urbanx

On 01/12/2023 at 20:30, tauzero said:

 

Any help?

 

 

Awesome, cheers matey!

I'll still need some back up added to that fix (elastic band or zip tie, lol) 

5 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

 

Down south and in that London, 'dinner' refers to the evening meal. 

Are you referring to dinner as being (correctly) the mid-day meal?

Yeah, its usually a lunch(eon) - Again tied in with the corporate crowd, but could easily be an evening event. 

It seems after-dinner speakers are always called that, regardless of what meal they're speaking after! (Don't get me started on wedding 'breakfasts'!) 

11 minutes ago, BillyBass said:

I'm guessing a known musician as a public speaker would appeal to other, perhaps amateur, musicians but if this is a networking event I imagine SME owners would be your target market?  If so, getting a public speaker who is guaranteed to tell a good story and get a few laughs would be important.  A stand up or someone like Phil Tufnell, who has lots of experience ad libbing on game shows, would be ideal.  Toyah!?  Dear me no!

 

Networking is about building trust.  If you see the same faces at these events and other people there are using their businesses, then they must be trustworthy, right?  The bottom line for the attendees is how much new business you get from these events. Consequently, getting numbers in is important and keeping them coming to the future events is too.   Well attended events attract even bigger numbers.

 

Good luck!

Cheers man! Exactly that. I'm an SME owner myself. We love the local business awards which are super expensive too (£180 per ticket for regional, £800+ per ticket national) We do the local ones as it's good networking, a nice meal, photo in the paper (not the crime section for once) and good all round publicity. 

With the sporting one, a lot of businesses use it to entertain clients too. An offer of nice lunch and "Oh, Phil Tuffnel is coming too" always wins people over (He was an absolute legend) There's always a raffle too, prizes donated by local businesses, everyone puts a £10 in an envelope, and £3k goes to charity. 

Its a good point about getting the right speakers, I think that'll be the hardest bit! 

32 minutes ago, BillyBass said:

This idea of yours, is it something you want to arrange instead of the sporting lunch at work or is this a separate thing you are thinking of, and are, perhaps looking at it as a business idea for yourself?

Deffo a separate thing, I've just seen the success of the sporting lunch, but have no interest in the sports aspect at all! 

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

You haven't said how the audience would be made up.  Interested punters or business lunchers on a work jolly? 

 

With sportspeople (and by sportspeople, I mean the retired, well known, Question Of Sport contender type of sportspeople), these are well known to most people and have transcended the sport they once competed in and have become celebrity; they're known by pretty much everyone (unless they've lived under a rock for the last 40 years). 

 

The problem with musicians is that there's very little transcendence; few non-working/retired musicians become celebrity (Noddy Holder, maybe), they just disappear disgruntled or come out of retirement to appear on Buzzcocks once in a while.  Your paying audience may cover a broad age range and musical interest spectrum; from the interested punter perspective, I'm sure there's a lot of people that would pay for a lunch and Q&A chat with Debbie Harry/Toyah, but if you're being dragged along to the lunch and the speaker is Dizzy Rascal, you're not really going to appeal to the whole audience.

 

 

 

 

A mix, but I'd foresee mainly businesses - The sporting lunch is 100% businesses and is billed as a networking lunch. I was thinking a similar demographic: mid 50's / 60's. Small / Medium sized business owners. £120 out of expenses for a networking lunch, and a "photo of Bob trying to chat up Toyah" for the company LinkedIn, and an office story for years to come.... Although if someone was really into that artist and wanted to come as an independent, then that'd be fine. 

The speaker would be advertised in advance, and I'd expect the 'Successful in the 70's / 80's' musician / pop star' that is available on the speakers circuit would naturally appeal to them. 

Cheers, yeah it'd be a good £30k outlay to start with (especially marketing the first one). It'd run as it's own Ltd company. 

I reckon I'd be looking at a break even of 191 bums on seats in the 300 cap room. (All the sporting ones are sold out way in advance) 

Once a quarter I go to a ‘sporting lunch’ with work, to network. It’s a posh lunch at a 5* hotel, followed by an after dinner speech by a former sportsman. I’m not into any sport whatsoever, but have recently enjoyed speeches by Barry McGuigan, Phil Tuffnel, Damon Hill, etc.

Now, not knowing my hockey from my oche, I thought “Wouldn’t this be great for musicians” Looking at figures it would work, if well attended.

Speaker wise, we’d be looking along the lines of: Toyah, Debbie Harry, Martin Kemp level to talk about their time in the industry. (I doubt we’d stretch to the Brian Mays, Rick Wakemans etc.) but you never know…

So the question is: Would you pay £120 for a 3-course lunch (in a posh hotel) and an after dinner musical speaker? 300 guests. (30 tables x 10)

1 hour ago, BassAdder60 said:

My Shure GLXD16+ is in a neoprene pouch which goes in my back pocket 

 

Nice!

I'm just aggrieved to spend £500+ on a system when I have £180 of wireless already, even if it's useless   That's getting on for 'new bass' territory.  

4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

That wouldn't dislodge the lightweight 5g ones i have, unless your jack socket had a problem. 

You didn't see the landing! 

Seriously tho, really?

Our guitarist who is pretty static has lost his plug in one a couple of times while playing live, it's put me off. I really chuck myself about while playing, but always look after my gear. 

Just now, Al Krow said:

Just strap the very light weight transmitter jack onto your strap and get a short lead to go into your bass barrel jack.

