BigRedX

I have a feeling you've asked this before and I answered in another thread, but here goes. For support gigs for originals bands you need to be talking to other bands and promoters. IME one of the easiest way to get a foot in the the door is to trade on your various band members past musical ventures. This has worked for me several times in the past when I've joined a new band and I have been able to use past contacts to get us gigs. The other thing is to be flexible in your availability. Follow the bands you like and venues putting on your genre of music on whatever social media platform(s) they use, you never know when a last-minute gig slot will open up. I've also got some pretty good support gigs simply because the band were prepared to allow the headliners to use our drum shells and stands and/or backline cabs. You will require dedication and perseverance and the ability to play a gig with maybe only 24 hours notice. Remember that every opportunity you have to turn down will get filled by another band who are more hungry than yours. Finally if all else fails, become your own promotor. Hire a small venue, and put on someone better known as headliners and your own band as support. Do this once a month, endnote only do you get gigs, but you can also build up an impressive gigging "CV" to use with other bands and promotors.

I've not been to this venue yet, but one of my bands has a gig coming up there at the end of September. We don't use any backline at all, similarly the band who have organised the gig and are headlining. However neither band has a drummer with an acoustic kit. Having said that I don't know any venue in Nottingham putting on originals bands gigs that does't have a sufficiently powerful PA to require the backline to do FoH duties.

Apart from one OBBM Jack lead lead that will only sit properly coiled, I have for the past 30+ years "coiled" my long leads by looping them in halves until they are at the right length to knot loosely in the middle. Despite this being supposedly terrible practice not a single one of these cables as failed during this time. IME, any other storage method results in a case/bag full of leads resembling photo 4 no matter how carefully I coil and clip them.

The problem is that most YouTube video are way too long and often the actual "information" occupies less of the time line then the intro, outro and requests to click the subscribe and notification buttons etc. I've just finished watching one that was over 8 minutes long explaining an obscure aspect of synth tuning and detuning, that could just as easily have been achieved in under 500 written words, and would not have involved having to watch some ineloquent ugly bloke with poor dress sense waffling pointlessly away most of the time along with poorly disguised product placement... If that written article had existed, I would have gladly read it instead, but it appeared that after 4 pages of Google search results, this video was going be the only source of getting the information I wanted.

I don't do click-bate videos, but I'm sure that they all sounded like bass guitars and all of them would be suitable for the majority of music that uses bass guitars.

How close are the specs of the new driver to that which would have been fitted originally?

On the Gibson version the "tone" switch appears to change the number of windings used on each coil of the Humbucking pickups thus changing the basic pickup sound, and one of the small switches is to set the output impedance (Les Paul was very keen on low impedance pickups/instruments even though no-one else appeared to be). However like all guitars and basses there will be a single sound that you like best and the controls will remain fixed in those positions until the instrument gets passed on to someone else.

Working Link Does anyone know how accurate the electronics in this are compared with the Gibson? @Bassassin? IME with copy instruments anything more complicated than standard volume and tone controls are either ignored or replaced with greatly simplified versions.

Even if I had a car I'd still get a taxi for myself and my gear for local gigs. The cost there and back is only slightly more than city centre parking for the evening. Plus taxi drivers don't have any qualms about blocking the street directly outside the venue while you unload your gear and you don't have the inconvenience of then having to find somewhere to park which will either be close but expensive or too far away to easily carry the gear. And it means I can have a couple more drinks after we have played. All benefits, no downsides.

Hurtsfall will be playing on Friday June 7th at the Victoria Inn, Derby with Chaos Bleak and Courtesan. We're on first so if you want to see us turn up early.

For the band where I play Bass VI, we'll do one of the songs that has both "bass" and "guitar" parts in it, so the PA engineer has a decent idea of how wide-ranging the sounds I use are going to be.

That's interesting I wasn't aware that there were different versions for guitar and bass. I've been using Hercules stands for about 20 years and the AGS ones (where the guitar or bass hands from the headstock) are all adjustable for height.

Usually the newest song, just so we can hear what it sounds like in the foldback as it will probably be different to how we are used to hearing it in the rehearsal room. Then we'll do a verse of the opening song which we are very familiar with so we know at least the first 3 minutes of the gig will sound decent.

Or anything that isn't perfectly symmetrical at the bottom. Hercules AGS stands for me.

If I was on a proper holiday, I would like to think that it was interesting enough for me to not bother with the internet for a week or two.

For me the important thing is that the audience enjoy it. I do plenty of gigs, so if as a band we do't play brilliantly at one, then if it's an actual problem and just not an "off night" we can fix it at rehearsal and then next gig is likely to be great. However most of the time for the audience the first impression is the one the counts - our next gig will probably be in a completely different part of the country - so if they didn't enjoy we'll probably not get given another chance. IME most audience members don't pickup on all the problems that musicians seem to obsess over when they play, so unless someone makes a mistake so bad that it causes the song to grind to a halt less than 60 seconds after it has begun, don't worry about it, carry on as if nothing happened and look like you are having fun (unless like me you play in a goth band, in which case carry on staring moodily at the audience). If the audience has had a good time, they are more likely to buy something of the merch table (which is where originals bands make most of their money) and when you do play another gig in that town they are likely to come back to see you and maybe bring some more friends. That's what counts.

I'm 62. I don't actually walk because I'm also responsible for bringing all the additional gear that is our "drummer" and "second synth player", but if I didn't have to bring that I'd just be taking my bass, Helix and a few leads which is an easy carry for the 20 minute walk into the city centre for rehearsals and local gigs.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC you said the bass sound was fine when you drove your IEMs direct bypassing the desk, so therefore AFAICS the problem looks like it is driver error by whoever is working the mixer. Download yourself a copy of the manual so that you can understand what you are being told when you ask to see the signal path from the bass guitar input on the desk to the output for your IEMs. I suspect that there is either a problem with the gain structure or you have additional processing being applied that is required for the FoH sound but is not needed for your monitor mix.

These days these is no reason to play in London with all the additional associated hassle unless you already have a decent following there who are guaranteed to turn out, or you are offered to chance to support someone well-known whose fans are also going to like your band.

Regarding the plastic/rubber on Hercules stands going sticky (and eventually breaking), this is a manufacturing defect and Hercules should replace any stands that exhibit these symptoms with new versions that don't have this problem. They replaced 4 for me some years back. IIRC their UK distributor is Strings & Things so get in touch with them.

Any Line6 Helix or HX device. IMO you don't need amp/cab sims. For most of my bass sounds I just have a compression, EQ and drive (plus delay and/or chorus if required) and then straight into the PA.

Unless you want a single switch option of having the sound of the V&T controls on full (from whatever position they are currently in) you can achieve this simply by having normal volume and tone controls and a switch that takes them completely out of the circuit and connects the "hot" lead from the pickup directly to the output jack. For this I'd use a DP switch and disconnect the V&T controls at both ends.

IIRC you can buy spare parts for everything that K&M make.

What are you trying to do? 1. Emulate the sound of having no volume or tone controls when the V&T pots are on full? or, 2. Emulate the sound of having the volume and tone controls on full but with no actual controls?

I still think you need to post some examples of what you consider to be clean. Lots of what I always thought were clean bass sounds turned out to have at least a degree of drive to them once all the other instruments had been stripped away. Thos isolated bass tracks on YouTube are certainly an ear opener.