mrtcat

Essentially the shape of my ears changed slightly and that meant the ue6s started to sound way worse because I wasn't getting a decent seal. I also absolutely hated the UE cable design, that was one of the most pi** poor pieces of design ever. The cable failed twice in 2 years and UE wanted £180 for a replacement which is criminal imo. The fit is now way better than when UE first produced them and the lugs cable and socket is infinitely better.

Just had my UE6 pros reshelled by Robert at Lugs. Really pleased with the result. The isolation is better than when I first got the UE6s and they sound fat and detailed.

Yeah it was definitely a highlight. It wasn't completely stress free because the General Manager of the hotel chain was an absolute pain in the derrière. He wasn't involved in booking us and it turns out he wanted a band with pretty girls in it rather than an all male act. After soundcheck he told us that, if we didn't perform well, he would fire the agent and the events manager who booked us. It was completely unnecessary nonsense and just added a ton of pressure which left a sour taste. All went well though and nobody got sacked. Day in the sun today then home tomorrow.

Nice little gig in The Maldives. They flew us out here from the UK, put us up on full board in a swanky water villa for 3 days and then decided that they only wanted us to play for 1hr. Highlight was looking out across the dancefloor and seeing Peter Crouch and Jack Whitehall dancing together. Nice big sound system too. 20221231_150612.mp4 VID-20230101-WA0012.mp4

Wedding in Stoke. Thankfully many of the guests didn't want to stay too late, what with today being Christmas. Two sets, nice venue, average food and decent crowd that started leaving straight after last set so we could pack down and get on the rd by 11.30. Groom was a bit self obsessed and insisted on getting up to play a song, of his choosing, with us which we were reluctant to learn so we just winged it a bit. Luckily he didn't suck.......unlike the in house sound system which was shocking. VID-20221223-WA0004.mp4

Yes plenty.

There is a fair chance that someone at BD may have a slightly deeper issue with spelling than just being a little careless. Maybe mocking it on here is a little unnecessary if we don't know the full story.

That's the plan. They are currently with Robert at Lugs waiting for me to have new impressions done.

I literally couldn't think of anything worse than going back to the old days without in ear monitors. I hear everything I want, I don't lug an amp, I don't ever get home with my ears ringing and I just feel so much more in touch with the drummer. Some gigs everything is mic'd up. Others we just have an overhead and kick mic on the kit but guitars / bass / keys are always DI'd and it always sounds killer in my head. I have a pair of UE6s and a pair of KZ10s but my UE6s are now completely unusable because it seems my ear shape has changed a bit and now they just sound muffled and distorted. The KZ10s are great as long as you can keep stage noise down.

We live stream via the OSB platform using a digital mixing desk and a video camera. We essentailly do everything like a full gig and monitor with in ear monitors. ElGato Cam Link is used to connect a decent camera to a PC and it all syncs up with a little tinkering. Allows us to stream fully live with decent sound. Here's one we did a few years ago from my back garden.

We do probably 80 weddings a year. We'll learn as many tunes as they want as long as we have time and the client is happy to pay the £100 per song that we charge for learning requests.

Winter Gardens in Blackpool for a corporate do. Lots of fun and a big sound system to play with.

I love gigging. Yeah there's a world of poo to deal with at many of them but they're still always fun and the occasional special one makes all the nonsense pail into insignificance. 10 years ago I was playing pubs for naff money. These days it's all weddings and private functions. The money is decent and from time to time we get to play some special places. Last Friday was a corporate do at the Winter Gardens ballroom for 900 people. This new year's eve gig we are being flown to the Maldives to play on the beach. I think the thing that has kept it exciting is the constant push for something a little bit better. The thing that makes it fun is the guys I play with.

Just traded a synth pedal with Fraser. Super smooth transaction with great coms. Would be more than happy to buy / sell with him again.

2 basses and 1 acoustic guitar. Can't say I have any urge to own more than that. I regularly consider selling a bass but I do about 100 gigs a year so owning a backup is probably wise.

I ordered new PA gear back in August. 2x RCF 745a tops and two RCF 905as ii subs. The tops arrived the following day and I'm still waiting for the subs. With all that's happening in the world and the UK at the moment and a global shortage of silicone chips, RCF (and many other brands) are completely out of stock and it doesn't look like they will be back in stock anytime soon. As a result the price and availability of used kit is also affected. I've seen countless people selling tatty looking RCF905's for more than new ones because they know that the demand is there. I'm looking into hiring subs in the short term but even finding hire equipment is proving tough around here. Anyone else waiting for stuff?

There's agents and agents. Our agency usually comes really high on any search engine as it's one of the biggest. They absolutely do not allow bands to dep multiple members unless its an absolute emergency and they always speak with the client if the front person is unavailable. Yes they have the contract side of things absolutely sewn up but they aren't the band's enemy by any means. Our relationship with them is excellent and they really look after us. In the event of a client breaching the contract they will take over and have been excellent at making sure we get what we're owed. I don't doubt they would come after us if we were to breach an agreement but they have been extremely supportive throughout my time working with them. I am currently in my second band under the same agent and between the two bands have been with them for a total of 6 years now.

That really is pretty terrible. Depping one or, at a push, two members due to illness or unavoidable issues is one thing but depping whole bands is just misrepresentation. If our front man is ill or suddenly unavailable for a genuine reason then our agent will always notify the client and offer either a dep, a different band or a refund. The band has to look and sound as close as possible to what is advertised.

It's a real wild west out there and there are endless scratch bands with naff gear like you say. I couldn't work like that and I also couldn't work with musicians who mess the band around and ditch bookings they're already committed to for better paid gigs. Weddings are definitely very formulaic and are more about earning than a love of the music you are playing. They can however be fun if you all get along well and can be philosophical about the bad ones. For me, the worst thing is being in a band with a solid lineup who can perform a good set and own a quality PA system (we no longer own that massive old LD Systems rig thankfully) but then have to plug into a venue's system that makes it all sound terrible. I'd like to think our promo material is generally pretty honest and we do post quite a lot of live stuff too. My biggest ssue with our promo material is that it is produced by the agency who churn out endless carbon copy videos so all the bands look the same.

I think this is very true. The pub / club / theatre scene is probably suffering more whereas the wedding / function scene is busy. People aren't going out as much so people getting married are splashing the cash on bands, especially if that band has a good online presence with plenty of quality media. People can sit behind a PC and choose their wedding suppliers easily without having to leave the house.

Got 62 weddings and 3 corporates in the diary for 2023 at present. That should go up to around 90 gigs by the end of the year. We have put prices up a touch but the problem is that people tend to book us up to 2 years in advance so it can take a long time before we see that price increase take effect. Not complaining though. Just signed all the contracts for a NYE gig on a beach in the Maldives.

Been amp free for 4 years. Full Band all on iems even in rehearsals. Have probably done 400 gigs (mostly weddings or corporate events) without any backline now. Can't really see any benefit in going back to using an amp. The biggest benefit comes at smaller gigs where its so much easier to get a full fat sounding mix out front without any amps or monitor speakers on stage. We do have a decent PA system though and bigger gigs usually involve PA hire with an engineer.

Karaoke version is good for cheap backing tracks. You can pick and choose which instruments you want and change key etc. £1.99 per song.

Can someone lend you a digital mixer (behringer xr18 or similar)? That would be way more simple than using 2 desks to track live.