Greg Edwards69

Just like the real thing then. I bought one once. Took it back a week later. Couldn't get a sound I liked out of it.

Darkglass have released a video demonstrating the new blocks. I have to say, the Sansamp and Big Muff sound great.

Boss pedals might be possible, without them losing out on sales. The Anagram has/will have plugin support, and Boss already have a plugin suite of their most popular pedals available to purchase. There may eventually be a way that a user can purchase the Boss plugin to run on the Anagram, or they can work together to integrate it as a paid addon.

I agree with you that it would be great to see effects other than dirt, but I can understand why they've added these. It seems that a common theme when the Anagram was released was that many bass players wanted alternative drive sounds to the typical modern Darkglass sound. These 4 new blocks should keep those people happy for a while.

I reckon it's a tube screamer - rhyming with dreamer.

Little late to report, but never mind. Thursday we played a double headed with another local band (SX5) at the Cricketers in Leigh as part of a fundraiser for the RNLI. SX5 led on the event and provided the temporary stage, PA, drums and lighting, so we more than happy to go on first. They have their own mixer dialled in (XR16) and use IEMs, so we weren’t quite sure what to do with limited time to set up. So it was decided to bring our mixer for our vocals, guitars and bass, run an output of their mixer into our for the drum mix to retain our own IEM mixer, and then straight out to the spare inputs on their PA speakers. I thought it was gong cause more problems than it would solve, but it ended up working really well. A 90min set without a break to a very appreciative audience (and a busy one for a weeknight) went by like a flash, a quick tear down and SX5 started merely 30mins later. Received a lot of complements from people who’d never seen as before, as well as a number of people who turned up to support us (and the cause) who usually see us playing elsewhere. Whilst I would have like to stayed to support the other band, I was exhausted and knew I had a full on day at work on Friday (in what turn out to be a marathon 5 hour session with an important customer going through amends in a 400 page InDesign document). So reluctantly, we left at 10.30ish and in bed by 11. Looking forward to doing it again, if they plan on it.

Ooh, I don't know about that. I don't usually like false overenthusiasm, but I can't help but like IMA. He's one of the few bass content creators I actually admire and can relate to. He's a proper working bassist who has a great ear for tone and loves playing with effects. And importantly, he's not flashy and doesn't make content to show off his technique, unlike a lot of other well-known bass content creators who don't seem to leave their house.

We've played a number of weddings over the years - often for family members or friends of friends, so we've rarely charged big bucks. But yes, they're usually a long day, typically around 12 hours from leaving and getting back home (even longer if we're invited as guests as well) - certainly longer than a regular day at work. I think the longest we did was 22 hours after leaving home at 6 in the morning for a wedding in Cambridgeshire for a morning set up. Didn't get home until 4 in the morning because the soundman's vehicle broke down on the motorway. This does mean there's often a bit of to-and-fro when negotiating for weddings, as they don't understand that they're paying for more than just 2 hours of music.

Private party in Southend on Sunday evening. It was for friends of one of our singers throwing a party before emigrating to Australia, so lots of Australian theme decorations, hats and inflatables in the venue. The venue itself is called ‘The Lounge Club’, a beautiful jazz bar with a decent well equipped stage area (including hidden power outlets), great lighting and green room - we were truly spoiled. The club has a mix of jazz and soul acts usually, with a number of tribute acts, so it quite fun to bring some heavier rock to the place. We brought our own PA, but the club owner said we could go through their house system, so we just run a couple of xlr leads out of our mixer direct to their patch bay and let them control the volume. Said system consisted of two huge subs either side of the stage and a couple of large tops flown from the ceiling. Quite a bit pokier than our megreat 12” tops and single 12” sub. Personally, I feel it needed a centre fill, but apparently it sounded great further away from the stage. I think they were calibrated a bit on the bossier side (as proven when the DJ played music when we took a break and finished - almost painfully loud and you could feel the bass in you stomach), I had to run the hpf on our mixer up to 90hz to stop it overwhelming the mix - it could possibly have gone even higher. As such I was worried that my IEM mix would be lacking, but it sounded fine with the subs filling in the low end. First set was a little lacking in audience participation, but by the time we kicked off the second set set everyone was sufficiently fuelled for a proper party. Really enjoyed this one. Just looking out to see a large club full of dancers throwing balloon and inflatables around was a sight to behold. It reminded my of the good old Top of the Pops days in the 70s and 80s. We had some lovely comments and gave our plenty of business cards, including the couple who booked us who said we were better than the £5k band they booked for their wedding. We really ought to be charging more for these events. Hopefully the venue will be able to recommend us to anyone else who wants to book a rock, pop and party band! Next stop, this Thursday at the Cricketers in Southend. A double header with another local covers band, in aid of the RNLI. Should be an interesting night.

