neilray

Much as I hate to admit it , I prefer the full band rehearsals to actually playing in front of people . Don’t have to wear the monkey suit , or have a three hour ride home at two in the morning having just played to 100 wedding guests who only actually notice you are there 5 minutes before you have to stop playing .

That’s interesting and I’ve no actually worked mine out . But as an example , I’m playing in Glastonbury tomorrow night , private party the n St ives in Cornwall Saturday night . I’ve got to be in St ives by midday Saturday and we are setting up p.a in three separate venues ( speeches etc ) . So I’ll leave Epsom in Surrey around 11 tomorrow’s morning and not be home until Sunday afternoon . I’ll earn 275 . And 75 of that will be a tank of fuel for the 600 mile round trip . Another 30 quid or so is food and drink . Just re - strung both my basses etc etc . Wouldn’t change a thing and I still love it

Yes I agree with you on most of your points . My point is , even if you are are a pub or bar that wants to put on live music , why you you expect to pay peanuts for the bands/ musicians? Because musicians will play for peanuts because of the love of what they do and that’s a personal choice . Also it’s exactly why I couldn’t just play music for a living . This doesn’t mean I love or enjoy playing any less than a full time musician . It’s just that I realised when I left school that I needed to earn money . I wasn’t a good musician at that time so I trained to do something else .As in my previous post , nothing but admiration for the full timers out there .

It does . I’ve nothing but complete admiration for anybody that strives to make a living by playing music .Fact is, I’d play gigs for nothing because I do something else full time . What I do , and I guess I’m not alone in this , is put my gig money by so I can get strings and occasionally something bigger - a new bass or a safety net in case any of my gear goes wrong .

Good points . I suppose I just get annoyed at the exploitation. And yes - if you don’t do it , somebody else will . Sooner or later , gig or no gig , you have to put a value on what you have to offer .

By the way , I’m not a full time musician . I’m actually a plumber

People . Just read an ad on gumtree via basschat . Band looking for a bassist to gig every Wednesday night . Three x 45 minute sets .either a three or four piece band . The pay was £120 - divided amongst all the band members . So you travel to this cocktail bar , paying your tube/ train fare , play three sets , then travel home again . You will get 30 or 40 quid for your trouble . By the time you’ve paid travel costs , you won’t have enough money to buy a set of strings . Especially if you use a five string . Before you respond , yes I know all gigs are good experience - but why should the venue be allowed to obtain your services for the same money that a plumber makes in half an hour ? I’m sorry people but this stinks . Am I the only person thinking like this ?

I’ve not used the Elbe range but I own two Embee 12 cabinets and run a Mesa Subway 800 through them . They are rated at 600 watts each and easily handle the power of the Mesa ,.they are great for near- field monitoring , due to the angled speakers (angled upwards ) , and they are very clear and punchy across the whole frequency range . The tweeters are subtle rather than the glassy and sometimes brittle character of some HF units . Two of them stacked up is a huge and exceptionally clear and clean sound . They are reasonably light , though not featherweights, but have cool angled handles which makes the cabs easy to lift . I can carry one in each hand but probably wouldn’t if a flight of stairs were involved. They aren’t the cheapest , mine were 675 a unit , but I’m delighted with them and the company were very helpful and easy to deal with . Worth trying alongside the other cabs in this very competitive sector of the market .