Greg Edwards69

On 29/06/2025 at 08:05, Merton said:

Oddly, where we were sitting, his bass sounded sh*t, almost like there was something wrong with it whenever he went high up the neck!

But other than that - excellent gig, probably one of, if not the, best IM shows I’ve seen. Thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, except the heat 😆

I was there too with my wife. We were rear standing.  Got as far forward as we could for the first part, not far from the mosh pit behind the mixing tent. Sound was so-so there, but could see bugger all of the stage. My wife started to feel a little claustrophobic towards the end of their main set, so we made our way to the back to get an overpriced drink from the bar. The sound at the back was a blurry mess, reverberating throughout the whole stadium. If we do a big arena or stadium gig again, I'll pay the premium for front standing or seating close to the stage like we did for Queen and Def Leppard several years ago - much better sound.  Otherwise, the show looked great... what we saw of it on the big screens.

We left just as the encores started to beat the rush to the train station - hundreds of others were doing the same thing - a bit of a shame, but we heard the ones we wanted to hear (although I would've liked to have heard the crowd joining in with 'Fear of the Dark'). We really enjoyed Halestorm's set too. I've never really listened to them before - the wife said she sounded like a heavier Lady GaGa... she's not wrong!

We've used bandhelper and a shared google account for ages. I upgraded our bandhelper account to a higher tier a while ago that includes a scheduler. It does things that google calendar can't do such as availability checking, which is easier than messaging people on a group chat to check availability, but so far it's been met with resistance.

If you can get everyone on board, it's well worth the investment. Even only the lower tier without scheduling it's very useful for repertoire, set list and lyric management, along with midi features and attaching mp3s of songs for people to learn.

School Prom gig last night. Mid week ones are always a bit of a challenge, what with having to leave work early etc, but at least I got home at a decent time!

Second time we've played this one (our drummer works at the school and his wife is headmistress) and second time we've done it without any of our usual singers. Keen readers may recall that one of our singers dropped out of last week's gig because of his ME. He was supposed to be doing this one with a dep female singer, but he still wasn't feeling fit, so she ended up doing the whole 2 hours pretty much on her own. We had a rehearsal on Tuesday, when we found out he was still unwell, so we hastily put together a new setlist to get through the gig. I ended up singing 4 or 5 songs as well to give her a rest.

Under the circumstances, it went much better than I expected it too. Typical "gymnasium sound", but it sounded decent out front. In-ears were another matter. I don't get how the in-ear mix keeps changing from gig to gig, but I was getting pummeled by bass and kick drum and hardly any guitars. We definitely need to do some work with that.

Teresa, the dep singer did a fantastic job. She was in a previous band over 20 years ago with the two guitarists, and I depped with them on their last ever gig before forming this band. I quite forgot how good she is with a crowd. It helped for this one that she's also a school teacher herself. You could tell how comfortable she was interacting with the kids.

The school itself is a special needs school. It was fantastic to see these children enjoying themselves in a safe, nurturing environment. I feel they wouldn't have had the same opportunity to express themselves the way they did last night in a regular school. It's humbling to see them being encouraged by the staff to be themselves without judgment.

So, yes. A good night in the end. Any anxiety I had about not having our usual singers quickly disappeared once we got going. The evening finished at 9.30 and I was home a little after 10.30. More of those, please! Although I was still aching when I got up for work this morning.

Next stop, The Cricketers and a wedding both in July, with yet another dep singer that we've yet to rehearse with! It seems like the years of deps!
 

Saturday was a surprise 50th birthday party, in the upstairs function room at Starr Sports, Canvey Island. The birthday boy’s wife booked us months ago after seeing us severaral times, including another party in the same venue. Apparently he is a huge back to the future fan, so they had an “enchantment under the sea” theme, including decorations, and we offered to include a couple of songs from the film in out set, as well as a couple more when Liam, one of our co-lead singers was also going to man the DJ booth.

I say ‘was’, because we got a message Saturday morning on our band group chat to say that his ME was playing up quite badly which took him out of action. This meant revising the set list for Jenny, the other lead singer to do the gig on her own - something she hasn’t done for a some time, particularly this sort of gig - as there are a few songs she simply can’t pull off. There was also a few in the set that she doesn’t usually sing or hasn’t sung lead on them before, but was confident she could. I realised this also meant I was going to need to up my backing vocals game, and sing some parts I don’t usually sing… which is fun!

