mrtcat

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.

Bass comes first. It's the source of the sound (well I guess my fingers are really the source but I'm stuck with the ones I have) and amps and cabs are only used on about 50% of the gigs I do now. For me it's a bit like recording and mixing studio stuff - get the sound right at source and you stand a far better chance of a great sound in the mix.

Many pub landlords / ladies are just really disorganised. This just highlights that. Poor of your bandmates not to back you up though. If you agreed a fee then you agreed a fee regardless of whether the venue was able to make money. If they didn't think it would be profitable on the night they should have cancelled sooner. I think a booking form with a few terms and conditions could be helpful for future bookings.

It's all about context though. A band with bass, guitars, drums, keys and two vocals using track to add a little something on a big arrangement like a 70s disco tune is completely different to one man with an acoustic guitar using tracks for bass, drums, keys, horns, electric guitar etc etc.

[quote name='bertbass' timestamp='1477222702' post='3160615'] Hate this sort of thing. It's just karaoke. Any decent guitarist doesn't need to thicken up his sound, just learn to play better. Anything on a backing track is totally unacceptable to me, so there!!!!! [/quote] Wow that's pretty militant. We use tracks for horns and strings. We have a great keys player but it always sounds more natural if he is freed up to concentrate on more piano, Rhodes, moog and synth stuff. If a drummer can work well with click then it's a great way to improve the overall size and depth of sound. Monitoring is really important if you are using tracks. We all use in ears for best results. It does take away some flexibility but, if used only when beneficial to the song, is a great tool to have. That said, if it was just to cover a shortfall in a guitarists ability to fill space, I'd be more inclined to ditch the guitarist. Why he needs to fill space is another question that should be asked. Unless you are doing big rock songs then you shouldn't need more fill from him.

For me the pinnacle isn't one single bass line. My personal pinnacle would be the time when I realise I can write and nail great bass lines and fills and solos on the fly which really complement a song. In terms of who I feel can do this currently then it's going to be Paul Turner, Joe Dart and a whole load of other groove players plus Pino Palladino. I totally understand that players like victor wooten are ridiculously talented but I can't really get into solo style stuff. In fact Nathan East doing his sir Duke thing a couple of years back made me sell my NE signature yamaha lol.

[quote name='Fisheth' timestamp='1476899124' post='3158308'] Limelights look absolutely delightful, what's the pricing on them? [/quote] Due to the poor exchange rate, the prices have just gone up a touch. Precisions are slightly less expensive than Jazzes as there's less parts but for a standard Precision you would be in the region of £850 and a standard Jazz around £900. Obviously these are custom items so if you opt for blocks and bindings etc it will push the price up. Your best bet is to drop mark a line and ask. He's really easy to deal with and is definitely not the kind of guy to push to make a sale. He'll just answer anything you want to know.

Thanks Karl, and thanks everyone for the kind words. Definitely feeling pretty lucky despite MrsTcat telling anyone who will listen that she's considering trading me for two 20yr olds.

[attachment=230191:Limelight P.jpg] That's the only one I have that's uploadable right now.

[quote name='Bass_Guardian' timestamp='1476712609' post='3156523'] Ahh I can't see the picture [/quote] My bad, try that.

After what seemed like an endless wait I can finally introduce my new bass!!! Today is my 40th birthday (seems I share a bday with Pino Palladino which can't be a bad thing) and when I came downstairs this morning this was waiting for me in the living room. My wife and family wanted to get me something special and I've always fancied a workhorse Precision. As I was born in 1976 then a '76 P would be the dream bass. That said I wasn't going to push my luck and ask for £2k's worth of something special and to be fair I probably wouldn't take a proper vintage bass out of the house. Therefore we decided a nice Limelight replica would be a great option. I contacted Mark at Limelight way back in April to get the ball rolling. He was absolutely a pleasure to deal with at all stages and he agreed to hold on to the bass until early October because we were visiting Devon then and I really wanted to be able to pick it up in person. Mark was really welcoming when I arrived at his HQ to collect and we had a really good chat about basses, playing and bands. I was really glad to get a chance to meet the chap who built a guitar that I will own for the rest of my life (there's no way I could ever sell a bass that my family had all chipped in to buy me for a milestone birthday). The bass was swiftly confiscated from me by my wife (ok I admit I sneaked it out of the cupboard when she wasn't looking) and I wasn't allowed to have it until today. So here it is. A Limelight 1976 P replica in Olympic white with a light relic. It plays beautifully, sounds huge and I'm a very happy fella today. [url="http://s12.photobucket.com/user/Tom_Caswell/library/Limelight%20Precision"]http://s12.photobuck...ght%20Precision[/url]

