NancyJohnson

When I was driving back from rehearsals last night, BBC Radio London were doing a good drummer/bad drummer phone in, which considering my current dilemma (see 'Drummer Woes' thread), was a decent listen. There was a new (to me) drummer joke, which lead to a spontaneous laugh; How do you know there's a drummer at your door? Because he doesn't know when to come in. Or something. It was late.

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1473343668' post='3129343'] I made our one, thinking the printed ones were all too expensive for a bit of cloth with a bit of printing on. [/quote] This is the way we were thinking, but ultimately you're paying them for their time expertise in doing the job. It's really well made and actually came out better than expected. I think the main thing is that you need to ensure you put the work in at the front end and the submitted image is decent.

[quote name='cetera' timestamp='1473342586' post='3129328'] How much was that mate? [/quote] Hey Gary It was £120, plus £10 shipping (UPS). Week turnaround. It folds up to the size of a think hardback book. I'm very pleased. P

Ta daa!

The process is in motion. I know it all seems to be a round the houses process, but the guy knows that he's generally sub-par. It's a case now of just letting him down easily. We jammed last night and he had definitely upped his game a little, but while I'd say within fifteen minutes he was back to normal, as in terrible. We have a band WhatsApp group and it's kind of going off as I type this. Pictures at eleven, as they say in news speak.

I've never seen one I didn't like the look of, but I couldn't actually see myself buying one.

Just an update. We finally decided on a 3x2m and put our swag with Printlit. It arrived today. While I'd say you definitely need to put in the time to design and submit the design in the correct format, I have to say that the end result is tiptop. Just need to find s new drummer, eh?

The closure is a pity, but when you're up against the big mover stores like GAK, Andertons, Thomann etc it's got to be difficult. It was a gallant effort to support a relatively small marketplace on the retail front. I suppose the closure supports the theory that a high end bsss store has a somewhat limited apoeal, like a Leftporium. Shame.

Don't particularly want to rain on anyone's parade, but I'd actually be interested to know the names of some of the bands you guys were playing in rather than, 'Oh, I played here, here and here.' The biggest I played was a lunch set at Richmond College, Twickenham about 25 years ago with a band called Mai Mai. It was during a week long music festival thing and none of the band were students there. There was over 500 crammed into a room that had a capcity half that. It was raining heavily. Amazingly, we were the only band that hired in a PA for their gig. I remember one unsavoury female member of the academia shouting, 'Laser show! Laser show!' when we were doing the load-in and after the gig pretty much trying to push her tongue down our guitarists throat. People are strange. Happy days.

I think our regular audience is 20-40 people. Happy enough with that. I like playing mid-bill; the meat in the sandwich...hangers on from the openers, people in for the headliners. Usually get a few Facebook likes off the back of it. I'm done with the headline -wannabee malarky. I really don't want to play to 2 people anymore.

The vocalist records everything. Everything! I've been at breaking point for a while, the guitarist (who has only been in the band for a couple of months) is more vehement than me. Tipping point for both of us came after the singer circulated some of the 'better' recordings from last week.

In answer to Roger2611, I'll be straight and say he's a lovely bloke and would say that on a friend only basis, we'd all get on with him famously. To reply to MacDaddy, his comment supports mine in as much as things seem to come together for gigs, although there's a great chasm (my favourite word at the moment) in ability in comparison to every band we've played with. Interestingly, the last 24 hours have proved quite cathartic, almost therapeutical. Rather than bottling it all up and getting angsty, the matter is out there and being discussed openly between the rest of the band, plus the guy I'd like to get in is clearly chomping at the bit to come and play with us. Just need to get him fired.

The singer, guitarist and myself have had a discussion and while the guitarist is on my side, the singer thinks he's OK, but will go with the consensus. Ive also had a quick word with another drummer (a very decent player) who's biting my arm off for an opportunity to play with us. At least the silence has been broken...moving forward.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1472894423' post='3125094'] What is slightly confusing me is this comment "The thing is that live, he redeems himself somewhat.". Does this mean at gigs he is playing in time and remembering the songs? If so seems a case of not putting the required effort is and just going through a shift. [/quote] Rehearsals are an absolute nightmare; he's so blinkered, frustrating and unproductive, but by and large when we gig, generally he does seem to be able to pull things together, but again we're subject to the same ups/downs and lack of dynacism. Literally, just going through the numbers. MacDaddy saw us a couple of weeks ago...his opinion might be useful here if he's willing to chip in.

Let's just cut to the chase. Drummer has zero flair, regularly forgets the songs and can't keep time; he's a nice guy, all over the place and my gut tells me he knows he's on borrowed time. The thing is that live, he redeems himself somewhat. What do I do? It's pretty much my band...the guitarist is all for giving him the elbow, the vocalist thinks he's fine. I'm kind of with the guitarist. Things pretty much came to a head when he was late for soundcheck recently and we did a couple of songs with the amazingly adept (female) drummer from the headliner we were playing with. He actually came in when we were playing. I want to suggest he works with a click/metronome so it's at least in time. There's a lot of things I want to suggest. I fear that firing him may cause the singer to jack it in too. I'm even toying with trying another drummer I know for one rehearsal just to get my point over about the chasm in ability. Suggestions?

My Lull was £3.2k (probably more now considering post-Brexit exchange rates)...I have a Hamer for which I was offered £3.5k from a guy in the US. Despite these ridiculous valuations, there's got to be owners here with gear way over this. US Spectors, Ritters.

I may be right (I may be wrong), but I believe that if you have an Adobe account, you can download Audition 3.0 for free now. It's officially unsupported now (superseded by newer Creative Suite versions)...I still use this iteration for home demos. Worth a look?

It was Kiss. Don't know whether that makes me feel proud or a little embarrassed.

The TC Helicon Harmony Singer doesn't work without a guitar being plugged into it to detect which key to harmonise to, so that's off the list.

Sansamp GT2. It's more a guitar dirtbox, but superduper for bass. I do love the BDDI/VTBassDI, but this is a little less controlled. Loads of shizzle. Cheap too if you can pick a used one. P

I don't think it's necessary to go as far as taking vocal lessons...I've never really had an issue singing off any key, my pitch is pretty good and I breathe well, it's just the thickness of my singing voice that's amiss. (I do not sing from my diaphragm.) We recently changed guitarists and when the old guy stepped up for choruses as well, it was just fantastic. I always alikened his vocal quality as being like Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, it gave everything a powerful, gruff, aggressive quality, whereas my vocals come over like a whiney Liam Gallagher! We were good for each other in that sense. I'm sure the new guy will step up when he's ready, but for now I need some kind of stomp box to give me some help.

Unsure whether this is the right place to post, but here goes. I generally handle backing vocals for my band and I'd say that while my range and pitch is decent enough, I'm honest enough to say on record (m'lord) that my timbre is quite thin and nasally, so things need phattening up. I'm looking for recommendations for a vocal harmoniser box of some sort. I've watched a few You Tube videos and they all seem much of a muchness, but detrimentally they only seem to be demonstrated by solo acoustic artists, rather than in a band environment. So I'm looking for advice really...we play punky/rocky stuff. I'm really unsure whether it's actually throwing good money at something that's a bit crap.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1471882958' post='3116688'] ... like Henry Ford got it right. I keep telling you; go buy a Model T and you won't wish for anything. "There's no better bridge on the market than a BBOT" [/quote] Baked beans on toast?