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Rare mid-week gig for Hurtsfall last night at The Angel in Nottingham. This was actually our first proper "headlining" gig with support from Beck Stacey. Debdepan, Feather Trade all of whom were brilliant. With four bands playing, the evening over-ran slightly and there was no time left for us to do an encore even though there were requests for us to do one more. There were a couple of glitches one where it seemed like the whole PA cut out for a beat during one of the songs and our singer came in too early for the last verse of the last song, but I suspect most people didn't notice either. A decent turn out for a gig on a "school night" although not as packed as our last few. Nice to see plenty of familiar faces in the audience which means that we most definitely have a "following" now and also a lot of new ones, some of whom appeared to know the songs! Hopefully photos will appear later on Facebook that I can repost. That's it for Hurtsfall live for 2023. We'll be finishing off the "Christmas Song" this weekend for release as a single in early December, and working on other new songs for the gigs we already have arranged in 2024. On Saturday I'll be back at The Angel with my other band, In Isolation, supporting B-Movie when I'm expecting the venue to be packed as tickets sold out weeks ago!

It arrived …. Great bass and very impressed, nicely set up out of the box and plays like it should This will be joining my Dakota Red Vintera as my main working basses Looks lovely in black with the gold pickguard and maple neck

I bought this last week, and I just got around to cleaning it and setting it up… ’90s Korean Aria GTB II J. Pretty tatty on collection, but the seller assured me it sounded amazing, and all was well with the neck etc…. he was correct Having just spent an hour working on it, new (old but newish) strings (yes they need trimming down a bit) put on it, cleaned and oiled etc, it’s a belter. Fantastic pickups, very jazz like, but very bright and punchy. I really do love these 90s Aria pickups, they’re very potent and very clear as they are on all my old Aria basses. My Integra 4 string, very similar to this, is also a beast. Not light, but not heavy, just a sold piece(s) of wood. I saw it on Gumtree and knowing what I know, I had to add it to the stable, I beat a lot of folks to it apparently, there was a bit of a queue by all accounts. It was £50. 👍🏻

Very interesting venue. The living room of a home is converted into a music venue. Lots of Victorian furniture and Persian rugs. There's a nice bar. No liquor license, people bring their own booze. Very well attended. Personally I wasn’t feeling my playing. Something was off. Daryl

This actually arrived on Friday, but I thought I'd wait until I'd fitted a Babicz 3-point bridge and set it up with Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats before posting a NBD. I finished setting it up today and now it really feels like it is mine. This was secondhand but in mint condition — the previous owner hadn't even taken the plastic film off the pickguard and truss rod cover. It still had the stock strings. which I guess were nickel rounds and sounded new and zingy. I have replaced the stock bridge which to be honest is only a pain in the rear when you remove strings and the saddle falls out. I decided to go for a babicz after initially favouring a hipshot. This decision was based mostly on how well it fitted in visually and I don't think it has changed the tone much if at all. The faded Pelham Blue finish looks really good and there isn't a single chip, scratch or dent anywhere on the bass. The tone seems brighter than my Epiphone vintage Pros, but that could be due to the strings being new. With the neck pickup soloed it sounds huge. I particularly like the hipshot tuners which are really smooth in use and I think the mini clover shape and the chrome hardware look considerably better than the Y tuners and black hardware on Gibson's current reverse thunderbird model.

It's finally wired up and working. A few problems. 1. The action is so high, the strings are in different timezones to the neck. 2. The nut isn't fixed down as I don't know how to fix it. Also not sure which is the front and the back of the nut. I think the front is the flat side and the rounded side goes to the tuners. 3. The hum from the guitar is appalling. Not sure if this is because there is no cavity shielding, poor soldering or bad/no earth. I suspect earthing but not going to look at it tonight. 4. I misread the wiring diagram so the switch is back to front but it does work. 5. The pickguard looks like it was put together by a five year old. It is lighter than my other Telecaster, the neck feels good and if I could reach the strings to press them down, that would be better. No idea about how it really sounds until I get the hum under control. I suspect I need a cable from the bridge to the earth on the control panel but thats tomorrows work. However it plays. Not very well (yet), but it does play

Yup, I asked Alex and this is the reply email: "Yes, vertical with tiltback wheels and a tweeter. We've had some alternate impedance drivers made to solve the annoying impedance problem! It's not going to be three 10"s in a vertical line, it'll be two above each other and one in the middle off to the side - makes for a much more sensibly shaped cab and still has great dispersion because the middles of the drivers (where the mids/highs come from) aren't side by side. Same height and width as a Super Twin, same depth as a Two10S/Four10/Six10. Same wheels and handles as a Six10. Should be v cool!"

