BigRedX

But for creative jobs how can you prove the people involved have been "productive". A lot of my work involves thinking. There's no visible product during this thinking time, but it's just as important as the bit at the end that produces and actual design. How about the times when I need to step away from my work and come back after an hour or two with fresh eyes. Do I get paid for that too?

How? Who by? How do you accurately measure the time spent? Some songs take less than 5 minutes to write. Others can take years off and on and maybe hundreds of hours of actual time from the first inspiration to when it can said to be complete. Which is worth more? How do you even tell? I get this quite a bit in my day job of graphic design where some of my clients will question why I have spent so long creating their logo/leaflet/pack. The actual final design may have only taken an hour of two to produce, but there could be days before hand of working through unsuccessful options to arrive at the chosen result.

I've had a Mono M80 for over 10 years now, the plastic bits are still as robust as when I bought it and the handle despite being in almost constant use when carrying it has yet to even come close to looking as though it will fail. However I completely agree with you about the lack of comfort when wearing on your back. Mine constantly slaps against the backs of my legs to the point where it is unbearable for anything other than carrying from the car/van into the venue. This lack of comfort does appear to be linked to the person's size/build as there are plenty of others on here who don't appear to have a problem with it. For this alone the M80 fails as gig bag for me because the whole point of a gig bag is that I can use it to carry my bass when I walk to rehearsals. On the other hand there is no denying the protection it offers. The semi-rigid nature of the case means that it can be squeezed into spaces in fully packed cars where a standard hard case would never fit. Also mine was instrumental in protecting my bass when a heavy speaker cab fell on it. The mono case absorbed the impact and saved both the bass and the cab. A more conventional hard case would have probably shattered resulting in damage the bass and cab as well. I don't know what the current state of the competition in the semi-rigid case market is, but when I bought my Mono it was by far the smallest and lightest option. Some of the others were larger and heavier than a Hiscox hard case. Hopefully there is now some more serious competition in this area.

If they are originals bands they should really be submitting their own set lists. It is in their interest to do so, and as a writer member of the PRS I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it for me (especially a venue or promotor). That way if you don't you've only got yourself to blame for your lack of performance royalty income.

Mostly it's to save the TV or radio station having to work out what the songs are for themselves if/when they broadcast the gig, as the performance royalties for this can be quite significant. The one time I earned enough in a year to receive a share of the unallocated royalty pot was down to the single broadcast of a radio session my band did. They'll ask for the lyrics to make sure they don't inadvertently broadcast anything offensive. The Terrortones fell foul of this several times where various radios stations wanted to play our recordings but had to decline once they saw what was being sung, to the point were we considered radio-friendly versions of some of the songs when we made our album.

I've been supplying set lists to the PRS for the originals bands I've been in for the last 25 or so years. When I look at my PRS royalty statements it is obvious that a lot of the time the band I'm in is the only one at the gig doing this as we have the full royalty allocation for the gig despite the fact that there were 2 or 3 other bands on the same bill. The individual gig payments might not be much most of the time, but for a prolific gigging originals band they add up over the year. The Terrortones paid for the majority of our studio time from PRS royalties. Another reason why IMO being a composer/songwriter is more important than simply being a musician.

@Al Krow Covers bands aren't stealing anything. Once a song has been recorded and released to the public it's fair game for anyone to do their own version. Technically either the band or the venue should be submitting a set list to the PRS. While each gig doesn't generate a lot of money (£6.00 for a pub and club gig divided between all the song writers whose works were performed that night). Everything else goes into the unallocated royalty pot (see above) and given that the vast majority of covers bands play songs that are already popular, it works out pretty evenly at the end. Lets also put to bed the myth that originals bands play to tiny audiences for no money. The only reason they do this is either because they have deliberately chosen to, or because they are boring (musically and or visually) on stage. In nearly 45 years of doing various originals bands gigs I think the only times we haven't been paid was a few support slots done in the early days of the band in order to get out name out. Everything else at the very least we got full expenses. Of course I have found that if you don't ask for money then you may well not get anything, but then you only have yourself to blame. This year I've done some great gigs with both my originals bands including several that were completely sold out; we've had the audience up and dancing from the first song and audience members singing along to everything except the songs that were so new we haven't recorded and released them yet. That's all for music that I have been responsible for creating. Also I'm not convinced that covers bands gigs are quite as lucrative as is made out, especially when you take into account the time, effort and expenses involved, certainly my experience of doing both at the same time, was that the covers band gigs per hour and taking into account my individual expenses was less well paid than the originals band I was in at the time, but that's probably the subject for a completely separate thread.

