of Wailers tracks that we were including from the twist of marley album by Lee Ritenour. One was no woman no cry and also Exodus. First one they were completely happy singing, but Exodus, they both felt the could't authentically identify with the context and message of the song and deliver it with the passion it deserves because of who they were. So they did all the other tracks and we had a black female singer to do Exodus. I totally accepted their feeling, the gig went down a storm.

Agree with you, and the current line up is diabolical, but UB40 in their prime (a different matter) probably turned a lot of people on to the real thing. I am one of them.

The endlessly offended need to do some careful thinking. There are a million books some may deem offensive, do they all need to be burnt? And lets not even get started on painterly art and, hard sculpture dripping with the "exploited nude female". Three pages in and no-one has said these words...."Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". 10cc wrote a fantastic little tune and figured in all innocense it would make sense to try and make it sound black, makes perfect sense to me. How about UB40? I dont know if Ali's voice is naturally black sounding or he's putting it on.....but it certainly sounds appropriate and the band and entourage was full of black comrades and great friends. Be careful what you wish for cause if we carry on down this path, all art and expression which is wrongly deemed to be be-litteling someone will eventually be crushed. Then what?

That's büggered up the plans for a lot of Nativity plays this Christmas. But seriously... that begs the question, should Jews play Christians? Can a Muslim play a Hindu? Is it a matter of faith or origin? If your mother was an aethist and your father followed Shinto, can you play either, both or just the mixture? All these 'rules' sound like special pleading once you start to look at the underlying logic. Where do you draw the lines? Can anyone portray a fictional character or sing a figurative song as there's no real lived experience?

Yeah seen similar stuff, like straight people shouldn’t play gays etc. Gonna be pretty stuffed when the next film about a mass murderer gets written, who do they let out of jail to play the lead?

Another good question, nothing is off the table and personally it's something that I would like to do... in part to honor my dad's memory since he started his engineering career during the (all) tube era designing servo amplifiers (which are similar to audio amplifiers). He then went on to handle spacecraft attitude control on the Mariner Mars project which allowed him to step away from strictly hardware design and into the control systems side of servo theory. My dad passed away 2 years ago at the age of 90, this model was the last amp that he provided his insight on (he remained interested in engineering and math until his death). It's also why I followed in his engineering footsteps at university. I wouldn't rule this out either, but there's nothing immediate on the table either. I'm always open to hearing what YOU PLAYERS would like to see, sometimes that's what provides the impetus for new projects.

For me intent is everything. To take the piss in some way - bad. To honour the song / subject - good. A few words spoken before playing it will clarify intent for the audience. "We have been asked to play this song. It is one of the greatest protest songs ever written about a subject that doesn't get enough attention and we just hope we do it justice" Something like that.

The same ICEPower module used in all of the other Subway 800 watt models, but they all use different control algorithms for managing overdrive, therefore they all feel differently.

Want to make multiple copies of your favourite base patch in different locations so you can, for example, program variations upon it? Now easily possible without ever hooking up to the editor. Want to swap the position of two patches? Easy. Want to restore the factory presets in their original positions? Easy.

Since you asked so nicely 😂

I’d be more than happy to see @police squad & @hiram.k.hackenbacker doing their respective sets, great tunes.

So, the SR body has been with the luthier for a few weeks and he has been some doing some final sanding and experimenting with stains to take away the stark white of the ash. He has used a very pale brown wash to darken the wood a little and it really helps to make the grain pop! Really pleased with the results and he will shortly be starting on the sealer coat and layering on the clear coat. Pictures show the wash on the body and one half with spirits to show the clear coat should look. I can't wait to see it when it's all buffed and ready to reassemble!

Got to say I’m hugely impressed with Heistercamp. The quality of their goods and customer service is second to none. After losing well over 2 stone recently, and having no holes left on my tatty belt, it was a no brainer to get a handmade Heistercamp one. This is their ‘Classic Leather Belt’ with antique silver buckle. Black with red stitching to match the strap. Seems really top quality. The sizing guide on their site is spot on, and they come with 7 holes, more than on some belts. As with the strap, it came wrapped in tissue paper with a nice handwritten note, in a quality box. Here it is alongside the strap. Reasonably priced at £40.50 including next day postage (which cost them around £6-£7 to send). This includes an extra £1.50 to go from the standard 1” thickness to 1.25”, and an extra £1 for stitching. I think this is very fair considering the last 2 Hugo Boss leather belts I bought were £45 each, both wore out all round rather quickly, looking especially tatty around the holes, and peeling apart due to the lack of stitching. Another nice touch is the logo stamp on the underside of the buckle. Also the buckle is a good size with smooth round edges, my pet hate with belts is a big chunky buckle that digs into my stomach and feels sharp on the edges & corners. I’ve had Boss ones where the buckle felt fine at the time, then became painfully sharp as the coating wore away. I have no affiliation with Heistercamp but can’t recommend them highly enough for straps and belts. Also I’m loving the strap - the extra width & padding (combined with the weight loss) has resulted in significantly less neck / shoulder / back pain compared to a few months ago. The smooth leather backing is really nice too. This was a bit of a gamble as I’m used to suede backing, but the leather is so good. It’s not slippy, the bass stays in place, but if I need to move it a little, it moves easily without grabbing on my T-shirt like suede did. Great stuff!

I like gloss necks. I hate it when necks have a satin or sanded-back finish. The more poly, the better.

