tony_m

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)

With apologies for inflicting them on people again, may I present Evil Blizzard. Line-up used to be four bass players, a singing drummer, and a dancing pig, now it's three bass players (one of whom usually plays baritone guitar), a guitarist who used to play bass, a singing drummer, and a synth-playing pig.

Blimey, sounds like we got off lightly then! As it is, it's a shame the way things seem to have gone. We actually played our second-ever gig at the hall in question as a freebie, mainly as a showcase for us, but also partly as a favour to them when they were looking to establish a regular monthly "Band Night" - our drummer and his wife were regular attendees at events at the hall even though they live in another village, and we got the gig through them being known. Off the back of that first gig, we got paid bookings for the committee chairman's birthday bash, someone else's birthday (the one coming up in December), and for last week's band night, but in the meantime the hall have apparently managed to alienate a large number of people by restricting places at the Platty Joobs party earlier this year to village residents only - anybody who lived elsewhere (like our drummer) was excluded, and now a lot of folks who were previously regulars simply won't go back, hence the poor audience numbers. Welcome to village politics in Lincolnshire! 😆

Well, Friday wasn't the finest evening in our gigging career! We had a feeling it was going to be a bit iffy when we noticed on Thursday that the "Band Night" event posts on the FB page for the village hall we were playing at had all disappeared. After a quick message to the chairman of the committee, the event appeared again, but without anything much in the way of interest being shown. Anyway, after the usual rigmarole of tracing and eliminating various odd hums and buzzes (which invariably seem to emanate from Mr Singer's crappy acoustic amp and pedalboard... 🙄 ), we managed to get a decent sound, though unusually I had to ask to be turned up quite a lot in the mix - looks like our resident poultrygeist (don't ask... ) has been fiddling with the desk again. So, there we are, all set to kick off, when the hall folks announce they're going to start serving food now, so could we hang on? We do, and eventually launch into the first set half an hour later than planned, to a rather disinterested (but well-fed) audience of thirty or so people. On the plus side, that was more than the eight who turned up for the last band who played there, and the two new numbers we'd thrown together at rehearsal on Thursday went well, so we'll be treating them to a bit more polish before the next gig. Other than that, the first set felt a bit like hard work - they're all songs we (mostly) like individually, and they do usually seem to go down well, but there's a growing feeling that they just don't work as a set, so we're going to rip up the list and do a bit of set-bashing in the next couple of weeks. After a short break, the second set was, as ever, an absolute delight to bash through, though the delayed start meant we had to drop a couple of songs (in addition to the one I'd inadvertantly managed to leave off the list for the first set - oops!). The audience response remained muted, though at least they did applaud after each number rather than just carry on talking, and we got several compliments at the end so it would appear they were actually listening after all. Honourable mention goes to the two people who I noticed were actually watching us and tapping their feet all night! From a personal point of view, the onstage sound was great as was the FoH, and it was one of those nights where everything just seemed to flow without really thinking about it - in fact, the couple of times I did think about it was when the minor flubs occurred. We've another gig booked at the same hall in December for a birthday event, but after that I suspect we'll not be playing there again - apparently there have been several changes on the committee, and it looks like live music isn't particularly part of the scene there any longer. Oh well, plus ça change an' all that...

Well... I picked up the OptoComp on here to try out as a replacement for the Trace SMX Dual Band compressor I had been using, and to be perfectly honest, I'd be hard-pressed to say exactly what it's doing! The LED which is supposed to get brighter as gain reduction increases never actually seems to light up under normal use (I've got it set to what the manual describes as "Easy Compression", so about 2:1 compression and a quick release time), though I can get it to illuminate if I wind the compression rate up and play really hard (which I normally don't) so it does appear to be working, just not so's you can tell! All that said, there's a pleasantly smooth warmth (or maybe a warm smoothness) which disappears if I turn it off, so I'm happy to just let it do whatever it is it's doing. As for the preamp, it's not actually a preamp, it's an old Ashdown 12-band Graphic EQ / DI pedal. I dial in a small amount of the adjustable mid-scoop pre-shape (about 1/3) which seems to fatten up the single coils nicely, but rarely switch the EQ in unless the room dictates a bit more tweakage, and leave the EQ on the amp switched out. All the gear and no idea? Yeah, probably, but I (and the band) like the sound I get, so... 🤷‍♂️ 😂

Friday evening's gig, decided to give the MAG300 a run out, and also used the Jazz instead of the '51 P. Delighted on both counts, will definitely be using the same setup again this coming Friday.

