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TONIGHT! The Meathead's Arms in Wolverhampton (a fight every night or your money back) with 5 piece girl singer pop music band! (We go out under different names because of something something different agencies something... I don't like to ask) Dep singer, lovely lass, worked with her before, ex-bandmate of the others, she's basically one of the lads. Unfortunately, she'd not got the memo about no dress code, so she was was dressed up like (her words) a high-class prostitute and the rest of us were in scruffy T-shirts and jeans. The football was on when we got there- the smell of testosterone, Ben Sherman shirts and poor quality cocaine made for an electric atmosphere. Load in and setup all pretty normal, nice big stage area so I set up next to the drummer to keep him company. A fair few people in, mostly ignoring us and waiting for Match of the Day to start so we treated it like a paid practice. First set we played really well apart from Toxic which we messed up worse than Britney messed up 2007, luckily no-one was listening so we got away with it. Second set had a couple of dancers and a few tables at the back seemed to be enjoying it. The drummer and I had a great time while the keys player was frantically doing FOH sound, sorting out clicks, cueing the singer and occasionally playing some keys. Highlights were the two Dua Lipa ones (Levitating and Don't start now) which are a blast to play, Murder on the Dancefloor (new one which we all complained about but now love) and Crazy in Love/Crazy mashup which I've FINALLY sussed out (It's really very simple, it goes 6, 4, 2. 8, 8, (4) 8, 10, Crazy, loads, 4(*), ending. Simple.) The drummer loves that one and plays it like he's getting paid by the note. It was the first public outing of my new improved enormous pedalboard (NIEPB) which sounded fantastic - the SA C4 patch for Toxic is brilliant (shame we totally buggered the song up, but the Bass sounded great), the EBS Multicomp gives the sound a fat, round, warm punch in the guts but in a good way and I'm fairly sure the two metres of retina-destroying pink LEDs make it sound extra fabulous. (It's not quite finished - when a certain online retailer who shall remain nameless bothers to post me the stuff I ordered over a week ago, I can hook up the patchbay AND have all matching red patch leads. Obviously, you can't tell they're red, what with the two metres of retina-destroying pink LEDs, but still...) Played the 5 String 'Ray which is still a work in progress - I did find myself reverting to using the B as an expensive thumb rest when I switched to autopilot, but Rome wasn't burnt in a day and all that. Second outing of the weekend for the rainbow Converse, foot fans! Paid cash, shipping forecast on the way home, back about 1 for last nights curry with a pint of Westons Reserve (8.2% ABV), an Old Fashioned (Lots of ice, much bourbon (usually Maker's Mark but Four Roses tonight), sugar syrup (use maple syrup for a really good one), Angostura Bitters, lots of stirring and a twist of orange peel over the top) and most importantly of all, desperately seeking validation from strangers on the internet. Cheers. Same again, please.

Last night was our annual fundraiser for the local theatre, The Courtyard in Hereford. It’s tough as the arranger to keep coming up with interesting new stuff for the audience, takes me a year to plan, but managed a 15 minute country medley (named No O In Cuntry) and 10 minute dance music medley for this year. Some tech issues meant we didn’t have control of our monitor mixes so a bit isolating, some occasional mistakes on my behalf but all in all a fun gig and have to start planning the next one now!

Rotherham Real Ale and Music Festival at Magna yesterday. One I've always wanted to do. Sound engineer was fantastic, my brother was in the audience and said the sound out-front was spot on. I assumed it would be as the woman doing sound asked me to play multiple times during the changeover/line-check. She actually cared about bass sounding good out front which is great!

Prog gig tonight and took a large proportion of my gear - Big Baby 2 with the Darkglass, small pedalboard and BassRevolt for the bass - 2 x One10’s with Aguilar TH350 for the bass pedals - was lending the other BB2 to the keys but couldn’t get the mixer and power amp that had worked fine Thursday night wouldn’t at the gig🤬 Generally went well and the crowd were really appreciative which was nice.