Hello All, The band for the Manchester gig was, Genevieve Artadi – Vocals Louis Cole – Drums Sam Wilkes – Bass Thom Gill – Guitar Eldar Djangirov – Keys cheers, Mark.

Miami Mice?

The wiring is finished! Last night I wired up the master volume, and I've just now finished doing all the heater filaments. I had put the tag strip with the heater balancing resistors next to the pilot light but that turned out to be stupidly inaccessible for all the connections I had to make. I moved the tag strip to a better location and got to it. I'm a little way from plugging in though. Next session I will compare the built amp to both the layout and the schematic, and buzz out all the connections with my test meter. Then I'll think about applying power...

Is the tea grown in India and the shirt made from Indian produced cotton?

This is our initial list: Bruce Springsteen: Dancing in the Dark Bonnie Tyler: Holding out for a Hero Whitney Houston: I wanna dance with somebody The Police: Message in a Bottle U2: With or without you Flock of Seagulls: I ran so far away Billy Idol: Rebel yell Hall and Oates: Man Eater Glen Frey: the Heat is On Huey Lewis: the Power of Love Some songs might get swapped out for others... E.g. Dancing in the Dark may get swapped for Born to Run to get more sax involved.

I bought one, reasonably cheaply scouring the Italian equivalent of Gumtree. Impulse buy after seeing a video of the bass player in Sean Lennon’s old band playing one. Really distinctive sound, presumably mainly down to the aluminium neck.

Perhaps that the secret of their success. I recall that Charlie punched Jagger in the face after he Jagger referred to him as "my drummer". Charlie said he was the Stones drummer and not Micks, and then punched him. I suppose the most famous band mates who hated each other (as far as I know) were Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Did one of them pull a knife on the other? Someone said the most astonishing thing about Cream was not their music, but the fact they actually made any music at all. Mind you @AndyTravis is providing an awful lot of material for a book or a film. Rob

Meanwhile whilst we’re all distracted Musk and his cronies steal our future.

First time using the Aguilar plugin suite which fixed a problem for me, though a problem I didn’t quite fix was my intonation on the fretless Stingray I got recently and recorded with for the first time, so it only appears in 2 small sections by the skin of it's teeth 😬 Coasting - a deep dreamy kind of vibe that reminds me partly of holidays abroad years back, and partly of British summers in my youth - this tune kind of captures both for me. Though there’s a tiny bit of rock thrown in towards the end too as they were just sat there, scattered on the beach….

One of my all-time favourite pedals. 👍

But if you go and See Duran Duran now they may be old, but they still know how to dress properly and don't look like a bunch of blokes who have gone to the pub for a pint or two on a Friday night.

Tonight I trimmed the plastic face plates and re-glued them at the ends, fitted the knobs, and labelled all the DC power nodes (A, B, C, and D) on the board. I checked the circuit against the scematic and found a couple of issues: An output valve connection that had somehow escaped soldering, so that it was just hanging loose - not a great idea! Remember this post where I had a couple of 2.2nF caps but 'realised' I needed 22nF and had to order some? No, 2.2nF was right, I just wrote it wrong on the layout! I'm having some last-minute thoughts about fuse values. Based on the transformers from the donor amp, I think it would be T1.6A for mains and F2A for the HT.

A Sire V7 is still the best value gigging bass out there IMO, very versatile instruments. Good low B on the 5 strings as well.

Don't worry, I'm sure the MiUSA prices will go up accordingly

What we call "culture" - any culture - is a snapshot in time. It didn't start out the way it is now and it will continue to evolve and develop in the future. All art and music borrows/steals from and builds on what went before. That borrowing/building process crosses all boundaries - national, geographical, racial and so on. Once a style of music or art is out in the world, nobody can claim to "own" it (I appreciate there is such a thing as copyright, but that's to do with the melody, structure, etc of a piece, not its origins). So as long as you play a piece of music sincerely (you don't take the p out of it, obvs) and to the best of your ability, I don't see an issue.

Onboard patch management is now working!

I have my own take on this. If, through a song, I can feel a connection to the original composer/performer, surely that's exactly what the music was for. I am not American (or Canadian) but I can appreciate the sentiments expressed in 'Ohio' and feel no guilt playing it. Should I feel uncomfortable singing "(Something Inside) So Strong" by Labi Siffre? I appreciate the sentiment just as much and I have no more connection to Stephen Stills and Neil Young other than my skin colour. I think most 'cultural appropriation' is righteous indignation. The real problems are misusing culturally significant things out of context (e.g. using holy symbols as trendy decorations) or pretending to be what you are not. I recall someone being slated for wearing a Japanese wedding dress. When Japanese people were asked their views, they thought it was wonderful a westerner appreciated their traditional clothing.

I've been looking around for a compact yet more substantial case for my Anagram and came across THIS case on Fleabay in the UK. I have no connection with the seller but thought some of you might be interested in it. I also wanted it to hold my MVave midi pedal and the Anagram power supply. It seems well built with the only drawback being the inner foam which is a bit flimsy. I'll be changing that out at some point. Here some pics of my process to fit the Anagram etc in it.

These are £131 on Thomann at the moment. Rude to say no really!

Oh dear. I suppose because I'm white British I should only be playing for Morris dancers!

are you trying to use logic? are you new to bands?

In my teenage incarnation, Our band had a disagreement over the tempo of a Santana song we were going to cover. After much heated disagreement, I rolled the drummer's snare down a four-flight, stone staircase. The end. Probably the best tempo it had kept for a few months.