mrtcat

We've had to pull all of the R-Kelly and Rolf Harris songs from our set.

I recently joined a fairly busy band doing weddings and private events. They're great guys and so far it's been a lot of fun.

All the work is divided pretty fairly amongst the four members. We also run a little rehearsal studio in Rushden, Northamptonshire. As I live the furthest away I don't get asked to do much with day to day running of the studio and that suits me fine. I have however been given the job of producing a weekly vlog that shows what we do. My only qualification for the role is that I own a decent camera and a couple of gopros bit I'm definitely up for the learning process that will be involved. 

What I'm after is any advice and feedback. The aim more than anything is to share the interesting parts of what we do, allow people who have / might  book us get to know us and how it works and really just make something interesting. 

We have agreed that we should try and find a different theme each week so we aren't making essentially the same thing over and over and we need to keep it simple enough that it doesn't affect performances. 

If you want to see what we've done so far then this is my latest effort. 

I already learnt I'm going to need to use a high pass filter when using footage taken whilst driving lol. 

A drummer friend of mine is going to order some new iems with Lugs. He's based in Northampton and is looking for a place to get his impressions done. Any recommendations as to where he can get them done properly? 

Been through this recently. In Jan I joined a really established band with a LOT of gigs booked which will essentially allow me to gig for a living. They gave me a list of 70 songs but broke it down into three sections (1.Always Play, 2.Often play, 3.Rarely play.) so I worked on everything in order of priority. Yeah it was daunting but turns out that the set list rarely changes that much and we are only now starting to add new songs now we have half a dozen gigs together under the belt.

I found the learning less daunting than the whole "being the new kid" thing and actually used it to take my mind off the fact that I was about to embark on a whole load of work with guys that were essentially complete strangers. One month in and all is going well and I certainly don't feel like an outsider anymore.

On 13/02/2019 at 12:18, jazzmanb said:

Horses Courses,

they all sound better on my Arcam/ProAc  Hifi set up

23 hours ago, ubit said:

You need a better sound system in your house then mate!

I visit the Pro-Ac production facility every six weeks with my day job and have spent plenty of time in their demo room. Absolutely glorious speakers and without doubt way better than anything you could recreate in a car. Top class gear.

Yep we use click for a small selection of songs every gig where we use backing track. All of us on in ears and it's so easy. Drummer absolutely needs to be able to hear both the click and the track and it really helps if everyone can. 

If a drummer can't work with a click he or she simply needs to practice more. I always practice bass parts either to a click or a backing track so I'd definitely expect a drummer to be doing similar. 

Musicians who can't keep time don't belong in bands imo.

30 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

You haven't been subjected to the PSM200s yet have you?

Only on the day I auditioned thankfully. My PSM300 is now in the Fraudio rack and I have a stereo feed which makes me very happy. They're really great guys who are fully on board with IEM's so I'll be slowly selling them the idea of custom moulds and ditching the PSM200s 😉

On 04/02/2019 at 14:38, EBS_freak said:

 

 

 

 

Looks killer. Sadly wouldn't work for me because:

1. I'd need about a dozen of them because we're all on wireless and swap places / run around on stage regularly. 

2. I'm already about 12 inches taller than Jamie and Liam so they won't thank me for standing on a raised platform lol.

That said I'd still be tempted because it looks so cool.

Just bought a lovely amp head from Tyler. Super easy to deal with and a really nice chap. He even delivered the amp to me at a gig. Deal with confidence.

This has sold now. How do I know? Because it's currently residing in my studio!

48 minutes ago, Muppet said:

This thread's gone unusually quiet!

Anyway,  reading all this has finally convinced me to swap out my current IEMs for some custom moulds and I have booked an appointment next month.  I booked a demo slot too with the Custom IEM Company and they've asked me to bring along some test tracks and preferred source.  Does this mean I should bring my wireless system,  preamp? What kind of test tracks should I sort out?  Any advice gratefully received!

Steve

I used a little lossless mp3 player loaded with a handful of stuff I knew would test the range of any iems I was trying. For me stuff like Daft Punk was good. I don't think I would have gone as far as to take my wireless setup but if you can and want to then it's not a daft idea.

