Leaderboard

I brought out the Meteora last night for our last one of the year, via my regular gigging amp head now, a highly portable TCBQ500 into a house cab. Great sound on stage on off, great job by the sound man. Super loud and nice and clear too. Good crowd and a great little venue, awesome parking and access, backstage area and kitchen, definitely looking forward to coming back. The Meteora is such a fantastic bass, I need to use it more.

Last night was a dep gig for a local band with a big reputation and following - I was chuffed to be asked back after the last dep with them in September. It was a new venue for them that they were hoping to add to the list of regulars so there was a little bit of self imposed pressure for me to get it right, but they're a decent bunch and I didn't feel any pressure from them. It was a local venue to me, too - less than 2 miles away. Since Tuesday's rehearsal with them, they had added 'My Sharona' to the list and all I could do was try to learn the original arrangement and trust their assertion that they played it identically (which they did). Set up was into a very small space in a raised area surrounded by a waist high glass wall on my left and a wooden railing in front. It was tight, and that meant I had to get my kit in and arranged first before the drums could go in (there being only a narrow gap between the front of the kick drum and the railing). I'd brought my headless Ibanez shorty for just such an eventuality but the glass wall was just low enough that the full sized Sterling had room. I had visions of bending down to adjust an effect and smashing the glass with the headstock but, spoiler alert, it didn't happen. Fortunately, the guitarist was able to squeeze into the space by the back door and although we weren't allowed to block it to prevent people coming in as it was a fire exit, they put a sign out side to direct people to the front door. This gave the singer a little more room. Eventually, the jigsaw puzzle was complete and after a decent soundcheck, we were ready to go. It was a small pub but the place was packed and it was very hot despite windows being open behind us. We had dancers from the start - all credit to them as they had so little space to strut their stuff. There was quiet a bit of singing along too. There was a great sound on stage and apart from a few minor mistakes on my part, I think I did well as a dep. In fact, the only major problem was the guitarist starting a song in the wrong key - which we all managed to adjust to (even the drummer 😂) . At half time the band was offered several bookings in the pub (I've told them that as a dep, I expect a commission 🙂). By the end of the night the place was bouncing and we had a couple of encores. I was pleased to have a number of compliments about my playing and my sound from punters and the rest of the band. I have to say that I was really happy with my sound - punchy without being overpowering. Some of the comments back from staff and audience were that the band had a great overall mix without being too loud. The band are very thorough with sound and soundchecks, which clearly pays dividends. Kit was my Sterling 34HH through the board (MS60b for tuner and noisegate and a synth patch for 'Just Can't Get Enough' >Nux Sculpture compressor >Nux Voodoo Vibe (for Dakota) >Ampeg SCRDI> Sine HPF (set to 40hz)) and into my Peavey Minimax 600 via the FX return. Cabs were 2 1x10" Trace Elliotts. I think I've finally found a bass/board/amp/speaker combination that gets me the sound I've been chasing for years with this line-up. Footwear was, of course, by Skechers. This was my last scheduled gig for 2025. Next planned excursion is mid January.

A nice local club for the Glam lads. Was looking forward to a nice packed house but apparently the home crowd was partied out after their club Christmas do last Thursday. Still it ended up filling up to about 75% and we had a decent night in the end. Meeting quite a few people coming down with flu and crossing fingers that we make it through NYE without casualties 😂

Well our afternoon gig started off with a 90min drive. On arrival drummer and PA guy were already set up so that was a bonus. Doors open 1pm, nobody there, no queue, no-one in the hallway outside. Oh well we'll still go for it at 2pm. Paid rehearsal. Then 2 people appeared at 1:15pm and then some more and by 1:30pm the organiser asked us to push it back but PA guy had a hire on at night so we said only by 30mins as we had a gig later that night. Wee white lie but at 2pm it started to get busier. By the time we went on at 2:30pm we had around 50-60 folks but its a big venue so it didn't look overly busy but they were all up for a great party afternoon. People just kept coming in even during the 2nd set folks were still arriving. I think we must have managed about 80 people for 2nd set. Dancers on most songs and full floor for the last 4-5 songs so that was good. Turned out quite an enjoyable afternoon and few quid in my pocket so that was nice. Stopped for an Indian takeaway on way home too. Now i'm sitting watching Mr Mercedes on Netflix with a full satisfied tummy. Diet finishes tomorrow. Target reached last week at 12st. but i'm gagging for a wee dram after tomorrow. Usual gear for me. Sandberg MarloweDK - Shure GLXD - Keeley Bassist comp - HB WB-100 - BF212 cab. Dave

Have I mentioned how much I love that small, lightweight little beast? It has already served as backline for several gigs with PA and IEM support, and it’s had to work hard to deliver solid stage sound. It also feels like the cab has opened up after some hours at higher volume, and I notice that now even at lower volume. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I strongly feel it sounds better after more playing time: more openness and a smoother low end. Whether that’s measurable or not, I can’t say, but as a user I believe I can hear it. The Monza punches far above its weight and size when it comes to sound quality, volume, and headroom. There’s no escaping the laws of physics, yet they keep getting bent here. It proves that the number of woofers and their diameter is just a label, something people often overvalue or judge too quickly. This is simply a loud, clear, and deep-sounding cab of 11 kilos and 56 liters (external dimensions). What’s inside doesn’t define the name, but it does define the result. The tone makes it unique. Don’t let yourself be blinded by the “1x10” prejudice. There’s so much more to it.

