jimmyb625

The only time we've played in Aberdeen, we had an onsite car park and crew to help with the load in/out. However, no one was there to see us and if we played again, we'd be lucky to fill the cafe at Torry Battery! 

2 minutes ago, Dankology said:

Weird! We were there last week and had a completely different room - the green room in the adjacent theatre.

Yeah, we've had that one as well. I think it depends what's going on in the theatre.

Yes, it has a belt clip (wire) on it.

43 minutes ago, sandy_r said:

 

Just to clarify (now that we can see colour coding of your cable) - my question was "Presumably you've tried your cable using say, the red plug as input to your HX (with black in the HX output), as well as trying the black as input to the HX (with the red in the HX output)"?

 

This.

It's fairly common for the red cable to be the "right" side, which corresponds to the "ring", which (if I'm looking at the right pocket amp) is the return. This means, connect the red jack to the output of your HX. 

The black cable should be the tip, so connect that to the HX input.

The single jack is known as TRS - tip, ring, sleeve.

3 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

It might be because the P1 is passive.
I’ve got a P1 and P2, and there seems to be quite a difference between the two sonically. 
 

The P1 is active, it's the PM1 that's passive.

37 minutes ago, ossyrocks said:

 

I could write quite a long piece about this, but it's all out there to see now.
I knew Justin quite well, and his Dad Rick. I used to deal with them quite a bit in the 90's and early 2000's. Mostly old amps, amp components and speakers. Only later did the full extent of their deceit come to light. They actually carried out/arranged robberies (the one in Italy was huge), they faked gear on an industrial scale, Dumble amps, plexi Marshalls, custom colour Fenders, Korina Gibsons, it must have run into £millions. There was a fake Marshall factory, with all the head cabinets out in the sunshine fading and being kicked about to relic them. There was even a Chip Shop Salt Shaker with vintage dust in it to shake dust inside the cabs.

They also managed to do a very good job of signing Harry Joyce's name on a load of HiWatts...

An evening out in Chester with Fine Lines, playing at Telford's Warehouse.

Almost had a major disaster, as I went on stage without my hat, fortunately our eagle-eyed sometime tour manager noticed it. Positioning himself at the side of the stage with said head-gear, I was able to wander over allowing him to return it to its rightful location. It makes using a wireless all the more worthwhile!

I was really pleased with how we played and we didn't get bottled off, which is always nice.

Had a very pleasant brief chat with @lurksalot of the parish, who kindly turned up to support us.

Obligatory photo's below.

*edit to add, my jeans aren't too long, my legs are too short!

2 hours ago, lurksalot said:

Finelines at Telfords this evening with our @jimmyb625 , tight as a tight thing and a great selection of material .wouldn’t know what genre to pin it in as they played ballads and some superb rockin tunes.

I’m not sure if the gigs don’t pay well (being a 7 piece to share the £250) or radio doesn’t pay that well as the drummer has to work in the morning 😉

enjoyed the evening , but had to rush as Mrs Lurks was passing by in her new car , result .

 

Lovely to meet you and thanks so much for the kind words.

LD. I had a damaged antenna cable on an IEM belt pack. I wrote to them and asked if there was a replacement part, or if I had to send it to them for a factory repair. "No can do" came the response, with the suggestion that I pay £150 or so for a new pack. Ebay provided a replacement for £5 and it took less than 30 minutes to repair.

Where's the village? I feel this could be the rehearsal venue of choice from now on.

1 hour ago, police squad said:

interesting mate, thanks. Can this be done with an Allen & Heath sq20 I wonder. If I change desk it will be to the SQ20

Allen & Heath do have a similar system, albeit more expensive. Do you mean the CQ20? That doesn't have it as far as I can tell. The QU-SB does, although they're more expensive and (imho) will probably end up being phased out fairly soon

23 minutes ago, police squad said:

can you explain please?

It's basically a way of networking audio from the mixer. It allows you to use a unit (Powerplay) which will give you a custom mix, independent of any aux mixes you'd use from the desk.