 

I've got a Line 6 G30, which has a separate transmitter, which I keep on my strap (1st pic) But I've had the dreaded battery door problem. So now it's a £175 paperweight. I've tried zip ties and elastic bands, but it just doesn't stay shut anymore. Hence I'm wired in the second pic! 

2 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

But there is a super easy hack you know...

Does it involve a lot of gaffa? 

6 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Do you have an old / loose barrel jack? 

No, I'm just keen at jumping.... 

On 03/08/2023 at 15:04, Al Krow said:

Really good run through of wireless systems generally:

 

 

In terms of 5.8GHz systems - he gives a big thumbs up to the Nux (14.20) and also recommends the Lekato (14.44) as a more budget option.

 

My own experience is that the Nux works better with my active basses (apparently it's advertised as being designed for active bass compatibility) and doesn't have the distortion that the Lekato had when digging in.

 

With the Nux, I'm finding that if you max the treble EQ and with certain directions / positions of Nux transmitter you can get a high-pitched whine, but having the treble at normal settings and lining the transmitter bug either towards or away from the very bottom of the bass, depending on which bass and where the preamp is located, pretty much eliminates that whine.

 

PS - liked his point that we're never going to eliminate the risk of drop-outs with wireless, even Metallica with some of the highest end gear on the planet and large sound crews suffer from occasional wireless drop-outs!

NONE of them would work for me... 

Where the transmitter is directly attached to the jack, it would physically drop out after the first bit of jumping around (the whole reason for having a wireless). 

Yeah I've had this. I saw the Meteora by chance in a PMT store. Cant remember how much it was maybe £1,100? Anyway I walked straight by thinking "I'm not even going to bother trying it, it's out of my range" 

Went home, Googled it: £850 at PMT. So I trot back to the shop to find the store model has been damaged. 

I purchased it, elsewhere. If it was priced at the online price in store I would have bought it there and then. 

On 18/11/2023 at 18:46, TheGreek said:

Just been on Facebook where I was reminded of the perennial "plays like butter"...

I opened this thread literally just so I could comment this! 

I hope this counts: Here's our 'tour diary' from a European jaunt last month. It's set to our music and is about 50% gig footage (with quite a good bass sound for a GoPro!) 

Lots more gig footage in the 2nd vid! 😉

1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

That's pretty cool, though I am more interested in the bass, more specifically that amazing red finish, is it just that picture, or does its actual color really resemble that of the photo, and if so was that the stock color and what is the name of that finish?

 

Also what is it, a Squier/Fender Jaguar (judging from the controls), or something more exotic?

Ah cheers! It's a 2007 Fender Jaguar Bass in Hot Rod Red. MIJ. It's pretty awesome. I've had it through maybe 200 rowdy gigs over the last decade. (I only switched to the Meteora this summer.) It's the stock finish, it's a well lit photo but I've not done anything to it. It also has a cool colour-coded red headstock. 

The only thing non-stock on it is the two Tipp-Ex dots you can see on the bass and treble wheels, it just allows me to see if they're centered (they're plain black anonymous wheels) 

1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

 

Stand aside gents.... I win this one... 

Mine is a yellow fire hose that served at RAF Wittering for 25 years! 

(Pictured with my Jag, but looks awesome on my new 'Tequila Sunrise' Meteora! 

6 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Why is it that so many event organisers can't understand that (a) you need time to switch acts (b) if an act overruns this pushes all subsequent acts back (c) it's their job to tell bands when to stop.

We done a charity one in Newmarket last year. It was the 'promotors' first gig. We got booked and were chatting to him a month before the event: 

Promotor: "Year it's gonna be a good one, 14 bands" 

Us: "14?! We didn'tr realise it was a festival!" 

Promotor: "Well we have the venue from 17:00 - 00:00. Seven hours. Half hour sets. 14 Bands" 

Despite all of the bands protests it went on as 'planned' We played 3rd out of 14, I believe only 6 bands played. The rest were told to go home. There was a lot of backlash locally about it afterwards... 

On 10/11/2023 at 18:51, BillyBass said:

Would that be a Fender Meteora by any chance?  Not seen anyone play one of these.  How are you finding it?

It most certainly is! I’ve been playing a Jaguar bass for a decade, and switched to the Meteora this summer. 
Absolutely loving it. Amazing tone out of the fireball pick ups, they’re active and use two 9v batts.

Lovely finish on the guitar, and zero neck dive (I know a few people worry about that) Loving it and it’s instantly my main bass for gigs and recording  

I've had mine about 4-5 months now. Really pleased with it!

Let me know if anyone has any specific questions. 

(I've not had any neck dive issues, I know that was probably question 1) 

Cambridge Pride 2023:

aaaaand, Part 2: 

After being together for 7.5 years, we finally got asked to gig aboard. Copenhagen to be precise.

Here's what happened. We got it into 2 x 6 min videos, so hopefully not too long... 

2 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

https://www.thomann.de/gb/pick_holders.html

 

This, for instance:

 

 

 

Which could be attach to for example either somewhere on the body of the bass, or on the strap.

 

 

 

I've got these on the back of the headstock of every bass I own. 

I've even saved the day when the guitarist has dropped a pick and quickly reached over and whipped one out of my headstock! 

Fantastic night at the Hunter Club in Bury St. Edmunds, playing with ‘For The Hornets’. 180 Cap venue, we sold 56 tickets in advance, and were at capacity when we played.

Composite image as people at the front were too close to get us all in lol! Would you look at my barnet!