Monkey Steve

A mate's band had an at that time 15 year old girl as their guitarist a few years ago, and she was miles ahead of them all in terms of talent.

We did a couple of gigs with them supporting and what was noticeable was that she had a lot of talent but little "taste" to begin with - had clearly spent time on her excellent technique, but was lacking in experience in how to apply it, so came across as being a little "cold" and mechanical. But she came along very quickly - getting out, playing gigs, mixing with other bands - two years later and she was a match for anybody (and shortly after that the band was looking for a new guitarist as she had dumped their arses and moved on to bigger and better things)

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1480507499' post='3184894']
One of the Sansamp Character Series overdrive pedals could be your friend here as it will give more of a guitar amp/speaker vibe to the sound and take the clinical full range edge off the overdrive/distortion sounds. Or similarly a small multi-effects unit with a speaker-sim function...
[/quote]

+1 to this

As others have said, there's no health and safety issue (it's not like basses blowing guitar cab speakers) and there's probably a whole thread to be had for guitarists who prefer to use old Marshall valve bass heads. In fact I used to play with a guitarist who preferred bass amps for a fuller bottom end.

But depending on the sound you're after, especially if the amp is very clean and if you're not after that, a good cheat in getting it to sound more guitar-y are the Sansamp/Tech 21 type pedals.

worst thing that I've been responsible for - ignoring the loose jack socket on the bass that had been playing up for a week or two and having the internal wires snap off it as i was playing, leaving me with no output whatsoever. fortunately we were half way through the last song of the set, so my confused look as I fumbled with the leads and boxes didn't last too long. Nothing i could have done at the time, so the only advice I can suggest is to give your bass a thorough check before the gig, unless you're bringing a spare (and if you are, give them both a thorough check). And don't ignore loose sockets...

Worst thing that wasn't to do with me - debut gig of a new band, some "name" (ish, known as biggish fish in a very small pond, and a different genre of pond to the one we were paddling in) players who had got some interested punters in, and a load of mates had all come to a pub in the middle of nowhere to see us for a gig we were doing as a favour to a mate who was trying to launch a new rock night...singer doesn't bother eating all day, has a bottle of port (port, FFS!) on the way to the gig, a few pints while he's there, and we suspect some nasally administered mood enhancer earlier in the day. he not only cannot sing ("dying moose impressions") or remember the lyrics, but could barely stand, and the gig finished when he fell backwards and demolished the drum kit. We were more than happy to cut the set short.

On the plus side one punter (the son of a mate) tells people to this day that his favourite part of any gig ever was me saying to the audience "can somebody pick Dave out of the drum kit please"

I'd much rather play to three men and a dog than ever go through that again...and amazingly it took him doing it again (this time in front of three men and a dog) before we sacked him.

I gave a bit of a run down of the current manufacturing options on a general discussion on warwicks last week

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/295253-wheres-all-the-warwicks/page__st__60 3rd page...but that's the new options, and buying second hand (which I'd definitely recommend - as has been noted, prices for the old second hand German made ones are comparable to new Rockbasses) would take a whole lot longer...specs have changed, necks have changed, country of manufacture has changed...

My own preference is for a neck through (so stage 1 or 2) rather than a bolt on (LX) but watch the neck width as some come as standard with broadnecks...but may have a slimmer one as an option.

I'd add that I like the JazzMan and $$ options with the coil-tappable humbuckers - very aggressive sounding when added to the Warwick growl

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1479931560' post='3180430']


But if you withdraw the money from PayPal and they subsequently do a chargeback, won't the money just be taken from your bank account or card registered with PayPal?
[/quote]

Honestly don't know - like I say, it's always worked for me in getting the buyer to pay by cash

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1479919204' post='3180304']
Luckily his saving grace at the moment is we do find some common ground. But it's like wading through treacle to get there.
[/quote]

The problem in my old band (doing covers) was the everybody else would compromise as we all understood that you'll always end up with some songs that you don't like as much as others, but knowing this the lead guitarist would happily spend hours of rehearsal time insisting that the crowd wouldn't know or like any of the songs that he didn't personally know or like, and when he finally, very ungraciously agreed that OK if everybody insists that we should do some other song, he then just never got round to learning it properly. It wasn't that his tastes were unconnected to the rest of what we were doing, if he'd been happy to make those his choices for 20% of the set that would have been fine, but when he wanted to make that 100% of the set we had a problem.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1479920876' post='3180326']
This again gets back to doing homework on any band your persuing as well as making sure you know what your looking for in a band and band experience.