Following a break in rehearsals due to Messrs Drums, Rhythm Guitar, and Lead Guitar all going down with the 'Rona, our occasional tour of local village halls resumed last night. After a less than stellar rehearsal on Thursday, we were all a bit unsure how things would go, but it turned out to be possibly our best gig yet! Certainly sounded and felt like it from where I was stood, think our uncertainty sparked a useful degree of "What the heck, just go for it!" in everybody instead of the usual fretting about trying to get everything Just So. Only a couple of minor whoopsies, including Mr Drums throwing in an extra flourish in the intro to a number which doesn't have any such flourishes in it at all - fortunately everybody rode it out nicely while me and him exchanged "Oops, what was that all about then?" looks and tried not to laugh too much. Great response from the small but perfectly formed crowd, got paid more than we were expecting, and didn't get too wet loading in or out. One nice fella insisted on buying us all a drink afterwards (think he was a bit surprised at the request for four J2O's and a lemonade), while another nice fella told us (and his wife) that we were "Ten times better than [A N Other local band who seem to think they're God's Gift]" - reckon may just have to get some t-shirts printed up... 🤭 Roll on next Friday when the tour continues at another hall we've played at before, so hoping for another good crowd (as long as the hall in question have sorted out their finances and paid their electricity bill by then anyhow!) 😬

Sparking lots of memories, this thread! Doctor Doctor and Lights Out were integral parts of the soundtrack to our regular Friday night post-pub cards sessions 30 or more years ago. Happy / hazy days...

Likewise, though in my case I use the Shape knob on an Ashdown 12-band Graphic EQ/DI pedal which applies a variable amount of mid-scoop similar to the TE pre-shape 1 (+8db @ 50Hz & 4khz, -8db @ 400hz). Seems to work well within our country-rock band setup (electro-acoustic 6/12 string, mandolin, Strat rhythm, Tele lead, electronic drums, single-coil P bass).

Good luck, hope all goes well! 👍

Dirty Water by The Standells, with some mates at an open mic / jam night thing.

As I mentioned in the "Show us your rig for the weekend" thread a couple or three weeks back, we recently did a shoot for a promo / showreel video, and here's the result (aka "Five Grumpy Old Blokes Messing About In a Former Chicken Shed"). There are a couple of versions, this is the full one... There's also a shorter version here with a few different camera angles / cuts... As usual, sounds best over headphones or decent speakers.

I wonder who the "6 other people have this in their carts" are? I can confirm I'm not one of them... 🙃

Hey @Oddly, I seem to have ended up with two entries as well (1665 and 1666)! Feel free to delete one of me... 🥴

Done mine, just waiting for it to be approved / show up.

Our next gigs aren't until late October, but this Saturday we're shooting some clips for a promo / showreel video in our / the drummer's rehearsal studio. We've had a couple of practices this week to polish the nine snippets of tunes we're doing - all sounding really good this afto, fingers crossed it'll be the same at the weekend. And yes, we are going to tidy up / hide the wiring a bit...

Oh, go on then, if you insist... 😬 https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/7919-how-was-your-gig-last-night/?do=findComment&comment=4696183

We've done a couple of birthday bashes, one a 70th in a local village hall, and the other an 80th in a trying-slightly-too-hard "gin bar". Both were well-attended, but the former was definitely the more successful of the two - most of the folks there were actually interested in what we were doing, and a small amount of dancing even broke out during the second set (admittedly initiated by Mr Rhythm Guitar's wife and friends, but hey-ho... ). The other was our worst gig ever (so far!), so we'll draw a veil over that one! Funnily enough, we've got another 70th bash coming up in December, which we were asked to do on the strength of the first, and is being held in the same village hall, so it'll be interesting to see how we (and the new material we've added since then) go down this time. Just for the record, we're all in our 60s, so not too disimilar in age to the audiences at each. And yes, we got paid for both and fed nicely at the first, so can't really complain. 😀

Just bought Paul's Ampeg Opto Comp. Lovely easy transaction, great comms, rapid dispatch / delivery, and pedal in perfect condition - another fine ambassador for the BC community.

Bass > Tascam MP-BT1 loaded with mp3s of all the songs we do (in set order, plus a few random ones I'd like us to do!) > headphones. Spend most of my practice time playing along with the mp3s, though I do also occasionally work on scales or noodle etc. without any backing tracks.

Saturday saw another first in the short gigging career of the now-not-so-new band - our first outdoor gig at a charity fest raising funds for the local air ambulance. As first band on, we got the benefit of a decent soundcheck and it sounded superb, with the old Ashdown MAG300 combo I got off @karlfer donkey's years ago still delivering heaps of warm, punchy goodness. Things went slightly awry two songs in to our nine-song set with intermittent dropouts and odd noises coming through the monitors (plus Mr Lead Guitar forgetting to turn his chorus off because he couldn't see the LED glowing in the sunlight), but apparently nobody out front noticed the occasional off-piste moments and various people told us it all sounded OK, so happy days! We had been told that someone was going to be filming all the bands and if we took a pen drive along we could take a copy on the day, but unfortunately it didn't happen so all we've got to show for our efforts is a very short clip on FB. Still had fun though, and hopefully we'll get another, higher up the bill, crack at next year's event. https://fb.watch/ejF2BlydJF/

Looks similar to the Levy's "Right Height" and Right On "F.L.A.S.H" systems, must be a call for it I guess! https://www.levysleathers.com/right-height/ https://www.rightonstraps.com/en/STRAP-Fast-Length-Adjustment-System-Harness.html