More important IMO. My IE 400 Pro have a single dynamic driver and sound far superior to other multi driver units I’ve used.

Not to mention their X Air series mixers have become the go-to solution for many gigging bands on the pub and wedding circuit.

To be fair and accurate, TC and Behringer are both subsidiaries of Music Tribe, along with a number of other brands such as TurboSound, Klark Teknik, Tannoy and Midas. Although Uli Behringer is the founder and chairman... draw from that what you will.

Look up frequency slotting. At the very least, put an hpf on the keys around 80-100hz. The low notes will still be there, they just won't have as much energy and keep them out of the subs, if there are any.

How did you get involved in that one, it looks a lot of fun (despite lack of dancers)? It would be a good one for us to do if they have a few bands on during the day.

Played for my Neice’s and nephew-in-law’s (is that a thing?) wedding yesterday at the beautiful Creeksea Manor in Burnham-on-Crouch. Keen readers who may recall I had a particularly painful experience at last week’s gig will be pleased to to know this one went much, much better. You may also recall that last week was challenging due to personal reasons, and I have taken steps to address them. As I was part of the wedding party for the day, I had to leave the other load in and do the majority of the setup. This massively helped me, not just my time being involved in the wedding celebrations, but also relieved some of the pressure I’ve been feeling lately with band stuff. So by the time the band had to make themselves scarce whilst the guests sat down for the wedding breakfast, most of the work was done. Just a case of plugging in my gear and a couple of mics afterwards, and a quick sound check. Everything was still dialled in from last week, so soundcheck was quick and easy. The reception was in a huge marquee, with a permanent DJ booth at the head of the dance floor, meaning the band were somewhat crammed in the corner, but still more space than we’ve had in some places. Usefully it also meant the soft drapes caught errant reflections and sounded great “straight out of the box”. Although it was quite a warm evening, somehow the thunderstorm the weather reports promised amounted to no more than a rumble and a couple of minutes of drizzle - but you could feel the mugginess in the air! Hazel, our dep co-lead singer for the night, did a fantastic job, and worked the crowd well with Liam, our other singer. At one point, they both got into the crowded dancefloor, getting people to join in on Parklife, which was a particular highlight. Another highlight was the bride’s brother singing Teenage Dirtbag (with my wife doing the girls' bit in the middle). When the bride first asked us if he could do it ages ago, I didn’t even know if he could sing. Turns out he can’t, but he’s very enthusiastic! Thankfully, he was in time and more or less in key, but moreover, he loved every minute of it, and the crowd lapped it up. Two hours of rock, pop, party and cheese later, we were done and knackered. I received a number of compliments from guests, including people who hadn’t seen us play before but had heard good things. So I’m glad we didn’t disappoint. A couple of people even said they were glad they had a good band as the DJ was rather lacklustre. Most importantly, my Niece and new Nephew were over the moon with their day and evening, and I went to bed feeling a lot lighter in mood!

Yep. Exactly that. There are at least a couple of bands I know of that use a pair of 18-inch powered subs in the local pub circuit... and they use backline too! Sounds good, but overkill IMHO. (And yes, I do realise they have volume controls, so they don't have to be loud).

Just from purely personal experience and anecdotal evidence, I can see how bands might be louder than they were, maybe even just 15-20 years ago. A lot of bands like ours used to use modest backline to fill the room and a modest PA for vocals only. Whilst many bands have embraced modelling with silent stages and IEMs, the PA systems required for this are beefier and include subs to handle the full band, including micing up drums in a pub!. Not to mention, technological advances have made powerful PA systems more affordable. Whilst it makes things more consistent and arguably better sounding, we're capable of going a lot louder than we used to, and louder than we should do. In all likelihood, it's the subs that are causing the noise complaints these days.

Reading the article, it appears that it is aimed at new builds and new business only. I can't see mention of existing pubs and venues.

Thanks both of you. I really appreciate it. I have another gig this week that I’m leading on (my neice’s wedding), but after that I’m going to have to get the other to step up more. I need to speak to my boss too. I’m working on several massive projects at the moment. They’re doable, but just intensive, so not doing my mental health much good. Agreed to the second point. We’ve had a couple of technical rehearsals before, but the usual 4 hour slot just isn’t enough time to set up the full PA and drums and go through everything properly. I mentioned the other night about doing a longer all day session if we can in an appropriately sized room. It will make things much easier going forward if we have a better baseline to work from.