When I joined my band 5 years ago, I was hired to play bass and sing background vocals. I was not hired to make calls on material or any other aspect of band management.

Worked out fine for me.

Blue
[/quote]

I guess it depends what you're after - and it's about knowing what you want out of the band. But if you'd put a band together on the premise of everybody wanting to do the same thing or having an equal say, you'd be pretty annoyed if one member started stamping their feet, or just became obstructive.

And from experience, they will think it's the rest of you that's the problem, not them. So experience now tells me not to bother putting up with it, because it won't ever get any better. Time for a sacking or a resignation.

I usually judge it by weight of numbers - if it's just you that isn't happy with the choice of songs then it's probably you that's wrong...but sometimes it's worth having a quiet word with the rest of the band to see if it is just you or if they're unhappy too but think it's just them

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1479816358' post='3179467']
What does annoy me is pubs that don't bother advertising and then go on about how quiet a night it's been. I send posters to every gig 2 weeks in advance (enough for a few in the pub and some in local shop windows or boards), and am genuinely taken aback when we rock up and there are none in sight. "Did you get the posters?" ... "Aye, they're here under the bar somewhere" ... "Any ads in the local paper?" ... "Naw, that costs twenty quid".
[/quote]

Grinds my gears too - and it's not just pubs but a lot of "promoters" in London assume that you're bringing the punters so they don't even need to bother telling anybody that there's a band on that night...

Back to the OP, it depends on the pub.

One of my bands played a local pub a few years back - rammed and we'd only charged £100 (we did it for fun, didn't pay for rehearsal space, so as long as we covered petrol and beer it was all fine). the landlord paid up, then told us to have a look at the expenses book to see what other bands were being paid (£300 - £500) and suggested that we might want to re-think what we charged. Which seems odd, but he explained that he, like a lot of pubs, was part of a chain, and he was given an entertainment/promotions allowance. If he didn't spend it he didn't get the money, it wouldn't go into his profits, so he was more than happy to pay every penny to the bands.

Other end of the spectrum, we used to play a little local pub that had a great reputation for getting crowds in when bands were on, and they never paid a penny but gave the band free booze from the second you walked in until you left at the end of the night. And even on one occasion when our drummer, who never drank as he always had to do the driving, went back for a pint a few weeks later, specifically because the landlord thought it was unfair that he'd been missing out by only drinking lemonade when we played. Easily drank more than our share of what we usually got paid.

And in the middle, we often played a place about three hours drive away, another music venue that the landlord worked really hard to make work. When we started we got a couple of hundred quid and the place was rammed, but after the recession hit the crowd dried up and we would refuse to take more than petrol money, and would happily drive out there to play as a favour for the landlord if he needed a support band or was trying to launch something new.

We may be skint but our karma is in very good shape...

whenever I've used eBay to sell I've always made it very clear that if they are paying by PayPal then I will not post or meet to hand over the item until I have cleared money in my bank account, which is not the same as having the payment confirmed by PayPal.

This then typically results in the buyer travelling to meet me and hand over the cash because they want to get their hands on the instrument ASAP.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1479905647' post='3180154']
Don't join a band if you think you can change the material they are playing.

Currently having a bit of a battle with the band I joined as the singer (who joined a bit before me) seems intent on getting rid of a load of the tunes we play in favour for tunes he likes and is obstructive when tunes are suggested that fit with the current style and image of the band.

He's treading on thin ice.

.
[/quote]

Been there, and it got to the point where the band broke up because of it.

I recommend radical surgery

Bit like gambling (apparently) - when the fun stops, stop

If this lot don't fulfil your ambitions, then, as others have said, you can always start/join another band and play in both - it's not an all or nothing decision. I know very few musicians, even to semi-pro levels, who aren't in two or three bands.

By the sounds of it, you are finding out this lot's limits. My experience is that a band can only carry an under-performer for so long without it starting to grate - I've put up with less talented band members because they were great mates who were really trying hard but not quite getting there, and talented @sshats who needed a punch...and that's when the fun started draining out of it and I looked forward to the weeks when we couldn't practice. That's usually the cue to a sacking or a resignation.

