BigRedX

I suppose my foot pedal use is different to the majority of musicians who if they have anything complex appear to be rooted in front of it. In the past, if the stage was big enough I'd be all over the place and often have to rush back to my pedal(s) to be able to make patch changes. All the important footswitches had to be in the "front row" and even then there was a chance that I'd hit the wrong one. Anything in the second row that required mid-song operation would have resulted in me either also pressing a switch in front of it or falling over or both. Therefore for me anything with two rows of foot switches is generally impractical, as the top row can't be used by me mid-song. As a result of this, these days all my patch changes are run from the backing track via MIDI so I don't have to worry about being in the right place at the right time to make changes to my sound. It has also allowed me to have patch changes exactly where the song requires them and not what is more convenient for me to activate manually. Some songs have changes every other bar, and a new song we are currently working has a change that comes every four bars but only lasts for 1 beat.

Spotify will carry on until one of its rivals decides to offer a free service with all the features of a free Spotify account. The problem with the other Streaming services is that you can't easily share a link or a playlist because unless the person also has an account with the relevant service they can't easily access it. As an artist I make far more money out of Spotify, through being on several popular playlists, than all the other streaming services with higher per-play rates put together.

Over the years, I've done 3 gig ones and one on-line one. IME if there are "judges" they are mostly window dressing, and the winner will always be the band that turns up with the biggest number of vocal fans. So as long as your daughter's band are reasonably competent what they really need to do to win is muster their every single one of their friends and family to come along and make a lot of noise ideally whilst wearing T-shirts for their band. Having said that only one of the four I did was absolutely pointless, and that was the one I did with the band that went on to be the most successful of all the bands I've played in, although back when we entered it was still early days, and we hadn't quite found our performance style or image. It was also the only one where the sound was uniformly pretty awful throughout the evening. The other two gig-based competitions were at decent venues with excellent PA systems. For the other three, one got me a gig on the main stage at Rock City, and the other two resulted in my band being on fairly high-profile compilation albums. The on-line competition was interesting, because it was to a much larger extent based on non-partisan voting, and as a contestant you also had to rate the other bands in order to boost the chances of your band being heard and therefore attracting votes. When the competition finished my band came 8th overall (out of over 1000 entries from all over the world) and came top in the Dance Music sub-category. As a result we were included on the best-of compilation CD which picked us up a lot of new fans and had several management companies interested in the band.

Maybe. One Fender copy is much like another...

Let's hope it's better designed and built than the Superfly.

No the OP has more in common with those posts complaining that a second-hand bass on eBay is overpriced. I just don't get why people get worked up enough about them to post them on here.

How is this different from the standard Fender BBOT?

IIRC the MiJ Metrolines were made by ESP. I'd rather have a Japanese ESP bass than a German Warwick.

But the Ad isn't aimed at the typical middle-aged, sartorially challenged Basschat member, so who are we to mock? If I was in my early 20s and looking to start a band from scratch I might be wording something very similar to weed out the old-farts and time-wasters.

To the OP. What do you want to use it for?

While I also hate soldering DIN plugs and sockets with a passion, IME commercially made MIDI leads are mostly terrible. The cheaper ones with their horrible moulded plugs, undersized pins and weedy cable are just about OK for permanent studio installations where the connections are made once and then never touched for several years, but on no account would I ever consider using them at a gig. Anything I would consider road worthy is eye-wateringly expensive compared with the cost of making my own, so whenever I need a MIDI cable out come the magnifying glass and soldering clamps.

To the OP. Are you interested in joining this band? If not why does it even matter?

Weird layout of foot switches. It's as though they don't want to make it user friendly.

The EHX was posted on another forum last week and was partially responsible for my mini rant about consumer grade computer connectors and external PSUs with no-latching connectors earlier in this thread.

That sounds like all kinds of wrong, but if that information has come from the manufacturer... The original MIDI spec uses the pins 4 and 5 to transmit the data and pin 2 is a ground/shield for the data transmission, but is generally disconnected at the input end of a MIDI link to prevent ground loops between the audio and data connections. Edit: Just had a look at the Meris device in question. It looks as though it uses a quarter-inch jack for the MIDI connection which is a slight plus, but even though there is probably room for a proper DIN socket for the MIDI in they have elected to use a jack so it can be dual function: expression pedal or MIDI. What do you do if you want to use an expression pedal and have external MIDI control?

