Norris

Possibly our last gig at the Donkey. It was rammed with a fabulous crowd. Hot and sweaty - fantastic! It really did feel like the end of an era though. There is still a lot of confusion as to whether, what I regard as Leicester’s top live music venue, is going to continue despite the Facebook screen grab I posted the other day. Anyway, the gig. Initially we had quite a lot of boom from the kick drum mic/stage resonance. My amp was quite low level as usual, to give the sound man some headroom to work with. It was a bit of a struggle to hear what notes I was playing at times. I had a word with the sound man in the break, he tweaked some stuff, and it sounded much better on stage in the second set. Sound issues aside, it was a fabulous gig to a very receptive crowd. We don't usually do the standing around on stage the end of the performance taking the applause thing, but this time was different. It did feel a bit final. I didn't take any photos myself because there were a lot of people taking much better photos. I'll post some up when they are forwarded to me. Oh, yes the Stingray-esque Sterling Sub5 sounded great (when I could hear it) and I revelled in the growly twang. The Rumble was on form as usual. Bittersweet.

The Stinger preamp has absolutely transformed the bass. Twang, growl, heft - it's all there. Happy chap 😁

The pub we played at tonight, we were supposed to play at last night, but they asked us to move because of the football match (Leicester lost badly to Nottingham Forest). I'm not sure if we've done a Saturday there before, so whether it's the switch or if it's normally quiet on a Saturday - there were not many people there when we started. The load in is a park up with hazards on, on double yellow lines, on a hump-backed bridge and a quick chuck-in to the tiny playing area before moving the cars. All didn't bode well, especially at it is not even a cash pickup at the end of the night either - invoice and wait! However it was the first opportunity to try out my Sterling Sub5 since I fitted the new Retrovibe Stinger preamp. Wow - it's absolutely transformed the bass! What was a muddy and indistinct bass now has bite, growl, thump and (dare I say it) heft. I had a whale of a time playing it. The B string is lovely. It also is about 2/3 the weight of my usual Sire P7-5. Guess which bass I'll be playing at the Donkey tomorrow... The only slight downside is that my Boss GT-6B seemed to have difficulty tracking the note when it was quite twangy - the octaver and synth patches I use in some songs both had a bit of a funny turn until I plucked a bit nearer the neck to reduce the overtones. I'll just have to remember to do that next time. Anyway the night did seem to pick up a bit as more came in, and we kept them in the pub which is the main thing. It's not a good situation though. The pub music scene seems as fragile as I've ever known it in 40 years of playing. Anyway, obligatory rig shots... And to think I had it up for sale recently. £75 spent on a better preamp has transformed it, and it paid for itself tonight - it owes me nothing now.

Yeah, so are we. We don't yet know if he's going to honour existing bookings. It's been a bit of a surprise. Even Gaz Birtles (the usual sound guy) didn't know Maybe we'll find out some more on Sunday afternoon...

I've just seen a post from the new manager saying that he will be continuing with live entertainment. What my guitarist sent me... Hooray!

The sockets get a bit mucky over time, and the contacts that normally touch when there is no jack in the socket can stop letting the signal. A short patch lead between the two sockets means you're not relying on those contacts and instead the signal travels through the cable. A squirt of electrical contact cleaner in the sockets may be enough to clean up the contacts. The lead will still probably make a better contact though, because plugging and unplugging the lead will tend to keep the contacts clean.

They headlined the Rewind festival a couple of years ago and were really excellent. The early song that time was Being Boiled - my favourite of theirs

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to move to 5 strings, so I bought a Sterling Sub5 from the for sale forum. However it didn't quite sit right in the band mix, and was supplanted by a new Sire PJ 5-string which suits the band better. So I had the Sub5 kicking around looking lovely but not really being played. I put it up on the forum where it got a couple of likes but no bites and I eventually withdrew it. Wondering what to do with it, I did a bit of searching into maybe getting a new pickup to try to give it a bit more punch. As luck would have it, a lot of search results were for old Basschat threads. In a couple of them I saw that some people recommended a preamp upgrade rather than the pickup. A lot of them recommend the Retrovibe Stinger preamp, being a copy of a 1977 Stingray preamp. Roll forward a couple of weeks and the new preamp arrived and I fitted it this afternoon. Wow - it's transformed the sound. So much nicer, I can't wait to try it out on a gig. I've always loved a Stingray sound but never got on with the fat neck that most of them have. Having since moved to 5 strings and hence changed my technique a bit, I'm a little less fussy about a fatter neck - although the Sub5 is actually narrower string spacing than my Sire. The Stinger preamp sounds great on a 5 stringer. Hopefully I now have more than one 5-string bass of gig-worthiness

