Gottastopbuyinggear

We bought the Soundcraft UI12, which gives 8 mic pre's and 4 aux mixes (configuring the headphone out as two of them) and it's been great. Having read that they were plagued by dodgy WiFi I also bought an external router and connected that to the mixer using Ethernet, on the basis that if WiFi via the router failed I could fall back to the mixer's hotspot. Via the external router it’s failed every time I’ve tried it, but it’s been rock solid via the mixer's built in hotspot. To be fair I keep the iPad near the mixer most of the time, so if I was using it in a slightly larger venue than we play (pubs) it might have difficulty, but for what we need and the way we use it it’s been perfect.

Saw them at the Genting Arena last night. Great show, but sadly I heard precious little of Trujillo as the bass sound was just one massive kick drum induced mush. I honestly could only hear individual notes when he played a solo, and even then there was very little definition. Now I have to admit that it’s been a fair time since I’ve been to an arena show, and this is the first since I’ve seen the light and started playing (and taking notice of) bass rather than guitar myself, but I’d expected the sound to be better. Guitars and vocals were great, but overpowered by the bass mush. I heard other people around me commenting on the same after the support had finished. Is this typical of arena shows, and just a fact of life given the acoustic constraints? My 16 year old son loved it - his first big gig. He was a bit shocked when I told him I’d first seen them 31 years ago!

I’ve used a Northwest Guitars p bass neck in a parts build, but I also used one of their bodies. The reason I mention that is that the heel width is 63mm, which i think is pretty narrow compared to most, and certainly narrower than both my MIM P and J basses. It’s a slightly more chunky neck than my 2015 MIM P, but overall a very similar C profile. In terms of quality it seems fine. Truss rod works okay, frets could do with a polish but are pretty level, and I set up with the action as low as both my other basses - to the Fender standard spec of just under 2.5mm and 2mm at the 17th fret on the E and G respectively.

I had this with Schallers too - there's quite a lot of surface contact between the two parts so I assume any slight twist when the bass is on the strap can start to loosen the screw. I've switched to Dunlop ones now and had no problems with them.

Not sure about 1mm. I bought one of these recently - 2.5mm so possibly a bit thick, but it was a nice piece: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GUITAR-HEADSTOCK-VENEER-EUROPEAN-MAPLE/182756857967 Rothko and Frost also sell 2mm headstock veneer.

Not particularly cheap but there's a load of backing tracks on karaokeversion.co.uk where you can choose which instrument is left out. £1.50 a track as I recall, and most of them come with versions with and without vocals, and isolated bass too. Some of them are a bit obviously midi instruments, but in the main the ones I've bought have been pretty good. I'm sure I've come across other, free, backing tracks for bass, but obviously there's a lot less than for guitarists. Also pretty expensive but there used to be the band in a box software, which you can use to create your own backing tracks. I had a version about ten years ago, and even then it had some reasonable "real" instrument sounds as well as the midi based stuff. Not sure if it's still available, though, or how much it is. Edit: just checked, still going and starts at $129. Various different versions with additional content up to a whopping $600 odd.

My gig last night was... double booked, and we were the ones that didn't play. Allegedly the landlady tried to message us but didn't get a response - unlikely as nobody had any calls or texts, and no messages through Facebook either. Drummer turned up first and couldn't understand why there were two blokes giving him such strange looks as he dragged his stands bag through the door, until he looked round to see the other band's kit there. To cap it all we've now had to cancel our gig tonight as the keys player is ill - he was already looking a bit rough last night, but I'd thought that was just the disappointment of driving for an hour only to have to turn straight round and go home. The Bell in Pontypool if anyone in South Wales is looking for a gig - I've posted about it over on the Gigs forum.

