geoham

I’m lucky enough to have a very good drummer in my current band. Regardless of who starts a song, he always insists on giving a count-in first. We also sometimes record rehearsals and he’ll self-critique - comments like ‘I was a few BPM faster than the record on that one’ etc. I’ve also played with some terrible drummers too, so this is definitely appreciated! George

My current band try to play songs folk love, but aren’t covered by too many bands on the loca scene. As an example, we play KoL’s Use Somebody rather than Sex on Fire. Also things like One Vision, Go Your Own Way and Won’t Get Fooled Again. However, you never know what will go down well. We reluctantly added Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage & Eclipse in (for our guitarist), and were surprised at how good a reception we got. It’s now always in the set and is always popular. Most of our gigs are in city centre bars filled with youngsters too! My advice - if in doubt, give it whirl! George

I've checked the battery with a multi-meter - getting a touch over 9v, so presumably okay.

A few months ago, I upgraded the Bartolini MK-1 preamp in my Lakland 5501 to a Bartolini NTMB - a pre-wired loom from Bass Direct. On the whole, it's been working fine - but since moving to in-ears, I've noticed a high pitched hiss that's only present when the pre-amp is engaged. It disappears entirely when the pre-amp is bypassed. It sounds a bit like white noise, and Audacity indicates it's around the 3kHz frequency. This is with all controls set flat. If I turn the treble down, it does go down a bit. I can't really hear it at all when I am playing, and I've got a noise-gate to deal with it when I'm not. But I'd still like to get to the bottom of it! Any tips / obvious things to check? Thanks

+1 on Helix pitch-shifting. Was never really usable on my Zoom units, but great on the Helix.

It sounds like the Helix Stomp would do the job for you, though make sure the extra features of the bigger units won’t be useful. Personally, I have the LT and it’s great. I’ve done my past 20 or so gigs without an amp. It’s the switching options that swung it for me. I have patches for a few core sounds, a few for specific songs, then one I call ‘pedalboard’ with a different effect assigned for each of the 8 foot switches. Another one to consider is the Zoom B3n. It can easily do what you have described and a much lower price. I only got rid of mine due to Helix GAS, but truthfully it was more than sufficient. (Don’t tell my wife!) George

I'm sure there'll be some correlation with lower life expectancy and high alcohol / drug consumption rates! I suppose that there are very few southerners with names like 'Pure Mad Mental Davie' and 'Steff the Stabber' too!

Lovely! Hope he had a spare. Was the amp still working while on fire?

Mehrabian's theory... only 7% of the message is communicated via the words used. Tone and body language to the rest!

Funny, I never considered this could be lost in translation. The punter was Irish, hopefully took the message how it was intended! I speak to English folk all day long for work. Countless other nationalities too. I suppose this one doesn’t slip particularly well in to day to day corporate chat!

Brilliant!

Sounds like we got off lightly!

Gig in a small pub in Glasgow last night. We're out doing classic rock covers, with yours truly doubling as the sound man. A fairly merry looking punter (who had been dancing and appeared to be on his own) approaches the singer a few times, between songs and during solos etc. I assume he's making ridiculous requests and the singer is laughing them off. He then tries to talk to me while I'm playing and I obviously can't hear him! End of the song, he comes up and tells me I need to do something about the sound - we sound terrible. I'm surprised, as we have a few friends in who often offer such guidance when we play live - these friends are musicians and sound engineers themselves. They'd previously indicated the sound was good after a few tweaks. Regardless, I'm always happy to take feedback and ask the gentleman to elaborate - 'I don't know, it's all kind of boomy and you need to bring the level down a bit'. Next song, I walk out front, no particular boomyness, though the keyboard is perhaps a bit more bassy than I'd like - I tweak the EQ a bit and continue. The levels were fine, as low as they could be to compete with unmic'd drums. Same guy approaches again - 'You're levels are mad mate, you need to sort this. It sounds fine at the back, but terrible down here'. Unable to provide any kind of detail. I point out it's a small pub and with questionable acoustics, but we're doing the best we can, also he's standing about a metre away from the vocal monitor so probably hearing that. Similar thing happens again a few times, then he once more tries to talk to me mid-song and I tell him to 'get to f...', accompanied by the universal GTF thumb action! Punter gets his coat and leaves. Very out of character for me - I'm always one to try and humour punters as best I can ('Sure, we'll try and do Abba for you...'). I felt slightly guilty, but also relieved that the annoying guy had gone. I doubt the guy had any clue what he was talking about - since most musicians wouldn't interrupt a band mid-song and would be able to give some level of detail about what they found distasteful. Other than this, it was a rocking gig - the manager loved it and very keen to have us back. I'm sure many of you have had similar annoying punters that have led to you losing it a bit!

I applied for a job once, at a local authority. Did well at interview - they told me as much. However, I didn't get the job. I later found out via a contact that an internal candidate did and was always going to - however they had to advertise and interview externally as a matter of policy.

You're right - I didn't rehearse with them first. Part of the problem is that we probably gig more than we rehearse! I totally agree on option paralysis as an overall issue with ultra flexible devices like this. I think I'm going to focus on building 3 or 4 properly good sounds and stick to those for a while. George

I've had my Helix LT for a couple of months now, and I've been making my own presets - start with an amp & cab, and build things from there. I go direct to the PA with my band, and use IEMs - I've abandoned the amp for now. As happy as I am with what I'd created, I've been curious about third party IRs and presets, so I bought the "Vintage Bass' preset pack from 3 Sigma Audio, along with a standalone IR of a Markbass cab. My first impression of the presets is that they are very trebly and not especially 'vintage' sounding, also a noticeable difference in the volume level between presets. There are 'clean', 'pushed', 'crunch' and 'dirty' sounds for a few amps, each getting progressively louder. My suspicion is they were created by a guitarist who thinks he knows bass.... Despite my reservations, I gave them a bash at a pub gig on Saturday. I felt that I was cutting through the mix better than usual, though I was definitely too loud when I used the more distorted patches.. Has anyone else used these presets or similar? Thoughts?

