Lozz196

Ain’t that the truth. I often wish I could just listen to a song without mentally separating the instruments and listening out specifically for the bass. Too late now though.

Agree, in my last band (punk/Oi originals) we gigged pretty much every weekend, all over the country and in Europe, and we probably turned down twice the amount of gigs that we actually did, a large majority of the gigs both played and turned down were what we were offered rather having had to go looking for them. Playing on a defined scene helps big time, as does organisational skills, get defined duties for each band member aligned to their strengths and it’s possible to turn over some decent money especially if you’ve decent merchandise. We never took anything from the band but doing it this way paid for hotels, flights, ferries, tourbus & driver hire. If we’d been of the mind to each take our £50 at the end of the night and drink it back over the same bar we’d never have done a tenth of what we did - and they’re still going strong (probably stronger) now.

Earlpilanz is a step above imo, quality products rather than the generic evilbay stuff.

Def depends on the venue. In my old punk covers band we used to play a pub that had 120 capacity, apparently we were never their biggest earners, when we played they took £5k over the bar.

That’s a good point, hadn’t thought of that, which is probably because I’ve never been to one so hadn’t considered it. Interesting.

Yeah although music is my hobby unless it’s for something specific such as friends/charity it’s a pay the going rate or I’m not doing it, based upon that to others it’s their living so need to protect their livelihoods.

I’m not bothered by it but it wouldn’t be for me, was briefly helping out a band that were trying it and nah, not my bag.

That’s very close, like it

I’ve experienced a good few musicians on the punk/Oi scene gigging Mex Fenders, Squiers, Epiphones. Most of them seem to do so as they don’t want to gig expensive instruments, a few having had some uncomfortable days awaiting the return of their expensive Gibsons/Fenders from airlines who had sent them to the wrong countries.

I think you`re right, why should anyone have to put up with sub-standard gear when you`ve brought along your own better stuff. In my last band the drummer used to regularly suffer with provided kits, especially felts/nuts on stands, and the stools. A good heads-up though, as we`re playing there in a few weeks, I`ll let our drummer know.

Not too far from Guildford……

Not something I would have ever expected to see

Classic 🤣

That’s the same for me, and why I left one covers band I was in a couple of years ago, I’d just damaged my back quite badly and simply couldn’t do any of this.

Yeah I`ve found that the change that made the most difference was plectrums, if I go to a .63mm plec from a 1.0 the difference in sound is much more noticeable than had I changed a bridge or brand of strings. And the validation point there being that the rest of the band noticed and asked what I`d done - most times bands don`t even know we`re there!

No we don’t have any singers in this band, instrumental only

We’ve just gone through Hazy Shade of Winter (The Bangles version). It’s one of those songs that is actually a fair bit harder than it sounds - well that’s what the rest of the band tell me, it’s easy enough on bass.

You’re gonna need a Red Bull subscription to keep up with that 😂

Yeah got to do it properly, but Alvin lived in the US for a while and has toured there many times so you’d hope he would know how to do it all properly. Charlie being the singer and most well known would have to do it the right way but maybe a financial decision was made for the rest of them?

My long term faves have been the Fender Custom Shop 62s, but the clip above from @Supernaut re the Nordstrand NP4 is great, I think if I were looking at anything new this would be a good one to check out.

Yeah I’ve never seen them either, looking forward to them both

Good old Alvin, ever the rebel.

No, even on iPhone don’t sound bad at all

You can try a drive pedal to add some warmth by having the gain/drive set very low, this way just takes off the harsh edges of the clean sound. A pedal with a valve in would probably add even more warmth.