This also meant the DJ service was said we would provide before, between and after sets wasn’t going to happen either. Luckily, I have some party playlists already set up in the Music app on my iPad (aka iTunes) that would get us out of trouble. I just had to find a couple of extra songs from the BTTF soundtrack to play at certain predefined points during the evening.

I needn’t have worried though. The evening went without a hitch. Jenny did an amazing job on her own. I feel she sometimes relies on Liam’s confidence to interacti with the audience, but it seems to have rubbed off on her. This venue also has a lovely big stage area and she made the most of it (as did I), confidently moving around and interacting with everyone.

My curated playlists worked fine (thank goodness for Bluetooth on our mixer), although I realised that I can't switch to BandHelper whilst playing music. That's a mistake I won't make again! I also realised during our first set that I hadhn't synced BandHelper before I left home. So I connected it to my iPhone whilst it was playing music towards the end our break so that it would sync when I switched back to BandHelper, not realising that a FB messenger notification would pop up... loudly, through the PA system. Another mistake I won't make again!

Ooh, one last thing, as this stage is so wide, last time we played there I noticed the speakers being so far apart, meant the drums didn't quite gel. So I asked one of the guitarists to being their DXR10 speaker to use as a centre fill. Sat it on top of the sub, plugged it into an aux out of the mixer, with the same mix as the main, and set to post fader. Dead easy, and sounded great. Definitely made a positive difference.

So all in all, a good night after, despite the anxiety of being a man down.

I seem to recall reading that basslines were played in a higher register decades ago due to the limitations of vinyl at the time, as well as playback equipment. Not to mention the limitations of early bass guitar amplifiers. I wonder if this led to more melodic bassline creation?

40 minutes ago, prowla said:

I went to Canterbury a few years back and had a look in the Hobgoblin shop.

If I were to go there again I'd give the shop a miss.

I popped into Bristol branch last year whilst on a short trip. I left the shop with the same feeling. Nothing for me there.

Even if the strings are new, a poor break angle / witness point could potentially cause this issue.

It's sad, but it's been on the card since the original owners sold up and cashed in.  My local was the OG Pmt in Southend.  I went there a bit, but I was never a fan and felt dirty doing do. Something bout the way they ran the business felt off, and their face-to-face customer service left something to be desired. Not to mention some of the horror stories I'd heard about their guitar setups.

I used to quite like their original tiny shop, but they got too big too quickly IMHO as the "professional" bit in their moniker went out the window and successfully put their local rivals out of business by targeting the budget end of the market. Eventually, they simply didn't stock the things I was interested in and wanted to try.

When they sold the business, the original owners retained the Southend building itself and charged the new owners an extortionate amount for rent. So the new management simply closed the store. It surprised me, but to be honest I don't miss it.  There's other local shops I miss more - such as Honky Tonk - who PMT effectively put out of business.

28 minutes ago, Jack said:

Yeah and I was able to do that when I had the rack helix as the wireless and DI and stuff were also in the rack. I guess the floor units would work for me if I went to a bug-style wireless system instead of the Shure pedal-style.

I sold my G10s wireless and replaced it with a far cheaper Lekato unit for this reason.  I don't need anything more advanced for the gigs I do.

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Depending on how many separate channels of synchronised backing you can output along with the processed instrument that might be useful. However, just stereo isn't going to cut it for anything other than the most basic of gigs. 

 

Edit: will it also send MIDI program changes to other devices?

 

Edit 2: It will also depend how easy it is to get all that additional information loaded into the Helix Stadium from your DAW. 

From what I saw in the presentation, there's a DAW-like view for song stems that you can freely mix as you see fit. I think I saw a separate mixer feature as well for all the ins and outs. I assume you would be able to assign stem tracks to different outputs to make this feature truly useful.

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

 

I already do all of that with my Helix Floor. 

 

Preset and Snapshot changes are controlled via MIDI from the computer that runs the drums and second synth part. Selecting a song also selects the correct Preset on the Helix and then the Snapshots change in the correct place as the song plays. On some songs then Snapshots change every two bars in places which mean that if the computer wasn't doing it for me I'd pretty much be glued to my pedals for those. We have a song we're currently working on where some of the changes only last a beat or two!

But now you don't need the computer. It can all be done from within the HX Stadium, backing tracks, automation, even DMX lighting.  Heck, you could probably run the whole band through one device.