Had a two night stint on solo acoustic for Cheltenham races, which is usually horrendous. This time however, it was actually rather lovely with minimal aggro and idiots. Quite enjoyed it.

I had to share in case it helps anyone also who was not aware. Yes, I like the free/cheap stuff. But for the busy or tired person after work or family, anything for ease of use and little friction to playing/practicing is needed. I was trying to transcribe a song, but the bass was so hard to hear. I might have tried some shenanigans with Audacity, but a drummer friend told me about moises. Wow. Separates the instruments, change tempo, chord chart (was hit or miss though) etc....and the bass in this song is so clear to hear now. The free version has limitations on the features. They have a Black Friday sale on now. So for the basic ('Musician') plan for one year it cost me £17.50. I can't even buy a KFC meal for 2 ppl for less than that now. Why pay? I can do unlimited songs, and everything else mentioned. Plus that click track really helped me with hearing where certain parts come in. It even transcribes lyrics. This was a reggae song with a Jamaican accent, so I honestly thought it would fail. It was about 98% correct. This coupled with the Boss Waza Air (which I debated buying so long cause of the cost) just make it so much fun to pick up my instrument and just play something, and its all mobile and silent practice so I don't wake the kids. Sometimes if you can afford it, spending the money on the right things (for you) makes it so much easier.

Using these on a Nano+, with the Proton in the loop. Drive and modulation on the Stomp still experimenting with the Regal, Mic pre etc. Powered with a DC4 and either a powerbank or 24V plug to get the most out of it

Arriving today hopefully!! Decided the Vintera 50’s PBass is my perfect fit ( already have the Dakota Red one ) If the new series is as good then I will be very pleased Further reports upon arrival today

Put together a couple of pedalboards over the last couple of days: A kinda secondary ‘fly-board’ to my main board: This is somewhat in flux as I figure out the spacing and what I can manage to fit. The OC2 will likely change for an MXR Octave Deluxe, love the OC2 for recording, but for live use, the MXR is huge sounding. The Flashback has a Chorus toneprint on it, my OCD would like a Corona Chorus in there (or some other 1590a bass chorus perhaps, basically not a ‘Delay’ pedal), but it would just be chucking money after something to do exactly the same sound haha. The COG 66 will almost certainly be swapped for a Fuzz, and pretty sure I can fit a 1590B pedal there, so plenty of choice. Powered by a Cioks Sol. Second board is one for a metal project I’m trying to learn some tunes for, may as well get the sounds right to practice them to: The MXR compressor is supreme, these Studio Compressors are exactly the same as the Bass Compressor, just a different box. And the Fuzzrocious Cat Tail (with Clean Blend) is just awesome into the v1 Sansamp. Powered by a small Diego thing. I want to get a EBS 4-port power daisy chain….just because the ones here really stick out. Both are Pedaltrain Nanos. Si

Here is mine,I think I paid between £30-40 for it!

Turning Pekingese the Vapours

Gimme Sheltie Rolling Stones Wasn't happy with my last effort😉

As much as I love the music he made with Pantera, Superjoint Ritual and Down, I can't listen to anything by Phil Anselmo any more. It breaks my heart, but the White Power stain can't be rinsed out.

I don't envy this position at all. I just like basses too much, and I enjoy the variety. Only poverty would cause me to go down to one bass. Only having one bass would be an undesirable situation for me to be in. It wouldn't be hell, just... a bit dull.

I'm sure if you went to the dole office and told them you were down to one bass you would find out you were entitled to some benefit or other. That is, as long as you could prove you were actively looking for another one.

On Saturday I was on my way to a gig with my 1940s/1950s style blues and I needed to take a bass as backup to my double bass that wasn't a modern Fender (the band leader told me!). I went on FB and found what I thought was a modern Burns reissue bass for £100. Agreed to pick it up and use it that evening. When I turned up the guy was a bit flustered as he'd had a huge response to the advert. He pulled it out of the case, and it was an original 1962 Burns Vista Sonic bass in untouched condition. Feeling a bit wary, we had a chat and it turned out it was his grandads and he was selling it for him, and he wanted it to go to a musician as he didn't play. Not really knowing much about Burns guitars (despite my username) I took it to the gig and popped it on display if needed (it wasn't). When I got home, I checked out how much they're selling for and was blown away. It's going to the shop today for a bit of work on the electronics, but a pretty bonkers day. The gig money paid for the bass, too.