You have to have reached a certain level of PRS royalty income from your own compositions, before you are eligible. From what I recall the one time I earned enough to trigger it back in the 80s it was at least £250 per year and then you got a share based on your actual royalty income for the subsequent 2-3 years. I suspect the figure is higher now as I've managed to exceed this a couple of times in the past 15 years but I haven't been eligible this time around.

As the author of the first quote - taken slightly out of context - what @Lozz196 said is pretty much my experience too. I've played and attended all sorts of originals bands gigs (including lots of punk and psychobilly bands) and violence amongst audience members is very rare. On the other hand pretty much ever single one of the covers bands gigs I've attended has had some kind of audience incident, usually caused by knobhead men who've had too much to drink. If not going to sub-Weatherspoons pubs to see what looks like a random bunch of people churn out songs that I have no interest in makes me a snob, then I completely embrace it. At least there's less chance of getting beaten up, if I stick with originals bands.

Just buy some new strings.

As a musician: It's not for me. I'd been in one "proper" covers band, and I've got any need to be in a similar band completely and utterly out of my system. In my personal opinion playing in a covers band (compared with the sorts of originals bands I've been in over the last 30 years), for too much effort for too little financial gain and almost no artistic satisfaction. I went in to playing covers having seen the band I ended up joining because one of their guitarists was a very good friend of mine, because I thought it would be great playing songs that I had enjoyed when I was getting into music in the 70s. The reality was that I ended up hating several of the songs we played and quite honestly I would never want to hear them again under any circumstances. I always felt that our audience would have been just as happy and probably better served by an appropriately stocked video jukebox. As an audience member: Not at all for me. In the past the only covers bands I have gone knowingly to see are ones where I knew at least one of the musicians. They tend to play in the sorts of establishments I wouldn't normally frequent, that appear to be mostly filled with the sorts of people I would want to avoid. To me it always seemed as though the music at these gigs was little more that aural wallpaper, or to behave badly under the influence of too much alcohol using the excuse that they were "getting into the music"to justify their actions. I'm probably out of the ordinary as a musician in that I don't see anything special about "live music" per se. So to me most covers bands come across as a random set of musicians playing a random selection of songs to a random audience. I think most of the time the typical covers band could be replaced with a well-chosen playlist and no-one who had come out for the evening would really complain. As a composer: Bring it on! Every time someone covers one of my songs it's going to be money in the bank. So far it has only happened once, and the earnings were meagre, but that doesn't rule out something better in the future. Of course I'd rather it was my version that was successful, but I'll take someone else's version of one of my songs being successful as a very good second best.

I'll just leave this here:

Go on then...

To me it ultimately looks as though the OP simply wants to justify a bout of GAS, masquerading as changing from a 5-string bass to a 4-string one, and possibly some additional GAS in the form of adding a de-tuner to the 4-string when it comes. Nothing wrong with that, we all indulge in a bit of GAS from time to time, that's mostly what Basschat is for. However don't ask us all to endorse your GAS. That's not what Basschat is for. If you want to change your bass, then just change your bass. Start a for sale thread for the old 5-string bass, move it on and be done with it. [/thread]

What does the software do? Is it an editor or a plug-in version of the hardware?

Personally I wouldn't be a band with anyone who thinks football is more important than music. I can understand paying work and family needing to take precedence, but watching or playing football is just another hobby (unless you are getting paid to play football) and when it comes to "hobbies" IMO being in a band comes first.

In recent years the band with the best sound it terms of being able to hear everything was the rockabilly band I supported who would start with the vocals and then build the rest of the band sound around that, drums being done last and only put through the PA if they weren't sufficiently loud enough acoustically. The results were astounding, and they seemed to take a lot less time to set up and sound check, maybe because they didn't spend ages sorting out a drum sound that ultimately might not be needed or would have to be modified once the whole band were playing. This method does require all the instruments especially the drums to be perfectly set up/tuned/damped and with instrument amplifier EQs already sorted for the band mix rather than sounding good at home, but if you can persuade your band members to do this you'll shave at least 1/3 of sound checking time and more if you are using your own PA.