Difficult one for me on friday evening at the Cricketers in Westcliff. I'm not sure I was mentally prepared for it. For a start the wife and I were away for a couple of nights before for her birthday and a friends wedding (on the same day), and we got back the morning of the gig. We also had a dep females singer with us, covering a couple of gigs for our usual singer. Me and Liam (the other singer) got there in plenty of time, drummer was late, which is logistically challenging to set up a PA around if the drums are not there yet. One of the guitarists was held up on traffic so bad we wasn't sure if he was even going to make it, which would have meant drastically changing the set. Then the dep singer arrived and called us to open the gates - the pub manager had said no more cars in the pub's private car park at this point and to use the public car park over the road. I went outside to tell her only to be met with a very distressed singer saying she's split up with her partner and has everything she owns in the car and can't leave it in the public car park. Thankfully, the landlord understood and let her in. At this stage, I wasn't even sure if she was up for singing, but she insisted on seeing it through. So we finished setting up. Dep singer doesn't like IEM's so we set up a wedge that kept feeding back no matter what I did. really struggled with getting a good in-ear mix. It shouldn't really change by this point, but both singers were using different mics to what we're used to, do gain stages were all over the place. In the end, she said not to worry about the edge and she'll make do with the FOH speakers. Finally finished soundchecking 15mins after we're supposed to start playing - then the drummer says he can't hear his overheads. Getting rather stressed by this stage. Having a digital mixer should make setting up and sound checking a breeze, but we're lacking so much consistency lately with either gear or band members. Finally start playing, Two song in and I notice my E string is massively out of tune. Drummer also says (and he was right) that the bass sounded really 'subby'. Admittedly, I was trying out a new preset I've been using in rehearsals that seemed but, but it sounded really bassy in the room, despite having low cuts on the IR block, mixer bass channel and main mixer outs. I ended up enabling the global eq on my helix and adding another low cut around 85hz! Something definitely weird happening. Felt like we'd settled in after a few songs, until the dep singers wireless mic packed up and we hastily switched her to a wired mic during a song. Kept ploughing through and ended up having an 'okay' night. the heat didn't help matters either. It seemed to sap us all of energy. I was glad to be finished by the end of the night. I felt tired, under the weather and stressed all evening. I had a chat with a couple of my band mates and said I'm really struggling lately. It feels like I'm the one doing most of the work behind the scenes. I've got a lot on my plate with work and family - I have my widowed mother staying with us, over from spain for a few weeks, and I still don't feel like I've properly grieved after losing dad back in February. It's all getting a bit much. Mentally exhausted and overwhelmed - I need a holiday.

Sledgehammer is about the only one I regularly play in my band that has a prominent fretless bass line. But it sounds fine on fretted - no complaints so far! PS, I used to love playing "Wherever I lay my hat..." and "Tears in Heaven" at home when the mood took me. Beautiful lines.

I bought a fretless Warwick Corvette around 20-something years ago from the old Bass Centre in Wapping (I miss that place!). Proper German-made bass, with bubinga body and ovankol/wenge neck. Lovely instrument, but I just didn't play it as much as I wanted to (if that makes sense) - a fretted bass just works better for what I play. Not to mention it was damn heavy (about 14lb on the bathroom scales) I sold it a couple of years ago when money was getting a little tight with the wife on post-covid-complication-related-long-term sick. Every now and then I get the urge to get another fretless, but I don't need one - I'm trying to keep GAS at bay by only owning and buying gear I actually have a genuine use for (I know - crazy talk!). But if I ever do get another one, I'll save some money and get a Harley Benton or similar. I mean, it's not as if I'd have to worry about dodgy fretwork!

If you think about it, the MXR is effectively a combination of pedals as well, stuffed into a single pedal. The presets are effectively like snapshots on the helix - adjusting certain parameters at the press of a button. Admittedly, I use the presets on a Helix LT, with more footswitches available, which makes it easier to switch effects in and out. For most presets, I use a combination of stomp mode and snapshot mode, or sometimes both, using the control centre. I think it's worth persevering with the IMA synth presets, though; they are quite powerful and sound great, but they need tweaking to make them work for you and your particular performance preferences. Spending sometime setting up snapshots may be the solution you need. PS I do wish IMA had programmed some snapshots into his synth presets - just for a little more variety.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, but check out Ian Martin Allison’s “vintage synth bass” helix preset pack. It’s very similar to some of the presets he’s dialled in for the mxr pedal - especially the Phillinganes moog type tones. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKGCye6O_Ak/?igsh=MWVwOXZvcHpsZjJtbg== https://ianmartinallison.com/store/vintage-synth-pack

Not to mention the used market when people realise they jumped on something they didn't really need.