My band, Fortunate Sons, has had to pull out of a gig at The Bell in Pontypool this evening as our keyboard player is ill, so they're looking for a replacement. If you google it the place comes up as permanently closed, but check Facebook and you'll see they're still running and in fact have us advertised. They've advertised us as Fortunate Souls mind you. Good grief, this sounds like a wind up, but it isn't! We play 60s and 70s rhythm and blues and soul, but I'm sure the pub would be interested in any general covers bands. If you're up for it and contact the pub then please give us a mention as we've told them we'll do what we can to get a replacement band. Turning out to be a bit of a crap weekend as we had another gig booked last night, and turned up to find another band already setting up - we'd been double booked and the landlady "couldn't get hold of us" - very unlikely since we have three people monitoring our Facebook page, and nobody had any messages...

Unless I've missed a post from my quick flick through then the oldest debut so far was at 24. I can double that, but I'm sure someone else can probably beat me... [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Location/Venue: The Plough Inn, Aberaman. 24th September 2016[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Your age: 49 [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Your bass: Fender MIM Precision[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Your amp: Ampeg PF500 with PF115HE[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The set list (some of it): Up Around The Bend as an opener, various Stones, CCR/Fogerty numbers, Tobacco Road, Keep Your Hands To Yourself, and a few more.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Anything else that might be funny/interesting/embarrassing: [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]First gig for me, and for the band. The event was the 2016 Cwmaman music festival, which is spread across a few pub and similar venues in the area. We stepped in to replace the band scheduled to be on last on the Saturday night, hence we now claim that our first ever gig was headlining a music festival. [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Cwmaman is where the Stereophonics come from, so we got the inevitable "Play something we know. Don't you know where you are? Stereophonics!". We play barely anything more recent than 60's/70's, so that wasn't happening.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The "load in" had been difficult, negotiating a fairly well packed room with some fairly well lubricated punters, not all of whom were taking very well to being bumped by the various amps and cabs being carried in and out. By the time we finished the room was no less busy (which is good!) and almost certainly even better lubricated, so the landlord suggested we leave the opposite way we came in - down the steps to the cellar, weaving around the barrels and everything else down there, and back up the other set of steps.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]All in all it was good fun, but it's fair to say it's not a venue we're desperate to go back to. [/font][/color]

I taught myself to do this without too much difficulty, despite it seeming quite alien at first - I'd bet a few 10 minute sessions over the course of a week will give you the muscle memory to do it. Follow the usual approach of starting out very slow and deliberate to get it right, and then speed up gradually to a normal playing speed. In theory you only need to rest on the string two below the one you're playing if you're following through your pluck into the string below, if you see what I mean... I think they call this a rest stroke as opposed to a free stroke? Whether there's a "correct" way of doing it I don't know, but I taught myself to be able to walk my thumb to the string below the one I'm playing, as well as sticking to the one two strings below, and I sometimes find that helps with consistency.

I'm currently a ceramic artist on the Isle of Wight, which is a vast improvement on the last time I looked, when I was a murder victim in Seattle...

EZ Drummer is great - very easy to use and good search functions to find suitable patterns for your songs, but I also think you should look at Logic - you get an awful lot for your money.

I'm still relatively new to this game - long time "bedroom" guitar player, but played bass for a few years and just into my second year of pub gigging (only a dozen under my belt so far). In my experience, for pub gigs you'll not need any more than a reasonable 1x15, and by reasonable I guess mean something with a few hundred watts and a fairly efficient speaker. That doesn't stop me gigging with a stack of two 1x12's, mind you, but need and want are two different things!

For blues and rock you could do worse that the Ampeg PF350 or PF500 and one of the matching cabs. They're pretty reasonably priced second hand, the PF500 especially as it's still tainted by all the talk of failures, but that only affected the early ones so if you get a 2015 or later it'll be fine. I have a PF500 and it's been fine. I find it really easy to get a good tone.

Mine is a self help mantra

[quote name='Les' timestamp='1505220596' post='3370309'] If your subs have a crossover I would imagine you could use the link form the tops which is a signal through out into your power amp then send that to your subs. Our subs (powered) take what they need from a full range signal and just ignore the rest. That would save sacrificing one of your aux sends [/quote] That would work okay for the Yamaha DBR12's that we have, as they have a high pass filter which can be set to 120Hz so they won't try to reproduce the bass. But not all tops will have that option, and even if they do then the crossover frequencies might not be particularly well matched.

