bonzodog

That would terrify me. As i am also the PA man for our band as well as bass and singer, i have spares for eveything. Even a spare speaker stand. A few gigs ago our drummer forgot his spare snare and I was panicing all night

Cool..thanks guys. Think I will continue to use both and adjust the eq for now. It seems to be certain rhythms i cant do with my fingers rather than speed. Struggle with town called malice riff but can do the bass solo to my generation with my fingers fairly easily.

I know this has been done to death and will cause a lot of conflicting views so I apologise in advance. I have always played with a pick but more recently have begun learning with my fingers. I not only enjoy playing more with my fingers but prefer the more punchy sound I am getting. However there are some songs we do that I simply just cannot do with my fingers. We play in a mod covers band and some of the typical runs that are in the jam bass lines are just too fast without my pick. Town called malice too is proving impossible to get the rhythm with my fingers where as its simple with a pick. The problem is if I switch between the two its making my sound too different as I used to roll up the low freq with a pick but back off now with my fingers. Should I carry on trying with my fingers till I nail it or just accept I need to switch between the two and keep adjusting the eq?

I think the venue should be doing most of the hard work to get punters in but also think the band should also be seen to be advertising too especially now with social media. We play almost every weekend and always put our gigs on our facebook page but would not expect all our followers to come to every gig. We play at lots of venues where we find out on arrival the venue hasnt bothered to put any posters up. But on the other hand if I was a landlord I would also be annoyed if I booked a band who had a website or a facebook page but didnt bother to mention the gig at my venue.

I too thought alex james' bass sounded great, and I have sh*t TV speakers.

I am tight/skint too so made my own cab covers for my two cabs! I used black ribbed plastic sheets from wickes and black duct tape. Whole lot cost me a tenner.

I am very happy with my TC electronics BC range of cabs. I have a 210 and a 212. Together thats 500w in 4ohms and you could go for 2 x 212s instead.Now they have been replaced by the newer models you can pick up SH ones very cheap and they sound great.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1428268103' post='2739832'] I'm thinking this is a younger band. Blue [/quote] Yes it must be. I must be too old and played in covers bands too long as this thread wound me up

I have always played in bands and adore music but never listen to music in the car, after a gig or at all. Its always radio 4 or 5 live for me.

Only time i do is when we play Substitute. For some reason i cant gauge when to start each verse unless i tap four beats from end of chorus

Town called malice or going underground

Went into DJ shop in Birmingham today and saw one of these https://www.djkit.com/chauvet/chauvet-wash-fx.html This has to be one of the brightest lights ive ever seen. In the 6M wide showroom it lit the whole area up very well and its probably all you'd need on a medium stage. At £130 its amazing value. I nearly bought it but then thought about all the times we play a small pub and just need the odd par can or two on the floor so bought 2 mega tripars instead. But if anyone is looking for a one light solution for a medium stage then check it out

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1427204028' post='2727069'] we got rid of the stands with ours as they take up too much room and now velcro them to the top of the PA speakers! [/quote] Ive thought of doing that with a couple of par cans instead if a tbar. Most speakers have mounting points where you can screw in a bolt and then fix the bracket of the par can on top

The Kam power party bar looks good. Think it was the original partybar with the 10mm LEDs that had a poor output. My mega tripar light is very bright but does not have a very good spread of light. Power party bar should give a good spread with all 4 lights on

Just wondered what you guys are using for stage lighting. With LEDs improving all the time its a question of price against performance. We use two ADJ mega tripars which have 5 x 3w each light. We added a third similar LED par can by another manufacturer as we werent getting enough colour in some venues. Now one of the tripars has packed up we are thinking of getting one of the kits which has 4 lights on a bar incl stand and footswitch. Some of the KAM ones get poor reviews due to low output. The Adj dotz series look good but light spread looks limited. Just wondered what everyone else used for medium sizes pub gigs. Or whether we are better off with single par cans for better flexibility.

