Huge Hands

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='233198' date='Jul 5 2008, 04:03 PM']Fold it inside out and stick in on the washing line for a few days.[/quote] Erm, I assume you mean the gigbag and not the guitar!

Sorry, put this in the wrong forum. I can't see how to change it. Can the mods help?

This week, I have just purchased, for cheap, a second hand Squier Standard Precision V. My intention is to eventually mod it up and put new pickups/hardware on etc. I was also thinking of painting it, but the metallic green finish and white pickguard are really growing on me. However it stinks! The guy I bought it from, although seemingly very nice, appeared to not be a regular washer, and I think he also smokes as well. "When I was a lad" we called his type "Crusties", but I assume that is not a politically correct term, and I apologise if I have upset anyone with that comment. I was just trying to put a picture in your heads. I am left with a bass, gigbag and strap that all stink of nicotine and unwashed dreadlocks. I can throw the strap away, but I'd like to keep the gigbag as it's not a bad one (for free). I have been spraying it with Febreeze, but now I am left with a gigbag that stinks of nicotine, unwashed dreadlocks and stale air freshener. As it is in the "little room", I don't think Mrs HH has noticed the smell yet, so I haven't been ordered to get rid of it. Does anyone have any ideas of how to get rid of the smell? It's really getting up my nose an p***ing me off!!!!

[quote name='chris_b' post='228674' date='Jun 28 2008, 06:44 PM']I had this situation....soundman (with big ego); "I always use a DI box. I get a better sound"! Well... It's [b]my[/b] sound not his and everyone else gets a great sound out of the back of the amp so in my opinion it's not his choice. I prevailed! Mostly I use 2 channels, a DI from the amp and a mike in front of the cab.[/quote] Chris - I assume you're taking about studio recording here? Believe me, in a big venue with a large PA, tightly packed stage with thundering drummers, vocalists insisting on loud monitors and suchlike, the last thing a soundman wants to do is mic a bass cab if he can help it. As the previous poster said, you just get way to much spill, it adds to feedback rumbles and problems (and the soundman's headache). Being in a band is about working together with your "team" and making sure you all mix in well together, including not insisting on something that may b****r up your gig. I wish my band understood that, especially in regards to level of backline - we'd all have our hearing intact! By all means insist on your own sound, but work with the soundman to get it. Some will be @rseholes and refuse to be accomodating whatsoever, that's just one of those things we have to deal with. Some will be happy to help as long as it's not going to cause major problems that neither of you have much chance of controlling.

I'd try tracing the cables to both drivers inside the cab. Hopefully, at some point, there will be a connector which means you can swap the feed between each driver with out having to use a soldering iron. Feed the signal intended for one into the other and vice versa, and see if the problem moves. If not, then there's likely to be a problem wih the driver or the bit of cable up to the swap. What you described does sound like a knackered driver - does it move with the same amount of resistance to your push than the working one? It could be a faulty connection between the voice coil and the cable terminals, which you could try and freshen with a soldering iron. Otherwise it's probably a new driver or re-cone required. All the best with it.

[quote name='misrule' post='226139' date='Jun 24 2008, 07:31 PM']That's fair enough -- he's the famous one. What's his singing like? Cheers Mark[/quote] Erm, I don't really want to comment too much on that really. He held a note well, was in tune, but I don't think he'll be worrying Amy any time soon. He sang "That's Life" and "I'm in the Mood for Love" while struggling to read the words off a sheet on the table (he didn't have his "readers" with him). He seemed like a thoroughly nice bloke so don't want to appear to slag him off. Fair dos to him for having a go.

Got a scan of the picture from the paper today (attached). If you look hard enough, you can just see my knee in the bottom left of the picture. Now that has to be the worst claim to fame ever! Remember, if we did get famous through this, you heard it here first!!! I wouldn't hold your breath.....

Assuming it's all legit, as far as I understand it, the early ones with those headstock decals are very desirable. I imagine that with such a low serial number, it will only help too. However, that is all academic if you love it and don't want to get rid of it. Mine has the large Squier logo but still reasonably low serial number. It has a tort pickguard. It is definitely not, nor will it ever be for sale, unless I fall on some seriously hard times! Enjoy it.

Thanks! I've sent the link and number to our singer and guitarist who are better sweet talkers than me!

[quote name='misrule' post='225273' date='Jun 23 2008, 07:17 PM']It might have gone straight to their website without troubling the paper.[/quote] Thanks Mark. I assume it was the web copy of tonight's paper I was reading. Looks like the centre pages, part of the "London Buzz" section.

