mrtcat

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1479155152' post='3174417'] Sorry but I can't take these basses seriously - locally this is rhyming slang for something rude... [/quote]

To me modern is last two - three years but for people in pubs to really know it maybe last 10 yrs . How about something like: Shut Up And Dance With Me by Walk The Moon Uprising, Knights Of Cydonia - Muse Somebody Told Me by Kaiser Chiefs I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic At The Disco 21 Guns - Green Day Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkeys Thnks Fr Th Mmrs, Sugar We're Going Down, Dance Dance - Fall Out Boy Snow - RHCP Icky Thump - White Stripes No One Knows - QOTSA Pretender - Foo Fighters Teenagers - My Chemical Romance

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1479132791' post='3174166'] If you are having problems like this, its probably the sub lows that are mushing everything up. HPF pretty much everything at least 50Hz as a starting point. If you are still getting swamped, then start increasing the point of the HPF until you can cope on stage. If you are getting swamped and you are playing in a fairly small compact environment, there's going to be a hell of a lot of reflections and bass traps to contend with. Just because your subs go low doesn't mean that you should chose to mix those lows in - the room may not thank you for it and punish you with mush. As long as you still have circa 60 hz in the frame for the kick drum, you can get away with HPFing the bass a bit higher... You may not get the fundamental but you'll get the overtones and you'll be heard a lot clearer and without the sub mush. In fact, your band may suddenly sound a lot tighter because of it. Most popular bass amps will actually shelve the lows for this exact reason - and the DI out will send the "unshelved" signal to the PA. If you are miking the kit... make sure you are using gates. This is CRITICAL. The bass drum is going to get everything muddy very quickly without using one... the shorter you can make the gate open and close without making the kick sound off, the cleaner your mix is going to be. Same applies to the toms but you'll need a longer gate... that floor tom mic is going to be adding mud to the mix and all of the tom mics are going to be picking up the bass drum... so if you can gate them off when they are not in use, perfect. I've started to use a drum trigger on the bass drum to help in this department because you can get an isolated kick sound without picking up a load of crap... however... if you are playing stuff where your drummer is playing a lot of ghost notes, the trigger isn't going to get the intricacies of this. To get around this, you may want to use both a mic and trigger... but you can be really be savage with the eq on this front as you don't particularly want mega sub lows on a ghost kick because it would get all mushed up and inaudible anyway. (so in short, you are miking the overtones of the kick, not the fundamental, so you can hear the ghost notes but not necessarily feel them out front - perfect). Having said all this, a bass mic and gate should be your first port of call. We could talk about cardioid sub arrays but I guess you haven't got three subs with this feature? You shouldn't need foam and the like... but you may want to try putting your subs on pallets if you think that you are getting too much coupling. You may need to spend a bit of time figuring out where you want to sit in the mix... for example, bass and kick will fight with each other unless you eq them both appropriately. Keys and bass will fight... Guitar and keys will fight... and of course once all that is good, your vocals have got to sit clearly on the top - which reminds me, make sure these are HPF pretty high - I tend to take vocals over 100Hz+ to keep the sub out of the vocal mics. Drums are a bitch - they seem to be picked up by every open mic going... as do sub bass frequencies (thats why HPF is so important) And if you are running your subs low and hard - it's no wonder your 1x10s can't keep up! PS - I am assuming you are either running a digital desk or have an analogue desk with appropriate outboard to do all this! [/quote] +1 to all the above. There's no need to run anything below 50hz and definitely HPF the vocal mics. You will need to spend some quality time setting up the gates on the kit because drum mics can be really tricky to handle without them. What is the sound like out front? Is it mushy out there too? Placement of subs can really affect the sound. I often find that having one sub under each top at either side of the stage is not ideal unless you have space to get them 60ft apart. You can often get a tighter sound from them when sat together and by doing so you can also reign them in a bit so they're not working so hard. If they're overpowering the mix then taking them up off the floor and away from walls helps (works in reverse if theyre getting lost). Bass will travel in all directions so no amount of foam baffling will really help and if it couples with the walls you can find it unbearably mushy in the corners of the room.

I haven't played on ships but I have played in big all inclusive hotels in Europe and 5 star hotels in the far east. Reading is absolutely essential, the work is not always fun, and the accommodation can be questionable. BUT the experience is great, you will play with some really talented players and it's a really good thing to have on your CV. Players like Dave Swift played on cruise ships and it hasn't done his career any harm. At 25 years old and single you are absolutely in the best position you will ever be to do it. Very best of luck to you and remember to stop and look around once in a while, its a time i look back on really fondly.