28 minutes ago, BillyBass said:

Although I work for myself, technically, I’m the director of a company and, therefore, an employee.  So, if I create a new policy that any employee who works for 13 years (I incorporated 13 years ago) gets a new bass, that would, correct me if I’m wrong, enable me to acquire a new bass but still keep my 2024 gear abstinence intact.

 

if you disagree, it’s solicitors at dawn!

Your honour, I direct the court's attention to this post on the Internet, where the defendant clearly expresses the manner in which he attempts to circumvent the rules.

31 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

4 of use do use Mixing station for our personal mixes, but i find i still get asked to put more in/out of their mixes. I have my iPad sitting on my keyboard and it seems easier for me to do it over them having to get other phones out and reconnect etc. 

I tried to get my lot to sort their own mixes out, turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.

This Friday, we'll be playing at Telford's Warehouse in Chester. First one of the year for us, so I'm looking forward to getting out there again.

3 hours ago, cheddatom said:

We drove from Stoke to Margate on Saturday. 5 hours with a couple of stops. Olby's Soul Cafe is a brilliant venue! Great PA and the engineer was brilliant too. Unfortunately the choice of some unknown band from Stoke to headline a night in Margate didn't work out so well. The old story of a local support band bringing most of the crowd, then taking them with them after the set. All that way, writing off two full days, to play to less than 50 people... still, at least we got paid and had a laugh

Sorry to hear that. We have exactly the same problem. We can get a fairly decent crowd locally, but outside of our "area" we're pretty much unknown.

Still, at least those 50 people will have enjoyed it and hopefully will get some interest coming your way in future.

10 minutes ago, lozkerr said:

I do that. "I'm the Sabotagers' bassist" sounds way cooler than "I'm a data engineer in genomic research."

Yep, "I'm the bass player in Fine Lines and I do the tech for Mark Radcliffe"

Far better than saying I'm an engineer.

No, a digital stage box would be something like a Behringer XR18, or an Allen & Heath QU-SB.

An hour seems like a long time to set up for a 5 piece.

Talk to your teacher and tell them what you're thinking.

Theory is a useful tool, but there may be other ways they can get you to learn it, maybe by showing you how it relates to bass lines that have been put into songs?

You're probably making more progress than you realise, it's hard to be objective as your skills increase. Perhaps try recording yourself and then going back to the recording after a month or so, so you can monitor how you've changed as a player.

I'd say you also need to think of what it is you want to do. Is there a particular style of music you like? Do you want to learn to play that style, or something completely different, just to broaden your abilities?

33 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

David was a lovely man, he’d ran the company successfully since the mid 70’s, he took more of a back seat as he was married to the queens cousin/niece (someone royal) and took a role as some sort of consort to the royal family. Yes…it was a bizarre thing.

 

He originally ran it as an organ/piano business…and as time progressed, guitars/drums/hi tech stuff.

 

They took on a guy who had no clue about music at all - and it started failing.

 

The online business should’ve been grown rather than trying to beat it with more shops.

 

Your online game has to be strong these days, they fumbled that in the mid 00’s and it went belly up from there on in.

 

I will always stand by David though - an imposing, old school guy - if he liked you, you were golden.

 

My bosses in 2014 couldn’t be bothered passing a reference on.

 

I messaged him to ask him to prod them into sending it and within an hour, a glowing reference full of detail from him. He messaged soon after that saying “best wishes, thanks for everything you’ve done for my company - sorry for the short reference, I’m on holiday at the moment, if they need anything else - have them call me next week”.

 

I later heard how he was very upset when selling 40 years worth of hard work.

 

He was in his 70’s then…

 

 

Excellent, that's changed my perception, thank you. 

Yes, he was awarded the title Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire I think, whatever that is. 

Nice! We've had some reviews where they didn't even get my name right and used the old bass player's name.

Just now, Bluewine said:

She puts a large fan in front of herself to blow her hair around.

 

Does the fan have to stand there all night? What happens if they need to use the bathroom, or get a drink from the bar?

1 hour ago, AndyTravis said:

They’ve been “going bust” for years - I worked for a chain until 2014, we nearly went bust a few times while I worked there.

 

We had a a turnover of about £4m in my shop for 7/8 years which started to drop off rapidly.

