Huge Hands

Sounds to me like someone who is desperate to join an Alt-Rock band, but has not seen many such ads, so is pushing you to see if you'll bend to his way of thinking. I can't imagine there are hundreds of Alt-Rock bands in his area waiting for a guitarist to climb on the tour bus?

I was just too young for most of OGWT, but having been bought the DVD box set, it is apparent to me that a lot of bands mimed on OGWT too. Perhaps the singer sang live, but the rest of the band mimed in a lot of cases?

I agree to the profanity filter to make the forum more inclusive to budding impressionable teenagers, but I also doff my cap in admiration to whomever edits the filter. The one that replaces the current hot topic involving cold air precipitation when describing someone who has less hardened views than you always makes me laugh. I think that was Dad....

Just a thought from me - when this started, were you taking meds for anything else? I myself have had to quit my bands due to illness in the last year and have been on a myriad of painkillers and anti-inflammatories. I have found that whenever I take Naproxen for a length of time (a stronger Ibuprofen type drug) I get really sore ankles and wrists, and I was tested for arthritis til I twigged what it was. I just wonder if it could be a reaction to another drug? Long shot, but worth a thought....? Good luck with getting yourself sorted.

I was bought that timber kit as a present. When I read the instructions, they seemed to be saying there was a lot of fettling involved with sanding and glueing to get it all to fit together. Mine is still in the box...

I got a pedal made up to my spec by BrightOnion for this very task, but as HJ said, it had no gain controls, so balancing the two was a pain. At the time I went for a Radial Tonebone Bassbone V2 which was a couple of hundred notes, but worth it for me - I don't think the model HJ has was available then, or I missed it!

Wikipedia says Bruce is 63, so maybe she meant a younger Bruce Willis....

As already alluded to, for me the greatest gigs are the ones with guaranteed parking that is easy to load in from and nowhere near where anyone is likely to lean on my car/be sick on it/urinate up the side of it/spit on it/key it. The best gigs have always been the ones where I'm not worrying about my car as I'm much more relaxed. Trying to squeeze on the end of a row and not sure if slightly overhanging the double yellow lines with your bumper will get you a ticket in Soho will guarantee a bad night for me!

Hi Torby, I wouldn't worry too much yet, I recently sold my trusty 14 year old MAG300 2x10 combo on here about a year ago and when it arrived, the buyer said it was dead. This had never happened to me before. Thankfully he was willing to open it up and found an internal spade connector on the mains side had fallen off in transit. It might be something as simple as that being loose. I know it is not what you want in a new cab, but I'm sure Ashdown will sort you out. If it's any consolation, I paid a lot more than that each for my two "boutique" Barefaced cabs and have no end of issues with the Tolex peeling, and Alex just keeps fobbing me off.....

The Joint - near Kings Cross were good, but higher end in terms of price. Borough Studios on Borough High street were cheap but tiny/airless. They've just had a re-furb and I haven't been in since, so can't comment on that. They were the two my bands used, I know there are several more!

I don't know what is original and not, but I bought mine about December 2015 second hand from BC and I think the seller said it was 6 months old. Lots of people have whinged since then about them being the "worst part" etc. As I said earlier, I agree they look a bit tin-pot, but I've never had any troubles with mine. Love my V7!

This is why I don't get why people moan on about the tuners. I get that they don't necessarily "feel" sturdy, but my V7 5 string is kept in a gig bag and often still comes out, after being in the car, still pretty much perfectly in tune. I'm not saying you'd expect a guitar to do this, but surely the tuners must be pretty solid if the tuning is not going out after being slung between gig/car/house/car/gig. I've owned various basses and guitars over the years and never had one be as close as this one each time you come to tune it.

About 4-5 years ago on a normal week day I jumped on the train between London Bridge and Charing Cross to travel between work buildings. As the train pulled into the platform, Jeff was waiting to get on at the door I was getting off, I assume he was heading back out to Kent. I spent a short while waiting for the train to stop and for the doors to open thinking "I know him from somewhere - who is it.....?" I twigged it was JB as the doors opened. As I stepped down in front of him, the best I could muster was to doff my imaginary cap at him and say "Mr Beck". I am rubbish with celebs - especially chalky fingered whammy bending ones....

Some of what he said was valid, but to say that "I'm going to stubbornly play with a stack of cabs at full pelt and you have to make the PA louder to fit around me" smacks of a poor starting point for any sound engineer.

There is no correct way, I don't think. I did a BSc(Hons) in audio tech (more studio, not live) and I would say having a bit of tech knowledge of what is actually going on helped me understand why I was choosing to turn the knobs I was turning. However, IIRC there were people on that course that were really audio savvy but couldn't mix a band to save their life. I also met really good engineers who had never had any formal training. I guess its a bit like bass players who have picked it up themselves versus those with lots of theory training. On paper you would presume the latter would be the better musician, but in practice, it isn't always the case. In my experience as a FOH technician (or should that be Bachelor of Science? ) you rarely get remembered or thanked for your good gigs, just the bad ones....

I've had many gigs where I've mic'd up guitar cabs and then had them turned off FOH - and the guitar is still too loud.... I'm not defending all sound engineers. It would agree is a bit of a dark art, and I would (perhaps arrogantly) say I understand enough to be in the fairly good to good engineer group. There are a lot of chancers out there that have no idea and just blindly fiddle with knobs without understanding or hearing what they are doing.

