gafbass02

Private function in a cocktail garden in Hereford. Pretty fab night all round, small crowd of lovely folks, paid well, easy load in, good sound. All good Outdoors, but under cover and a pleasant, balmy evening. I used my new bass and was very pleased with it. It’s been a bit of a nightmare situation, but almost sorted. I might post about it soon, it’s pretty damning for a well known bass specialist retailer. Sadly the video was shot using a potato. VIDEO-2023-10-07-01-31-13.mp4 VIDEO-2023-10-07-01-29-00.mp4

I have recently gone blue. It wasn’t an easy ride, I’ll discuss more at some point. It’s pretty awesome now though. GMR soundboard custom 4

Slight change! Current effects situation: out of hand 😅 Left to right: small bass board for tight gigs, zoom B2.1 for rehearsals and acoustic duets, guitar main board (zoom g7), right of the mic stand are my acoustic board/guitar auxiliary board and finally my main ampless bass pedalboard. Behind them on the shelf is a defunct zoom g7, a large ancient zoom multifx, a zoom g10n, a zoom g-something or other and a zoom ms60b.

We only rehearse about once a year, to go over a bunch of new songs, after that it’s gigs gigs gigs. Last rehearsal was about a month back, was quite fun, I enjoyed the little Hartke kickback combo provided.

A dream bass of mine is currently for sale on here from Europe, but thanks to bre***, the charges and risks have just made it a no go. Gutted.

Played a Small stage in the local entertainment complex. Moving crowd that ebbed and flowed, was a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours. I walked from my house in ten minutes with just a bass and multi fx and used the small ashdown combo that was provided for on stage monitoring. It was fine. Made me quite fancy owning an amp again. All in all…it was fine

Pretty much this, except I did get lucky for a few years and my crowds were into 4 figures, and I’m now 47. But otherwise, pretty much this!

My present ampless set up. Everything above the zoom is for my IEM line or to my Headrush 112s if I’m using them instead. Everything to the right is in the FOH signal chain. The blue switcher kicks in the eq with the bass cut for a royal blood song. The ABY to middle is simply acting as a link between the out of the smaller IEM zoom to my rolls headphone amp. A incoming pedal means that this will all be a lot less complicated and busy this time next week (hopefully).

Last two weeks with The Bridge have been regular bar gigs in three of our regular venues. All perfectly good shows, no major dramas apart from almost running out of petrol on the way home on Friday. Not much to report!

Another vote for muse here. Great player, cool lines, but just don’t ‘get’ the final product.

Also same. They don’t last me a year, maybe six months, but still worth it.

Three boards for three roles, acoustic/bass/electric guitar. But it’s not quite that simple. I use the acoustic board as an auxiliary board for electric and also have a bass fly rig in my kit bag in case of board failure. Plus, I have two boards for bass, a Pedaltrain novo 32 with choice of hard or soft cases and a Harley Benton spaceship 60xl. If I have a run of bigger venues coming up, I use the novo, if it’s smaller venues I transplant to the much tighter and not as well made Harley Benton. A couple of recent change means I’ll probably be moving back to the novo 32 full time though, which will be a pain in tight spaces!

Interesting, I so nearly pulled the trigger on one of these (to use with my sadoswky pedal!) but was put off by the neck protruding into the ‘slap zone’.

I wouldn’t have a clue where to start with that! I don’t even have photoshop! It’s ok though, after 30 years gigging I don’t really need any more pics of my with a bass in my hands 😂

Thanks. That’s what I first thought! Despite not having smoked in a long time!!

Two lovely shows for me this weekend, I used my old jazz bass for the first time in ages (and now cannot feel my shoulder and my back is killing me!) …. But my sound engineer loved it and asked me to use it forever 😂😫 Sat was just a local pub jobbie, but apart from the cramped conditions and sweltering heat was a lot of fun. Sunday was a headline slot at a local festival, which is always a total blast…tempered somewhat by the news that my father is critically ill just before I took to the stage. I managed to sneak a quick crowd shot whilst the house lights were up briefly between songs, which was nice Although the best snap of me has caught me with a plectrum in my mouth which is somewhat unflattering!

Yeah, this is a real issue it seems. I’ve actually inherited a couple of open mics from sacked hosts because they’d allowed this exact situation to propagate. I’ve since given up hosting them, just too much hassle.

I keep a few cocktail sticks in my gig kit bag for just this reason. But yes, ideally thread lock.

I’ve had some success with these in the past. Also handy for cymbal whacking. https://www.fender.com/en-GB/accessories/miscellaneous/fatfinger-guitar-sustain-enhancer/0992180100.html

Going ampless has been the best move I’ve made in 30+ years of gigging. I have a simple and cheap set up that works perfectly well. The only downside is if the drummer clips a mic (rare) it’s a bit uncomfortable, but not a huge problem. But I’m lucky in that we have two engineers of our own, one of whom goes to every gig. I use the iPad app to control my monitor mix on stage, and our QSC PA with sub can handle the bass effortlessly. I put my IEM signal through a zoom ms60b for a bit of amp sim, and keep a simple preamp and eq pedal in the side chain in case I use my frfr cabs instead of IEMs (the odd festival perhaps). Job done. I connect via a custom made cable which carries guitar and headphone signals in one.

I’ve had a few dealings with him too, and he’s been nothing but a gent and a legend every time.

Solo acoustic set in my local for me last night. Went well, no drama, people sang, people danced and nobody knocked the PA over. win.

No amps anymore. I’d like another genz Benz contour 500 2x10 (the last amp I owned) if one came up, but I’m on IEMs now, and Headrush 112s if I’m doing a show without our engineer and don’t want to trust the in house people.