 

They took on some managing director to turn around the fortunes of the company - an “expert in retailing” not a musician who knew business…that was a HUGE error. Things proceeded downward.

 

They set up a side company to combat the online scalpers, the punters knew what the craic was and would (rightfully) get us to match our own prices off the discount site…absolutely mental.

 

They invested heavily in own brand budget stuff, some was excellent for the money, some was absolute garbage - the failure rate on the digital pianos for example was 40% - meaning after all the effort, they would’ve been better off investing that cash in bulk kawai/Casio/Yamaha deals where we would’ve had recourse with warranty support…instead, it all went to the skip.

 

After I left, the company went into the hands of an asset management company who sold the headquarters building and a warehouse they owned.

 

Big accounts were left unpaid, Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Roland…

 

they then closed 4 out of 12 shops, bit by bit each shop closed, think they had 4 by 2019.

 

Then at the last bell, a local musician/shop owner bought what was left - the “Iceberg” had already hit and there was no way to turn it around. 
 

Online orders unfulfilled, stock was old, arriving damaged with no way to replace as accounts with companies were locked/closed/on hold.

 

The profit margins were shocking, Fender/Roland was 10-15%
 

Gibson was 35% if sold at “street price” but you had to spend/order £50k a month to get that mark up - they would take that £50k a month from the company even if we didn’t order - they would send whatever they had if we didn’t specify. And if we didn’t sell, we had a massive back stock of stuff we had to put in “sale” at 10-15% margin thus rendering the big spend pointless…the 120th anniversary models did not sell well at all (they put a banner at the 12th fret on all models which nobody seemed to want) we sold every piece at a loss…eventually.

 

I’m not surprised music retailers (big ones) are dying off.

 

I went to look at a job in PMT and I think the starting wage was £14.5k plus commission, so you’re never going to retain good staff.

 

I’d been on £15k plus commission ten years previously at the other shop, I’d finished on considerably more.

 

i think specialised retail will survive in pockets, but it’s a risk I’d not be willing to take - I think the target audience is dwindling as guitar-based music is not at the forefront.

 

A good while ago, I was offered the GBBL business - I’m in no position to become a business of any sort (big mortgage, young family)…the romance was definitely there, but realistically the prospect instantly scared me half to death.

 

“How do you make a small fortune in the MI retail industry?”

 

”start with a huge fortune”

 

Apologies for the essay…

 

 

 

 

Yeah, the way they operated was almost an exact lesson in things not to do.

I think they expanded too far and certainly took on premises which weren't the best choices. The Manchester store looked great, but I'd imagine the rent was ridiculous. When they sold the Warrington store (which I think they owned outright) you knew they were finished.

I used to go into the Altrincham store every week, after the kids had piano lessons and we bought their first keyboard and then digital piano from there, plus a clavinova for the theatre. I think I also bought child no. 2's 3/4 scale Yamaha classical guitar from there as well, as well as a Farida acoustic. It was a real shame when it eventually closed.

Didn't the MD get given an O.B.E or something similar? I remember seeing an interview with him at some point that made him out to be a retail expert, in which he stated he had no interest at all in instruments. A great choice...

On 27/12/2007 at 15:07, Noisyjon said:

Since March 2015 this now includes the ranges of 823 - 832 MHz and (excluding Northern Ireland) 1785 - 1805 MHz.

It's a really useful reference source, thank you.

It might be worth highlighting the above paragraph, as the Ofcom website is really confusing when it comes to this bit.

Some channel 70 gear has these frequencies available and it's easy for people to fall into the trap of using them without having the licence.

2 hours ago, peteb said:

 

Daryl, the Skegness reference is a bit of a joke as it is a rather grim resort on the North Sea that most people would rather avoid (unless they're really broke)! It's not like going on holiday to Spain for a week in the sun. 

 

There did used to be a big blues / rock festival at a holiday camp in Skegness until very recently. It was always about this time of year. I played it once - it was a really good event...! 

 

Oh, and happy 70th birthday Daryl - enjoy your new venerable status and great that you're still out there... 

 

Yeah, Butlins pulled both the Blues/Rock and the Folk festivals, stating they weren't viable anymore.