Not really last night as I'm still here. 40th birthday party booked before the band disintegrated, so we had to honour the commitment. Digital desk flat out refused to play ball. Could not connect to it. So the hour I was going to spend blowing cobwebs off the songs I've not played for 6 months I spent messing with that. In the end we ripped out the little 3 input mixer from behind the bar and ran with it. The show must and therefore did go on.

latest micro board setup. usually powerbank powered. then this added to whichever board I am bringing with me. (I have two other setup depending on the situation/need)

Just back home from the annual Christmas guitar club concert in my local village hall. Two concerts - one for the younger learners and one for the older more proficient kids. Amazing to see them progress over the years in confidence and musical skills. I bring the PA, the lights and an extra pair of hands to help with setting up and sorting/tuning etc between performers, as well as donating my bass rig for the evening, being their soundman and guesting on the odd song. Proper Christmas thing. Excuse the dull pic but it’s all I managed.

So, I bought a Nano Cortex on here. I have chucked various nice preamps in. The pitch shifter will go down an octave and seems very happy to hit G on the E string. There is a 9 band EQ which can tidy up stuff for me. I can even take examples of my Hellborg Pre and my Fender TBP-1 pre if I can be bothered. I can see that the grown up version does a lot more, but for me, this is a beautiful thing.

To be fair, it's just an advertising cash grab by all parties. "I'm outraged by this!" Next, post "I'm outraged by your reaction video to my video" video. However, I would say Sapko has some very reasonable points here and Dey comes across as a blatant cash grabbing div. I'm not sure which of those two statements I'm more curious about my reaction to. As someone who's never really liked Dey's playing but appreciate the technicality of being able to do it, it somewhat saddens me that it's about nothing more than cash for her and as a result, she doesn't come over well and that's before we get to her other half having the wit and personality of a fatberg. She's done some serious reputational damage to herself here and Sapko is completely right about it.

Regarding Mohini Dey being one of the best bass players on the planet, it's more accurate to say she is one of the most bass players on the planet; she plays an awful lot of notes, but it never seems to add up to much. Yet another bass prodigy who never found a way to make meaningful music. Myself, I'd put Danny Sapko way in front of her in terms of being useful on the bass guitar. The vast majority of these bass "influencers" are all fairly similar in that they have formidable skills but lack enough self-awareness to realise that their playing isn't very interesting in itself. They don't seem to have the creative intelligence to make something more worthwhile. And yet they are offering advice. I like Danny Sapko because he has no such pretentious or delusions. To me, he's not part of that world and long may that remain so. I certainly don't begrudge him if he gets some free bass stuff, though. Better than that even, someone should to send him some proper clothes to wear. He is undoubtedly Britain's Worst Dressed Man, and that is quite an achievement considering both Dominic Cummings and John Barnes still live in the U.K. Never mind YT videos about visiting Andy Baxters ect, he could do with a trip to Primark at the very least.

It did for these guys

Oh, I like him even more now after that video. Go Danny.

Great: we had a fabulous time at the White Hart in Melton, rocked the place out, hot & sweaty. Sad: it's our last gig at the venue because the landlord and landlady are leaving. They can't make the place pay for itself. Sunday evenings always draw a crowd for the entertainment, but they have struggled to get people in on other nights of the week. Anyway we gave them a good send off. I took the smoke machine for a change, which made all the lights look even better. We didn't even keep track of how long we played. The only thing I forgot to do was to take a photo.

Not a Christmas song per se, but the full piano version of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryūichi Sakamoto himself is a delight for the ears, and you can add the sung version from David Sylvian called Forbidden Colours.

An interesting video has just popped up on YouTube from a couple of days ago - Bob Harris interviewing Lee Sklar:

Number 1 has to be the Sire P10. Next my rather fine orange-coloured pedal board (with matching bag). Number 3, lovely little Joyo 10W bass amp with Bluetooth for playing along to stuff. Honorable mention, the Kay Gremlin I tarted up a bit, well quite a lot of setting up epecially, that's now quite fun to play.

