lozkerr

Aaarrgh! The gear I ordered arrived this afternoon, too. The Zoom R8 looks the biz all right, provided I could instantly kill the feed from the main desk and have enough inputs left over to hear what's going on on stage. Not a huge bit of gear, either. <thinks, thinks, thinks> Now that I've got the gear, I'll see how well it works in practice as a first step. I bought a 4U Gator rack case as well, so that my Eden WTP600 can fit in alongside the splitter mixer. That's a good incentive for my wee brain - I'll have to bring a spare amp by default if I want any monitoring! I'll try it out at rehearsal on Thursday and report back. We're getting too loud in the rehearsal studio as well - in our run-through before our last gig, one of our guitarists used a phone app to measure noise levels and we apparently hit 125 dB at one point 😱 If we can't dial it back, I think I might suggest that everyone stands on the opposite side of the room to their amps so they can clearly hear the racket they're making - and I'm as guilty as anyone in that respect.

Damn, I should have thought of that. I have a Zoom H2 that I use for recording our rehearsals and the sound quality's really good. I've ordered a pair of el-cheapo condenser microphones to give me the option of pointing one at the singists and the other at a wedge monitor. I'll have to do some experimenting to see what works best. At least I don't have to worry about hearing our boilermaker drummer! He can wake the dead when he gets carried away. I have a Behringer P2 belt pack that doesn't look to have as many features as your P1 and I did think of turning the whole thing down when the volume got unbearable but I'd have had to stop playing to do a reach-around under my jacket (stop sniggering in the cheap seats) to get to the volume control. Worse, I'd have lost everything else, so I soldiered on, but I'm paying the price for that now. The solution I'm planning sounds very similar to yours - personal mixer taking inputs from bass, vocal mic, an on-stage sound source or two plus a feed from the main desk. Bass and vocal mic up on the splitter mixer so I can hear myself properly, sound stage down a tad and the ability to instantly kill the feed from the main desk without losing anything else if things go tits-up. With the splitter mixer on top of my amp, I can hit the mute button in an instant. Hopefully the gear will arrive on Monday. I'll report back on how well it works. On a different note, your location says you're now in Edinburgh. Is this a permanent thing?

Yes, of course. If Gear4Music are to be believed, the gear should be here on Monday. Stay tuned 😊

Thanks, folks. My ears are still ringing from a week ago, so I've decided to give the personal system a try. The IEM feed from the main desk can go into the splitter mixer so I can turn it down / off if need be. Hopefully the gear will be here before next Thursday's rehearsal, so I can try it out then.

...tha does it thissen, as they say in Yorkshire. My ears are still ringing from our last gig six days ago. The gig was on a college campus and we had a keen student stage crew, who were happy to provide me with an IEM feed. All seemed well at soundcheck, but as the gig progressed the monitor mix got increasingly louder and it sounded like my mic was being turned up and down, possibly due to bleed-through from my backline. On top of that, our drummer, who is a human metronome - no, he really is good - started hammering away at his kit like a boilermaker on piece work. On a fully mic'd up drumkit, which I was standing right beside. I could hardly hear my bass and ended up digging in hard, which inevitably resulted in a lot of string clatter, and also found myself singing BVs far too loud and I've strained my voice as a result. I am not happy about this - in fact I'm severely p'd off. I've been wondering what to do about it, as I'm feeling apprehensive about putting my hearing in the hands of sound engineers whose experience might not be that extensive. Something similar happened on our previous two gigs and I'm concerned that tinnitus might be just around the corner if I carry on like this. Custom moulded IEM earplugs will deffo be an improvement, but I'm wondering whether it would be safer to set up my own monitoring system that won't put me at risk of being deafened. I was thinking of something like a Behringer MX882 splitter mixer, with bass and vocal mic outputs going through that and out to the main desk, and a couple of ambient mics to pick up the stage sound. Mix those to taste with the bass and vocal mic and put the combined output through my IEMs. What are people's thoughts? Am I overthinking this? Many thanks, Laura

Mine is a Martindale HPAT400 - a simple pass/fail tester. I did think about getting a more expensive model, but given that it would only be used for our single-phase band gear, a simple yes/no seemed sufficient.

I can't remember what came from who now and I don't want to libel anyone, sorry - I bought the gear a while ago from several different people and all the electric string that came with it was put into the same box to await test and inspection. Plus, even if I did know who they were, it might be unfair to blame the seller as a lot of the cables accompanied double-insulated lights, where switching line and neutral wouldn't even be noticed unless a PAT test was done. I guess the lesson is that the copper's ABC mantra should always apply to used electrical gear bought off tinterwebz - Accept nothing, Believe nobody and Check everything.

I've spent the afternoon PAT testing a load of secondhand gear bought off fleabay that's having its first outing next week. Three kettle leads had line and neutral reversed inside moulded-on plugs. Needless to say, they're now in the bin with the offending plugs cut off.

One of our staples. I play it fingerstyle too.

That sounds like a decent price. I'm wondering if classic bike prices have fallen back from a peak? They went utterly stupid for a while - two-stroke Villiers-engined crap like the James Captain (top speed 45mph ahead of a cloud of petroil vapour) were going for more than that a few years ago. Even Velocette LEs were fetching silly money for a while. Having said that - I've just had a wee Google and it does look like that's the case. Goldies, Venoms, Super Rockets and Dominators seem to have dropped back a bit from where they were about ten years ago. So do Black Shadows, albeit not quite as much.

