tony_m

Dunno about the bass, but the auto-generated subtitles leave a bit to be desired... 😳

Hi Dave, I don't think so, though to be fair they're a part of the gear I never get involved with! I'll have a proper look on Thursday. Cheers, Tony

Hmm, I do usually have my amp turned inwards slightly, but then it's aiming at both Mr Frontman and Mr Lead Guitar's vocal mics. I'll try moving it around a bit at rehearsal on Thursday and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for the suggestion. 👍

No, they haven't actually got soundholes, they've both got piezo bridge pickups (in the pic below, the black one's the 12, the yellow one's the 6), but I guess they've still got the body capacity to resonate in an unhelpful manner? Sounds like a plan, I'll have a fiddle with the desk at rehearsal on Thursday. 👍

Yeah, our frontman swaps between a 6-string electro-acoustic and a 12-string electro-acoustic, and it's always worse when he's on the 6-string. Throw his vocals plus two lots of backing vox and the electronic drumkit into the mix, and it does seem to be a case of frequency stacking that the monitors can't handle. Fortunately it doesn't affect the FoH, it's just annoying.

Another outing for the Ashdown Five Fifteen minirig at this weekend's outdoor / beer garden gig. As I go through the PA anyway, the amp is really just there as onstage monitoring for me, and because Mr Lead Guitar prefers to hear the bass coming from behind him rather than through his monitor, so I don't need the power of the good ol' MAG300 combo and find the minirig easier to lug around.

Saturday afternoon saw the first outing for Rascallion in 2023, appearing as the first "Outdoor Band" of the year at a local village pub (and coincidentally the first time we've ever played there too). Really nice setup in the beer garden, with a marquee roof running the full length, though as things turned out it might have been better if they'd had the sides on too - despite the lovely sunshine, it was both a tad draughty and incredibly chilly in the shade, and by the time we finished at about 6:30pm (having kicked off at 4pm, with a 30 minute break between sets) we were all suffering from cramp and frozen fingers (but fortunately had just enough dexterity and feeling left to be able to bash out "Bad Moon Rising" as a much-demanded encore). Other than the usual distraction of the odd bass note booming through the monitors (octave E's this time rather than the usual B's and C's... 🤨 ), all went reasonably well. Overall, it probably wasn't the best we've ever played tbh, but conversely a couple of numbers turned out the best we've ever done them, so swings and roundabouts, eh? Despite the onstage boominess, FoH sound was spot-on, and the audience were appreciative throughout, with one particular lady declaring we were "f****** awesome" at the end. There again, drink may well have been taken, so... 🤷‍♂️ As it is, we were already booked for late August BH Sunday at the same venue, but they've now also asked if we could be available at short notice should they find themselves needing a band any time before then, so guess we must have made a decent enough impression. Next scheduled gig is an open-air local charity festival in mid-July - hopefully it'll be a bit warmer that day! Picture from the pub FB page...

Couple more books I've got on the shelf in addition to the "Illustrated History" previously mentioned! First one's a tad niche, but is probably my most thumbed book as I'm a bit of an SCPB fanboy... https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781574242546/Fender-Precision-Basses-1951-1954-Schmidt-1574242547/plp And then there's this, which while not strictly bass-related, is full of all sorts of odds and ends and bits and bobs which may be of interest... https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781476817477/Fender-Archives-Scrapbook-Artifacts-Treasures-1476817472/plp

Betcha can't spot the bass player... 🤭

Yeah, I've got an old SoundLAB SDB-20 passive DI box which lives in my spares bag for gigs - the very nice chap from whom I bought my Ashdown Five Fifteen Minirig donkey's years ago threw it in as a freebie as he had no use for it! Funnily enough, I've also got a Behringer BDI21 in the bag, just in case. Although my other two amps have got inbuilt DI's, the Minirig (which I'm using the most at the moment) hasn't even got a Line Out never mind a DI, so my main FOH feed comes from an Ashdown 12-band graphic EQ / DI pedal - hopefully the SoundLAB and BDI give me enough cover should the Ashdown pedal ever let me down! 🤞

That's what I use, run through either a Trace AH200 head with the pre-shape and EQ both disengaged on the amp (sacrilege, I know... 🤨 ), or into one of my Ashdowns, again with the EQ disengaged or set flat, and a DI run from the pedal to the desk for FOH. Have to confess, I tend not to touch the 12-band graphic, just dial in an appropriate amount of pre-shape to get the sound I want - this seems to work well enough for the band I'm in, but guess I really must have a proper "Mess Around With The Graphic" session sometime to see if it could be improved any.