But I've also been in bands with musicians who were objectively less talented than the rest of us but who were more or less good enough, tried hard because they knew they had to, and were excellent blokes, and I'd have them back any time.

I'd suggest a trip to the pub to discuss what everybody wants to get out of it. Do they know they need to try and improve because they want to get out and play some gigs, or are they happy to go to rehearsals once a fortnight so that they can tell everybody that they're "in a band"?

having recently got a Custom Shop Stage 1 5 string I have to agree that they are excellent basses - I'd say better built than my old Streamer Jazzman and easily as good as my old limited edition Corvette NT $$ (though I do feel sad that I had to flog them to fund the Custom Shop bass)

One weird thing though, which I didn't realise when I ordered it, is that all Masterbuilt/Custom Shop basses now come with rechargeable batteries for the active electrics which you charge with a USB lead. They do also come with wiring that you can swap for a standard battery.

Having just been through the process of buying my dream Warwick, I am all too familiar with their pricing and manufacturing options.

Back in the good old days Warwicks were all made in the German factory and you could pick your extras, like hardware colour, for free. These are now effectively classed as Custom Shop and Masterbuilt - in practice there is no difference between the two options other than whether you take the standard spec (Masterbuilt) or ask for a tweak or two (Custom Shop). These are only made to order - some shops will order them, but they are scarily expensive, bit like the Gibson Custom Shop. Warwick lean on them being made by experienced luthiers - I have no idea if this is a true distinction, and again, it's something that Gibson have been doing of late to justify high prices.

They then have the Teambuilt/Pro option, which used to be made in the Czech factory and finished in Germany but that is now back in Germany, albeit at a separate factory, so they can legitimately say are made in Germany, albeit "overseen" by the luthiers that make the Masterbuilt/Custom Shop ones rather than made by them. Standard specs only, and what is noticeable is that they quite often use different woods to the Masterbuilt models, and have a limited range of models. they are, however, about half the cost of a Masterbuilt - more in line with the Warwicks from the good old days. these are more widely available, but still not a huge amount of stockists.

There is then the Rockbass, which are made in China and now badged as a Warwick. Again, a limited range of models, but a third of the price of a Teambuilt. These are most of the "Warwicks" that you'll see in shops.

For a full run down of which workshop makes which basses:

[url="http://shop.warwick.de/?&lang=en&modul=shop_new&site=shop_overview&&ctree=D0746768001321517432A47035|D0780229001321517432A47059"]http://shop.warwick....321517432A47059[/url]

As others have commented, the second hand price for original German built Warwicks is ridiculously low, basically a similar price to a new Rockbass...my feelings on this may have been significantly affected by my selling a couple of old ones to help finance my Custom Shop purchase. With the re-badging of Rockbasses as Warwick's I'd be very careful about any second hand purchase, although the Rockbasses I've tried have been fine, but I'd have been very annoyed if I thought I was buying a German one and it turned out that it wasn't.

I've also heard about them being a very difficult company for shops to deal with - I remember having to wait weeks for my first Streamer JazzMan, with GAK being the only place in the UK that had a confirmed order, and they'd been waiting some weeks beyond the original delivery date for it to show up. they told me that despite having the order confirmed, they had to wait for the boxes to arrive and open them up to see what they'd been sent that week. I had a similar response when buying another one from Thomann, that they had a confirmed order but could only tell me when they had been told to expect it, which from experience was no guarantee that it would arrive on that date.

the shame is that unlike, say ten or fifteen years ago, you can't find a shop that has a decent range of the German made basses to try out and see what you want - I first came across them when looking for an active five string in Denmark Street, and the Bass Cellar had the whole range (albeit that they didn't have the model that I wanted in a five string - hence my dealings with GAK). If I did the same today I don't think I'd be going for a new Warwick, just because I wouldn't be able to find anybody that had the whole range for me to try.

But for all that...they are great basses. Though having just spunked a huge amount of cash for one I would say that wouldn't i?

Never been the auditionee so never had to live with this shame of failure but I have been the auditioner a few times. usually looking for singers, but not always.