Good evening, I would like to share with you all some bass transcriptions; my main work to grow and improve on my musical path. I focus more on melodies, themes, solos, than bass parts. No plan: i work on pieces (or parts of pieces) than touch me and makes me vibrate. I transcribe for 4 strings bass: there will be some compromise on certains notes. (no low D 😁) Let's start with Jean -Philippe RAMEAU : La danse du grand calumet de la paix My transciption is based on several versions. This one is just an example, a nice version. It's downloadable in pdf, or Musescore format. You can also play it freely directly on Musescore website. JP RAMEAU - La danse du grand calumet de la paix - player online Edit: i add pdf direct link for those interested as i had a feedback about mandatory registration on musescore website to be able to download it from my below link. JP RAMEAU - La danse du grand calumet de la paix - pdf Enjoy !

With respect, you were operating at a level where things would get sorted out quickly and amicably, so the sort of situation I described wouldn't ever happen. You would be dealing with the same groups for weeks or longer at a time. You wouldn't have behaved in the way I'm about to describe and then annoy everyone more by being condescending with it which is why things got heated. In the toilet/originals circuit in London where I'm sure the engineers are getting paid much less than you to do a good job, they very often don't care. Worse still, the air of impunity of action in some cases can be really bad. If it's only one night does it matter if you annoy the bands? You probably won't see them again. Who cares? When you ask why they did something that has negatively affected you or your band and they tell you to f@&£off refusing to discuss it, would that not annoy you? Like one time, one muted my guitarist (he was using a helix staright into the desk) for the whole last third of a song and when asked after the gig what happened told him the exact same thing and then shoved him. No explanation, no apology. When you ask someone nicely for what you need (explaining why you need it) and they proceed to do the exact opposite is that not screwing with you? So, if you're playing in a trio the bass takes on a whole different role than in say a 5 piece with 2 guitars and making the bass all "whump" isn't going to help you or the band sound good. Admittedly, I play a more driven, lead bass style and seemingly that doesn't compute for some of them and I can't understand why as it's not that complicated. I've never asked for anything except to be able to hear myself and to point out before soundcheck that in some of the bands I've played in, the bass has played more lead figures than the guitar, so please don't cut the treble. Whilst experiences like these aren't every time, it's been enough of a negative experience for me over the last 20 years that I find it depressing that in all that time, very little has changed in how bass is allowed to be presented in a live format. It's worth noting that when I have played bigger venues the engineers have been great.

From this post, you must be a whole lot of fun to work with. Most players play a whole lifetime of gigs without getting “screwed” by sound engineers or coming to blows with a sound guy. I was a sound engineer (FOH) for 40 years working the international touring circuit mostly. The first time a player threatened one of the crew, they would get an introduction to the head of security, who quickly defused the situation by either compliance, or the act was cancelled. It almost never happened because this kind of behavior simply wasn’t tolerated at this level. Nothing screams immaturity like an act or its members throwing a “toddler temper tantrum”. Yup, the higher quality venues and the better acts generally end up with better backline. I don’t recall seeing junk more than a couple times a year at most, often it was really good gear.

I went wireless about this time last year and the feeling of freedom was fantastic! Still have to keep an eye on stage position during songs that need effects or BVs though - I expect I'll get caught out sooner or later...

I guess each to their own. I am not a big fan of YouTube type ‘entertainment’ but give me Danny Sapko anytime. In my grouch like, cynical way Dubai is the ideal zoo to house these types of vacuous, bling, influencers. All the tax avoiding, money obsessed, shiliing, toxic toss pots can all move there and impress each other.

Grille for the BassChat 8 Somebody, I can't remember who, used one of the round grilles for an 18" speaker and hammered it flat, I copied that idea for my cab it's a great way of buying just enough perforated metal to do the job and is purpose designed. it even comes in black £6 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126150460308

I don't get that at all. Sounds more like your band are too good to open for them and would show them up. Dave

Used to be more but we now have a permanent PA guy to do all the heavy stuff and we split our fee 6 ways now but it means i'm not lifting all the heavy PA cabs in and out my car for every gig. He turns up in his van and does it all. Sounds better out front too. Lot more professional looking too having your own SE. Dave.

One of the speakers parameters is Xmax which is the furthest the coil can move and stay within the magnetic field. Like a lot of these things which determine maximum power there are slightly different ways of measuring this but that's a technical thing which isn't really relevant to the cab builder. Basically Xmax is the furthest the coil and cone can move and beyond this point the speaker will start to distort and the coil will begin to overheat as it is outside the magnet which also acts as a chunky metal heatsink. Xmax is 5.5mm for the Fane 8-225 so that means the cone will move 5.5mm forward and 5.5mm back or 11mm in total at full power. so, 6mm clearance for the grille is needed. If you look carefull at the speaker you'll so that the cone is set back from the gasket and the frame by a few mm, roughly speaking the cone sits level with the front of the baffle so if the grille clears the speaker frame by 3mm you'll havbe your 5.5mm clearance. In practice you can allow a little more and 10mm in front of the baffle is what I would use as a minimum. Metal grilles get bent in use and pushed inwards so 12-15mm is my usual clearance. Oh I've just spotted David's @Mottlefeeder post. All he says is true. Some manufacturers do give figures like Xlim or even Xdamage to indicate the extreme excursion point. Fane don't give this figure for the 8-225 in their current spec sheet. 10-15mm clearance of the front of the baffle will be enough.

