Graham

I went to Reading from 2002 to 2006 and Download from 2003 to 2009 (I'd have stopped in 2008, but then we played the next year) I used to really like festivals - the atmosphere, the line-ups - some of the best performances I've seen were at feativals - Black Sabbath at Download 2005?, Foo Fighters at Reading 2005, Metallica without Lars at Download 2004, Faith No More at Download 2009 Tool and Prodigy at Download 2006, Mastodon at Reading 2006, AFI at Reading 2003 But....with kids, the idea of going away for a weekend alone, spending hundreds of pounds just on the ticket before I've fed and watered myself for four days just isn't viable. Plus I'm more anti-social and like a proper bed these days, so I can't see myself going back anytime soon. Perhaps when the kids are older, if I could afford to Air B&B somewhere local and taxi in each day that'd be different. I do Damnation festival in Leeds once a year, which is one day and indoors so a lot more condicive to being in my thirties and constantly tired.

Justin Chancellor's is quite distinctive

Last night was a bit rubbish TBH, we played fine, but the venue was dead for the first half (true for the whole village apparently), got busier in the second, but still far from busy. We were good, but it sure is hard work when there's not an audience to play off

A bit of old school grindcore today

The new post-Caleb Cave In record, unfortuantely only on Spotify as the CD I pre-ordered has been delayed. A bitter-sweet record this

Sounds like the best plan - hopefully they'll bring a good show for their last UK appearance

Cheers chaps

I foresee a delicate discussion with the wife coming on..... I've just seen that there's no XLR out, I'd assumed there was; how are you guys connecting it to the PA? DI box, or unbalanced jack cable?

Thanks very much, that's very interesting, and potentially very bad for the wallet 😁

I'm not at Download this year, but......Slayer or Tool?

Agreed - I saw them on the Clearing The Path.... tour and they were superb

Got some questions about these, sorry if the answers are in the thread, I looked back across the last 10 pages but couldn't read 35 😁 This is what I'm thinking, as there are only three footswitches, create different patches for the sounds/FX I'd want to use and then use switches one and two to switch between patches as required and footswitch three to trigger an effect on the patch. Does the unit work this way? So, my thoughts are: patch one - muted tuner Patch two - core clean tone with an envelope filter that can be engaged from footswitch three Patch three - fuzzed up amp for when I need fuzz/distortion Patch four - "rock" tone - SVT with overdrive that can be engaged from footswitch three Have I got the right end of the stick? Is the switching between patches instantaneous enough to be like switching on a fuzz pedal mid song?Also, can you load your own/third party cab IRs if you have some? I'm really liking the idea of making my stage footprint (even) smaller and adding a load of amp/cab/effects sims options in to boot. Thanks all

I was quite surprised how good the Gibson sounded, never heard one I've liked before

My favourites were the Dingwall (that surprised me) the fretless F Bass and the Adamovic. I also liked the Lightwave, Warwick and Fender Jazz 5

Propaghandi, I love their bassist, his playing is superb

Wedding last nigt, lovely crowd and as a nice surprise my brother and his wife were guests and had brought their twelve day old daughter with them, so I got to meet my new niece. It was a beautiful venue - high spec barn conversion in the Sussex countryside, but they had a sound limiter. God knows why, barn on a farm in the middle of nowhere and we had to be done by 22:00, so why they needed a limiter as well is unclear. We tripped it a few times, and we weren't loud, we discovered it when setting up and the guitarist (15 watt Orange valve combo, not loud) and I (no amp, DI'd with only one monitor live, louder than the guitar, bit hardly stage volume) knocked out the power. We did alright, it was nice to be not too loud, but we all made daft mistakes as we were paying more attention to the limiter. The room resonances made certain notes spike it more than others - it really didn't like a low G from me, so I ended up transposing these up an octave, which was okay. At one point we got the groom up to play guitar for a song, that didn't trip the power, but the audience cheering after he finished did. The venue staff were very good about re-setting the power, but the owners didn't give a damn - completely ignored the guitarist when he pointed out having the power drop out is not good for valve amps; they seemed very entitled and weren't bothered about the disruption to the wedding.

I'm not a huge fan, but I've seen them live a few times and they've always been great, particularly when they toured with Slayer in 2004 or 2005. Not long ago I listened to Iowa for the first time in ages, it is a really good record, despite the brick wall mastering limiter and all the mids being scooped out of Paul Grey's bass. Have they replaced Chris Fenn in the band, or are they going out as an eight piece?

Was he a member of the Faith No More Spiritual and Theological Centre?

Last time I went to the Download Festival they headlined the Friday, I didn't know much about them before but came away a fan, first thing I did when I got home on the Monday (after a shower) was to go out and buy Angel Dust. Great band with brilliant songwriting and performances; Billy Gould's tone is superb too, particularly on King For A Day

I have a similar thing with Frank Turner - love his work, but have played the albums to death - Love, Ire and Song particularly

Cult Of Luna & Julie Christmas - Mariner Cave In - Jupiter Crowbar - Crowbar ISIS - Oceanic Mastodon - Leviathan Opeth - Still Life Metallica - ...And Justice For All Electric Wizard - Dopethrone Clutch - Blast Tyrant AFI - Black Sails In The Sunset

Nate Newton and Ben Koller from Converge are a great pairing

I use ZS10s and whilst we normally mic the kick, drum overhead and guitar amp, I often don't need them in my ears due to ambient bleed-through Most of the stages we play are small enough that I'm normally standing relatively close to the other instruments, and if it is a bigger stage then there's definitely mics on everything.

Caleb Scofield for me, just last year. Cave In are one of my favourite bands and he was a real influence on my playing. As it was a car crash, there were no health concerns before hand, so just came out of nowhere. He's one of the only two public figures who's death has upset me, the other being Terry Pratchett

I play a DJ5 these days, I really like it - great neck and the best sounding bridge pickup I've heard on a jazz - the JO is pretty much the same apart from pickup placement I think?