In my painfully-acquired experience, playing a five-string bass (and I'm guessing a six-string, too) is a lot easier if you can read notation. Not sight-reading - I'm certainly not one of those nauseatingly talented people who can look at a piece of sheet music covered in something that looks like a spilled ants nest and nail it on the first play-through - but seeing how the bassline progresses, noting where the big shifts occur and being able to decide whether to start on fret 10 of the B string, fret 5 of the E string or the open A based on where you have to go from there makes learning a song a lot easier. Sometimes it's easiest to ignore the B string completely - Echo Beach, Back On The Chain Gang, Suedehead, Slippery People and China Girl from our current repertoire spring to mind right away - but some songs are much easier to play by anchoring in one spot on the B string and playing across the neck, especially if you're singing at the same time. Roxanne, Heaven, Pretty In Pink, Rip It Up and The Best spring to mind in that regard. Five-string tabs seem to be very rare beasts indeed. When low Eb or below is needed, even the books I have tell you to de-tune. Online tabs almost always have the open notes detuned. The only person I've ever come across who writes five-string tab is Becky Baldwin, but I daresay there are a few others. And, of course, if you can read notation, you can play anything written for the double-bass if you ignore the bowing instructions.

Props. That can't have been a cheap purchase! I had two BSAs back in the day. One was a crappy old Bantam, about which the less said the better and the other was an A65 650 twin. Lovely machine - it's one of the few bikes I really regret selling.

I did that a few years ago after a couple of ales. Bid on an old XS750 and was outbid by £50 at the last minute. Would have been awkward, especially as I'd nowhere to keep the thing!

Likewise. It seems to be a nice sturdy bit of kit - certainly better-made than the wee Machine Mart trolley I've been using up to now. If it takes all my gear in one go, I'll be a very happy lass indeed!

I'd love to suggest a Land Rover Defender, as I have one and I love it to bits. Except that I can't. They're like an inverse Tardis - much smaller on the inside than the out. Especially if it's a 90 station wagon, which mine is. The wheel arches protrude into the body, and when you have to fold up the seats, the internal space is a lot smaller than it might look from outside. The rear seats can be removed if you're happy unbolting them from inside the rear wheel arches. Chances are the nuts will be rusted solid. I can get my backline - Eden Metro, 118 cab, WTP600 backup amp, pedal board and a bag of electric string - in OK, with the basses on top and a bag of stage clothes, make-up and assorted gubbins stuffed into a corner, leaving room for me in the driving seat and my SO in the passenger seat. With some Tetris skills, I can squeeze a small lighting rig in as well. But that's about it. If the gig needs the full lighting rig or the PA, it's van hire time. @la bamwill confirm that getting a powerful PA into a Landy is... um... challenging 😊 I have thought about replacing the Landy with something like a Vauxhall Zafira - the rear seats fold flat, transforming it into a van with windows. But the thing is, that truck is my baby and I love it to bits. I'm currently thinking about converting a horse box to a gear trailer - security locks, wheel clamps, tracker, lining it with marine ply backed by razor wire to lacerate any scrote who decides to try to cut their way in - as a folding ramp would be ideal for wheeling flight cases in and out. Only snag is that I'd need to find somewhere to store it.

Is it good for metal?

Thanks! I've been looking for something like this. Just ordered one - I hope it's better than the crappy wee folding trolley I'm using at the moment.

And the band is called The Incels. The vibe I'm getting from that is a hormone-riddled teenager who hasn't yet grown out of staring women in the chest. "Use your knowledge and influences and make something else" is the sort of pony I'd expect to hear from a snotgobbling brat who struggles to distinguish between Internet ads and real life.

I suspect I'm in a minority here, but the hiss and crackle of old vinyl gives it a sense of history. I still have most of my records, including about 1,500 singles. IIRC, the oldest is a 7" of the Platters' The Great Pretender, which is dated 1956. I've got quite a few from the 60s and 70s too. The hiss and crackle increases the sense of them coming from a long time ago. Sometimes it's nice to play them and remember my youth. And there's something about seeing the spinning disc that makes it seem more immediate compared to a box of blinkenlights. But anything I buy nowadays is CD by default. If stuff gets pulled off a streaming service, I still have it.

It was. I kinda got the impression it might go a bit Pete Tong when they strode in and confidently stood in front of the wrong mics. Not an easy thing to cover up, given the difference in their heights!

You mean do we let her back in? Yes, please!

I work from home, so that wouldn't have been an option. It did cross my mind. And I did offer to pay for the car, but she refused point blank. Buying the Les Paul was a compromise, as she can still play it whenever she wants to and crucially, she still has her PRS, which is the one she was looking at selling.

Well, I'm well and truly out. My other half was faced with a rather large bill for her car today and was looking at selling one of her guitars for well below its market value because she needed the cash. So I bought it instead. It's a black Gibson Les Paul Studio and it's hardly been out of its gig bag since new. I guess I'll need to learn how to play it now...

Like-for-like replacements. Ernie Ball 45 - 130 roundwounds.