Well this upped the ante!

Pedal Board A the FTT EQ is excellent if certainly more than what I probably require

I don't subscribe to Spotty, maybe these can be found there, too. Somewhat strange stuff.

I first saw/ heard Danny Sapko demonstrating various basses on YT on behalf of Gear4Music. I remember being impressed with his playing, especially because his style actually lets you hear what a bass sounds like. It might sound simple but it's a trick that eludes so many other would-be equipment demos. A four minute double thumping slap and tap fest doesn't really tell me much. And he was wearing proper clothes.

The boyfriend is such a shill it’s embarrassing. He’s a parody.

Nobody should work for free, not even students. You’re effectively telling them they’re not deserving of being paid. I have this argument with charities all the time. If someone is using their time and skill to help you, then they should be paid. If they sometimes choose to work for free (as I often do), that’s fine - but it shouldn’t be an expectation.

CPC sell them so if you can think of sixteen quid’s worth of other stuff you need from CPC (and who amongst us can’t do that?) then you can get free delivery. To be honest even if you have to pay delivery I’d struggle to find a cheaper way of making a decent grille, as long as you have the means to cut it (I used a Dremel but am sure hacksaw or tinsnips would do). Note that the plastic edging is just a stretch fit around the round grille so you can re-use it (with glue) for the rectangular version.

According to our singer who created the video, it uses the following: Kling (including lip synch), Vidu, Hailuo and Genmo; Voice for the vocal stripping, AI Face Swap for character consistency. The main character uses the face of one of our fans IIRC. The video was made a year ago so the abilities of the various AI video applications will have moved on since then, and these may not be the best options any more. The resulting clips were edited together in the full version DaVinci Resolve. It took a long time to create, much of it was spent learning how to get the best out of the text prompts, and from what I recall very little of the footage generated at the beginning of the process made it through to the final edit. Also had the time been available he could have spent another month or so fine tuning the edits and getting rid of glitches like the additional fingers, but it had to be finished to coincide with the release of the EP which includes this song.

Any sort of obstruction in front of the speaker affects the sound and if you listen to music then there is an audible difference when you remove the grille. Most Hi-fi buffs will remove them for critical listening and you never see them on studio monitors. However practicality reigns and bare paper cones would last minutes in most gigs never mind rattling around in the back of the van. Quite apart from the resistance to air movement the holes each act as diffraction points and a metal grilla as a diffraction grating. The hole size is important as is the ratio of open space. The effect is most evident at high frequencies and is clearly audible. I look for holes that are as big as possible whilst keeping anything as big as a pencil out. I'd avoid anything with more than 40% of the area covered so not all perforated metal sheet is suitable. Fortunately there isn't much high frequency coming from a bass speaker and so the sound isn't too badly distorted by the grille. Most commercial grilles will be OK so have a look at what the manufacturers do and you should be OK. However I do look at some cabs and wonder if style over substance isn't creeping in. You really don't need to put the badge in front of the cone.

I recently got a new keyboard so have have been re-visiting some Piano and Organ House classics like these to try and play:

Indeed, and saving up for one of those amazing Trace Elliots

It's not that I seem to be on a different planet, but rather there seem to be soooooo many planets that I'm not on. As I seem to write more and more : It's a funny ol' world.

I was a sound "mixist" in the late 90s/early 2000s and I can say that there are some useless sound people and some prima-donna d**khead band members out there too. My rule was pre-amp DI wherever possible, but if it was obvious the "sound" was all being done in the amp, I would take it post. A bit of discussion with the band always helped, unless they felt they were too important to speak with you. I can remember the bass player who insisted on using his own home-made preamp thing which appeared to output DC and melted the voice coils in the event's shared backline 8x10, or the guitarists/drummers who insisted on playing all the time when soundchecking. However, I have also been playing gigs where I have had to show the sound person how to operate their own desk, or get rid of some really bad resonance on stage, things like that. As for backline - I was never sure if this was an urban myth or not, but I remember a guitarist once telling me of another guitarist pal who once turned up at a venue with his amp that kept cutting out, only to find the venue had the same one so he swapped them after the gig when they weren't looking and left his in place of the venue's good one!