This is what I was thinking of: https://www.music-group.com/Categories/Behringer/Signal-Processors/Crossovers/CX2310/p/P0132 Mixer main L and R signal outs to that, and then from that you have a high and low signal out for both left and right, lows to the inputs of the power amp driving the subs, and highs to the inputs of your powered tops. I had a very quick look at this while my band were talking about PA options recently, so this isn't based on deep research.

I've no doubt someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly, but I'll stick to saying that a crossover is your best bet - I'm pretty sure Behringer make something that will do the job for less than £100. Unless your tops have a crossover in them then they'll currently be trying to reproduce all the low end, as well as your subs, which doesn't strike me as a good situation. Either way, I'd be willing to bet that you'll get a better sound out of your planned set-up than you do currently, just by letting your power amp concentrate on driving the subs and the tops concentrate on putting out all the mids and highs.

My limited experience is that any bass sound that I like on its own seems to have way too little high end and distortion/overdrive when played with the band. I'm not sure how effective it is but one thing I've tried is playing along to live recordings of my band, through headphones, and setting up my sounds while doing that.

I don't know of any powered tops that will allow that. Depending on what you get then there might be a signal "through" that you could take to the amp feeding your subs, but I'm pretty sure you won't find anything that'll allow you to slave another passive speaker from them. I'm slightly puzzled by exactly how you're set up at the moment - just to confirm, your tops and subs are all passive? And your power amp speaker outputs go to your tops first, and then you have a slave output from your tops to your subs?

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1505211418' post='3370211'] Powered tops weigh a great deal more than otherwise equivalent passive tops, natch. Make sure your stands are up to that, and your band mates are happy lifting 30Kg speakers above shoulder height. I never really understood the attraction, myself. [/quote] From the list of tops the OP has given I think he might well find they weigh little more than their current passive speakers - we've just replaced some EV SX300's with Yamaha DBR12's and they're only about 1Kg heavier. We don't run subs, so replacing the powered mixer (weight of a small star...) was the attraction for us. FuNkShUi, I'm also far from an expert here but I think your best bet is an external crossover on the main outs, which will then have outputs for your tops and subs (or power amp feeding your subs). I think that's going to be easier than trying to use the EQ on the mixer to remove all the low end that you don't want going to the tops, and means you don't have to change the way you're using your auxes.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1505058140' post='3369190'] By the same token, if there is enough interest in building this final version of the cab, I'd be happy to negotiate with some CNC builders on everyone's behalf. We'd probably be looking at a minimum order of ten flatpack cabs to justify the CAD setup costs. As I am putting this cab together, I'm finding that the most time-consuming jobs are drilling and cutting the holes in the panels. I've just drilled the holes in the baffle for the main driver, and it took me half an hour - and I've not even inserted the t-nuts yet. A CNC'd cab could be assembled in a couple of hours over, say, three evenings and would require no woodworking expertise at all. [/quote] I'd be interested in a flat pack kit, and depending on the price quite probably two.

Can I ask what drivers you're using in this build, and why the change?

I went through this a few months ago, and after a bit of research I ended up with QLC+ running on a Raspberry Pi with a cheap USB DMX interface from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lixada-Interface-Computer-Lighting-Controller-type-1/dp/B00ZQNIAP8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504383178&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+dmx). I've set up a few simple chases, some which change between scenes and some which fade between them. I'm using a home built USB MIDI foot controller to trigger the different chases, and I can also do tap tempo to set the rate at which they change. The foot controller's based on a Teensy board, very similar to Arduino. Depending on how tech-savvy you are that could be a way to go. You could also just trigger some chases from a laptop running QLC. A tablet would also work for control in the set up I've described, but you'll need a way of connecting the tablet to the Raspberry Pi, so you'd need to run a wifi router as well. The cheap DMX interface I've linked above is fine on OSX and Linux but a bit of a pain to set up under Windows. If you're interested I could give you a bit more detail, but it won't be for a few days as I've got quite a lot on over the next few days.