Tiny little pub for us as we wind down the indie rock band, only 3 gigs left! Silly setup in a silly place, but I think we were super professional and hid the cables well enough... The singer and lead guitarist went to plug the IEC cable into his amp and the thing just disintegrated, leaving the power socket inside the amp and inaccessible. Thankfully, because I'm lazy, I still had my other pedalboard in the car from practice a few nights ago so he ended up with my Sansamp and straight into the PA. Where was his spare stuff? Good question! After the show a nice young man came up and told me that I sounded amazing and that Stingrays were his dream bass. He showed me pictures of a copy he had and everything. Sweet.

Did sound with a friend and his new PA in a village hall up the Tweed Valley. Interesting options for bass amplification. Two nice vintage drum kits but only got pics of one.

My last band was looking for a keyboard player last year. So we got response - had played for over 40 years, sent some great pics with his home studio (4 different synth, 2 big mixers, 2 huge monitors, 2 big compuer monitors and a lot of different studio stuff). We thought - yeah, this is our guy, he should be good. We sent some covers to him and invited to rehearsal. He came with a good synth. So we set up and said - ok let's play Queen - I want to break free (easy and good to hear keys). He said - can't play live, the only way i can play is to record parts and then push play/stop button at the right time. We said - but did You listened to that song at home, tried to learn something simple ? He answerd - i tried, but i need much more time. So we played through all our cover songs, but he was just sitting and smiling and commenting - what could be done better for each song. We didn't call him anymore.

Just back from an Elton John tribute gig at Butlin’s in Skegness. Simple joy of playing a vintage P bass thru an SVT rig for about 1,000+ people (and a blow up dog) enjoying a 70s weekender. An ace day out!

In my quest to find the “sound in my head” (silly I know) from my OLP TL 5’er I’ve gone through an Audere 3 band and a Nordstrand 2 band MM preamps. Both excellent bits of kit, but just didn’t scratch my itch. As a last shot, I bought a new Stinger from Retrovibe. And as David is 15 minutes down the road from me, I thought I’d see if he could fit it for me. Went on Thursday, bass and Stinger in hand along with the fitting fee. Picked it up yesterday and, there it was, the sound I had in my head. Fat finger funky, and zingy enough for a bit o’ cheeky 80’s slap. David @Bassbadger is a thoroughly lovely chap, and even let me have a go on his rather groovy orange violin bass.

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere on here, but I was genuinely upset to hear of Justin Currie’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease. He did a piece with the BBC on it today. I love Del Amitri and Justin’s solo work - he’s one of my favourite lyricists and songwriters, and sets a standard of writing to which I consistently aspire, and continually fall short. I wish him all the best in the times ahead. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-68528123

Designing crossovers is no more difficult than designing boxes, thanks to software like XSim. https://xsim.software.informer.com/ The only issue is the need for FRD and ZMA files. They're available for most hi-fi drivers, with pro-sound you probably have to create them yourself. But it's no more difficult than any other part of the speaker design process. Coils are readily available, I haven't had to wind my own since the 1970s. They are expensive and quite large when used in a passive crossover lower than 200Hz, but that's also something I haven't done since the 1970s. Below 500Hz active crossovers and bi-amping is the way to go. The easiest method to get better mids and highs is with a sealed back midrange, like the PRV 6MR 300 SEAL. Crossed over at 800 to 1200Hz it will keep up with any woofer. As for using higher order high pass filters to run tweeters to 2kHz, I've been doing that for 25 years. The bass cab industry as a whole has yet to catch up... or should I say wake up? 😉