[quote name='thebrig' timestamp='1426880201' post='2723147'] The OP was talking budget mics, and as I said earlier, I could hear no discernible difference between the Behringer and teh Shures, I was skeptical about them when I bought the first set, but once I started using them, I immediately sent off for another set. For me, and a lot of other people on here, they are very good mics for the money. It really depends on the OP's funds, we all have different budgets and needs, some people buy Wals and other high-end basses, while others are perfectly happy with Squiers and the like. [/quote] Yes exactly. We happily use 58s and I wanted a low cost mic that may well end up staying in our kit bag forever.

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1426852832' post='2722699'] Make a flyer up so they can post it on their social media , you may also need to provide them with posters or A4 flyer printouts I know it all benefits the pub only (you get paid anyway) but it seems today its really up to the band if they want a good atmosphere to do some of this stuff. [/quote] We did flyers for each gig for our facebook page and sent them to the venues 2 weeks ago. Neither of them have used them. Some pubs do ask us to drop physical posters into them a couple of weeks before hand which we do when asked. But if they dont ask we just presume they are doing them, themselves.

I know this topic has been done a millions times but I'm getting more and more annoyed with venues and their attitude to advertising. We are playing two pubs this weekend, tonight and tomorrow. Been checking on thier facebook pages which they seem to use quite often and tonight's gig mentioned us at start of the month along with all the football games and menu deals throughout month but nothing since. I drove past there on Tuesday and there were no posters up. Been trying to contact the bloke who booked us for tomorrows gig all week (he doesn't work there but gets the gigs for a few local venues). Finally spoke to him last night and he said he wasn't doing it anymore but we 'should' still be okay to play there. So I had to get in my car and drive to the venue. Spoke to a barmaid who said (after getting her diary out) that there was a band booked in and presumed its us but no name or fee is in diary. I had to get her to write our name in and told her the fee which she said she would pass on to manager and ring me with any problems. Again no posters up or mentions on their facebook page. We will get paid for both gigs and they may be busy, but I doubt it. its just so frustrating to see no effort, when we have been advertising both gigs on our page and webs site for weeks. Roll back to last week and we had a belter of a gig. There had been posters up and loads of facebook activity and the pub was rammed to the rafters. Rant over

My biggest gripe is PAs are usually nowhere near powerful enough. We dont rehearse particularly loud but in some places we've been to, we have had to turn right down on amps just to hear vox. Current one we use though is only a small place with 2 rooms and only a handful of people use it so everything is in good nick. Problem is unless more people use it it will probably fold

Just ordered the 3 pack of behringers xm1800s for £29.00 including case and free delivery. Cant beat that and also some great reviews on amazon as well as here. Cheers guys

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1426805748' post='2722310'] Why not buy a used 58 for$25.00- $50.00? Blue [/quote] Most decent used 58s go for around £60 on ebay which is a bit more than we want to pay for a mic we may never use. XM8500 looks interesting. Thanks as always

Can anyone recommend a decent budget all round mic? Me and other singer use SM58s and in my ongoing obsession with having backup gear for everything I want to buy a cheapish mic that will probably never get used but there just in case. I read that PG58s were good and only £40 incl cable but the guy in my local PMT shop put me off saying they werent too good and tried to flog me something double the price. Thanks

I love Muse but I must be getting old as I cant bear songs with swearing in them

[quote name='beely' timestamp='1426264183' post='2716371'] I think Truckstop and wateroftyne have pretty well nailed it. Every band should have a "leader", for want of a better term. In my band, that's me, but only to the extent of organising rehearsals and all the 101 crappy but necessary things you have to do. The rest of the band just have to learn their stuff, turn up and play. Musically we are all pretty much of the same mind so there is no real friction there. [/quote] Yes thats us too. i am pretty lucky that in my 3 piece covers band we are all good mates too. The other two are far too laid back and I organise all the rehearsals and gigs and advise if we need new gear. They take the p*** out of my spreadsheets and endless emails but deep down i know they appreciate it and i enjoy doing it all. My wife works week day evenings and i have two young kids so it fills my evenings up. But I always make sure we are all in agreement on where and what we play