Greg Edwards69

Just found this resource, that appears to be most helpful. He's also put a sub $100 video review together. https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks6PGwD6Cjo&ab_channel=crinacle On the strength of that, a set of Moondrop Aria IEMS appear to be the one to get.

Yes, we're gradually getting there, to the point that our last gig a couple of days ago was the first one that we didn't set up the backline at all and relied on the IEM. To keep things simple, we're all using the same mix. 3 of us are using the Xvive system from one transmitter and the others are wired with Behringer P2 packs, all running off a passive splitter. I think the mix needs slightly adjusting, but it's okay, and difficult to keep everyone happy. To be honest, I think all of us are in the 'a little bit of everything' camp in terms of mix, so a mix that's representative of what's out front is fine. Whilst I'd love to have discrete control over my personal mix, it will need considerable investment. That said, I believe we have access to an X-Air stagebox mixer, but it will take a lot of time and work getting it gig ready. We've just got our existing system working nicely, so baby steps for now!. The other problem is simply finding the time to do this work. It's difficult enough getting us all in the same room together as it is! The only thing I think that can improve things as they are is replacing my IEMs. I'm using the original KZ ZS10 IEMs. Not the pro versions. After looking into it yesterday, I see they are a little weak and unrefined in the low end and known for being slightly shrill. I think I may invest in a set of ZS10 Pro X units that appear to have a better profile for bassists. Otherwise, I hear good think about the CCA C12 units too. We've settled on channel 5 for the Xvive U4. It's completely clear from the 4 channels of one of the guitarist's U2 wireless unit*, and it doesn't seem to interfere with the singer's wireless mic since we discovered that the U4 and mic transmitter must be kept at least 3 meters apart. *That said, he had a dropout on his IEM on Sunday. Not sure why, but it came back after a minute, and the rest of us were fine, and I was standing a metre away from him. But I made sure all of our tablets and other devices were set to airplane mode, which may have been the culrprit.

A sunday evening wedding for us last night (so glad I booked the morning off work today!). A beautiful converted farm venue called Apton Hall in Rochford, so, nice and local for most of us. The drummer was a guest at the wedding, and one of the guitarists lives about a 3min drive away so they could get in there early in the morning to do the main setup of drums and PA. Since we added an EV sub and upgraded our IEM system, we've been relying on our backline a lot less lately. So we decided this would be a good opportunity to eschew the backline and rely only on the PA and IEM. I'm pleased to report it worked well and was incredibly liberating to walk into the venue with a bass on my back, Helix in one hand and a guitar stand in the other. No need to fight over plug sockets at the back of the stage, just one power lead, a guitar lead, XLR to stage box, quick line check and I was set up. Great crowd who were up for a boogie from the start. Unusual set list for a wedding, however. The bride and groom and their friends are into more alternative music, so they asked us to play our party stuff in the first set and rockier stuff in the second, which is contrary to what we'd usually do, not to mention some of the requests we'd never normally play at a wedding (such as By The Way and Oughta Know) but I was happily surprised how well they went down with their guests. Rolled into bed around 1am, still glad I booked the morning off today! The next one is in a couple of weeks for a biker club in Dagenham - for a complete change of pace!

My band’s drummer would disagree

I’m surprised. It seems to work every time we play it. Admittedly, it appears to be one of his lesser known tracks.

We played "Edge of Seventeen" once.... only once.

Same here, it's quite astouding the number of times the noise level alert goes off (also annoyingly when I'm using the hand dryer at work - apple really ought to fix that. I note you have a set of AirPod Pro's too. If you don't use IEM in rehearsal, try the AirPods set to transparency mode - they work wonderfully as digital earplugs as they have a limiter built-in set to around 85db by default, but I believe it's adjustable.

This sounds awfully like the "amp in the room" discussion that often pops up on modeling threads and SM channels.

One of the most important factors in a bass guitar for me other than tone and playability is the ergonomics - particularly body shape, balance, and weight. In this case, I feel there is some overlap between form and function. The design or 'form' of the bass' shape is part of its function. Similarly, I care about some aesthetics in a functional manner. Whilst I prefer the look of maple fretboards with big, high-contrast markers from a beauty standpoint, I also like them because I can see them better!

I'm suprised Def Leppard haven't made the cut. They've been touring "Hysteria" in it's entirety for a few years now, on and off.

Similar to Hugh Macdonald until Bon Jovi made him an official member a few years ago. For years he was an uncredited member of the band. There was a guitarist in wet wet wet who was an unofficial member for years too.

