AlexDelores

On 19/09/2020 at 17:44, AlexDelores said:

We’ve played a few, one was a socially distanced outdoor Gin Fest with 150 people but as they have HUGE gardens, it felt kind of empty.

Also played a couple of weddings, both have been more laid back drinks reception styled sets and have been fairly pleasant. We’ve got a couple of others booked in for the rest of the year and a potential Christmas residency for a few weeks at a local wedding venue.

We are an upbeat acoustic duo anyway so we haven’t had to change much, although I’m not sure when we will get back to the upbeat part of our title... The no dancing thing feels very strange so far! 

Can’t see us doing much more than a few now though this year. We’ve also had to slash our rates for the remainder of 2020 to account for people limiting guests and trying to cut costs in order to justify keeping their wedding this year. 

 

Well, I take all that back. 😫😂 

Guess I’ll re-pack my kit until next summer then!

We’ve played a few, one was a socially distanced outdoor Gin Fest with 150 people but as they have HUGE gardens, it felt kind of empty.

Also played a couple of weddings, both have been more laid back drinks reception styled sets and have been fairly pleasant. We’ve got a couple of others booked in for the rest of the year and a potential Christmas residency for a few weeks at a local wedding venue.

We are an upbeat acoustic duo anyway so we haven’t had to change much, although I’m not sure when we will get back to the upbeat part of our title... The no dancing thing feels very strange so far! 

Can’t see us doing much more than a few now though this year. We’ve also had to slash our rates for the remainder of 2020 to account for people limiting guests and trying to cut costs in order to justify keeping their wedding this year. 

What a great thread and a beautiful bass! 
 

Fantastic work! Such an inspiring build 👌

That Gretsch is a stunner! 

Found an old school report a few weeks back and my music teachers comments were ... 

“Alex needs to stop focusing all of his time on the bass guitar and make sure he’s spending time learning a variety of instruments”

... Pretty sure this is the exact opposite of how you learn to play an instrument.

Fortunately, at the time I was too busy playing my bass to be arsed to read my school report.

Thanks for your review! I’m looking into getting one of the D-Walker distressed basses with the fish man preamp. I was wondering about the strings as it seems no where stocks them near Shropshire. Good to hear a verdict on them! 

Alex

56 minutes ago, Brook_fan said:

Do you really need a feedback buster? Why not get a nice preamp, such as one of the Headway ones- comes with phase switch and notch filter, which are great tools in the fight for feedback.  But I know what you mean- those controls do get in the way.  I don’t like any electronics in an acoustic instrument, preferring to do everything outside via a preamp, and without having to cut holes in the body.

I didn’t love that Guild though 😊

Robbie

I’ve never really looked into Preamps but I definitely will 👍 I just seemed to find the issue was overcome instantly by using a feedback buster so didn’t really look any further...on second thought maybe I shouldn’t look into preamps, I don’t need another excuse to spend money on gear 😂

I’m in the market for a short scale acoustic and the Guild look great. Only downfall I can see for the Guild is that the volume controls for the preamp are inside the sound hole which means if like me you gig it regularly plugged in you can’t use a feedback buster which I find is a must when using it live.

Those Ibanez look lovely too but I already use an Ibanez acoustic bass and although it plays lovely the preamps in them are not the best. 

The Taylor seems to tick all the boxes but that comes with a cost as it’s about twice the price! 😩

Alex

Wow both of these are stunning! Very inspirational, thanks

Been eyeing these up as of late, they look a great bass for the money with lots of good reviews etc . good to hear your getting on well with yours.

I’ve seen that Taylor do a nice looking short scale, however it’s about 3x the money.

thanks for the post 👍👍

another factor is how accessible the world is now. It’s become expected of bands to have built this brand of their band before a label will even touch them, the bands that seem to make it are the ones that can do everything, music, marketing, promotion, recording etc. Of course this is a blanket statement and I’m sure there is still some incredible talents that just get picked up on the spot,  however I feel the days of bands being heard, signed then built into a household name finished in the early 2000s when the internet started arriving. 

I feel the major role of the label now is purely mass distribution where as a lot of the actual marketing and fan base is wel and truly cemented before the band even gets a look in. Labels can now be lazy and wait for the artists to come to them rather than talent scouting. 

just my two pence

Thanks everyone for all your advice. 

Will check out some of the higher end stuff. Ultimately it’s not just down to me though so will chat to the other half (of the group) about it. 

I think we might look at a form of monitoring sooner though whilst we’re deciding/saving 😏... NYE gig cemented the need to sort something. Awful sound on stage so we may find once we sort out that issue the others might not seem as urgent.

Just as a side note,  Our need for more power is not down to how loud of a band we are but that we play a lot of loud ‘Pre club’ type bars in town that are full of loud, lairy groups of drunkeds , cheering shots, talking and waiting for us to play Mr Brightside rather than a crowd of music lovers out to listen to a live band. Fortunately all in all the gigs are good fun and they pay well so I can get over the fact they’re talking over half our set 😂

Thanks again all. Much appreciated

Alex

Thanks everyone for all the help. Really glad I decided to ask the question on here.

So working on the basis that I already have a couple of good speakers the issue is still that we need to reduce our footprint at some gigs so would need to run 1 speaker and preferable some form of monitor (in ear , again for reduced footprint) so we can put the speaker off to the side of us. Another option would be to buy a new , more powerful powered mixer such as ...

https://m.thomann.de/gb/yamaha_emx_5.htm?o=16&search=1514742097

currently With my mixer I’m getting approx 150-180watt through one speaker @8ohm (I think) 

my wharfedales quote on the back :

300watts continuous

600watts program

1200watts peak

impedance 8ohm.

