ratman

I've played this song probably every other gig for almost 20 years. For sure, it gets tedious at times. But the crowds love it, and they can join in. And we're here to entertain them, aren't we? Love it or bored with it, it's a classic. Written in 1965 too, and I'll bet that punters will be singing along to it for years to come. I wish I'd penned it........

speechless...........

My gig on Saturday was a double disaster. I have done so many functions recently that are blighted by our old friend, the sound limiter. Saturday we turned up for a wedding near Warwick and we got told 85dB was the limit. I swear I can fart louder than that! As soon as I played the bass in sound check I realised that tonight the limiter was bass sensitive. Deep joy. Not. I actually managed to only trip it out a couple of times in the gig, I'm normally pretty good at riding the lights on those things so they don't trip out. The problems really started after I tripped it out in the second song of the first set. As nobody else in the band seemed too quick off the blocks to reset the limiter box, I jumped off the stage, stuck my finger through the wire mesh cage that was covering the limiter box to press the reset button. That was the moment I caught my second finger on the mesh and cut it, right across the pad. You know, the bit you use to pluck the string. Sonofabitch. I had to play 55 more minutes bleeding on the bass and in some discomfort, until our break. Thankfully the caterers sorted out some plasters for me. To add insult to injury, literally, my bass was so quiet on that gig, I may as well not have been there. That was one of those nights I couldn't wait to get out of the place, get home and have a couple of beers. Thankfully some of my neighbours were having an all night Halloween party. Crashed that, things got messy, forgot about limiters and sore fingers for a while. I'm looking forward to next weekends gigs. Hopefully in barns, miles from anybody, so the band can crank up, and do what we do best, at a decent volume. We'll see........ :-)

I currently use mine running through a loop pedal that has a wet/dry blend in it. I dial in about 40% dry bass, 60% wet, and it works a treat. I used to use a loop pedal that didn't have a wet/dry blend, but I had to balance the bass loss by running the filter pedal into a bass graphic pedal in the loop to get the bottom end back. I prefer my current set up as I keep a chunk of my natural tone, and let the filter effect sit on top of that. But that's just my taste.