Mark made my Limelight 76 precision. I picked it up from his house in Devon a couple of weeks ago. He was an absolute gent and clearly passionate about basses. I couldn't be happier with my new bass and will definitely be ordering a nice 60s Limelight jazz next. He's very easy to deal with and knows his stuff.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1475712613' post='3148226'] cool! I like your red cabs too, what are they? [/quote] Haha yes they must look kinda familiar to you ;-)

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1475921229' post='3149743'] That's not an answer. You can always hear the PA, even from behind it. When you're using IEM's you're shut off from all of the FOH so how do you maintain a balance out front through out the gig? I'm asking the question because maybe the guys using IEM's have solved what to me seems like a show stopper, unless you have a sound man. I've not been in many bands that were able to maintain a balance using backline, but you can hear when the band and volume is going out of balance, but how do you address this with no backline and when you're cut off from the PA using IEM's. [/quote] I wouldn't adjust the pa from the stage whether I use iems or not. If you have a monitor wedge in front of you then you're not hearing what the audience hears so any adjustment to pa is going to be mostly guess work. We do a decent sound check before the gig and don't adjust it. On gigs where I use iems the process is exactly the same. I don't put my in ears in until after soundcheck. If at any point there was a problem with the foh sound I'd have to go out front to fix it regardless of whether using iems or not and if using them I'd just pop them out to hear what's going on out front.

Upbeat and popular is a must for 1St song for me. Even better would be a lively medley.

[quote name='xzodar' timestamp='1473591185' post='3131386'] PJB Bighead with PJB headphones and music via an iPad app is working for me. (Also works with an iPhone) I'm using an app called Anytune which allows you to vary tempo and pitch as well as set loops within the song to practice with etc as well as a step change function for practicing tricky passages and then speeding up slightly in increments which you can set. I'm using a tablet stand from Ikea which keeps it all nice and compact. [/quote] Trying to understand why you have my set list on your ipad lol

Recording of a dep that the singer from my band and I did on Saturday. Easy to learn the set because they use backing tracks so they sent us the tracks and we were both able to run through a few bits on our own before the gig. Went well despite the drummers best attempts at making us laugh to put us off. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CutYNHBTaA8[/media]

I'll do a review tomorrow when I sober up a touch but have to say they were brilliant. All of the band are extremely talented guys who move seamlessly from one instrument to another. Joe Dart is a brilliant player but he plays entirely for the song and grooves so well. It was awesome to see the whole place bouncing and singing along to their stuff and even the band seemed genuinely surprised at just how popular they are. I get the feeling that Joe Dart may well become a first choice session player for really big names soon.

Sorry :-(. Lol

As it says. Anyone else here at brooklyn bowl? Lovely small venue for a cool band.

Yamaha BBG5's are a far better instrument than their price tag would suggest. You may well have to take a bit of a financial leap to get anything that is really significantly better. That said I really do like the Maruszczyk and you get a lot of bass for your money.

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1473935672' post='3134266'] I own the PA... I charge the band for hire [/quote] Likewise and I charge for loading and unloading time at home too. There is however no right / wrong answer to the OP's post only whatever arrangement works for a particular band. To appoint a new band member on what they own rather than what they can add musically is nuts though and the OP's prospective band would be better off finding a bass player first and then sitting down and arranging how they are going to sort a PA.