40 minutes ago, simisker said:

 

I wouldn't raise your hopes up. It looks like they're pitching the Stadiums [Stadia!] at a price level above their HX equivalents.

 

Rather than making the HXs undesirably obsolete, I think it'll just reinforce a market for something which offers 90% of the experience for 33-50% of the price.

 

I think we'll only see a real change once the Stadium Stomps come out, if those were to be aggressively priced for the larger market.

 

Note: this is my uninformed ad-hoc reckon. I am not John Maynard Keynes.

 

Line 6 stated in the live stream that the price of the Helix Floor, Rack and LT are going to be heavily reduced by a couple of hundred dollars. I would assume this will affect the used market price.

1 hour ago, MrDinsdale said:

Definitely has some cool features, will be interesting to see what the new amp modelling sounds like. I find it funny how excited people are about the bass-centric Anagram despite the fact it ship with so little, the Stadium is clearly guitar focused but still ships with double the number of bass amps. The anagram amps dont even model saturation!

 

I'm very excited to see what the Stomp equivalent looks like in a few years. 

The reason I'm excited by the Anagram is that it does pretty much everything I do in my Helix LT in a Stomp sized package - saturation or not (although I'm sure it will come). The Stadium's are built upon a very mature platform, and are more powerful than I need (not to mention bigger). The Anagram is astonishing for a v1 product, and I'm sure it will only improve over time if Darkglass stick to their promises.

If anything, it shows Line 6 what people expect from a refreshed Stomp, if they make one.

I watch a bit of the live stream, and it seems to me that Line 6 have done something unexpected and are launching a premium, higher tier product rather than direct replacements for the current generation of hardware.  It also sounds like the current hardware will continue to receive support and development, although how much and for how long, who knows!

For me, I am looking to repair and/or replace my ageing LT at some point. I bought it over 6 years ago and it's showing signs of age that need addressing, such as burnt out expression pedal sensors, one of the encoder switches is tempremental and the screen has started to develop a blue line. I will likely get it fixed in time, but I am getting tired of lugging it around. The Darkglass Anagram seems on paper to be the perfect solution of me, at least it will when promised features are enabled. I'm hoping with the newly revised pricing on current HX hardware, the replacement parts might get cheaper, although I doubt it.

It's a great time to be a guitarist and bassist, that's for sure.

1 hour ago, JPJ said:

Re 2.4ghz vs 5.8ghz 

Recently, I did a gig as a sound guy. I had two devices connected to the bands Behringer X-Air XR18 running an external dual band router, one on 2.4ghz and one on 5.8ghz. The 5.8ghz connection dropped out two or three times during the gig whereas the 2.4 stayed rock solid all night. 

 

That said, I see that X-Vive have now brought out the U45 - a 5.8ghz version of the U4

IIRC, from what I know about wifi routers, 2.4 GHz has a longer range than 5.8 GHz but is more prone to interference from channel overlap. 5.8 GHz is cleaner in this respect.

It's also worth bearing in mind that both frequencies are used by wifi and Bluetooth (in the case of the former), so subject to environmental influences. I always try and remember to put devices such as phones and tablets into airplane mode if there are problems.  I remember playing at one venue that had a wifi extender plugged in next to me on the stage that was interfering with my 2.4 Ghz wireless. I turned that thing off and cured the problem instantly.

On 01/04/2025 at 09:08, Graham said:

I've been using an Ampeg SGT DI pre-amp for home use, as I'm not in a gigging band at the moment. I really like the sound of this pedal and when I do get back to playing live I'd like to have an amp behind me, to just transparently make the pre-amp louder

 

If I swapped my amp for a single PA speaker as a FRFR, could I get enough volume to amplify my SGT pedal  instead of using a traditional amplifier?

 

My amp is a EBS TD650, into an EBS Neo 2x12, when I was gigging I rarely pushed the volume past 9-10 o'clock. Before the TD650, I had an HD350 and whilst I had to to turn the volume control further, it was rarely past 11 o'clock; I think I went to 1 o'clock once - outside with no PA support.

 

Would something like a QSC K12.2 give me enough volume to replace the head and 2x12, even with half number of speakers? Or is this a fools errand?

 

As long as you have realistic expectations, you should be fine. Gigging with one of these is akin to a high powered 1x12 bass combo, such as the Markbass CMD121 mentioned above. If you can gig with one of those, you can gig with a high-powered 1x12 PA speaker. I gigged for several years with a Headrush 1x12 speaker without PA support, before going direct to PA with IEMs, and I used a markbass 1x12 cab with different heads before that. 