So from the other perspective, there's no one right answer to why you didn't get the job. There can be a load of things in play (and I think this works both ways - you'd be less than impressed if the band did the same thing to you):[list=1]
[*]Can you actually play to the standard required? Singers are a very good example - in this X-Factor world the amount of people who quite simply cannot sing that will answer an ad and come to a try out is astounding. And I'm not talking about people who are OK but not the right style for you, I mean people who genuinely cannot sing, have never sung through a PA in front of a live band, but have been told by all their mates that they were great at karaoke and walk out thinking that they've done a really good job and are completely happy with what they've done, no matter how many times you prompt them to give it another go to see if they're better the seventh time;
[*]Did you actually demonstrate that you can play to that level?
[*]Are you playing the style they want? You may be excellent but they want something different.
[*]All the intangibles - did you show up on time having learned the stuff they sent you or did you walk in an hour late complaining of a hangover and saying that you haven't had time to learn the demo they sent you three weeks ago and anyway you don't like to learn stuff too rigidly and how about you jam it a few times and smoke some gear to see if that loosens you up a bit; does this band of cool young things with interesting hair want the chubby middle aged bloke with a bald patch; do you have a weird cum face when you're playing; sometimes you just won't fit in with them as well as somebody else, or they just might not like you; can you commit to the rehearsals they want and to be available for gigs or have you told them that you'll only do every third Sunday as long as Arsenal don't have a home game, etc
[*]And most important of all - did somebody who was better than you on the day try out?
[/list]
I once auditioned bass players for a punk covers band that I was playing guitar in and we have two contestants, both mates of different people in the band. Contestant #1 played bass in other bands (that we had gigged with) to a very decent standard, certainly above the level required, was a great bloke and well liked by everybody. Contestant number 2 was a mate of mine who played guitar to a very average standard but loved our band and thought that playing the bass would be a much easier option for him to get into a band. #1 showed up late, hadn't learned the songs properly but knew he could get by for the audition and wasn't sure how committed he could be so he'd have to go away and check his diary with his other bands and family, etc and maybe we'd need to change rehearsal days. #2 had clearly spent every available second of the previous few weeks learning the set, was just about good enough for the job, and was exceptionally keen. #1 was obviously a better bass player, but #2 got the job. And it turns out it was the wrong decision because he never got any better and we sacked him (nicely of course, he was a mate) a while later.

Also keep in mind that there may be three or four people who's opinions don't match. My last band once spent a lively evening in the pub with half of us arguing for the singer who clearly had a great voice but hadn't learnt the songs, live miles out of town and spent the entire audition dicking around with the new FX box that he had just got and wanted to try out; and the other half arguing for the singer who's voice was poor to average at best but looked great, had loads of contacts and was available whenever we wanted to rehearse or gig. In the end we all won and nobody got the job. But imagine if they had both been exceptionally good singers in all departments - sometimes you have to let down somebody for no good reason.

So, sometimes it's you, sometimes it's them, and there's no point losing any sleep. But we almost always give the "it's not you it's us" excuse when letting them down gently - they're not in the right style or they were great and we'd have loved to have you but someone else came in who was even better, etc. We've very rarely had anybody then come back and ask for more detail, and it's difficult to be honest if they just weren't up to it and haven't realised for themselves, but we do always offer to share the recordings that we usually made of the auditions (typically you don't hear them as well at the time when you're also concentrating on playing as you do listening back to them afterwards). If you do want to pick away at it then it may be worth going back and asking them for some honest feedback, with a promise that you won't get offended at anything they say.

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1478680962' post='3170792']
I like bass when it's upfront in the mix but still holding down bottom end e.g. Jamiroquai, Associates, Level 42, Primus, New Model Army and early Stranglers. I'm afraid bass led stuff by the likes Wootten, Manring etc bores the tits off me. All very skilful but so what?
[/quote]

exactly - NMA were going to be my suggestion too, that you don't need to be playing "solos" to be the lead instrument, just check out White Coats

Love playing in bands, whether it's doing gigs (which can also be the worst part...once had a singer so out of it that he couldn't actually sing and the gig ended when he fell backwards into the drum kit) or simply just playing music with other people in a rehearsal studio or even just in a front room. That moment when it all clicks and you smugly nod to yourself that you are in fact a golden god...

plus people rarely buy you beer or pay you money for playing by yourself at home. And it justifies me owning so much gear. and an SVT

I also love the social side - my last band would rehearse in Holloway every Saturday afternoon and then head into Camden for the evening's drinking.