Now does That mean I should be looking for powered mixers around 600w total to allow me 300w through one speaker at 8ohm (the Yamaha linked above states 2 x 460w @8ohm, so would this be too powerful?)

apologies again for the long windedness and I appreciate you all for sticking with me and bearing with my naivety. 

I beat sheet metal for a living and electrics blow my mind (slight pun intended) ... and the other member is more useless than me with it. 

Thanks

Alex

That’s great thanks for the info on the Alto stuff. 

Yeah I didn’t think I’d have much joy with the cab.

we currently use a Yamaha emx312sc powered mixer and x2 wharfedale evp x-15 passive speakers. I also use an Ashdown Abm 500 head and abm210 cab. 

As far as budget it really needs to be all in under £1k. We’re thinking we’ll probably end up with 1 active speaker (for now) a mixer, a set of the gear 4 music in ear monitors and probably an alto powered Sub, although we might end up with x2 speakers in a bundle and then look at the sub a later date and carry on with my seperate amp.

im wondering whether I could DI my bass amp into the mixer but keep the volume low on the front of house sound (assuming it has a seperate level control for the monitors) 

hmm lots to think about, all though I’m most definately over thinking it all 😂

really appreciate the feedback from here though 👍

2 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

Agreed. Re. the original question, a pair of those cabs plus a good quality powered sub might be just about OK, but avoid the subs that are aimed at the cheaper end of the disco market and that claim ridiculous power outputs, etc. They may make a fair amount of noise, but it's all boom and no notes and the sound falls apart when you push them (they often achieve volume via over-zealous porting to give a false impression of power). As with our bass rigs, clean, plentiful low end costs money.

Thanks a lot, appreciate the help. 

I’m assuming if I have 2 speaker cabs + a sub I would need to daisy chain one of the speakers off another due to the available XLR connections on the mixer... which leads me to the question, would it be possible to use an active speaker connected to a passive mixer and then daisy chain my ashdown ABM 2x10 passive cab and go direct into the PA with my bass? As the cab would be getting power from the speaker? I know this wouldn’t be as ideal for handling the low end as a powered sub but would it be possible as a short term answer to having everything through the in ears?

Unfortunately as with everything budget comes into play here.

5 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

They are all budget PA speakers. Not bad for vocals, but if you are intending to dispense with an onstage bass amp and run through the PA, I don't think budget PA cabs with 10" or 12" bass drivers will cut it in anything other than low volume situations. OK for the bars, but less so for weddings, etc.

Yes sorry, I mean I am hoping to get rid of the bass amp completely and run direct into the PA. 

my initial thought was I should consider buying a Proper SUB to run through the set up (chain off one of the normal pa speakers) but wasn’t sure whether I would ‘get away’ with just normal pa speakers. 

Sounds like my thinking is about right

Thanks for your reply 👍

Hi, just looking for a bit of advice.

currently looking into upgrading my bands PA system, we’re an acoustic duo with acoustic guitar, bass, and vocals. 

We’re looking at getting a couple of active speakers, more than likely one of these... 

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Alto-Truesonic-TS210-10-Active-PA-Speaker/1G05

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Mackie-Thump-12-Active-PA-Loudspeaker/ZPR

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Mackie-Thump12A-Active-PA-Speaker/23CP

The idea of the change is that we’ll be able to take just one speaker to our smaller shows, we’ll also be getting a set of in ear monitors rather than a floor monitor. Basically overall idea is to reduce the size of our kit for transport and also reduce our overall footprint at gigs (we get put in quite small corners of bars being were acoustic) we also like the idea of a bit more power for weddings etc. 

Now.. I also use a separate bass amp and the plan is to run everything through the PA so I’ll have it in my ear and again its less gear to transport. 

what are people’s thoughts on me running my bass through these speakers without the need of a Sub? I have always had it in my head that the pa wouldn’t handle bass without distorting however I also kind of feel that a Seperate sub will be major overkill? (We’re indie/ pop not dubstep 😂)

Also anyone any experience with any of the above speakers? 

excuse the long windedness (if that’s a word) and naivety of this post but any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks

Alex

Has anyone got a pre order in for the Sire P7 Pbass? Ive seen them advertised on Thomann website but they seem to keep moving the date they will become available.

With nothing but good things from the V7 it will be interesting to see if they live up to the hype. 

I play and sing in an acoustic duo. Mainly indie pop stuff and I use a stand just in the corner for lyrics. I used to be really against them when I was younger but now I prefer to have them there rather than forget the words (I’m useless at remembering lyrics no matter how much I practice). We also have quite a lot of songs that we don’t play regular but pop up as requests from time to time so handy to have them in a folder.

never seems to put any punters off. It’s usually the music that does that 😂

I’m so intrigued to see if this comes off. although Ill be extremely jealous of anyone that ends up with one  good spot none the less 

Ah no problem, thanks a lot, lovely looking bass! GLWTS 👍

Hi, where are you based? (Sorry I'm on mobile)
Alex

That looks great, really intrigued to hear how that sounds! Nice work!

I have one of these on my board and Can say they are a really versatile drive pedal. From a dirty almost valve like growl to a full on in your face fuzz. Really good pedal. GLWTS

Wow what a cool modification and the cream coloured changes really set it off. Lovely looking PreciJazz that.