Rascallion - country-rock / Americana with the odd bit of blues-rock thrown in is probably the best description. Mix of CCR, Eagles, Petty, Earle, Stones, plus random others, some of which we're gradually trying to phase out 'cos they don't really fit! Played our first gig as The Old Rascals, as this was the name the front three had been using when they went out as an electro-acoustic trio plus drum machine. A change of name was mooted as people were taking the proverbial out of us, especially the "Old" bit (OK, we are all gentlemen of a certain age, but that's beside the point) - Mr Drums suggested Rascallion (the archaic form of rapscallion), and in the absence of anything better, we went with that. Needless to say, certain other local bands do apparently refer to us as Crapscallion, but then again we have our own pet names for them too, so fair's fair I guess... 🤷‍♂️

Been and gone: Kustom keyboard combo (30W?) Marshall BassState B30 Laney Linebacker 30 Bass Trace Elliot BLX-80 Now: Ashdown Perfect10 30W (just gathering dust!) Ashdown MAG300-C210T combo Ashdown Five Fifteen mini rig Trace Elliot AH200 + Ashdown MAG210 Deep or Trace Elliot BLX-110

Our drummer always has a bottle of tonic water to hand during gigs, and after my fretting hand cramped up at our last gig I reckon I'm going to be joining him.

Haha, thank you for that vote of confidence, but we're all struggling with it so far! That said, I'm sure we'll come up with a reasonable stab at it and hopefully surprise a few people - it's definitely not a tune that gets trotted out regularly round here. 👍

Latest two we started on last week are End of The Line (Travelling Wilburys), and the single version of Don't Fear The Reaper - think it's fair to say the latter is going to be a much-simplified version, but we'll see how we get on! Other than that, we've also got a few numbers (including Life In The Fast Lane, Heartache Tonight, How Long, and Rocky Mountain Way) which myself, Mr Drums and Mr Lead Guitar have got sorted, but which Mr Rhythm Guitar and Mr Singer / Acoustic Guitar seem to have forgotten all about / lost interest in... 🤨

So, after Saturday's 70th birthday gig, onto last night's wedding gig. Nice pub venue, but an interesting load-in through a rabbit warren of passages (Hello Cleveland) and up two flights of stairs, with the added complication that Mr Drums is currently suffering from a severe case of L5 nerve root compression, so a) can't walk far, and b) can't lift anything. Fortunately he lives about halfway between my place and the venue, so it was easy enough for me to stop off en route and help him load his gear, then we all mucked in the other end to unload and get him set up. The room we were in is normally used as a restaurant, and while there was plenty of width, there wasn't a whole lot of depth, so the "dancefloor" occupied about the same amount of space as we did. As it was, most people at the event only seemed to be interested in pouring booze down their necks and shouting at each other, so the area available was just big enough for the few people who did actually want to do a bit of dancing. Onstage sound was a constant battle between the monitors and the cackling crowd, but out front it apparently sounded good, as did my "Baby Trace" setup of AH200 head + BLX-110 cab. As nobody seemed to be in charge of proceedings, we just made it up as we went along, kicking off at 8pm and doing an hour, then resuming at 9:45pm and doing another hour. We dropped one longish, very wordy, song towards the end of the second set as Mr Singer was flagging a bit, but apart from that and a handful of off-piste moments, everything mostly went to plan. One moment in particular stands out - as we launched into our traditional second set opener "Call Me The Breeze", the front three all stopped playing when Mr Singer realised he'd forgotten to switch his new-fangled radio mic back on, but me and Mr Drums just kept the groove going until switches were switched and normal service was resumed, amazingly at the right point! All part of the act, obvs... 😉 We also managed to get the Happy Couple onto the dancefloor for our rendition of "You Do Something To Me" which went down well, and then the night ended with the pub manager joining us to do harmonies on "Stand By Me" - very good she was too. As the pub owner has invited us back to do one of their Sunday afternoon beer garden gigs next Summer, she may well get to sing with us again. Obviously, the most fun we had all evening was loading-out through a slightly diminished crowd of folks who seemingly had no homes to go to, but everybody was very polite, and also very complimentary. Quick stop on the way home to help Mr Drums unload his gear, and that was that. Mr Drums has been told by his physio to take at least two weeks off even touching his drums, so we're now on an enforced break from rehearsing and working up a number of new songs, but I guess it couldn't have come at a better time as we don't have any more gigs currently lined up. Onwards and upwards next year then, L5 compressions permitting. Postscript: Just had the following message from Mr Rhythm Guitar:- "Out of the gigs we've done, I've never had so many people come up to me and say what a brilliant band we are, and quite a few said how refreshing it was to hear songs that other bands don't play, and we play and sing them so well." Case in point - the number which got the most people up and grooving, and got the biggest reaction at the end, was Mr Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance". So, we must be doing summat right... ☺️

Couple of Jazzes always appealed to me, Berry Oakley's much-modified "Tractor" and Les Pattinson's blue Bunnymen bass (with very worn inlays).