If only life was that simple. You're talking about one guy/girl in a venue who has probably never met the band before v 3-6 mates who can't even address volume issues with themselves, let alone listen to a total stranger. You will get comments like "all sound engineers are @resholes" but you have to be quite strong, direct and thick skinned to do it, otherwise soundchecks turn into chaos while guitarists widdle for 2 hours and lead vocalists chat up the barmaid. - and you might still have another 3 bands to check. I have lost count of the times I have pleaded with guitarists to turn down, to think of the gig, but they start staring into space and continue ragging their rig because it is their sound. I'm only glad I never had to do FOH for Jimi Hendrix! I used to have few tricks up my sleeve too, like making monitors feedback, turning monitors off etc, but only in extreme cases of someone being an @rsehole themselves. Ultimately, stupid games like that only affect the gig, and the man with the mic has the ultimate power of being able to slag you off mid gig, whether you deserve it or not. What we all have to remember is sound is subjective. What sounds better to me might be totally worse to others. This is why bigger bands tend to find engineers they agree with and stick with them/take them on tour. Not a luxury most of us get.

Sometimes though (not saying in your case as I don't know the facts) you have a small venue with a nice PA but then the bass player turns up with an 8x12 and/or the guitarist has a Marshall stack on 11 and/or the drummer only knows to hit to a point where he breaks 2 pairs of sticks in a song. In those cases, the PA system that is probably perfectly suited to the venue becomes redundant, and people start moaning at the engineer (who is also now pretty redundant) that they can't hear the vocals over the racket. I get that people have "their sound" but there always needs to be a compromise on both sides to make the gig work. Having said that, rightly or wrongly, the profession tends to standardise with setting up the drums first, starting with the kick drum. I have seen so many poor engineers spend half an hour setting up the kick drum to the point where the PA is going into clip, then as they're running short on time, try and quickly squeeze the rest into the mix without backing the kick drum off when the PA is already maxxed out.

There are some sound engineers that are experts, and there are a lot that don't have a clue what they're doing. In my experience of doing FOH engineering, there could be a couple of reasons for this: The venue has a "sweet spot" where the engineer is, but you're stood near subs so don't get a proper representation of the mix. The touring engineer has a stored mix that he/she should be tweaking to suit the venue, but hasn't for whatever reason The engineer is incompetent... I know that when I did it, I was based in a venue with an underpowered PA. When we eventually got some budget to put a decent PA in there, it did take a little while to adjust to not just want to blow the roof off with my new sub power.... My complaints were more around bass than kick drum though...

Are you always using the same amp? You say you've tried it in different places, but don't mention if the same amp was with it? Perhaps try it plugged into a different amp, or borrow a mate's bass and try that in your amp, see which part of the chain is causing the issue?

Interesting kit/kick drum/pedal layout. I wonder how that helps him. Nothing wrong with it, if that's his choice, just interested....

I think a lot of this is to do with some players being extremely powerful and the collective might of such a big ensemble. Many viola and similar players probably start out in small quartets and then don't change their methods when they join huge ensembles. I play electric bass in a wind and brass concert band. Even though the trombone is known as one of the loudest acoustic instruments, we have one trombone player who seems to always be able to get painfully loud without trying. He is famed for it in a joking way in the band and seems to be proud of it but I wouldn't want to sit in front of him. Even when he's not there, the levels of the whole band playing ff can get silly - I can end up having to crank my amp quite loud, even though I'm the only amplified instrument. Funnily enough the only people I see wearing ear protection are the drummer who hits hard and the Bari sax player who only has one dynamic - almost as loud as the trombone player... I also remember playing trombone at school myself and remember our section being a bit arrogant about how loud we could play - there was one lad in particular who loved to run up behind other players and blast a note to startle them - if we kids knew what we know now, he'd have had multiple court cases against him!

Ok, so I'm going to say this with no proof, other than a feeling... I have a B1 Xon on my main pedal board, which only ever gets dusted off on big gigs which I don't do that often. When I have used it, I tried to use it as volume pedal, so my custom patch has all effects/dynamics off, but it constantly sits on in the loop with only the ability to do volume. I have always felt that even with all settings set as flat as possible, the B1 feels like it is adding a limiter/compression to the signal path. I had a Tonebone Bassbone feeding it which would switch between passive/active basses or bass/EUB. I was sure I could feel it to various levels on all basses. I figured I was causing it by poor gain structure somewhere in my signal chain which would overdrive something, but I have never managed to get to the bottom of it. It's harder to spot in different scenarios (room size, headphones etc). and it could just be me being paranoid. I'm just wondering if the Zoom circuitry could be more prone to go into saturation somewhere along the line, which is more noticeable on your higher input active basses?

Hi Stew, I had a similar dilemma few years ago but wanted an FX loop too, so went for the Radial Tonebone Bassbone V2. Was a fair bit of cash, but it was good for me. Word of caution, I don't know if the newer models like the one above are different, but the older Radial pedals like mine aren't compatible with a standard 9v pedalboard supply, so you end up having to plug the supplied adaptor into a 13A socket. Wasn't a deal breaker for me, but may be for you. Yours, HH (also Stew). EDIT: OK, I just looked, and it looks like it is 9V.....

That was my first thought. My boy is 8 and only on his 5th drum lesson. I predict a very long and painful road to get anywhere near any grade standard, bless him