Oh well, we were all excited for a while.... There we were, playing a regular monthly slot in Jazz After Dark in Soho on Saturday night, when Mitch Winehouse, father of Amy came in. After he and his partner appeared to like our first set, he got up and sang a couple of tunes with us. As Pete Doherty and Amy often get in the venue (the venue owners are very proud of this), there just "happened" to be a member of "the paparrazzi" there who took some photos. I think it might have been a set-up, but being the dopey bass player, and not paying any attention, I didn't hear or find out what the true story was. We were told this photographer's usual paper was the free LondonPaper that comes out every afternoon. I have just found the small photograph of it in the e-copy on their website and guess what.... A body shot of him and no mention of us at all in the photo comment. I think my right knee may be in shot (I was sitting on a stool due to space)! I only managed to get two halves of it off their site because it was in the middle of 2 pages. I only managed to get it in pdf format, so I don't think I'll be able to put it up here. If one of my colleagues remembers to pick me up a copy on the way home, I'll try and scan it in. I don't suppose there's any point - just a middle aged bloke with a microphone Oh well, que sera sera.......

[quote name='cheddatom' post='225152' date='Jun 23 2008, 04:38 PM']They don't listen to radio 1 do they? Sorry, OT I know, but our warehouse guy at work has it on all day, and I keep hearing the same 5 f*ckin' songs over and over.[/quote] You want to try commercial radio. Not just the same 5 songs, but the same adverts as well. I believe it's all to do with PRS fees as mentioned in other threads. The less variety in playlist, the less time they have to spend logging what they've played. I'm so glad that James Blunt's "Beautiful" seems to have rotated off the playlists. It was a nice song when I heard it the first 10 times.....

I'm still waiting for them to get five string P's in (with Jazz Pups). They've just run out of 5 string black jazzes which was going to be my fall back if I couldn't take the wait any longer

It's also good practice to book the gigs. IMHO, the hardest part of being in a band in having members who are prepared to put in all the extra work required to chase down and find you regular gigs (unless you're good enough to have a manager or agent!) I get away with it in our band, as I'm the one who often drives the most and gets PA's/technical stuff when required. For that, they let me off chasing gigs, but if I spot a golden opportunity, I'll help out when I can. Good luck, and enjoy it. The goal of most bands is to be tight and mistake free, but you only get there with regular gigging. We gig regularly and still haven't managed it!

I bought a white short scale Fenix bass (don't know model) from Grott Guitars in Newcastle along with a 15W Solex practice amp, all for about £100. Must have been around 1991 ish. It felt like the body was made of some sort of plastic, or was plastic coated. After some humming and haa-ing, I remember the guy told me if I couldn't get on with it, I could return it within a year and get my money back. So, after about 11 months and 29 days, I took the bass in there and took him up on his word! He wasn't very happy about it, but begrudgingly handed over the notes. I used that to add to my paltry savings to purchase my Squier JV Jazz which I still have. It was a bit of a cheeky thing to do, but I felt he had ripped my unsuspecting folks off a while earlier when purchasing a cymbal I wanted for my birthday (I wanted a crash, he sold them a massive 20" crash ride that had cracked and been repaired). Looking back on it now though, I'm not sure how much of it was his fault or my dad's, for stubbornly wanting a "beautiful piece of engineering". I still have the practice amp, which lives in my folks' loft. If I'm ever up there for a while, I sometimes use it for noodling with my sister-in-law's Westone Thunder 1A that she can't, and never, plays.

[quote name='ironside1966' post='222936' date='Jun 20 2008, 02:03 PM']A sound check for me is nothing more then setting the levels and sorting out the foldback, it is the bands that turn it into a chimp’s tea party.[/quote] Agreed. I often have to tell our guys to wind it up, as once set up, whether it be for a sound check or gig, they just love to play. CK, the guy in the hat and keys does sound like a stereotypical d**k. No argument from me. In my experience, good sound engineers are hard to find. Being in the industry myself, I have seen all sorts of top end blokes where you're thinking "now there's a difference in creative opinion, and there's just s**t" and there are some very clever guys who knock around with unknown bands and do a really good job for £30 and a couple of beers every night. I find, that the ones with a good theoretical background (i.e. us college/university boys) seem to fair well because not only can we create good sounding graphic EQ patterns, we can say why! However, experience is the key. I walked out of university and went to my first big rig gig and was s**t! I then spent a few regular gigs of either getting it a bit wrong and scraping through, and then finally got to a level where I think I was pretty good (there are probably plenty of bands out there who may think differently!) I also always had the motto: [i]If I walk away from a gig that I think couldn't have sounded any better, then it's time to quit. I wasn't concentrating hard enough.[/i] I took this attitude into all my gigs. I was very protective of my craft (sometimes I felt it was art!) and would get a bit put out if a band didn't like what I'd done. I would always try and stay happy, but it's true you do have to be thick skinned. There is a very fine line between being authorative enough to stop 5 strangers taking the p*ss and coming across as arsey. Some bands get it, some don't.

