jimmyb625

If you look at the number of posts that go out about bands having gear lifted, either from the venue, or the tour bus/van, it makes sense not to take ultra-expensive/rare instruments out on the road.

We're touring in October and November and even though I'm planning on keeping my bass with me, there's no way I'm thinking of taking my '73 P-bass. I'll use my main Warwick Sklar rockbass, but even then, I'll be watching it like a hawk.

Edit to add: I'm not a pro bassist by any description

Like others have said, lynx, design-a-cable or DIY 

Not strictly my gig, but the band I tech for played at Krankenhaus festival in the Lake District today, which is organised by the excellent Sea Power.

A really friendly, small festival, with acts today including Steve Davis (yes, that one) and Daniel Wakeford from Channels 4's "The Undateables"

https://www.krankenhausfestival.com/lineup/

Another Orchid fan here. If you get the classic, you can always power it from a 9v battery if phantom power isn't available.

I use a Sontronics Solo for our female singer, which is a great mic for the price and the people there are really friendly and helpful. It was designed to be run flat on a desk, so as a plug and go, it's a good choice.

The sennheiser e935 (or e945 if you want a super cardiod) as mentioned by others is also a great choice, as is the new (and fairly pricey) 435. For slightly less money, the 835/845 versions are also a good option.

For higher-register male vocal (think David Gilmour) the AKG D7 is a good choice, but it is quite sensitive, so needs careful eq'ing of any stage monitors.

2 hours ago, musicbassman said:

Just returned from an afternoon gig with a decent 7 piece south coast band who were playing outdoors at the New Forest Pride Festival.

Considering the train strike, event was well attended and a good atmosphere.

Unfortunately the band were struggling with a rather poor PA system and a soundman who gave the distinct impression that he’d rather not have been there at all. Only 3 monitors instead of the 6 requested, and no DI for the bass available, (‘sorry mate, it’s broken’) so I had to crank my Vanderkley/Hartke rig way up for the bass to be heard, which in turn meant that it was way too loud on stage. And as there were no monitors for bass player, drummer or keyboards, the backline had a real job trying to hear what was going on.

Apparently it sounded good out front, but on stage it was a real struggle. I was trying to lip read the singer to see what she was singing.

Remember guys, you can submit a technical requirements sheet for a gig to the stage manager, but when you arrive at the gig and find the PA hire company haven’t brought the right gear or some of it is broken it’s a bit late to do much about it.

 

It'a still a win, you got out there, overcame the struggles and played a good gig to people that enjoyed it.

Stick a cheap DI (Orchid electronics is my choice) in your bag and you're sorted for the future.

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

i used to always prefer on thedrummers RHS. It allowed me to easily glance at my neck while still looking at bandmates on stage whereas i am now on the LHS of the drummer and cant glance at the neck and left hand positioning without it being obvious. 

I guess that's a good thing 😂

Dave

I'm on the drummers left, as he tends to look at the snare/hi-hat and can't turn right! 🤣

I tend to look at the neck a fair bit, but no-one in the audience ever looks at me, so that's not a problem. 

You could try Pete Cornish, but it won't be cheap.

1 hour ago, DaytonaRik said:

 

Once you've heard a stereo IEM feed you will NEVER, and I mean NEVER want to go back to a mono feed.  Instead of struggling to hear things that are sonically similarly (e.g. multiple guitars) but stacked on top of one another, everything just becomes so clear in its own 'on stage' paned position in a stereo mix.  If you thought IEMs were an eye opener, stereo IEMs are from another dimension!

 

One word of caution though, don't get too reliant on a stereo mix.

It's great if you're taking your own desk, but at all of the festivals or gigs we've done (without our own desk) they haven't been able to provide stereo feeds.

An afternoon well spent at the Cropredy Fringe Festival. It was hot, so hot that the majority of the audience didn't venture out from the safety of the shelter onto the grassed area in front of the stage. It was a little off-putting at first, but we could just about hear the applause and the feedback we got after we played was all positive.

On reflection, the decision to wear a hat wasn't one of the best I've ever made, but hey, we suffer for our art!!

We've got a few on the way:

Cropredy Fringe - 11th August

Wigan Digger's Festival - 10th September

Telford's Warehouse, Chester - 30th September

Barnoldswick Arts Centre - 11th December

Plus, we're supporting Kiefer Sutherland on his UK tour (I may have mentioned this before 🤣)

Here's my 2 (taken at the super-secret underground bunker, my house isn't quite this messy).

