Tengu

[quote name='YouMa' post='628229' date='Oct 16 2009, 07:23 PM']Do numanoids still exist,or did they die out in the late 80s,are they the ones who used to wear blue makeup and stuff?[/quote] Numanoid is just the name for Numan fans. As one I can tell you that we still exist and if you were to go along to any of the upcoming gigs in November and December you would see many more. Some people did wear the white and blue make-up in '84 when that was the current image but it isn't required. I'm not sure if there was a specific problem with Mick Karn but the band Japan did invite Numan to join them on tour when they were in Nippon and then ran off and left him. He ended up spending time with Queen, who were very kind to him. Roger Taylor played drums on a couple of tracks of the Dance album, which also featured Karn. I forget what the relevant timings were but I am not aware of any particular animosity between Numan and Karn.

Talk to the studio, they will have a DI that you can connect your pedal board to at the very least. Chances are that they will have some kind of bass preamp as well so that you can play with EQ etc to get closer to your usual sound. Not having to drag your amp head to the studio is bliss.

Whenever I have been on a multiple bill I have made a point of getting the number of the guy in the other band/s that deals with their technical stuff. That tends to be the bassist, naturally. I tell them what we have available to bring and ask what they are providing. I don't like turning up not knowing what we will be using. I also think it is odd that some consider backline not to include the head. Surely if you are providing both wouldn't you have connected it all properly when you did your sound check? Why would anyone else need to muck around with cables?

Sounds to me as if they have a very different definition of the phrase "back-line" to the rest of the world. Did you have anything in writing that said the headliners were to provide backline? If you do you might want to point that out to them and then ask them to clarify what they think that covers. Every musician that I know would use the term to cover any amps used on stage that are not front of house PA. In other words, the amps that are at the back.

I had this exact problem. It was a simple matter of re-soldering the circuit board joints. What I did find was that the act of removing the board from the case put some strain on the other joints, particularly for the input jack and all of the pots. I just touched up all of those joints and it has been perfect ever since. If you weren't the complete opposite end of the country I would offer to do it for you but it is a fairly simple job for anyone with rudimentary soldering skills.

I just re-soldered a load of joints where the input jack and all the pots connect to the circuit board on mine. The mute switch had been acting a bit funny and I was getting some noise. Since the solder job it has worked lovely with no noise and certainly no distortion. Looks like you just need the service.

Mick Karn played bass on five tracks of the album [i]Dance[/i], and also some saxophone. Pino Palladino played bass on the entire [i]I Assassin[/i] album, as well as a bit of guitar. Joe Hubbard played on the [i]Warriors[/i] album and also toured with Numan in '83. Gary's current bassist is a guy called Tim Muddiman. David Brooks plays keyboards, although he has played a little bass on Numan tours in the past.

[url="http://www.interq.or.jp/japan/se-inoue/e_capa.htm"]http://www.interq.or.jp/japan/se-inoue/e_capa.htm[/url] Loads of very useful information and even more useful pictures there.

I switch to my fretless for a few numbers. Never had a problem with a drop in volume or tone changes, other than what would actually be desirable for a change to fretless. Both basses are passive and have p/j pups so their output is roughly similar anyway. Don't think that helps you much.

[quote name='Buzz' post='355218' date='Dec 15 2008, 05:53 PM']Second: Apple OS's are no longer virus free paradises they were when they were niche computers. DO NOT RUN A MAC WITHOUT AV + FIREWALL. Period. I loathe Apple for this as although they've stopped tooting the line of "virus free" they're not telling people to protect themselves.[/quote] This is incorrect. There are still no Mac OS X viruses and running AV software will gain you nothing other than lost CPU cycles. There have been a few trojans spotted in the wild but they still require the user to download them manually and then give an Administrator password to install. If you download warez or other stuff from suspicious sites and then authorise its installation then you deserve to lose your data, or worse, and that has nothing to do with the security of the OS. A little common sense is all you need to keep yourself safe. Macs still run with all ports closed, by default, so you don't really need a firewall unless you are activating services such as web sharing. Just to add my recommendation to the Mac crowd, my machine is ten years old and still going strong. None of my PC using friends have machines more than a couple of years old and I still get loads more done than they do. I have to add that most of them are just glorified games consoles anyway.