Not a gig but next week i've booked a 3 hr rehearsal slot for the Glam covers band to run thru the Xmas songs we've not played for 11mths just in time for the first Xmas gig on 2nd Dec. WHOO HOO. Dave

I won’t bark down. - Johnny Cash

My version of the Traynor TS-50B preamplifier:

Lipstick on your collie - Connie Francis

STB-GT, mid '00s. Basically a Stingray with a P shaped body & a skinny maple/blocks J neck. These are probably Indonesian or Chinese but very nice quality. Paid £100 for mine...

It arrived …. Great bass and very impressed, nicely set up out of the box and plays like it should This will be joining my Dakota Red Vintera as my main working basses

Rock n Roll Dalmatian — AC/DC

Rags And Bones ～ No Means No

The seemingly daft thing is, I'm a graphic designer by trade. You'd think I'd be on top of all this stuff. But in my defence, I come from a print background. I can make things looks pretty, it's the admin side of it I struggle with. It's often been said in my office, where there are only a couple of us under 50, that we're too old to get on top of social media. EDIT: We've been saying about getting a showreel filmed. But I'm now thinking a photo shoot would be more useful - we haven't done one for well over 10 years, and our line up has changed since then, so I've been cludging together a mixed bad of headshots from various places. We've got plenty of live footage uploaded over the years, I reckon that's more honest and marketable to venues than a studio-filmed recording. Even if the quality isn't as good as a professional recording, seeing videos of people dancing to our performances must be more engaging to venues.

I don't understand how or why this happens with big companies. I understand smaller builders, effectively testing the water and seeing what interest there is before launching a production run based on pre-orders, but Dingwall knew these would sell like hot cakes, so why not just wait until the first run is ready to go before announcing?

You're on to something there. The couple of bands that are regarded by many as the top cover bands in the county charge more than most others and are very busy - usually 2 or 3 gigs a week, just in pubs/bars. They are on top of their social media game. One has a website that is barebones - pretty much just a photo, gig list and merch page selling a single CD, and the other doesn't have a website at all. I know my lot needs to get on top of our SM game to sell ourselves more. We've been trying this last year, but need to get better at it. It's made me think that our band website is less important than I thought. It could be distilled down to a single page with a gig list and links to socials/youtube - more a landing portal to other places than an "end-to-all". I've never been happy with our website TBH but just haven't gotten around to redoing it, or worked out what I need to do with it. I feel a Christmas break project coming on.

Made a real small version. Soldering 0603 parts by hand isn't something I've done for a while. hopefully it works.... 🤞

An "expensive" band can justify what they're asking for by having a well stocked social media account that shows what the venue will get: good quality band, crowd interaction, a following, etc. Speaking to a friendly promoter we were asking about how we get a foot in the door a but further afield, he says it's all down to Social Media: short video clips, how many followers, comments from punters... The ones that play for £40 a head probably aren't doing this stuff or are probably doing it very badly.

The other problem we have is if a number of bands keep doing the same, it doesn't just undervalue their services, it undervalue the pub cover band circuit for everyone. This is one of the reasons pubs are paying bands the same rates they did 30 years ago.

I can't help thinking there is a whole world to open up there. "I'm on tour with Kiss, I'm the banana roadie"."Cool, I was fruit tech for Boston a while back" End of derail - back to the thread!

I think the stage your band is at is the key here. If I was still getting a band off the ground and everyone was available without too much inconvenience I'd probably do the gig. Reason being you can iron out a lot of issues, even things like why the PA is making that hissing noise, how to set up quickly or different venues, all the boring stuff, as well as working on your act: song endings, new songs, how to get the four punters tapping their feet, how you respond to requests etc. You say you haven't got a following but if you want to turn down small gigs how will you earn the following to get you in the door for the bigger gigs? I know I'm being very idealistic here but it's hard work building up a band and takes a lot of ups and downs.

…..and hopefully……a film about Brand X 👍

Most of the rock and metal I grew up listening to 30 years ago doesn’t really float my boat any more to be honest. I’d very rarely choose to listen to any of it. On the other hand I’ve been getting back into EDM/house/techno on my weekly motorway commute (aka a traffic jam) which I was well into back in the day. But I’m realising that most of the new stuff I’m buying isn’t grabbing my attention either - seems I’ve already experienced the heyday of good dance music in the early/mid 1990s. Hmm.