I was asked to appear in a charity video for ELO in the late 80's miming bass. Went to a studio and just played along to the track whilst we were all being filmed. I can't remember much about it and only being 18, I didn't really know much about ELO but they were all very nice. Recorded an album at Paul Weller's studio in Ripley which Paul played on a few track. I had to teach him a few of the piano parts and at the end of the week we all went for a curry in Ripley. We then supported him on his Sonic Kicks tour. Recorded an album with Mark Wallis who produced the It Bites album, Travis albums, engineered on U2's Joshua Tree to name a few. The studio was owned by Geoff Downs of Buggles fame and John Payne from Asia. Geoff played Hammond on a few tracks and John sung backing on a few tracks. They were both super nice people. Hung out backstage with Cactus World News and Deacon Blue at a festival we were all playing at in the 90's. A few mates of mine went to see Mike Peter's play in Bath Moles. Mike asked if anyone could play guitar and my guitarist friend stepped forward and was his roadie for the night. Got to hang out and chat music with him and talk about our band with him. A few months later, I interviewed Derek Forbes and then saw him when he was playing in Portsmouth. Mike Peter's was also singing in the band and he remembered us and we ended up having a good chat again about music. I played bass with a band for a few months as a dep that had Jodie Hawkes (Chesney's brother) on drums and a few other siblings of famous musicians. Supported 80's pop band Breathe at Guildford Civic Hall (G Live) in the 90's. One of our roadies, Patch, was the drummer in The Audience with Sophie Ellis-Bexter and The Sunday's. After a tour in London, we headed back to his studio for a party which happened to be some old mill and he played us the early demo's of track's from Natalie Imbruglia's first album and Robbie Williams - Millennium which started out as a reggae track. Paul Nicholls who was in Eastenders was there as well as other people who I can't remember. To now go full circle, I recorded an EP in a studio in Soho in the late 80's. There was a guy working there who was super kind and let me use his amazing Vintage Fender basses. It turns out to be our very own @Steve Browning 😁

Maple Road 3/8 The Bend Theatre Great Theatre gig. We played 9 songs opening for Ivy Ford. We we're clicking on all 6 cylinders from the first couple of notes. Stage sound was outstanding. Daryl

Since someone has mentioned being told to eff off by Lemmy, I guess I'll mention my encounter with the great man. Twenty years ago, the singer of the band I was in had a friend at Metalhammer magazine who got us VIP tickets to their annual awards at the Kentish Town Forum. At one point I went to the bar, where I ordered a drink while stood next to my childhood hero Gary Numan and was then excitedly making a bee line for my singer to tell him about it. This meant crossing the central area of the balcony, where I was stopped by an enormous bouncer and asked for my pass. I showed him my VIP wristband only to told I needed a "VVIP" one to enter that area. As I was about to turn away and take the long route round, a gravelly voice said "It's alright mate, he's with me". I looked to see who had said this, and saw Lemmy motioning me to sit in his booth. He had a beautiful woman sat each side of him (I later discovered they had been paid to escort him all evening), and a bottle of JD on the table. I sat down, he offered me a drink and then he said "I love your jacket man". Said jacket was an army surplus East German thing I'd bought the week before at Camden Market. I ended up having a shot of his JD, before thanking him and making it over to my singer and regaling him with what had happened. The night got a bit hazy after that, but I ended up at the after party along with acquaintances who were also in attendance since we had a mutual friend who was playing in Cradle of Filth. That proved embarrassing, since the singer of CoF decided to pick a fight with the members of Murderdolls. Since they were all at least a good foot taller than the rather short Mr Filth, he got kicked down a set of stairs and a slagging off in the next issue of Metalhammer.

Gonna see Ida next week!

I’d happily play the Ida Nielsen Signature Sandberg, I nearly bought one a year or so back, not because of anything to do with Ida or what she plays, it’s just a lovely bass,

Not quite, they were modelled after a particular bass JMJ owned which he wanted to be replicated as close as possible. He preferred the pickup in this bass to others he had played, and this was replicated by Seymour Duncan for the production model. Also the headstock is noticably thicker than is normal for a mustang bass which is an idiosyncrasy of his original one. There were several prototypes made until he was happy to sign off on it. I believe the only thing he was disappointed about that Fender wasn't able to include on the production model was that his original bass has a thin curved 'veneer' fingerboard, however the factory was not geared up for this so the signature model has a slab fingerboard.

The Fender Roscoe Beck was just a great bass, arguably the best sig bass the big F ever produced and as not a load of folk were/are aware of Mr Beck’s work, it certainly transcended the artist. I think I’d feel pigeon holed by a Fodera yin/yang or a Status Kingbass, but I’m never likely to find out.