Back at the Cow & Telescope last night, one of our favourite haunts. 

Bit of a mixed one. I had developed a cold with a cough a day or so before and had a weak voice before playing.  It was totally shot by the time we finished - good job I was only singing backing vocals.

We really struggled with sound as well. We pulled up the the previously saved mix and it sounded muddy, a dull - like blanket over the speakers. And the bass drum mic was ringing badly. I couldn't work out what had changed. So during soundcheck, I ended up pulling a load of ≈100hz out of the bass drum mic, pulling low mids out of the mix and adding a bit of presence. It sounded better and good enough to get through the gig. But it wasn't until we got to the second or third song in the first set that I realised the frequencies around F# were getting rather excited, but it was too late by then and just had to muddle through until the break when I could look up the exact problem frequencies, (92.5hz and 185hz) and notch them out.

Started out second set and the problem was still there but not as bad. No-one in the audience seemed to be bothered, but it was bugging the hell out of me. Just as we started the the third song in our second  set I noticed the hpf switch on the DXR12 in front of me was set to off i.e. full range. I should be set at 100hz, so I quickly flicked it over and the problem disappeared!

Oh well, lesson learned.  I usually check the volume setting on the speakers as these usually move during packing and setting up, but I never thought to check the switches.  I quickly checked the other one and that as 120hz. So both of them were wrong.

Annoyingly, I remembered this morning that our mixer has a feedback filter that we've not tried using yet - we've barely scratched the surface of what it can do.  So we really need to investigate this feature and learn how to use it properly. I probably would have cured this issue instantly.

Otherwise, it was a good night. Some of the regulars, some friends, some who had come especially too see us and a big birthday party who wanted to have a good old boogie, which always livens up the atmosphere.

I was done by the end of the night though. Not feeling 100% took it out of me. But I was glad I packed some vocal zones and a hip flask of single malt.

4 minutes ago, Huge Hands said:

Have you Googled it?  I was looking into Helixs recently and thought I saw there was a common issue with the crashing during updates, but I don't remember it being said as if it was a terminal problem?

 

Maybe other users have found a fix for it?

 

I work with other DSP based systems and sometimes manufacturers have ways to get the CPU back by using direct to chip recovery software.

I think, but I'm no expert in such matters, that's what the Line 6 Updater software does.

Great suggestions all round.

I'll add "Jagged LIttle Pill" by Alanis Morrisette.

That doesn't sound right at all if he/she was just performing a software update.

Tell them to download the Line 6 Updater and try again. This is different to doing it through HX Edit. More of a nuclear option! I've had to do this once when HX Edit's update process failed, due to my laptop going to sleep partway through.

If they still don't have luck, then they should raise a support ticket directly with Line 6 who will walk them through several resolution options.

They're supposed to be enabling audio over USB soon as well. This would be useful for many modern devices, such as smartphones and tablets, that no longer include headphone sockets. It would be handy if it could supply power over USB too, to charge up a device at the same time.

I saw this pop up on FB yesterday, too, and then disappear, along with his personal account. There are a couple of threads over on Talkbass—some people think this might be an AI-generated fake/scam. But as I said on there, whether it's genuine or not, we should take it at face value—the guy might really be suffering. His words concerning his wife are particularly poignant.

Also, we should not be too quick speculate. We have no idea what contracts are in place between PJB and the Chinese manufacturer. Phil or Wendong could be the one at fault; we just don't know. All we do know is that someone, somewhere, might genuinely be going through a major crisis, and they need support.

1 hour ago, tayste_2000 said:

Its worth noting that the NUX Pro has quite a heavy bass boost on Bluetooth audio going into the device.

That's definitely worth remembering for anyone looking to buy one of these.  I'm sure I mentioned it elsewhere on these boards sometime ago, but when I briefly had a Mooer Prime P1, I noticed the Bluetooth audio sounded weak compared to my original Mighty Plug. After testing, I realised it was the MP at fault, artificially boosting the low end.

The P1 had other issues, but that's another story!

A handful of "new" songs for a couple of upcoming gigs

Still into you - Paramore

Power of Love - Huey Lewis and the News

No One Knows - QOTSA

More or less there, just need a little polishing.

1 hour ago, tayste_2000 said:

Apparently there will be some available in europe but thats just from a random forum post I saw

They mentioned it on their FB page last night: