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@Ricky Rioli’s plan yielded results, thanks. I received a call from the head office just earlier and it has been located and found and is on its way from the hub to its new owner. Fingers crossed but it looks like (despite me writing the consignment number, address of the sender and the recipient and phone numbers on the crate in BIG BLACK marker pen), the box was missing a barcode sticker.

Just back from playing in Scarborough with my acoustic duo. It’s a cafe / restaurant on the harbour side called The Lookout, only small but with a very appreciative audience. We play it on average about once a month or so, and it’s my favourite venue. Small PA engineered by the organiser who happens to be a tidy bassist too, so I just rock up with a bass and combo. Tonight I went back to using my old Washburn AB20 - for the last few months I’ve been playing my little Ibanez - and I really enjoyed getting back to a 34” scale bass. Just use a Fender Rumble as a monitor so it’s an easy load in /out. Tried just going ampless but due to the position of the PA cabs it’s not quite enough for me to hear myself clearly so I don’t mind. Next gig there is end of November, and we’ve been promised regular nights into 2023 as well so happy days. (Just added a pic of the view from the cafe balcony)

Just back from a Bandeoke at a new venue. Quiet night but they've offered us a regular monthly slot. That's two venues, a couple more and this project will really show a return. The best thing is they're on Thursday and Sunday evenings so earning away from regular gig nights.

#SoMuchWinning #WeLostWillNeverGetOverIt #SunlitUplandsAndUnicorns IBTL

So, I've been doing tribute work for quite a while now. I've been with a George Michael tribute for the last five years doing theatres, festivals and clubs. I'm also the MD for a Katy Perry and Taylor Swift tribute, and I've depped for numerous others including Oasis, Elton John, ABBA, and I'm due to start working with a Barbra Streisand tribute, and a Take That tribute. Do you have to be a fan of the original artist, or maybe you become one? I think it definitely helps, but it's not imperative in my situation. The main thing for me is that it helps to have an understanding of the music, as I'm a stickler for detail from particular sounds to musical nuances. So being a fan of the music in the first place helps because you naturally want to invest yourself in learning the material properly. However there are instances where I've had to potentially start to like or "get into" that artist, such as the Barbra gig for example. How important is it to be visually/musically identical? How much latitude are you allowed? I've found with tributes there are two main schools of thought here. If it's a full on tribute, then it makes sense to be visually as close as you can, or at least for the main person (George in this case). However there are instances of it being a celebration of the music, so you can end up in a position where they may not sound or look like the original artist, and it's their own performance of the songs. It's very much down to how you market it. As for myself on the gig, the only show where I'm in costume is the ABBA show. How accurate my costume is? I don't really know. It's white and has sequins, but it at least looks the part. The main cast of the show are a lot closer. The other gigs, it's usually stage black. Do you ‘get into character’ or is it just a gig? Being effectively in the backing band, there's not really any character to get into in my instance. Good example of this is I remember meeting Rick Astley's previous keys and guitar players. I've seen Rick live on TV various times, but had absolutely no idea or recognition of these gents. A session band generally speaking just fades into the background. Does it feel musically limiting, or is it fulfilling your needs? (Maybe you have a side band?) I'm quite lucky that I play with so many, as it keeps things interesting. With it all being different styles, different quality of dots (some are learn by ear), and other shows can have really challenging pads to read as well. The George Michael and ABBA gigs are probably the most challenging to play, though with the GM gig been under my belt since early 2017, it's like an old pair of slippers and I only use dots when new material goes in. I don't find it limiting as in a way I have a free pass to add more interpretation, as GM loved bass and I've been told that his bassists have been known to be taken off on a tangent by GM with the MD left powerless to stop them, but there's a fine line between being tasteful and overplaying. I'm very much about the pocket and groove of it, but every now and again it's fun to throw in a tasty fill or run which still turns other band members' heads. I've even managed to turn Wayne (George)'s head with a massive grin on his face in the past too. But, don't overdo it. The Barbra gig is going to be the other end of the scale I imagine. Do you have any qualms about tributes ‘stifling original music’? It's a totally different market, so not really! Have you ever met or been seen by a member of the ‘originals’? What did they say? Yes, one of GMs keys players came down a couple of years ago and introduced himself before the gig, came back to watch the gig and then stuck around afterwards. Loved the show (very lucky as it was our first night with our new drummer as the last one was terrible, and was sacked... and then he went and setup another GM tribute), and he stuck around telling stories, said to me "Steve (bass) would like your playing!" . So... seal of approval I'd say. We're also very privileged to have recently had GM's percussionist join us for a gig, and he wants to do more in the future. We also have Cliff Richard's drummer depping for us fairly often, and one of Sister Sledge's guitarists. So I imagine we've been doing something right! What is the overriding thing being in a tribute act has taught you? It's a dog eat dog world. I see so many tribute bad mouthing each other, it only seems to be Beatles and ABBA tributes which help each other out in that sense. I've known other GM tributes accuse our guy of miming (absolute BS by the way), and the punters can also be VERY harsh as well. You'll never please anyway, because people are such big fans of original artists, they often expect to see a perfect clone, which will rarely happen. You could sell out a 4000 seat theatre, there'll be 3995 blown away people, and 5 people who think it was the worst thing they've ever seen... you just get on with it. Having done it once, would you do it again? If so, would the musical angle be very different? It's my job, I play music all over the world for a living and tribute work is a big part of that. I'll be honest, I much prefer it to function work. I play with some top function bands too, but I've had enough of weddings and the way musicians are often treated. My fiancée is a wedding planner, so on her jobs I know we get looked after, and not all weddings are bad, however I've seen drunk people falling over gear, walking through where we're setting up and being very racist towards members of the band, which is wholly unacceptable. I was gigging down in Maidstone a few months ago (I live in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire), so it was about 250 miles home. I left an ABBA gig at about 22:00 - 22:30, and I tend to give other musician mates a call on my way home, and I called one of the guys in one of the function bands I work with, and he said "sorry can I call you back, we're just packing down" ... I'd already completed 225 miles of my journey at least, and they hadn't even loaded the van, and the money was only a little bit less for me. I love tribute work for that, it's still a lot of miles, but the people going to these gigs want to be there and enjoy it more. Less alcohol is consumed generally speaking (GM gigs are still middle aged women behaving badly though - someone in her 50s grabbed his crotch the other night!), but it's much better than weddings for me. The next step for me is to get onto the bigger acts, but I'm very happy doing what I'm doing at the moment, and wouldn't hesitate to do more tribute work, and I wouldn't really change any angles either. The only thing which bothers me is that if I was MDing it, I'd be writing all the charts myself, because I'm sick to the back teeth of getting a bass pack, and the parts are inaccurate.