Poor guy on bass, we need to set up a crowdfunding to purchase him some shoes. 😀

The audience will be full of 50 year-old men. Be like the opposite of a Take That gig. When are tickets on sale? Asking for a friend.

I was in London this weekend and went to the Gibson Garage. It's one of those shops where it's a good experience just going in to look around. I didn't think I'm a Gibson person until I realised 50% of my instruments are Gibson brands (two Epiphones and a Kramer). There's some hideously expensive guitars and some reasonable stuff too. The t-shirts follow the same pricing as the guitars, with Epiphone and Kramer t shirts half the price of the Gibson t shirts which are mostly £69 each (not a typo). There's a good range of basses out if you look for them, Thunderbirds, non reverse Thunderbirds, EB-3s... Downstairs in the Epiphone area I had a go on a Newport. Obviously I had to play it upside down but impressions are... Felt nice to play. I don't think I've played a short scale before but this felt good, no big adjustment needed. The fit and finish seemed very good, nothing about it felt cheap which painted neck guitars often can. Surprising range of sounds from the pickups, the blend control really made a difference. There was a satisfying "fullness" to the low E string and nice clarity on the D and G. I'd imagine playing with a pick would be really good, or putting on some flats for finger style. I am tempted to get one and "reverse" it because I don't know of anything else out there like it at that price point or in left handed. Also the available colours are great, love the banana yellow!

The main problem is that the design in the OP is is not really suitable for printing onto cost-effective T-shirts, hence the prices that are being quoted which is for direct to garment, which is too expensive and not as hard wearing. IME a design like that in the OP is only worth producing directly when the band is at the stage where they can be looking at T-shirt sales of 1000+. At the level the OP's band appears to be they need T-shirts that can be printed for around £6 each or less (for 100 shirts) to be sold at £10-£15 a shirt. This means reducing the design to a single solid colour - generally white to be printed onto a black T-shirt. Depending on how the original design has been produced it may be possible to go back to the original artist and get them to do a new version that meets the requirements for single-colour screen printing. They will also need to simplify some of the fine line detail as that won't reproduce well. The other potential issue is that the design is specific to a particular EP which means that it will date. One of the bands I play with have generic band logo T-shirts and those based on the cover of our last album. The album design T-shirts sold well while the album was new, but now the album is a couple of years old they have dropped off in favour of the generic ones. If this was for one of my bands I would forget about the illustration and simply go for a big band logo. This will look impressive, be easy and cost-effective to print which means that there is a very good chance that the band will actually make money out of selling them. It also turns every single person wearing one into an easily readable walking advertisement for the band. Also IME for the print to be cost effective you need to produce at least 100 T-shirts and be able to sell them for at least twice what they cost. If you don't think you can sell 50 T-shirts in a year then it's probably not for your band. Don't worry too much about sizes - from experience no matter how much of your audience is made up of skinny hipsters the people who buy band T-shirts tend to be size L and bigger. So get mostly L and XL and a few S, M and 2XL. As has been said get a SumUp or similar card reader. Personally I wouldn't bother with cash any more, it will save you from having to have change, as you can guarantee that the first 5 people to buy one for cash will all want to pay with £20 notes. HTH.

Ah, yes, the "Disco Volante" album is absolutely just as amazing, agree, forgot that momentarily, both those albums are much better than their debut self titled album in my opinion (even if I do still like that album):

I love Mr Bungle - Trevor was one of those "how the hell is he doing that?!" players when I was a teenager. I haven't really managed to get into the Easter Bunny stuff, I love the style of music but it doesn't feel like Bungle to me. I've seen him a few times live with Bungle and Fantomas too.

In case I count as an internet validation stranger (certainly I’m on the internet and, many would say, a little strange): Old Fashioned = good.

You won! 🙇‍♂️ </THREAD> 😊

Sounds like a belting gig. We are at Minehead next week, looking forward to reacquainting myself with an SVT rig!