This ^^. I've had a couple of 5 strings (and played one exclusively for many years) and a 6 string bass. But I realised at some point a number of years ago that I'm happier on a 4 string bass, so that's all I own. If you're happier playing 5, 6, 12, or 100 strings, then play it, learn it and enjoy it. Music theory doesn't change depending on the number of strings. FWIW, if I need the extended lower ranger offered by 5 strings I use a pitch shifter to simulate BEAD tuning. It's easier for me compared to switching to another bass. Although It forces me to think about what I'm doing and occasionally catches me out.

As an aside. IIRC, Metallica gave $1m to Robert Trujillo for joining the band.

I played clarinet and sax in my youth in orchestras. My subs payment went towards running costs such as sheet music and rehearsal space hire. I wouldn't expect to pay for somebody else's equipment, however.

What if you're in more than one band, or looking to join another, and you've got own the wrong part of the PA for the band? Heck, join enough bands and every member of every band will each own a complete PA system!

Please remember your latter statement. What may be peanuts to you may be a couple of months food budget to other people, or maybe their heating over the winter. not everyone can justify £3k on an “entry level” PA.

I think I might nick the wife's blue nail varnish and mark the left earpiece and cable up so I know which is which.

Decent one yesterday evening. Back on Canvey Island (again) for charity gig in aid of the awesome Indee Rose Trust. Held at Concord Rangers FC, there was a memorial football match on in the afternoon for a local legend, followed by evening entertainment, raffle and auction all to raise funds for the charity. We arrived during half-time and it was chaos! I really didn’t expect such a huge turnout of people. We also thought we were going to be in the main function room of the club house, which is a decent size and carpeted, but that had been booked for a 50th party (and nobody told the organisers of this event) so we ended up on the other, smaller daytime bar. This was fine, but was constantly busy all the time throughout load-in and setup. So we were getting under peoples feet and our own. We also had to manage the sound on out own as our soundman has just had eye surgery and wasn’t fit to work last night. We also had a message a couple of days before from Jenny, one of our singers that she had laryngitis! But was still hoping to sing - besides, she was the one who got us the gig as the event was being organised by her friend’s family. Anyway, we had a great sound dialled in from the gig, just a slight tweak to the sub level and the IEM mix and we was good to go. The crowd was on it from the start, likely due to spending the afternoon drinking! Jenny’s voice held up here and there. Our other singer, Liam helped her out as much as he could, jumping in with parts he wouldn’t normally sing, as did I by covering some of her harmonies, and there was a couple of setlist adjustment on the fly. The place was buzzing, and heaving and we played well. Pretty much the whole room singing along and loads of dancers. A particular highlight was Tina Turner’s “(Simply) The Best”. We’d been asked to learn it as it was the favourite song of the chap whose memorial charity event this was for. And we’d never played it as a full band until the gig. Jenny’s voice just about held out for this one, and everyone else had done their homework and it sounded great - we was all grinning at each other during the song. I reckon this one will be a keeper. It was also an early start, around 6pm and we was home by 10.30… which was nice. However, our singer Liam overdid it, by singing more that he usually would, plus being roped into comparing the raffle and auction - the latter took nearly an hour! This would have been fine usually, except we had a rehearsal today as we have a wedding gig in a couple of weeks and it was the only available time we had to get a rehearsal in, so I had to provide a few guide vocals today, as well as trying to remember how to play several songs we haven’t played in ages! Lastly, this is the second gig we’ve have the IEMs properly sorted out and sounding great, and didn’t need the backline FRFR speakers. So we’re planning on leaving them at home for the next gig and going properly ampless.

Wow. Talk about twisting words! We're not relying on the bank of mum and dad. He's a soundman, who just happens to be the father of one of the guitarists (the latter of which happens to be a Director at an Accountancy).We're not a bunch of kids. We're adults ranging from 40 to 60 years old and all financially independent. This is why I said "we're lucky enough to be in the position...". I realise it's not universally applicable. If he did turn up with cheap, unreliable gear that's not up to the task, he wouldn't be our soundman anymore!

Totally agree with TimR and also agree that expecting a new member to pay for stuff when they join is insane, especially for a weekend warrior band. I simply wouldn't join a band if I was expected to stump up a few hundred quid or buy a replacement part of the PA because the old member took it. Not to mention that different band members' financial situations vary wildly. What is a minor expense to one person, is food for the week for another. It's also worth mentioning, that in many bands, the shared equipment is evolving, and upgraded when needed. As such, I suggest making it clear shared equipment is a "Band purchase". Split the cost evenly between the existing band members. If someone quits then the rest of the band pay them market rate for their share. If a new person joins, they don't pay until the band decides to get new equipment. There are exceptions to this, of course. But they need to be decided on a case by case basis. For example, we're lucky enough to have a soundman who owns the PA - the father of one of the guitarists. What he buys and how much he spends is up to him, same as how much I spend on a bass or amp. As such he gets an equal cut of gig money. But we're in the process of upgrading our IEM system to the Xvive U4. But the drummer doesn't need wireless, and can use a far cheaper wired solution. So it's only fair that the members who want to use the wireless system buy their own receivers. Easy.

I've had my MP2 for a year or so now and I've been generally happy with it, and didn't initially notice the heavy bass from streamed music. However, I've recently purchased the Mooer Prime P1 because it does a couple of things the Nux doesn't and the difference in streamed music was stark compared to the Nux. I used the same headphones I use with my Helix and Nux (Jabra Move - which allegedly has a fairly flat profile) Initially, I thought it was a problem with the P1, as it seemed to be rather lacking in bass. Even if I plugged the P1 into my iPad to stream music over USB it sounded weaker than the Nux, so I thought it might be a DAC issue rather than just Bluetooth. So, I felt disappointed with the performance of the Mooer, thinking the Nux sounded better. I mean, who doesn't like more bass? And as I alluded to, I chose my Jabra Move headphones by the reviews that mention the profile is fairly neutral without massively hyper bass. FWIW, My Blackstar Core ID Beam suffers a similar issue with streamed music - whether Bluetooth, wired aux in or over USB. Music playback always feels light in bass, whereas my actual bass sounds bass heavy!. So I had another unscientific play last night. P1 paired with my iPad and the Nux paired with my iPhone and my trusty KZ ZS10 IEMs. Wow, the Nux sounded bass heavy! I also compared the headphone outputs of those two devices with the internal outputs of the iPad and iPhone (via USB to Minijack adaptors) and although sounding slightly different, the Nux is still far more bass-heavy. For fun, I also compared it to my Airpod Pro's earbuds, and again the eq profile was similar to the P1 and wired headphone output direct from the iPad and iPhone. I haven't yet compared this to my Helix which can only play music through over USB. But when I get time, I certainly will. (I reckon I'm going to need to borrow a headphone mixer at this point). What this also tells me is to start using my IEMs at home more often. I've been thinking about getting some better on-ear headphones for bass practice for some time anyway, but in the meantime, my IEMs seem more revealing and accurate than my Jabra's. That said, the sounds I've dialed in with the Jabras and my helix translate well to my headrush FRFR and live IEM. Although I need to do some work with the sound coming out of the PA. That's very interesting to know. I'll have to take a look at this and see if I can improve the sound of the Nux.

Funnily enough I was looking at mine last night for markings, or on the cable at least, whilst I was replacing the foam tips (one of them literally fell to pieces at the last gig). I know which earpiece is which, but the cable is completely unmarked. I can't remember if mine came pre-assembled or not as I bought them several years ago.

Just found this https://reverb.com/uk/item/6836739-chris-broderick-pick-clip-right-handed-black

A corporate family fun day event, for Cat Surveys in Brentwood - a.k.a “CatFest”. Really nice setup when we arrived, with a small fun fair for children (inc dodgems and lots of inflatable bouncy things), pizzeria, candy floss station, hotdog wagon, waffle vendor and bar… all free! We were given a 90min slot from 6pm, after a children’s entertainer and before the DJ, in a lovely, large teepee with plenty of space to set up an and a generous dance floor. Not a lot of time to set up everything - just about 1 hour, but we did it with minimum fuss and with discipline. We finally got our IEM issues resolved with a single, balanced mix for everyone (some of us wired and some on wireless all from a splitter box). Me and the two guitarists each brought our usual frfr speakers as backline which were left switched off - I finally feel like we’ve reached the point we don’t need them anymore. The IEM sounded great, and the recent addiction of a sub woofer has filled out the FOH sound. As such, all our vocals were on point - a couple of songs with big harmonies/backing vocals such as “Blinding Lights”, “Long Train Running” and “I Gotta Feeling” sounded massively incredible in my ears. Apparently the sound out front was just as good. We played well, and kept the set moving with minimal gaps between songs. It took 20mins or so for people to have the courage to come in and have a dance, but after 40mins, the dance floor was full and stayed full (which surprised me as it was twice as hot inside the teepee than outside - sweating buckets!). Only a couple of fluffs from me, one brain fart and one where I jumped a song in the set, but I saved them both and nobody noticed apart from the band). Happy people and happy customer who said they loved it and definitely want us for next year’s shindig. Oh, and the heavens opened just as we finished packing the cars - so we stood in it and basked in the cool rain. Obligatory photo of the setup:

For bass check, I just noodle something pentatonic in the first 5 frets. To check instrument levels mix - a chorus and dual guitar solo in "Can't Get Enough" and a little bit of "Don't stop me now" to check the keyboard level. For full band inc vocals - a verse and chorus of "Long Train Running".