Norris

At the very budget end of things my Stagg EUB has a headphone socket. It is very much a stick bass, but does have brackets that loosely approximate the shape of a DB. I love playing it when we do "acoustic" gigs. https://www.normans.co.uk/products/stagg-edb-3-4-bk-3-4-size-electric-double-bass-in-black?variant=40045424378056&srsltid=AfmBOopvovqKKRWHQtIFtmL9xwJj7Ez_ho5SirrqDcLe511xkGl6H5nN_rA

It certainly looks like my SB-1000. It's an early "batwing" one, probably 1980, before they added a battery LED and recessed the jack socket. Very nice 👍

Yes. We always do or you end up with random stuff

A couple of tribute bands over the last couple of nights First on Thursday night were The Musical Box at the De Montfort Hall Leicester recreating the 1973 Genesis Live album that was recorded there. As usual absolutely impeccable! A few extra tracks thrown in from Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot. The strange bit was the "warm up" act which was the MB bass player, and I think the keys and drummer playing some original "progish" "music" - good in places, but a bit "out there" for a fairly large audience, getting polite applause. The Musical Box though, wow! Supper's Ready was immense! Tonight was The Devout, a Depeche Mode tribute. All credit to them for the nearly 3 hour set, but tbh I could have happily lost the first hour and a half of album tracks and skipped straight to the stuff everyone knew. Very good band and a great tribute. It did take the sound man about 6 songs to get the vocals up to audible level though, and I strongly suspect the guitar parts were mimed and very low in the mix. I barely recognised My Own Personal Cheeses. I've had a good couple of nights out though. Very enjoyable

Normal printed paper, put through a hot laminator and cut out with scissors. From a metre away you wouldn't know And yes, it is a real Ric

The thread on mine seemed a bit loose and would drift out of tune with repeated use over the course of a gig. A tiny dab of clear nail varnish on the thread before tuning it sorted the issue. I always use the same brand and gauge strings, so I've never needed to adjust it since. You could probably use a dedicated thread lock fluid but they tend to be coloured (blue loctite if you ever want to move it again, red if you don't)

We've been playing together for about 20 years and mistakes are few and far between. However we wear our big boy pants and can take the big OOOH face from the others when we drop one, and hand it out too. It's all part of the fun. No egos. I love it. The audience are usually clued up musically too, so they notice and join in the friendly barracking. It's all taken in good humour

My first thought wasn't the volume, but the guys poor back humping that gear around 😂

I've seen the Musical Box several times and chatted a fair bit to them after the gig. Nice chaps to talk to. But yes, they stayed in character for the gig and I've had expected nothing less. I guess it depends on the tribute and the level they aim for. The Musical Box are looking for as authentic experience as possible: audibly, visually and between songs story telling too. I'm looking forward to seeing them in a couple of weeks time on the "Genesis Live" tour at the De Montfort Hall Leicester, where the album was recorded back in 1973

No. The occasional charity gig, yes. The Dog and Duck? Never. Besides, the guitarist is pro Heck, if nothing else it's self-esteem to be worth paying after the decades of practice and experience

Coming back to the OP, I don't think a metal band is quite the genre for making heavy use of a backing track. However the Pink Floyd tribute I played with for a while couldn't possibly have done without one (we were aiming for sounding just like PF recordings)

I'm generally not a fan, but can understand that situations and budget can dictate their use in some circumstances. We've certainly never considered it in our trio. I'm also not really a fan of the incognito sidemen. To show the way to do that, I saw The Darkness the other night. The shadowy guitarist/mandolinist was dragged into the spotlight several times, hugged, embraced and name-checked. The drummer came out front to sing lead on a song and the drum & bass tech stood in on drums, again with huge acknowledgement. (It was a great gig, and what a great self-effacing frontman Justin is!)

Fabulous gig. Ash were pretty good in support

The prices were a bit "gougey". We had one pint. We didn't go back for a second

Tenor sax and guitarist were with them. You should have gone

Sungazer at the Islington Assembly Rooms If you've never heard of them before (and I was one of those people) then check them out. They are awesome, playing proggy jazz-fusion. The bass playing was sublime. So glad my son got those tickets

I have an ancient SM57 and a fairly old SM58, but an AKG D5 suits my manky bass player voice better (and is cheaper than a SM58)

Sure you want to leave? Your last few posts sound like you're having a whale of a time

Grade 5 or higher earn additional UKAS points (iirc ?) I also seem to recall grade 8 counted towards my music A level mark. Are 5 and above considered performance grades?

I didn't know that was a thing. How do you do the aural part of the exam?

You're paying for the lessons, it's up to you how fast you want to take it. He who pays the piper and all that... One exam per year might be a comfortable rate perhaps (it's been a while since I got grade 6 in my youth)

I'm seeing them down in that London on Thursday. I can't say I've really heard of them before but my eldest lad wanted a gig buddy. Friday night is The Darkness back in Leicester. Edit: got my days wrong! 😂 Sungazer were awesome last night. The Darkness is tonight (Thursday)

Blimey it's not looking like a good weekend from the reports so far. I'll add to the woes... We were supposed to have a cricket club presentation evening tonight, but it was called off because so many of the members called off ill. Oh well, tomorrow's gig... nope, the guitarist is now ill, plus he's the main singer so that's called off too. Our next gig is not until May because of his ongoing tour! At this rate I might need to do some practice at home to keep my hand in 😮

There are cheaper and simpler systems than the one I'm using. The main thing for me is that I'm playing bass, so need something that runs itself while I'm doing so. Also I'm a computer programmer by trade so am not phased by some technical details, and I wanted something that could control any light I throw at it. It's a solution that suits me but may not suit everyone Edit: Dad3353's suggestion of a more simple foot controller might be more suited to your needs. Have a read up of what they can do

It's been a few years since I bought my kit so there will probably be stuff that is much easier to set up now. I went over to DMX mainly to keep the lights synchronised. The controller is not the cheapest either as I wanted something that was versatile and would last a while. In fact I've replaced the first set of lights I had with much better ones but am still using the same controller, which will handle most lights. https://www.thomann.co.uk/stairville_dmxmaster_i.htm The thing is that it will take time to set things up. You'll need the manuals that came with your lights because you'll not only need to put them into DMX mode, but also set a base address for each one. This will be via pressing buttons on more modern lights, or setting tiny little DIP switches on older ones. For each light you'll need to set the colour's red, green and blue (and perhaps white) levels - for every step in the sequence. A notepad will be handy. Once you've set it all up though it's very easy to operate. The controller has buttons to select the colour sequence, whether it's time or music switched, and a couple of sliders to control the speed and cross-fade duration. And of course a blackout button. The one thing it lacks is the ability to dim the lights - the brightness is set to how you programmed the colours. In our setup I have a pair of 4-way RGBA lights, so that's 8 lights to set up per sequence step. I've set up 3 or 4 sequences, one of which is a dim single colour wash to light the stage between sets. I also have a couple of "derby" lights that are not DMX controlled, they just do their own thing. It's also worth investing in some decent DMX leads (they are different spec to instrument cables, even though they use the same plugs!) and a terminator plug. Hope that helps. It will be an investment in both time and money to set up, but easy to use.