Next for Hurtsfall is HRH Goth at the O2 Academy in Sheffield: Were playing on Friday 29th September on the main stage at 9.15 Full line up for the weekend is: Friday: Fleisch 22:30 Hurtsfall 21:15 Elkapath 20:10 Play/Dead 19:05 Saturday: Auger 22:40 Ashbury Heights 21:10 Vlad In Tears 19:50 The Arch 18:30 The Membranes 17:10 Alien Vampires 16:00 Gothzilla 14:50 Novus 13:45 Imogen Evans 13:00 The HRH Punk festival is on at the same time and I believe that some tickets will get you access to both events.

A typical bass rig doesn't reproduce the fundamental at anything like "full volume" for notes below the open A string. It doesn't need to as it's all harmonics and your brain fills in the gaps. Keyboards have the ability to go much lower than low B on a bass and despite the fact that the average keyboard amp is even less suited to reproducing very low frequencies they seem to manage well enough. Besides for me the PA does all the heavy lifting, and in the days when I did use a traditional bass rig most of the time it was at best a personal monitor and at worst a very large, heavy, and expensive stage prop. I've never had a problem with different numbers of strings. However from the outset I played lots of different instruments with varying numbers of strings and tunings. Perhaps if I had only ever played the bass guitar I might have for stuck with just four strings, but I don't have those blinkers.

Does this device come with a manual? I'm wondering if the power handling of the crossover is "peak" rather than RMS, or if it's presenting a load lower than 8Ω to the amp, both of which would probably mean that your mixer amp is overpowering the crossover.

If you prefer the 4-string then go for it. Personally I've never got on with down-tuning strings. They always feel too floppy (I'm the person who has a guitar with an extra heavy bottom string permanently set up just for drop D tuning). And I don't think I could go back, I'd been playing 4-string bass for less than ten years before I got my first 5-string and that is almost 35 years ago now. But I'm not you so do what you think is best.

It very much depends on what you play. I play 5-string in one band where I go all the way down to low B on a couple of songs and makes a handful of others easier to play. In the other band I play Bass VI (6-string tuned an octave down from the guitar) where I alternate bass and melody parts with the synth player. For me the extra strings very much earn their keep at the moment. On the other hand I've played in several bands where I could have done everything on a 2-string bass tuned E and A. I actually took my 1-string fretless bass to a rehearsal for the Dad Rock covers band once and found that the fact it was fretless was a bigger stumbling block to playing the bass lines than the fact it only had a single string. If you are comfortable playing the 5-string why change?

For all of these types of instruments, Cheesy Guitars is an invaluable source of information. Here's the page for the Kermona "Gibson" Bass.

I used to try a keep everything, posters, flyers, stage passes, reviews etc. but every time I moved or had a bit of clear out some of it would get inadvertently lost or chucked. I have managed to keep copies of all the physical releases for all my bands over the past 45 years. That's 13 compact cassettes, two 7" singles, one album on 12" vinyl, and 17 CDs. The best archive I have is for my 80s synth pop/rock band where we kept a scrap book, although it's at least one third record company rejection letters. Some of them are quite amusing like the cassette cover sent to ZTT returned with a "message" from FGTH scrawled on to it and an apologetic note from the label! Also we recorded nearly all our gigs, plus we had a friend who was a professional photographer who would shoot a roll of film (remember actual film?) each time we played. It still have a box full of contact sheets and negatives that I need to digitise. Unfortunately the best gig we played - on the main stage at Rock City - where he shot a whole roll of colour transparency film has disappeared. Even digital media has its disadvantages. I never bothered keeping physical copies of any of the posters and flyers I produced in the 90s because I had the original Quark XPress files for them. Of course I haven't used XPress for over 15 years now and can no longer access any of these. On the other hand thanks to Facebook and other social media I have almost 100GB saved of photos, radio broadcasts and on-line reviews for The Terrortones.

I did this in the mid 90s. Our singer quit the band the week before we were due to send the master tapes and artwork off to have our debut single pressed, as the band all had jobs with a decent amount of disposable income we decided we'd advertise for a replacement in NME and Melody Maker with a one-column display ad. Now if you think that there's some weirdos on JMB, that's nothing compared with the ones hoping for fame and fortune in a band that was obviously ambitious enough to advertise in the weekly "inkys"! I wish I'd kept all the letters/photos/tapes that we received as some of them were absolutely hilarious. On the other hand we did nearly end up with the daughter of a very famous rock musician as our singer (unfortunately despite the fact that she was great, she wasn't impressed with our music as she had been with the ad to want to join). In the end our replacement singer came from an ad placed in the local record shop...