Ans this is exactly why I won't buy MIDI gear with these Mickey Mouse mini jack connectors. As well as the fact that you can't use a decent chunky gig-proof cable with these tiny plugs.

You should be fine with any reputable DIN to 3.5mm TSR jack that is sold as being specifically for MIDI. If you want to make your own use a two core twisted pair and screen cable. Connect the screen to the centre pin (2) of the 5-pin DIN plug and to the sleeve of the 6.5mm jack. Then connect pin 5 of the DIN to the ring of the jack and pin 4 to the tip (pins 4 and 5 are the two directly either side of the centre pin). Pins 1 and 3 of the DIN plug (the outermost 2) are not used. If you are getting earth hum or general MIDI weirdness you might need to experiment with disconnecting the shield at the mini jack end. MIDI devices are supposed to be opto-isolated at the MIDI in socket, but often devices that use mini jacks dispense with this as part of their cost-cutting measures which can lead to problems.

This, or the Bas Extravaganza Punk Bass would be the instrument I would want to bring to any gig where I was told to use a Precision.

Well I'm 9 minutes closer to achieving my goal for 2026. Our synth player has just sent the latest mixes of two of the songs we've been working on and AFAIAC there are no further changes to be made. There's one more song that is in the process of being mixed and then we'll have to decide which other two songs to record vocals for so we'll have enough to complete our first album. I'm trying to keep the running time just under 40 minutes so we can consider doing a limited run on vinyl as well as CD. That will probably mean that the two formats have different running orders as the track we are likely to want at the end of the CD won't go well in that location from a technical PoV on vinyl.

Great, but's very much the impression I got from some of the posts in this thread. I suppose another advantage of doing originals charity gigs is that they are nearly always at established venues with in-house PA and lighting rigs so all the bands need to do is to turn up and play.

I think it's different for originals bands. All the charity gigs I have done with various originals bands over the years have been multi-band affairs that put us in front of a receptive audience, many of whom may not have seen us before. Often the charity aspect of these events takes a bit of back seat, the bands get paid expenses and it is first and foremost about the music, then about raising awareness about the cause(s) being supported. The fact that there will be money going to the Charity afterwards is a well-appreciated bonus. It appears to be a completely different world to churning out a couple of covers sets to a potentially uninterested group of people.

Unfortunately I have been too busy working on mixes for existing songs and finishing off the arrangements on new songs started last year to have spent any serious time with it yet. The only thing I have worked out so far is that the synth part will be of very limited use to me since my Bass VI playing is far too polyphonic.

Over the last 3 years my band have done 4 charity gigs. They are all local, either at established venues or somewhere where to PA will be provided by the organisers. Therefore the amount of effort required on our part other than playing is minimal. We have also been able to sell some band merch which normally goes to offset any travelling expenses we might have incurred. We've played Oxjam Beeston three times now and the first two times we were definitely playing to an audience that had mostly never seen us before, and several of those have come to see us play at subsequent gigs. Having said that, the last time we played there was a good chance that the number of people in the audience who had specifically come to see us outnumbered those that just happened to be at the venue already. At Oxjam we get given wristbands that gets into all the other gigs for free, and overall the organisation is excellent so it's a joy to be able to take part. The other charity gig we have done recently was probably one of the best paying gigs we did that year. Again excellent organisation at an impressive venue where we were fed and watered and had proper back-stage facilities including a kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. Apparently these were for all the performers but we appeared to be the only band that wanted to make use of them. So long as we are doing gigs of this caliber we will be happy to play Charity events. Just remembered that Leeds Goth City Festival is technically also a charity event, but again it's well organised and all the bands are paid an amount that at minimum covers their expenses, and the organisers still manage to raise a significant amount of money for the charities they support.

I know it's probably not a popular opinion, but IME talent is probably the least import thing. So long as you don't mess up too obviously too often you'll be fine, and besides until you are totally without ability, you'll make less mistakes as you get more experienced. The other things are much harder to improve should they be lacking. I've managed to be a lot less obnoxious as a band member than I was in the 80s and 90s but it has taken 25 years of concentrated effort to achieve a more "chill" persona and being being in bands where I haven't been responsible for almost every aspect of the organisation has most definitely helped.

I don't think I've seen any political extremism in posts on here. However I don't spend a lot of time in Off Topic. There have been opinions that don't always align with mine, but nothing that I would class as extremism.