Allianz insurance have just started this database https://missinginstruments.co.uk/ So if you've got a missing or stolen instrument, get it listed and cut down the chance of a resale.

I live in London, so no point in listing music opportunities here, and the OP correctly excludes big towns from this thread. To me, however, at this stage in the thread, the next question is - how many of those pubs and clubs in the lively/healthy music scenes you mention pay the band a reasonable fee? As we, as a country, descend into austerity/recession/downright poverty, I'm noticing that even successful venues are absolutely penny pinching and some are offering bands what we consider a ridiculously low fee. We have turned down a few offers because they were well below our minimum fee, and we've received enquiries that quickly faded away as soon as we mentioned our minimum fee. That's all right by us - we're not desperate and there are still plenty of venues who recognise the quality of the band and are willing to pay more to have us. We're not the kind of band who don't get out of bed for less than $10,000. We set our minimum fee so that we can pay for the petrol and end up with a little money to justify the whole exercise, but nobody's getting rich. And of course, a band's minimum fee for London and the Home Counties will probably have to be higher than elsewhere in the country due to higher costs all around (that's why I'm not mentioning actual numbers). However, I find the trend very worrying. So what's the situation in your thriving areas? Are bands undercutting each other in order to play? Is the scene healthy enough to pay every band acceptably for a gig?

my favoured method for this would actually be to fill the holes in with some 12mm dowel then re-drill with an 18mm forstner bit, (sounds counter-intuative but would guide the bit the best) A small diameter (3mm) pilot hole through would allow you to drill from both sides for the cleanest finish. Matt

Shepherd's Bush Empire! Brilliant evening, met some family down there and an imaginary internet friend, who I'd only ever spoken to as a part of Lee Sklar's clubhouse. We're playing pretty well (although I did manage to find an online review which said we were terrible in Aberdeen. Hey ho) and we seem to be getting better each time. Tonightbreally seemed to gell well and I even managed to do a bit of "Dad" dancing, much to the amusement of the drummer! The Barefaces one 10 with the TC head is proving to be astonishingly good, I had to turn it down on stage, as it was too loud! 🤣 Fortunately, it's only really there for a bit of extra monitoring, as most of the "sound" is generated via the bassrig pedal.