We occasionally use local ( to the venue) PA hire companies Dave - recently Dundee for instance (although they came from Glasgow!) but generally we prefer to use our own Lighting & PA people. Lighting comes from Lincolnshire, PA from Derbyshire, sound engineer from West Yorkshire. The band come from East, West, South and North Yorkshire as well as Nottingham! It’s amazing we all manage to get to the venue every time really, does take some organising. Occasionally we will use a theatre’s PA if it’s up to the job, but doesn’t happen that often. Next week we are at Butlins in Minehead doing a 70’s weekender, and will use the house system there ( and the house SVT rig too 😊).

I've run into this situation when upgrading pots on squiers. A few twists with a tapered reamer is all thats needed. I bought this japanese 'engineer' one: https://amzn.to/3PeXNjJ which was tough enough to open up the holes easily.

Similar experience here. I tried several CS strats at Coda, all were great but one blew the rest away. It just sang in every position, the neck was exquisite and the finishing flawless. Turned out that guitar was a Ron Thorn masterbuilt. I bought it & everything else has felt dull & lifeless since. I can't say MBs are 100% worth it, only that my particular guitar was worth it to me.

I'm back in the club

Witness the full horror for yourself.

In my last band the bass player used my plywood Squier Jazz, tuned to C, for some very heavy, very dirty stoner metal and it sounded the mutt's nuts. He tried a bass that was more typical in the metal arena (active circuitry, pointier shape, etc etc) and it just didn't have the punch of that Jazz bass. I still play it now for nasty downtuned noise.

Thank you for saying this. I see here it mentioned quite a lot that this or that bass isn't suitable for this or that type of music and I just think to myself "WTF", because a bass is a bass is a bass and a Thunderbird can be used for country just as a Jazz can be used for doom metal. I've been reticent to speak up on this though until now because it seems to be some sort of perceived wisdom that I've been counter to the notion of. Mark

Was it a Premier Inn ?

PCB populated & soldered; soldered-joint continuity checked ok; control looms made ...next stop - installation, power-check and circuit test (*can't find nail-biting emoji*)

Yup, love Mr. Bungle and Fantômas, but don't know SC3. Ashamed to report I've never particularly noticed Trevor Dunn (me too preoccupied with the composition, I guess), but I will listen betterly hereafter. As to the Bungle dude, whilst I love Disco (quite the statement, that one!) and California, just like @lidl e I have a special place in my heart for the first album. BTW, lidl e, is this where all the intricacies in Def Nettle (partly) come from? I must repeat that the radio programme to me didn't seem to do you guys justice.

I used to be in a band with the keyboard player from the Courteeners and a different band with the drummer out of Catfish and the Bottlemen when he was about 15. A friend of mine toured the world playing keys with Cradle of Filth, she's got some good stories! On stage, they were all evil, baby-eating monster types - off stage, they were middle-aged blokes from Ipswich who complained about their shoulders hurting. Good days!

If it does what you want, then surely you can use it however you want.

Tonight! The Cantina Band's world tour of the Vaults in Knowle continued - A truly momentous occasion, as we had five (or possibly four?) new songs in the set! We'd done something on Wednesday called "Rehearsal" (?!) which is where you all cram in to a small room and try to play songs you don't know with nobody listening, so it's a lot like a gig except we had to pay for it. I don't think it'll catch on. Usual stuff - the bar was rammed, a few folk ventured to the corner betseen the toilets and the fire escape to see us., we played pretty well and those that were up dancing seemed to really enjoy it. Of the new songs, Lithium went down the best, Helter Skelter was the most fun to play and Centrefold was the cheesiest. Went for a wireless wander into the bar during Sex on Fire, which was a lot of fun and went down well. We all really enjoyed it for some reason, maybe sticking a few new ones wasn't such a stupid idea? Highlight was me being *just* about to start Ace of Spades, then the guitarist counting in to Whole Lotta Love... nearly went very badly. Sterling (my fave Bass for Rock stuff) -> small board -> Sansamp programmable -> Mark CMD121P Feet: Red socks -> Rainbow Converse. Had a laugh, got paid, home about half midnight for a curry, a Weston's Reserve (8.2% ABV) and an Old J Tiki Fire overproof spiced rum (75.5% ABV) Very different gig Saturday- female fronted pop stuff with the 5 string and the first outing for my new improved enormous pedalboard... Tune in the same time tomorrow!