Live in Gdańsk was part of the On an Island tour, which did feature Wright, but not Mason. I believe this was the last major gig that Wright performed. It was recorded two years before he died, but released a week after his death. George

I don’t think he did, but would be to happy to be proven wrong. Rick was fired from Floyd around the time of The Wall (then hired as a session musician to play on the live shows!) The Final Cut was basically a Roger solo album, though David and Nick did play on it. Shortly after, Roger dissolved the band. A legal case followed, and the result was the David and Nick ended up ‘owning’ Pink Floyd. (In Roger’s words, they keep it locked in a box.) Momentary Lapse of Reason and subsequent tour had David and Nick as ‘being’ Pink Floyd, but Rick played on them - apparently due to ongoing legalities. By the Division Bell album & tour, Rick was promoted back to being a full band member. I don’t believe the three toured together after that. Rick was in the band for David’s On an Island tour, as were Guy Pratt and John Carin, (both played on the final two Floyd tours), as was Richard Parry, who had played with Pink Floyd intermittently since Dark Side of the Moon. As to the value of a band brand? Ask Roger Waters. He made no secret of his distaste at Pink Floyd playing the biggest venues in the world - playing many songs written by him - while he was struggling to fill much smaller venues. In saying that, he’s done much better solo in recent years! George

This is quite an interesting idea. I’ve got a Zoom H1, so can probably do something similar to prove the concept. Also some good advice on messaging! The ambient ‘punter’ noise thing seems a big deal for two members of the band. I’m thinking about pointing a mic at the crowd and mixing to their in-ears. Alternatively suggesting just going with an IEM in one ear only. George

I’ve been on a quest to reduce the amount of heavy equipment used in my band, and generally take a more modern approach to things. The bass and keyboard amps have gone, with the guitar player promising to ditch the Marshall 4x12 once he gets his head round his new modelling unit. With this going on, we need better monitoring - the current desk only has two aux channels, and is also a bulky flight-cased affair. I’ve suggested we buy a Behringer XR18 or similar and going down the IEM route - but I’m getting a bit of resistance! Any advice on dealing with these objections: - I want to hear everything including the punters, IEMs will be too isolating. - What do we do if the iPad crashes or WiFi stops working? - On having an app to control a personal monitor mix: I’ll never be able to do it, too complicated. (From the singer, who has the biggest objections to IEMs, but constantly wanting ‘more me’ and causing feedback with his mic antics) We play pubs, do rock/pop covers and use our own PA, operated by yours truly. Presumably others have had similar conversations in the past? Cheers, George

I've had this exact problem with my current and also previous guitarists. Usual reasoning is they must fully crank their amp to get a good tone, so no need to put it through the PA. I think I'm making progress though... at a recent gig we were playing a in a pretty tight corner with his 4x12 flush against one wall. I managed to convince him to have a mic on the amp so I could put it through the PA and let everyone hear the guitar, not just those in front of his amp. He was impressed by the sound (I think a PA speaker being in front of him at ear-level helped!), and has since declared his intention to work towards using an amp-less solution. He has bought a Boss synth-based modelling solution, though he's not gigged with it yet.

I made the trip down from Glasgow to go yesterday. I had a pretty enjoyable day. I liked how it was a mix of guitar and bass, from two perspectives. Firstly, my guitarist mate came and didn’t feel like he was tagging along with me! Secondly, I suspect some interesting exhibitors wouldn’t come to a bass only show. We went to Paul Gilbert’s masterclass in the morning, and Scott Devine’s in the afternoon. Both were interesting, and my guitarist mate and I agreed they’re advice is mostly transferable between instruments. I found it quite funny when John Patitucci appeared at the Bass Direct stand while I was in the process of making a purchase... The salesman abandoned me to give JP the VIP treatment and get some photos. Obviously didn’t realise I’m a big deal too! We also went to the aftershow at the Lexington, wives in tow. Quite a nice wee gig, certainly makes a change from our usual London trips - where we end up at Leicester Square or some other too busy tourist trap. Overall, a good day, no complaints from me. George

Not quite.... Jolly to London with my guitarist mate and both our wives was booked first!

Our drummer recently had a heart attack, and was advised to have a two month break from the drums. We played a few gigs with a dep, and the original drummer in the audience. Strange experience. He also introduced himself to the dep just before his first gig... The gigs with the dep went well (no misakes at least!), but just not quite right - hard to put my finger on exactly what though. The band are playing without me this weekend, thanks to me visiting London for some bass show. A charity event in a hotel with a large audience that we really wanted to do. I'm not sure how I'll feel when the inevitable video clips start appearing afterwards!

My first 'proper' bass rig was a Mag 300 head plus a 2x10 cab. It did sound really nice in a 'traditional' sort of way. However, it was simply too heavy - something like 32kg for the cab and 15kg for the head. Multiple trips from the car to the venue - not nice when you are gigging in the city centre and not being able to park close. I switched to a TC Electronic setup, their BC210 cabs were significantly lighter (20kg?), and I could manage a one hand lift. The BH550 head fitted in the same bag as my cables and effects. Overall, one trip was possible. Then it was the even lighter RS112 cabs, before ditching amps and going straight to PA! I suppose it's basic economics - people see plenty of Ashdown amps being used by top players. They are reasonably quite affordable to buy new - so sell plenty. The end result is an over-supply to the used market, which ultimately means lower prices. To me, it's quite similar to Fender.