My old band played Fort Nelson on top of Portsdown Hill a few years back. It was a Navy Field Gunners' reunion and they had stuck a couple of marquees to one side of the courtyard. We set up right in the middle, out in the open where they usually practised. For power one of the navy guys ran a single cable from a 15 amp socket in the main building. We ran our entire rig, backline and lights off that single cable. Field gunners are a difficult audience and tend to sit at the bar with their backs to the band. You might just as well not be there. On this occasion they decided to practice their bugle calls while we played. The guitarist and I turned to the drummer, cranked our amps up full and then thrashed the rest of the set. I'm pretty sure the matlots didn't even notice. More recently we played a Relay for Life gig, in the open at one end of the running track. Fortunately we took loads of plastic sheeting because it pissed with rain for the three hours before we started playing.

I run both a TE bass head and a Line 6 guitar amp into our mixer. Phantom power is on to supply the DI box for the other guitarist's amp. Never had any trouble with either DI. I did have a little trouble with one Marshall amp that would cause a loud pop whenever it was plugged in to the desk or the phantom power was turned on whilst it was connected. Making up a special lead, as above, fixed that problem. The advice to check with the manufacturer is absolutely the best.

I was taught at college that VU stood for "virtually useless". Basically because the needle responds too slowly to give you a true indication of peaks. As a general guide I suppose it does just fine though. A simple clipping LED is far more useful but nowhere near as sexy.

Most likely a break in the shielding. You could spend ages trying to track it down. I'd advise ditching and getting a new one. If the plugs are ok then you could just buy some cable and make yourself a new one.

I really like all of those tracks. Musically I don't think you need to be doing anything differently. Everything you are playing fits within the context of the song and nothing strikes me as being out of place. Recording-wise the drums and especially the vocals sound very dry to me, so you could do with dropping a little reverb on them. You have a very good bass tone and it is far more prominent than the other instruments so take a bit more time with setting them up. The only other niggle is that some of the timing seems a little off. In parts the snare seems to be hitting just before the beat and other parts aren't as nailed on the beat as they could be. Do you normally use a click track when recording? Playing live you tend not to notice details like that but when recording you really need a good timing reference down before you start adding tracks.

While setting up for a gig you get the usual "what sort of music do you play?" type questions but there have been a couple of times when I was asked, "are you any good?" As if you are going to say "no".

My band is playing a wedding for a friend on Saturday. We have been asked to play "I don't want to talk about it" by Everything but the Girl. It is a lovely song but I'm dubious about the suitability.

"You oughta know" by Alanis Morissete

Not in the same league as some of the works of art on show here but they sound ok. [url="http://img204.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=43565_DSCF0244_122_384lo.JPG"][/url] Aria Pro II SLB. '87 or thereabouts, I think. Was one of the first models made when they moved from Japan to Korea. Really needs the shielding looked at as it picks up hum from any nearby electronics, including my amp. [url="http://img205.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=43576_DSCF0245_122_510lo.JPG"][/url] Yamaha RBX 27F. Alien can tell you about this one. It looks a bit rough but sounds really nice, especially through the Trace. I was surprised at how quickly I took to playing the fretless. The lines help a bit when learning a song but I can't normally see them when playing a gig so it is just the side dots that I rely on.

Finally got some pictures of my rig that don't suck. I tend to use just the 2x10 for most gigs, just adding the 15 when I need some extra volume. I'm sure that the talk of phase cancellation etc is correct but I still like the sound I get from this set-up. I always DI the head into the PA so what the audience hears is dependant on that anyway. [url="http://img166.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=43168_DSCF0239_122_1157lo.JPG"][/url] [url="http://img7.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=42857_DSCF0237_122_903lo.JPG"][/url]

I used to set the gain on my Laney by turning on the compression and then cranking the input knob until the light started to flicker. Then I turned off the compression. I'm not sure if the newer units have improved but the onboard compression is renowned for being sub-par.

Just for future reference, these types of PSU are normally just glued together. It takes a while but you can normally crack them open using a sturdy knife. Just run the blade along the whole length of the join and eventually you will have enough of a gap to gain purchase and prise the two halves apart. It won't look pretty but you can then repair the cable and either glue it back together or bind with tape.

I occasionally get what I think is my target tone, and then the guitarists start and I can barely hear the notes I'm playing. I used to use a Peavey preamp/multi-effects unit into a Laney 15" Combo but since getting my Trace rig I tend to just stick either bass straight through it, with just a little extra mid on the EQ, and that is it. If the venue is such that I can crank the volume up a bit or even add the 1x15 to the 2x10 then it is even better. But, of course, the guitarist just turn up their rigs and we are back to square one.