@Jonesy the good you did is still doing good 🤗

Better than white is a pair of Par's or equivalent, one each side oriented towards the opposite corner of the stage area. One with a very pale orange/straw filter (Lee 205...), the other with a very pale blue filter (Lee 201...). This gives frontal lighting with a slight contrast each side of the band's faces, with no blinding beam directly in their eyes. Placed forward of the front of stage, as high as reasonably possible, angled across at 45°. Much better than plain white. Just sayin'; my 'Tip Of The Day'.

That's nice and colourful, all you need to do on top of that is light the band in white from the front. It's the one thing nearly everyone forgets to do. Add some plain white light to light up the band members and the colours will still work great at the back.

Well my first gig in my hometown. I felt I was rough but we went down a storm. One very strange song, the drummer decided to experiment with a different drum patter for Radar Love. He thought we were put off by the unannounced chage (he'd seen a youtube video). Actually it was the fact he played at a tempo of about 230 instead of 175. I think we broke the Guinness World Record for speed playing the song... I didn't know I could play that fast!

I recently joined a 60s band and though my Sandberg Lionel sounds the part, I had an urge to get a more 60s style bass. I play short scale basses these days and thought perhaps a violin bass. Then, last Saturday, I popped in to see my mate, who owns Aire Valley Guitars. I didn't expect to see anything in the retro bass department, although he does get some unusual and retro stuff in. Anyway, the first thing I spotted was a brand new Guild Starfire I bass. I've always liked the look of the Starfire II bass but thought the Starfire I looked slightly odd, with it's split coil pickup. Well I had to have a go. This is a centre blocked semi acoustic, with a 1 1/2" depth, arched mahogany body, that is bound back and front, with unbound f-holes. The split coil pickup is controlled by single volume and tone knobs. The volume can be pulled out to change the pickup from series to parallel wiring. I first played the bass acoustically and got a reasonable amount of volume, for such a thin body. The bass does feel nice and resonant. The action was nice and low, the frets are well done and the bass was easy to play, with a vibrant feel, that gave me a lot of pleasure. Before I plugged it in, I put the bass on a strap, as I can not deal with neck dive. I like my bass in a diagonal position and to my surprise, the Starfire stayed put, on releasing my hands completely. That was with a very flimsy, 2 inch strap. Now it's home, I use a well padded 3 inch strap and it really is solid as a rock. Plugged in, the single split-coil pickup sounds nice and full, with plenty of clarity. The tone rolled off also sounded useable, even though the passive tone control isn't the best I have used. But mostly I have my tone on full, almost always. The series/parallel knob, when activated, kind of thins out the tone. This could be quite useful in some circumstances but I'll be leaving the knob down, as I much prefer the thicker sound. The bass comes with D'Addario EXL165 Nickel Wound Bass, Custom Light (.045 - .105) strings. I had thought of changing them for D'Addario Chromes or GHS Pressurewounds but these round wounds sound really nice, especially if I play an inch or two nearer the neck, than I usually do. Once the newness is played out of them I have a feeling, they will be just right. This bass is built very well. It is solid yet light and has a nice finish. If I was being picky, the inside edge of the f-holes look scrappy and there is a miniscule cherry red blob on the body binding, near the heel of the neck. You have to look close to see these though and the dark, transparent cherry finish is rather lovely. I am rather looking forward to taking it to the next band rehearsal, on Wednesday. (Sorry, I forgot to remove the plastic covers from the pickup)

Je Ne Sais Pas Pork-kwa - Kylie Minogue

So, played this in anger through a rather large Mesa rig at the weekend and it did not disappoint. It has that wonderful clarity and character that comes with the classic Precision SC but being able to blend the two PUPs brings a whole new World of tone to the party. It's also incredibly resonant, light and playable. Only quibble is that the roll-off on the tone is extreme to say the least, moving from twang to dub within a few degrees, so I'm going to take a look at the circuit in the near future. Gut feel is that we're going to see a few more Twin SC Precisions, it works very nicely. Full review with pics and clips to follow 👍