I've never joined a band that I didn't know, I've only started ones or been asked to join by mates. Never had a huge problem with musical boundaries, but have got just as many war stories of the c#nts I've had to deal with.

Beyond the talent levels, the main problems I've had with band members are largely around the level of ambition/commitment. Not necessarily to do with wanting to play the local pub vs signing with EMI and playing Wembley, more the disparity between you wanting to rehearse twice a week and play every gig offered while your drummer can't commit to anything except on Thursday nights as long as the wife doesn't have anything else arranged, and the singer who just wants to tell all his mates that he's in a band because he thinks they'll think he's cool but doesn't want to actually do any rehearsing or gigging.

I've certainly had issues with huge egos, but it's usually only been a problem when it gets in the way of the band: refusing to do the songs that the rest of the band wants to do rather than the one he wrote, or insisting on changing bits of the songs because they are all better his way, etc. Beyond that I can usually put up with someone who's a complete c#nt - in fact any decent lead guitarist will be a massive one, and joyfully acknowledge the size of their ego.

If it gets too much then you just quit and find another band. But if you're the one who's saying that you don't want to rehearse more than twice a month and never when Eastenders is on, then maybe you're not cut out for it

I have to say, I've never had a problem with GAK, although I haven't used them a lot - once bought a Warwick Steramer from them on line which they had to order for me from Germany which went OK, and once went to the shop to buy a guitar and again, no problems.

But a mate of mine has them as his default go-to shop, and he's had a few issues with the on line ordering and deliveries - he's got a story about ordering a guitar that was listed as something like "purple ice" (I forget the exact term) but looked more of a sparkly pink in the flesh, which he was well aware of, and the warehouse staff kept going looking for the "purple" one, finding that they only had "pink" ones and telling him that they weren't in stock.

I seem to recall that he's also had problems when going to the shop to find that they don't have everything that's listed on the website, and if they do it'll be at a different price - more than once he's had to point out that having tried the gear and wanting to buy it, they can either sell it to him for less than they have it marked up for in the shop or he can get on his phone and order exactly the same item from their warehouse for less money which they will deliver to him the following day.

[quote name='DrPAR' timestamp='1477928129' post='3165322']
On the bright side, it doesn't look as though they charged you an extra fiver for the box...
[/quote]

way back when God was a boy and dinosaurs roamed the earth I had just started playing bass and walked into Macaris and asked them for a Marshall bass head - all my guitarist mates had old Marshall valve heads and so i was definitely getting one too. They had piles of Marshall heads stacked up in front of the counter and whatever you wanted was £200. They found me a 100w bass one, plugged it in to make sure it worked and sent me away happy.

That was a 1977 Super Bass II, the one with the two channels and four inputs so you had to connect two of the four inputs to each other to get both the bass and treble options working properly. It also had a boost channel that someone had installed, so you pulled out the Middle knob and it responded with an overdriven roar. Paired it with a Marshall 8 x 10 from Rokas - I went in to ask if they had a bass 4 x 12 to be told that they didn't but they'd do me the 8 x 10 for the same price.

That was my back line for years, though the 8 x 10 proved a little less than practical for someone who's never learned to drive and was intermittently replaced by first a 2 x 12 PA cab and then a 1 x 15 Marshall cab that I still use. The 8 x 10 is sadly long gone.

The Marshall then died at rehearsal the week before a gig (it was subsequently resurrected and flogged...it wasn't the first time the output stage had blown up) and as I worked a short stagger from Denmark Street I went to the bass shop there (possibly the Bass Cellar?) the next day and got a Hartke HA2000, purely because I needed one that day and it was the best option in my price range of the three or four that I tried.

Great head, and about a quarter of the weight of the old Marshall. I added a Warwick 2 x 10 cab to the set up for gigs where I could blag enough space in the van for two cabs.

Then I started using an assortment of amp modellers in front of the Hartke (Sansamp Bass DI and then on to a Tech 21 VT Bass) and was basically getting my amp to pretend to be an Ampeg SVT. So when I had the cash I went and bought an SVT 2 Pro.