Yes it definitely can be a very good choice for a lead instrument. Sadly I've only very occasionally heard bass as a lead instrument done in such a way that I thought it sounded good. I tend to associate it with really insipid elevator music (which I'm certain is technically amazing) which is why I thank the op in this instance for bringing this to my ears. Nor necessarily to my taste but different and interesting nonetheless.

I picked up my Limelight P from Mark about a month ago. Absolute doddle from start to finish. You email / phone to tell him what you want then he lets you know pricing and asks all the necessary questions. If you wish to proceed you have to pay a deposit (a couple hundred £ if i recall although I gave him 50% upfront as that was better for me at that time) and the balance is due on completion of build (mine was 12 weeks). Mark is a lovely guy and my Precision is absolutely as I wanted it. Couldn't recommend the Limelight basses highly enough, especially for the money. Mark is very low pressure so just drop him a line and he'll let you know what he can offer and how it works.

Yes I tend to agree that, at the lower end of the scale, many of the compact combos are a bit naff. Like WOT I have a promethian and it's very good. If it dies I'll be getting a little class d head and a bf midget. That would comfortably do most of my gigs too.

Just spent the last hour and a bit in bass direct. Was at an exhibition in Birmingham so stopped in with my colleague on the way home. He's a relative newby player but a very successful businessman. The shop was dead when we arrived but Marcus was friendly and was happy to let us try some basses and answer any questions about the basses and gear in general. My colleague was thinking about a possible new bass and explained that he wanted something light and around the £1200 mark. Marcus let him try Dingwalls and sandbergs that he wanted to look at and then offered a suggestion of a new maruzchychk which was more expensive but might suit better. Instant hit. Job done. £1750 spent with a really nice strap thrown in. It was simply very good service. Mark came out and shook his hand at the end too which was a nice touch.

Years ago I used to play with a band that put the theme to the kids TV show "Rhubarb and Custard" into tge ending of status quo's "Down Down". Was fun but I reckon that would be a bit lost on Joe public these days as both the song and theme are wildly outdated.

Hey Bob, not quite in MK but only just down the A5 nr Towcester. Welcome to BC, I can see an MK mini bash in the future at this rate.

Keys player. If there's paid work involved he responds in seconds. Everything else he's just awol for. He's our biggest critic, wants complete musical control and claims to be the only one creative enough to decide how, where and what we do promo material wise but just never replies to any WhatsApp group discussion. We just pretend like he's not a member, make all the creative decisions without him and just fill him in on stuff at gigs. He still complains that he'd have done it better but we just laugh at him and tell him to pull his finger out if he wants to change stuff.

1.Japanese 75 ri jazz with east J retro 2.Stingray 3.limelight P 90% of gigs on number 1.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1477481256' post='3162478'] Generally I would be thinking I'd advise the client on the best course which is to do it our way. So altho budget is a BIG consideration, playing what the punters wants to hear is not. The reason we'd be having the conversation with the client is because they want what we do so they don't get to call the set. If they want that, get someone else. If the band wanted to money that badly, they may need to consider throwing in a few numbers but mostly they don't. Yes, this does cost gigs. [/quote] Personally I would take the gig rather than take that approach. The guys in the band are essentially all pros except me and the singer. They will go where the work is and will happily flex to suit the customer if it means getting the gig. Playing only what they want, the way they want to play it doesn't pay their mortgages.

I totally understand about the feeling of being stuck to a strict structure and of course that's absolutely true. I think if you used click for every song in the set it would feel pretty restrictive but if you were in a 15 piece outfit with strings and horns etc you would be pretty restricted anyhow. As before though, it's all about context. We wouldn't use tracks for pub gigs if we ever did them. We'd just enjoy the freedom and lack of pressure but for bigger functions we often have lighting programmed too so that would stop us from straying from structure too. We don't use tracks on every song but probably about 40%. You can still change the running order on the fly. It really helps if your drummer is up to it. If he can keep the energy and feel whilst working with a click it's great. We have spoken prompts on the click which is a great safety net to keep everyone together although some of the guys prefer not to hear the click and therefore don't get the prompts.

A decent drummer will still hold it together when a stick is dropped and not miss a beat 99 times out of a hundred. If they're dropping sticks often then they need to sort something out or get sacked. Likewise if they are throwing in fills that pull the band out of time they need to go. One bad fill in a million is OK but if they're doing at least one a gig then forget it. Like JTUK says, this sort of thing should be so infrequent that it's not an issue.