#pleasedon'tmentiontheBword

When I spoke to one of the techs at Crown he said the specs on power amps make sense when using them for the proper application. They measure the wattage with a 1kHz sine wave for comparative purposes. In a pro-audio application they calculate how much power they need in relation to the amount of speakers they need to power. A rule of thumb is that if you are powering speakers with a 500 watt rating you will need a 1000 watt amplifier. This will give you the proper amount of power and headroom to handle peaks. The sound tech that we hire for our band told me with class D amps he likes to have 3 times the power needed. The problem that players trying to use these amps for a musical instrument application encounter is that they are trying to use a product that was not designed for that application and don't understand how the amps operate. Pro-audio power amps are expecting the output of a mixer. A 32 channel mixer can output over +22 dBu which is why they have a higher input threshold than a typical guitar or bass amp. The gains on those amps are really used to attenuate the input so the mixer's high output doesn't clip the input to the power amp. You don't want any SS amp especially a Class D amp operating on the verge of clipping. Here is more info from Crown regarding amp power.

Good to see it getting paid forward and to hear that the OP will hopefully get the bass where it should be! !!

Don’t leave me this way. Communards

Coïtus Interruptus ～ Fad Gadget

Finished off my first Fuzz pedal at the weekend... It's just a simple Jeds Peds kit and to be honest, I only built this one to gain some experience soldering again as it's been a while. Sounds exactly like a one knob fuzz pedal... pretty horrid . I was going to get my guys at work to powder coat it... but I quite like the unfinished look... I may have taken artistic licence with the name as well!

Here in small town / coastal resort East Anglia, pubs almost universally pay £250-300 for gigging bands. Some bands may get more if they're good enough to carry with them/pull in strong audiences.

Yes, that's right - just a way to create a rebate for the connectors to be fitted to, but one of these http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=TUFF8708BLK or similar will remove the need for it.

I'd Love To ～ Morrissey

Waiting for the call after an audition (on lead guitar) this afternoon. Did everything I could think of to make it work in my favour - learned more songs than they asked for, spent time on getting the sounds right, got there early, did some BVs. I defo want the gig (1 year dep slot) - just have to be patient now.

Bristol is phenomenal for live music. Probably regardless of genre I'd have thought.

OK back on track having got rehearsals and gigs out of the way. So having established that amps aren't neutral 'wires' that just increase the volume and that humans like a smiley faced eq because of the way our hearing works it's time to address Trace Elliott watts in the shape of the ELF that "never ceases to amaze"; magic or clever use of science? Oh, look it's a smiley face with 5db of bass boost at 100Hz and 7db @ 4kHz with the bass rolling off nicely below 80hz. The loudness control is set to always on so an instant hit in the showroom and in home practice and that big peak at 3-5kHz is just where our ears are most sensitive so it is going to sound loud. Interestingly the mid dip and the mid control centre frequency are at 400Hz just like the Warwick and the TC BAM as is the quoted power output. No criticism of any of these amps, a lot of people are going to love the baked in sound of the ELF, I mean really love it and it is boosting those upper mids so it is going to sound loud! Filtering the bass a little just makes sense with a little amp likely to be used with little speakers and with limited ability to dissipate heat, and frankly most of us won't miss it. It's a very different approach to Ashdown with their flat response across the range of a bass.

https://thebassgallery.com/products/ken-smith-bespoke-b-bass-1981-ex-stanley-clarke I've never seen that before. I can't decide whether it's a masterpiece or the ugliest guitar I've ever seen.

With my Sandberg (a VM5, a beautifully made and great feeling instrument), I too wanted a warmer, vintage sound. It took a while, but I did get there in the end - here are the steps I took. First, I put on flatwound strings. It was better, but not quite right yet. So then I swapped the stock pickup for an Aguilar ("designed to capture the vibe and feel of the 60’s"). It was better, but not quite right yet. Then I removed the preamp and rewired it as passive. It was better, but not quite right yet. So I put it all back to stock, sold it, and bought a P bass...

The one we have has a wired remote and you can vary the output level, duration and frequency of the output. It also has an option to have a constant haze but you can again vary the output down to almost nothing to flat out choking everyone. It's just a little Beamz one but it's probably the most essential bit of kit we have. https://electromarket.co.uk/beamz-f900-fazer-haze-machine-soft-case

Definitely the thing to do to make the colours pop. We use 4 DMX fixtures each side and keep 1 on each bar set white aimed across the line where the mics are. Leave the remaining 6 units to provide the interesting stuff. Simple and effective.

