mcnach

Matter of taste more than how many gigs you play. I like roundwounds but I don't like them new. I've had DR Sunbeams on my Stingray since... August 2018 (I have a spreadsheet, yes, I'm a bit special ) and they sound *just* right now (well, they've been sounding right for three years I suppose). I still turn treble down. Many many gigs.

Sometimes you get, erm... 'interesting' sound people (I won't use the word engineers here). You just got one of those, I suspect, and my experience is that it's almost always useless to try to change their ways so when I encounter them I just shrug, smile, and try my best. Live to gig another day!

It really depends on how many gigs each band plays. In the past I have been in up to 4 bands at a time, but a lot of the members were shared across bands. That meant it was easy to avoid schedule conflicts, and it had the advantage that if we found band A could not do a gig we had agreed to (it happens sometimes, health, family issues...) rather than simply cancelling we can often offer another of the bands as a replacement, which as usually accepted. In terms of time for rehearsals etc... we keep it to a minimum. Once a repertoire is built, the need for rehearsals drops, so we only meet once in a while to add a few additional songs which we work out individually. The only band I was rehearsing regularly with was an originals band, because at every rehearsal we'd spend a significant amount of time trying new things, jamming (a lot of our songs started as something that happened at a jam that stuck with us: essentially we use it as a filter... we throw in a lot of ideas on the assumption that whatever is good it would be memorable and it'll stay with us: if it's not memorable to us, we can't expect audiences to find it interesting/memorable either). Bottomline is: you need to be organised. Time is limited, no doubt. If you organise yourself and work with similarly minded people you can extract a lot of that time. If you're all a bit disorganised, you'll get a lot less done. Which is fine, as long as that's what you want to do.

The main problem I see is that while you may find avenues to claim ownership... how do you enforce it if someone else decides to use your name? I can't imagine you will get anywhere without some kind of legal involvement, which for most covers bands is not going to be an attractive proposition even if you are in the right and will win. Tough one. Hiring a hitman might be the easiest way... but that brings a whole other set of complications, so I would not recommend that

I would! That's a beauty!

With the information given? A hard no. Nope. Just no. Ain't gonna happen. Dream on. Etc... I could be persuaded to let them borrow a bass, but it won't be my #1. It would depend on my relationship to that work colleague. If it's just a colleague then I'd be of the mind to let them figure out themselves: hire a bass if you don't want to travel with yours. If it's a friend who happens to be a colleague and as such I trust him, then I'm much more likely to help. But again, it won't be my #1... nothing to do with its value (mine is not that expensive, just a standard Stingray from 2002), but it's the bass I feel at home with the most, had the neck refinished to my liking and that bass stays with me. But I agree... I don't understand why he doesn't bring a bass. I wouldn't. But that's somebody else's problem.

Interesting night. The UB40 tribute band got hired to play at a nice midsize venue, but it wasn't your usual gig: it was a birthday party for the owner of the place. There was another band before us playing for an hour, and then us. Our keyboard player had to rush back to Ireland due to family matters... so we were a little nervous: that keyboard plays a lot of very 'signature' riffs and sounds, plus he shares vocals with our guitarist. Still, we've done it before, and we manage alright with the horns helping cover a lot of the space the keys leave. Well, it turns out the band before us had a keyboard player who is a UB40 fan. So we invited him to play and he did wonderfully. Yeah, it was different and didn't have all the right sounds, but it sounded pretty good. He seemed to enjoy the additional pressure, and the additional praise from the audience We had to force him to take our money in the end (he was on stage the whole time, nearly 2 hours, and he made us sound better than without keys, so it's ony fair), which he refused initially... and now we may have a keyboard dep, which we had tried for a while unsuccessfully. Result!

at some point it's wise to stop digging and move along... edit: I mean it in the nicest way I can

Very very surprised to hear that. I thoroughly enjoy my terrible gutless amp

Ha! Spot on: first bass I had that issue with was a Stingray. I ended replacing the battery box for an identical one... and it's started to misbehave again after a few years. I bend the terminals so that they make better contact and it's good for several months, but once it starts misbehaving it'll continue. I'm going to install one with a clip-on type connector next.

And it generally sounds better, so what's not to like? Even using the Zoom H2 recorded 'trick'. Quieter in your ears, better clarity, and adjust volume/balance all you want without fuss.

I did many gigs with a LM3 class D (2013/14) and then I bought another that happened to be class AB (from 2009)... If there are differences they weren't obvious in a gig environment (to me!). This included quite a few gigs without PA support, with a 7 piece band. I wasn't quiet.

My two favourite ones did very poorly, not sure what says about my taste (Czech Republic and Norway)

Check the battery compartment and ensure the terminals make good contact. I've had something like what you describe with some battery boxes when the contact was not good.

I think we found our drummer in a skip.

was it ever?

Fishtail style. The slot is 2mm wide, while the bit of string that needs to go through it is around 2.6mm. It would be fine for the elephant ear type tuners, which they tend to be 3mm or so (just measured a couple). These are the stock tuners. I can find many similar ones by different makers, but I can never find the slot dimensions :shrug: edit: by the way, thank you for your kind offer! I'm happy to buy a spare tuner, I just need to know the slot will be a bit bigger than the one I've got

aaah farts! The tuners have too narrow a slot to allow a TI Jazz Flat B string on... so the JP is now parked until I find a tuner that works. Anybody knows a similar tuner with a wider slot?

Brilliant! When will you get to try it live? Cable management is important if you're not going wireless... there are a looot of cables. When I tried this approach I considered getting a couple of those 'snakes' to have a few cables bundled together, but I thought it might get a bit bulky.

Sorry, I seem to have missed this earlier! What do you think of those ZS10? They've been in my shopping cart a few times but never went ahead thinking "they're relatively cheap, they can't be all that good" but they seem to be getting great reviews. Getting the right tip for you is key, 'though. Oh, you're really at the very centre of the city! It can get a bit busy with tourists, but it's a great area. When I arrived in Edinburgh I used to go for walks around there in the evening, when the streets are a lot quieter. Very fairytale-esque, in some ways. It's easy to get used to it. When I have family/friends visiting from Spain they all go "wow" and it takes me a minute to recognise that, yes, actually, this is pretty cool, it's just normal to me now I remember the very first time I set foot in this city. I came by train, for a job interview, from Oxford. I had already lived a few years in the South: London, Norwich, Cambridge, Reading and Oxford... and as the taxi drove me to my destination I was looking around thinking "I must come here some day and explore, it seems like an interesting city". I didn't think I was going to get the job... but I did, back in November 1999. Now I don't want to leave. Hey, being a Leither is slowly becoming a badge of honour!

He is! He made me 3 for the MB-5 (I could not decide which colour... black, orange or purple pearloid... I only use the black one )

I never played like him!

Please report back I'm considering one of those because the way they look, but I'd be interested to hear how it compares to other Precision pickups.

There's a seller on eBay, based in Glasgow, who would copy your pickguard in a different colour/material. He doesn't yet, but I will be sending him mine so he will have a template soon (5 string). I'll post here when it happens.

I haven't used the Neuro app with the C4 yet, but it was pretty easy with the Aftershock. I still prefer a PC, I like the large screen, but to tweak presets beyond what the physical knobs do it comes quite handy and it is intuitive.