So on a good day I play through my SVT 2 Pro into the Marshall 1 x 15 and Warwick 2 x 10. Good days rarely happen so mostly I'll play through my Tech 21 or now my Ampeg SCR DI, into whatever amp is in the studio/provided at the gig, or just into the DI box and through the PA.

I still have the Hartke at the back of the cupboard just in case the Ampeg blows up, or as is more likely, I need a head that weighs less than an airliner.

Have to say, I'm on the side of expecting the buyer to take responsibility for the price they pay.

Its not like a new bass is a basic human right, and even if we think otherwise (somebody's going to tell me that it is, aren't they) it's not like this one seller controls the supply. If someone can't be bothered to check the price, even against other eBay listings, then they should take the blame for being over charged.

And it's in our control to change it - if nobody pays the inflated price then the seller's business model fails.

Off topic slightly but it's the same with ticket touts. Nobody has a devine right or a basic human need to go and see a band (again, I'm expecting some barracking here from this crowd) so if nobody pays the stupid prices the touts will soon go out of business.

Unfortunately people are idiots

Punk covers band (me playing guitar)

1. Bass intro to Walk On The Wild Side in to Jilted John;

2. We always ended gigs with (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) and much to the disgust of the punk crowds we'd end it with the main riff from Smoke On The Water

I'm hoping it's not another Malcolm Young situation, but Francis Rossi was on the Danny Baker show last weekend saying that Rick has got problems with his short term memory and he wasn't sure he'd ever be up to playing in a band again.

Very sad. One of the first gigs I ever went to was Status Quo's London farewell show at Selhurst Park in 1984...saw them on the next tour too

[quote name='Les' timestamp='1477667441' post='3163756']
I've known many great ̶d̶i̶c̶k̶h̶e̶a̶d̶ flakey muso's such as the ones aluded to in this thread and I no longer suffer them, regardless of nice guyness and muscal ability.

Ruthless Of Wigan.
[/quote]

oh to be so ruthless! I have to applaud this - far too much of my life wasted waiting for the offending individual to realise that they are the problem and they never think it's them, it's always the rest of the band being unreasonable in expecting them to turn up to rehearsal before they've done the shopping and gone home for the wife to cook their tea.

I'm very much a fan of the Steve Harris school of band management - if they let you down once or if they're not up to it you sack them. sadly I'm very bad at putting it into practice, I'm much more of a "go to the pub and whinge to everybody else about it and hope that it magically fixes itself" approach. Hasn't ever yielded very strong results, and the shame is that just ignoring it means everything else will come to a much more unpleasant conclusion in the end.

[quote name='bassjim' timestamp='1477666700' post='3163754']

To not bother learning musical stuff properly or to the best of your ability IMO means you don't really care for the musical piece.
[/quote]

so true - I was in a covers band and we had a guitarist once who somehow never quite managed to learn any of the songs that anybody else suggested well enough to play at rehearsals, so why don't we work on the ones he suggested as he can play all of those...

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1477663644' post='3163719']
Too bloody right! Probably more important than musicality is a muso's integrity. In over fifty years of playing I've never been let down.

Mind you, way back I had a gig on a frosty night 60 miles away and my brother's band were supporting the Stones locally. I was all for going to brother's gig until my Dad gave me the biggest 'lecture' of my life. I've never forgotten that lesson. Ever.
[/quote]

so many stories...and i do think that it tends to be at the core of how far a band will get. get a reputation for cancelling at short notice or taking forever to confirm dates and you soon stop getting offered gigs.

bit of both. The bass lines (or guitar parts if I'm playing guitar) are fine, it's more about the structure of the songs.

I seem to go through:
1. write it all down (or agree the structure out loud);
2. learn it from looking/listening to everybody else;
3. know it off by heart (I can tell you how many times the riffs go round, etc and can get through it on my own by counting it out if needs be);
4. know it by "feel" (I don't need to consciously remember the parts, I know what's coming next.

And as part of that I'll work out which bits of the bass lines I need to learn and which bits I can leave a bit or room to make it up on the day.

This is then usually tested ahead of any recording - always worth running through the songs a few times without vocals or solos to make sure.

I also tend to work from practice room recordings when learning stuff - don't need to hear anything very clearly but it is an excellent reference for the structure.