Slight change of tack(le) for the last couple of rehearsals and this weekend's gig. Rather than the usual MAG300 combo or Trace AH200 + BLX-110 cab, thought I'd give my old Five Fifteen mini rig a run out as it stands a chance of being heard (at least onstage) against our electronic drumkit. Unfortunately it doesn't have a Line Out or DI, and I don't possess a mic to stick in front of the cab, so I ran the DI out to the desk from the Ashdown Graphic EQ / DI pedal instead, and just used the mini rig for personal monitoring in addition to the floor monitor. Worked well in rehearsal and at Saturday's gig without having to be pushed too hard, though I'll probably be using the Trace setup for our next gig as it's a bit smaller and I find it easier to carry upstairs (yes, really! 💪 ). Bonus mention for the recently-acquired Lekato WS-80 wireless thingies - worked perfectly for strolling round the hall while soundchecking, and I'm sure would have worked just as well during the gig, but the Luddite in me couldn't bring himself to abandon his tweed lead just yet... 🙄

Fun evening playing at one of our regular village hall haunts for somebody's 70th birthday party on Saturday. After the usual rigmarole getting our frontman's crappy pedalboard / mixer thing working properly (one of these days, it *will* be getting accidentally run over in the car park... ), we finally finished soundchecking just in time before folks started to arrive. The onstage sound left a bit to be desired with every B and C seeming to boom out, but this wasn't replicated in the FOH sound so shouldn't really grumble too much. Anyway, the original plan was for us to do 45 minutes after the buffet, then another 45 minutes after the cake-cutting, but we were asked if we could do a few tunes before the buffet as the chips were still cooking, so we ended up doing our first three songs then taking a break while the buffet was served. Post-buffet (and very nice it was too... 😋 ) we picked up where we left off, adding an unplanned song plus the first song from the second set to fill the time until the cake-cutting. Once the cake was cut and the speeches had been made, we then unleashed the rest of the second set and got a few folks up and dancing. Mr Singer went slightly off-piste with one arrangement, while Mr Lead Guitar came up with a couple of *interesting* solos as he was apparently struggling to hear what he was doing, but apart from one table who were giving us snarky looks all night (while still tapping their feet... 🤨 ) everybody seemed to enjoy the evening. Next gig is a wedding bash on Wednesday evening - apparently the groom likes what we do, hence booking us, but quite how a bunch of country-rock songs mostly based around failed love affairs will go down at a wedding remains to be seen. We have already taken the precaution of dropping "Dead Flowers" and "It's All Over Now" from the set... 😁

Think my technique's a movable / floating hybrid - a) thumb anchored on the pickup cover or resting against the body (depending on which bass I'm using, and where I'm plucking) while playing the E, b) anchored on the E while playing the A, c) anchored on the A while playing the D, with the rest of the thumb resting against the E, d) anchored on the D while playing the G, with the rest of the thumb resting against the A and E.

And the results are in. The "Rumours" Alembic went for $100,000, while Mick Fleetwood's wooden balls apparently fetched $128,000. Suspect we'll not be seeing *them* on the BC Marketplace in a few days... 😉 https://www.julienslive.com/auctions/catalog/id/443?page=1&catm=any&order=order_num&xclosed=no&featured=no&key=bass&items=100 https://www.julienslive.com/lot-details/index/catalog/443/lot/196381?url=%2Fauctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F443%3Fpage%3D1%26items%3D100%26catm%3Dany%26order%3Dorder_num%26xclosed%3Dno%26featured%3Dno%26key%3Dmick%2Bfleetwood%2Bballs

Similar here @Sparky Mark - the EQ section is nice to have in case I feel the need for a bit of extra tweakage, but generally I just run the pre-shape on its own. I've also just started using the DI on the pedal to go into the PA - I previously used the DI on either my MAG300 combo or TE AH200 head, but as an experiment am giving my old Five Fifteen mini rig (which doesn't have a Line Out, never mind a DI) a go for onstage monitoring.

Hmm, given it's in the "Studio" range, wonder if it's a Class-D reincarnation of the old 100W Five Fifteen Mini Rig I've got? 🤔

633 (Squadron)