[quote name='Galilee' post='222276' date='Jun 19 2008, 04:23 PM']I would play drums for a rubbish hair-metal band.[/quote] Ha ha ha

I'd suggest you keep it going but advertise and start another band with your brother on the side - initially to see what happens - it sounds like the Growlers isn't taking up much of your time at the mo. You'll probably find you gel with other people, and it will either kick your vocalist and drummer up the @rse or completely kill off the Growlers as they don't like what you've done, or wanted to finish anyway. At least you'll know for sure, and you could end up with 2 bands worth of musicians that you can pick a "supergroup" from if two gets to be too much!

[quote name='johnnylager' post='222181' date='Jun 19 2008, 02:30 PM']Razzle.[/quote] B*****cks! Beat me to it JL!

[quote name='ped' post='222156' date='Jun 19 2008, 02:04 PM']£200 for 36 6m cables is pretty good IHMO![/quote] I'd agree. There must be nearly £100 worth of connectors there (to the punter off the street), so £100 to solder them all up seems good to me.

[quote name='Huge Hands' post='222101' date='Jun 19 2008, 01:14 PM']I always do my best to try and find [b]him[/b] out as soon as we get there, and talk to [b]him[/b] in a friendly way.[/quote] Sorry, just realised I was being horribly sexist there. There are some very good female soundies out there as well, and can be just as geeky about compression thresholds and Q settings as the rest of us.... P.S. CK you were right, although I'm defending soundies in general, that guy should have just swapped the order and checked Clarky's band, especially as they weren't first or last on. Now that was being a jobsworth for the sake of it!

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='222082' date='Jun 19 2008, 12:58 PM']Its the soundman job to make sure everyone is soundchecked in time for opening. If that means doing the band that isn't headlining first then that should be what common sense dictates. With about 2 exceptions (our band soundman and the bloke who does Cafe de Paris) almost every other soundman we've worked with has been a complete arse. I don't understand it, I mean, do they teach ARSE 101 at soundman school or something?[/quote] Yep! I will admit, that you do have to be able to be arsey quite often. Remember it's you (usually on your own) against several band members. I think you will find a sound man will treat you much better if you do the same to him. Some are always arsey, I admit that. I always do my best to try and find him out as soon as we get there, and talk to him in a friendly way. You might argue that this would be easier for me as a previous soundman, but that can work against me, because there's nothing worse than a muso trying to tell you your job! I think it all comes down to a blame thing. If a band is not happy with their sound, they play worse, and then lash out at the sound man (often over the mic to the audience). The sound man is often fiercely protective of his own abilities, and will be looking for things the band did to bugger it up (which is more often than you'd think) and will lash back. I've been in so many near punch-ups backstage, it's untrue. The best soundies are the ones who can rise all above that and ignore the criticism and keep a happy outlook (something I always inspired to do but failed regularly). Problem is, if they have this sort of attitude in the heat of the moment, the band will probably think they don't give a sh*t! In my experience, as a muso, you have gigs where people think you're sh*t, and gigs where people think you're a virtuoso Funkmaster (probably mostly the former in my case!). As a sound engineer, you only get noticed if you're sh*t. If you're great, the punters walk away thinking the band was amazing... Another ten penneth!

On one of the nights as per your avatar backdrop, the guy who ran the night (who may not have been the promoter) gave our band a right dressing down for not showing up for a soundcheck, so it does happen. It p*ssed me off no end for 2 reasons: 1, The keyboard player drummer and me HAD been there, it was the effing guitarist and singer who didn't show. 2, He only did this because I thought I was being helpful and tried to comment to the sound engineer that he had accidentally sent keys through the wedges and may have damaged them (we only asked for vocals). He took this to mean that we were complaining about the sound (it was unusually sh*t for him, but we'vecoped with a lot worse so weren't that bothered) but he got a bit huffy and sulky, so his mate jumped to his defence. I like to think that I am a chilled person and let stuff like that wash over me, but I will admit I was tempted to introduce his teeth to his shoes.... As to The Funk's comments, I found on these nights that it's not a good idea to treat everyone like the enemy, or else you come across as the arrogant b*****ds yourselves. As I said before, we are totally the wrong genre and I don't like a lot of the music I hear at these nights, but I always make an effort to clap at the right places during their sets and look like I'm enjoying it, even if I'm not. I often find that if bands appear distant, it may be because it is ther first gig and they are bricking it. I would also allow for the fact that a lot of these venues, especially the one in Soho, are a pain to find, get your motor near to unload, and then you have to find somewhere to park up. People turning up late, although frustrating, is all part of the game? Just my ten penneth.