The short-scale is really nice, very light and plays really well straight out of the box. The fretless appears to be made from depleted uranium, as it's ridiculously heavy. Despite the weight, it plays really well and I used it on one song for our last album.

I bought the short-scale on a whim, one of the downsides of looking on this forum after a drink or two 🤣. I might give it a run out on a gig next week, as we may have limited cargo space in the car, but we'll see.

A question about short-scales, specifically the Harley Benton p-bass version. Are the pickups full-size, or are they scaled down as well?

Asking for a friend, who definitely didn't just order one, despite having not the slightest need for it... 

45 minutes ago, Mickeyboro said:

I have one but run it flat. Please tell, simply, which buttons are worth bothering with!🙏

The power button?

I'm not sure if this counts, as you can pretty much only see the back of my head...

My production values are re-assuringly pants!

13 minutes ago, Bunion said:

Looks like a Warwick star bass or a master built sklar

17 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Curious what bass you are using there @jimmyb625. ?

Dave

It's actually the Warwick Rockbass version of the Sklar model:

https://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_artist_line_sklarbass_i_vsth.htm

I really like it, it's been my main bass for the 2 years I've had it and I've not even been tempted to use anything else. I'd really like the team or masterbuilt version, but they are spendy, especially the masterbuilt one. I keep trying to tell Warwick that they need to lend me one, for when we tour with Kiefer Sutherland later in the year, but they seem to have my emails marked as "spam"... 🤣

A fun day yesterday at CarFest North, after 2 years of cancellations.

We played on the Wigwam stage, which was fortunate, as that one was built, unlike the main stage, where they had a few issues, meaning they ran very late and Richard Ashcroft ended up not playing. 

On 13/07/2022 at 20:42, mrtcat said:

 

You can't play on when there's a fight happening at a wedding. It just wouldn't happen. If a crowd gets violent the band has to stop playing altogether end of.

How kind of them! 🤬

5 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

But... but... but... Isn't that how Democracy is supposed to work..? Folk vote for what they want, or that they believe in, and the Majority get what they voted for..? 

Hmmm

26 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I have done a few gigs where I think the audience would have been happier with the DJ, but this was one of the first where i really would have been happier with the DJ too!

 

To be fair, the DJs were very helpful and friendly!

We had one, a birthday party at the start of the year. Birthday bloke is a really big fan and loved it, but 60% or so of the rest weren't really interested and spent the time chatting loudly, whilst standing in front of us.

Still, free beer and close enough to walk home from!

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Still seems a lot less stress than most of us have to deal with.

Not sure I agree with your statement. Sure, he won't have to deal with thinking about paying the mortgage, but he has an amount of public scrutiny applied to his life that I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with.

5 hours ago, Jack said:

I have to preface this story by saying that everywhere we play gets a set of posters a week or so before the gig as well as phone call 24-48 hours before to double check and confirm everything.

 

I get there first, see a bartender, "Hi I'm Jack I'm with the band, where's the stage? What door's best? etc etc" So I start loading in. Guitarist joins me, as does singer and drummer, everything is now in the bar. The first thing to go up is our backdrop so we put that up and then start setting up everything else. After clocking the backdrop said bartender nervously comes across and asks if that's our band name, we say it is. She says that's not the name of the band that's booked tonight. Blank looks all round, lots of fervently checking diaries, etc. Eventually we find the facebook messenger between our singer and the bar manager, which goes something like this.

That's it. No response from the bar. He's made us drive all the way down there after work to a venue that never bloody confirmed in the first place. Idiot.

 

Does that count as a bad gig? It wasn't technically a gig, so maybe it's not the worst gig I've ever played. It's certainly the worst attempted gig I've ever played. We couldn't even demand any kind of payment (from the bar at least) as it's clearly our singer's mistake. I wonder why the bar didn't say something when they got the posters or the phone call, maybe whomever dealt with those wasn't the one booking bands.

 

Oh well, here's hoping tonight is better.

That's awful, but what's even more awful is that I actually laughed.

I'm sorry, I'm a terrible person. Hopefully it will be something you can laugh about in the future.

4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

 

Maybe, The Kemper is complicated and they're not cheap. $1,700.00

 

Blue

Can you try out his first, to see if you like it? Not at a gig, as that might be a little tricky though!! 

2 hours ago, Muzz said:

This ^ - see my 'Fun Lovin Criminals at Manchester Cathedral' post earlier...

The band I tech for supported Turin Breaks there. According to one of the engineers who provided the main rig, there's about 2 seconds of natural reverb decay in there!

I was just glad we didn't try to run additional stage monitors for our bit, but even then I've never run a mix so dry.