Stop! in the Name of Love - The Supremes

Hmph, don't get me started on "promoters"

Yeovil has lost a lot of venues, but there are loads in the surrounding villages so doing ok. But as you say, in yeovil there are a lot of solo acoustic acts and stuff (not normally backing tracks), so if you do or like those, it is probably pretty good. Not my sort of thing. Actually since coming out of lockdown our average money has gone up, it used to be £250-300 (which is the amount which didn't change over the last decade) and it has gone to £300-350 average, which we are good with.

I'm gassing for an Atlas at the minute it looks to be THE one compressor to rule them all. But as I said earlier in the thread, compression is a very much misunderstood subject. To get the best from any compressor you really need to understand what they do and how to apply them. Again, this cannot be stressed enough. My guess is that a lot of people assume that it's a fancy effect like a phaser or synth pedal and that they will notice a huge difference in their sound. But that's not the point of them. If you think of it in terms of shaping and controlling your tone (think more along the lines of EQ and HPF) and think more like a sound engineer or producer than a bass player, then they will make a total sense and - IMO - prove to be far more useful than one of the flash effects that you might use for one song on a 2 hour gig.

Most of the small-ish towns to the north/west of London seem to have just one or two 'proper' music venues - I'm talking about Slough & Maidenhead, Amersham & Chesham, Watford & Berkhamsted, Hatfield & Welwyn GC. Some do slightly better than that (High Wycombe springs to mind) but the absolute stand-out is St. Albans. That town seems to have as many music venues as the rest of Hertforshire put together, but every band for 50 miles wants to play there so the competition is unreal. On principle, I never waste my time seeking gigs in St. Albans. 🙄

Indeed! It's gone downhill; I used to book bands for the Greenman Fest in Clun - we had all sorts of stuff, from Wilko Johnson to the Oysterband. But there was always trouble with the Memorial Hall committee; they insisted we used the 86dB limiter (we attached a single 60w lightbulb to it, which flashed repeatedly, but we'd used a spare way in the consumer unit to run a 12mm feed to power the 20kW PA and lights), and when Wilko played, we went to make them some food in the Hall's kitchen - the committee had chained shut the cupboards so we couldn't use their plates! In The Castle, there's only really The Vaults, but the landlord will only allow straight ahead pub blues; 3 Tuns always had great reggae, but that's gone - food more profitable I spose! Knighton used to have a great scene - back in the 60s/70s there was a festival with seriously big names, but barring Chas and Dave and 15 years ago (sold out), Ade Edmondson's Bad Shepherds (put on by me, 3/4 full), and 2 attempts by me and our drummer at a 3 band rock night in the Comm (some quality bands, including Troy Redfern, 50 people came resulting in £200 loss). It seems that folks round here aren't interested in going to gigs unless they already know the songs but won't pay any money to see 'em. This attitude was illustrated about 5 years ago, when the Horse and Jockey in Knighton put on a Dutch prog band (Sky Architect) in the bar (no idea why!). They were completely awesome; tight as, incredible musicians etc but despite not being very loud, the local drink crew just stayed outside blatherin' to the same folks they blathered to day in, day out. One bloke actually asked me what they were like - I said they're great but he wasn't willing to stand and watch for a moment to see. As a result they had an audience of 8 - our band, 2 bar staff and one other bloke. Not only that, but there's a young farmer-type contingent who like to drink as much as poss then punch anyone nearby in the face. So we don't even bother to try and gig locally...

Oban is terrible for live music these days, unless you play traditional music jazzed up perhaps with drums. No one is interested in putting live music on anymore and when I count the places we used to play that have closed down or turned into restaurants, I get depressed.

Or bargain of the century the Zoom B1-4 which also has built in tuner, drum machine, fx, amp and speaker emulations, runs on batteries, standard power supply and usb.

whipping boy - ben harper

Aberdeen isn't too bad, despite my frequent bemoaning of its geographical location. It (and the surrounding Shire) has provided me with bands to be in since 2009, both original and cover so it can't be that bad

Done...

I run a blues jam, so we tend to get variations on 12 bars. At least the ‘blues’ label discourages open-mic people - that’s a totally different kettle of fish. As Jack says, the vocalists call the shots, so pal up with one or try yourself. It’s non competitive and friendly, at least ours is, and we welcome new faces. Good luck…