Hi again You've kind of asked several questions here, I don't have a lot of time so I'll just answer the one in this bit of your post. So first of all you are spot on, basically you get twice the power through 4ohms and half the power moving back up to eight ohms . But that's theoretical, the theory works when the amp is running with the volume down but when you turn up full practical limits come in and it's almost always slightly less than double. 125W is as good a guesstimate as any. The second bit is about how much power the speaker is safe with. Matching the amp to the cab (there is a third question about matching two speakers but I'll ignore that for now) It's slightly complex because the power rating of a speaker is measured very differently to the way an amps power is measured. For the amp you are just measuring it's electrical output. If you know the Volts and Ohms you know the theoretical power and you just need to check that the amp can provide the current. Speakers are more complex, you can destroy them in two ways, pass too much power and the coil gets hotter and hotter and eventually blows. (heat causes other problems too but let's keep it simple). The second thing that can destroy a speaker is uncontrolled movement beyond the design limits of the speaker. The more power you apply from the amp the further the speaker cone and couil move, but this is also affected by frequency. The lower the note the more the speaker moves and a combination of excessive bass and power is what is more likely to cause failure by over-excursion than heat alone. It's that frequency element that makes it complex because: a.) nobody knows how you are going to eq or play your bass and b.) The cab plays a big part in controlling excursion so the same speaker may handle 300W in one cab and only 150W in a different cab. So, at the factory where they design and build drive units they test speakers by putting them in a standard box and by passing a standard signal through the amp for several hours until eventually they know how much power they can apply before the speaker fails. The standard AES test is for two hours and the standard signal is white noise (all the frequencies) but filtered to mimic the mix of frequencies in 'typical' music. The AES test says the speaker should be able to handle the power for two hours without failing. It's a good fair test and easy to do so you can compare speakers. Engineers and speaker designers can be pretty confident with this information but they knows that this is only half the story. Once the drive units leave the factory they cannot know what cabinet they are going into and what instrument they will be used for or how the musician will play, there are so many unknowns that no attempt is made to rate the speakers for use. So when you buy a 2x10 fitted with two Celestion speakers rated at 200W ea you will be told its a 400W cab. and samples of the speakers have been through the severest test possible of running for two hours at full power without harm. The reality though is that your 500W amp isn't going to overheat them. Music isn't continuous noise it has loud bits, quiet bits and times when you stop playing. Have a look on the back of any modern amp and it will give a figure for power consumption which is way below the maximum power of the amp. I've got the 200W Gnome in front of me and it says 60W power consumption. That breaks down to 10W of energy wasted heating the amp and 25% of the 200W going to the speakers on average when the amp is running flat out. If you keep the bass eq down and play 'normally' you can safely use a 1000W amp without your 400W speaker over-heating and some people actually do that. The problem is that you might like a bit of bass boost or you may add in all sorts of pedals and you still have the excursion limits of the speaker to worry about. There might be a frequency where each of those Celestions can only handle 25W each and your 400w cab is only a 50W cab at that point. So going back to your question, you could almost certainly use your 100W speaker with your 125W amp. 99% of the time if you use a 300W amp with a 300W speaker you'll never have a failure, you can probably risk going a lot further and use an amp that is double the power. People rarely turn their amps up full anyway and in reality your average power use will never reach 25% of full power. You don't need to be over protective but you do need to be aware of the over-excursion issue. If you are using a of of bass boost, slapping your bass without compression or increasing the frequencies below 100Hz in an unusual way and you hear unusual noises from your speakers at high volumes then you just might have a problem. I suppose I'm saying just be aware you are comparing apples with pears when looking at amp watts and speaker watts, six apples don't necessarily weigh the same as six pears

There’s two issues aren’t there. The fact it’s badly paid / unpaid and the fact the venue isn’t any good anyway. Ive happily done gigs for free / pocket money with original bands to get that practice and get us gigging - but they’ll be worthwhile things like local festivals, support slots etc. Empty pubs, rubbish venues etc. Barely worth the effort even for paid gigs let alone unpaid ones.

Beware of the man with only one bass , he probably knows how to use it

Oh-oh Jungo! It's Danger Island Next!

The sickening part of turning down gigs is that there’ll be someone else willing to do it for peanuts even if you don’t. However, turning it down will show the booker that you’re better than that as well as no punters telling everyone else how few people were at the gig etc. In my experience once you do cheap gigs people think you’re a cheap band. When I first considered turning pro, a very wise local musician told me to settle on a price I would want as a minimum for every gig and don’t waiver on that. He said that some nights Instead of out working I’d be sitting at home watching telly but it would be worth it in the long run. He was right.

I blame Basschat. Although I have to say that 3 of the basses in this picture have been sold since it was taken and the only bass I gig regularly is the cream coloured Jazz on the far right. I will sell a few others in the next couple of years and I'll probably just be left with my USA Elite Precision, the 5 string G&L and the cream Jazz.

I was at one bass at one point. I think I was about 14 years old.

The Smiths, Simply Red. Mind you, I couldn't stand them in the first place.