Erm... you want to run 3x cabs in a small music room?! Wow

Squeeze on Tuesday at the De Mont

Just got back from seeing Steve Hackett. What a fabulous gig. Firth of Fifth was absolutely awesome. Jonas Reingold is such a talented bass player!

Albumental

He needs (and a drummer I play with often would never be without) this type of thing https://www.porteranddavies.co.uk/ (Think backbeat for drums)

30 down so far, another 12 to go this year. We've been taking it a bit more steady this year and enjoying the odd weekend off (or even the odd month off!)

You'll probably get a lot of strap suggestions as well as for bodies, donor bass models, etc. I'll just say that I have used a "Comfort Strapp" for decades with many basses of various weights and have never had any back issues. They are made of elastic and thick neoprene and I wouldn't use anything else. You'll probably want the XL size though, and I don't wear mine very low. Excellent call by @neepheid and a very cheap option to explore 👍

We had an afternoon gig that kind of turned into an early evening gig. The last spot went in a flash, but was actually over an hour and a half. It's a great pub and sounded fantastic. The landlord has spent a lot of time and effort setting up a proper stage, and it really makes a difference. It was a little disturbing to hear that they only had 19 people in on Friday though. That sort of thing makes it really hard to keep putting on bands 3 times a week. Luckily we managed to draw a decent crowd, so played for a bit longer than we normally would (to keep them spending over the bar - that's what it's all about) At the end of the gig it took me about 20 minutes to make my way to the back of the pub to where the loos are, because it seemed that everyone wanted to stop and talk about how great it sounded, how well we played, etc. It's not easy to tear yourself away even with a full bladder when you're being showered with compliments 😁. Anyway it continued while we packed up meaning that we took ages. We have next weekend off, but are going to have an "extraordinary general rehearsal" next week (we very rarely rehearse) to polish up a few songs for the Donkey the week after - probably our last there ☹️

The D'Addario Pro Steels on my main gigging bass have probably done over 150 gigs in the 21 months or so they have been fitted

Slightly pixellated, I read it as ...interact with the audience wet. 😮

We had a really good gig. The pub has been taken over by a young couple who are keeping the live music going, so that's always good news. Lovely people too. It's always a bit of a strange place for me, it seems to lack that buzz. Lots of people we knew turned out to see us though, which is always an honour. We never get many decent photos of our drummer, so here's a screen grab of a video that I took while he was soloing in Moby Dick (and the guitarist and I were having a sit down)...

Well I guess that @Chienmortbb would probably make them (as it's his thread!) 😁 The last leads I had made came from Custom Lynx - a mate of mine works there, although they were DMX leads that I had made https://custom-lynx.co.uk/

I get mine custom made because you just can't seem to buy cables "off the shelf" with an angled jack at both ends. So if I'm going custom they are going to be gold-plated Neutrik jacks and excellent quality, flexible cable. Oh, and 3m is plenty from my multi-fx pedal. The cable back to my amp is also angled jacks both ends, but with a thicker, stiffer cable. The angled jacks out of the back of my multi-fx pedal help a lot if dancers get a bit too close and personal - far less likely to be damaged if stepped on. Angled jacks are also less likely to be tugged out of a socket if the cable is pulled.

I think the spacing between the tuners is not large enough to operate the Hipshot on a lot of basses. It fitted some Rics but not all. I'd quite like one for my 4003, but have to put up with a quick twist of the tuner to drop to D.

Just bought and collected a TGI Extreme gig bag from Ian. Very nice chap. His house was fun to find though 😁 Thanks, Norris

Definitely! If you want 6 months off that's how long it might take you to immerse yourself in the world of 5-strings and get your head round it properly. Your technique will probably improve too - floating thumb is second nature to me now