58 minutes ago, Skybone said:

Plenty of food for thought... just have to work on the budget now.  

Any opinions on the Mackie Thump?

Personally I don't rate them at all. Try to stretch to something by rcf and I think you'll be better off.

9 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Maybe so!

Pretty much every band that I know of bar only a few, it seems like the bass player is usually the one that is valued the least musically (grr) but is pretty much the go to person for all things technical.

Amen brother

3 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

HNY to you!

I haven’t really used them much as strictly speaking, you shouldnt really need them if the fit is correct. Two things may be the issue - you aren’t quite pushing the moulds deep enough into your ear, or the fit isn’t quite right - a little build up of acrylic will make all the difference.

I used the comply wraps with my previous custom moulds which stopped fitting properly after I lost some weight. I found them really uncomfortable and ended up using an acrylic nail polish on the moulds instead. That really helped but ultimately I got new in ears that fitted better and now the problem is solved.

Helix every day of the week for me. Function band set with loads of different tones needed and the helix nails it all. I was initially wary but it's so simple and logical and as Big Rex X says you can just drop and drag according to your set list. I have patches set up for every song we do and every bass I own so it doesn't matter whichever basses I decide to take on the day, its all just ready to go.

4 hours ago, la bam said:

I've been looking at the snugs website, they come with a choice of 2 earphones and moulds:

Shure se215 at £300.

or

Shure se525 at £600.

Can anyone recommend or not recommend either of those?

As intime-nick says - that's a lot of money for not a great solution. I'd definitely be looking at UE6 pros instead of the se525s and I had se215s once and they were pants in comparison to any others I've had.

44 minutes ago, la bam said:

Thanks for the help. Im getting a bit lost now though (as usual)!

Do the snugs/lugs come with ear phones? and is there any that are good or any to be avoided?

thanks again.

Lugs are complete custom moulded in ear monitors so you don't need to add earphones. You can choose how many drivers and what colours you want. Speak to Robert and he'll guide you.

6 hours ago, la bam said:

As i already have a pair of Zs10s - would it be worth getting some 'snugs' for these? About £160? If they do them for those?

I'm not sure that snugs will do a solution for ZS10s but I may be wrong. For not much more you could get some Lugs custom moulds or if you can stretch to it there's UE6 pros. I've been really impressed with mine.

On 19/12/2018 at 12:16, JapanAxe said:

My age is 18+40 rather than 18-40 - any good to you? 😏

Haha I'm sure you would do a great job. I need to ammend this though as a replacement has been found. 

22 hours ago, bertbass said:

he'd never go electronic kit either so it's purely academic.

You don't need to use an electronic kit to use in ears. Just needs some mics on it even if that's just a well placed single overhead. I definitely still prefer using an acoustic kit even though quite often an electric kit works better for the venue.

Sold!

56 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

All good stuff - glad to hear that they are living up to expectations!

The bad news is though... new band...  those boys run PSM200s....

Haha, I'll be sticking my psm300 in the rack. They have a good mixer.

My UE6s landed just over a week ago and have been used on four gigs. They're a much better fit than my reshelled UE900s and they therefore have far better isolation. As a result of that and the dynamic drivers they have so much punch in comparison that it's quite a significant improvement. I'm hearing everything and really enjoying my playing so much. I'm starting with a new band in the new year with loads of gigs booked and I'm feeling so positive about it knowing that I'll be able to hear everything that's happening. Thanks EBS_freak for keeping me pointed in the right direction! 

Just now, Bluewine said:

Great story, unfortunately at 65, my band is probably my swan song to any type of gigging.

My plan is to take up fishing when I finally "age out" of the gigging scene.

Blue

My Dad just joined a busy working band as a harmonica player. He's 76.

3 hours ago, Stylon Pilson said:

You've basically got guys in their 20s playing indie rock at weddings for people in their 20s, and you've got guys in their 50s playing Brown Eyed Girl at birthday parties for people in their 50s.

S.P.

Haha, I'm a guy in my 40s playing indie rock at weddings to people in their 20s one night and brown eyed girl at birthday parties for people in their 50s the next night.