PaulWarning

saw her at the Butlins Alternative Festival last year (calling it a punk festival seems to be one step too far for Butlins) a good show, very professional and put a lot into it, but not really my cup of tea and not punk

I use a Trace Elliot with clipping lights and passive P bass, I have the gain turned right up and the red clipping light doesn't come on, don't know whether that's any help or not, but it depends on the amp, they're not all designed the same

you mean the bands had a bass player? seriously, Bad Religion on the first night was awful whereas Sham 69 sounded spot on, the main difference from what I could make out was the Bass drum at a sensible level and the guitar and vocals clear in the mix, still couldn't here much of the bass though, most of the bass players seemed to have this big smiley EQ mix, which sounded great on it's own but inaudible when the rest of the band kicked in

I used to got to a lot of Punk gigs in the late 70's, the sound was so bad it took about a minute to figure out what song the band was playing, I thought it was great, used to laugh about it, we had a game going, who can recognise the song first

went to Rebellion last year, the sound in the main venue was awful for the first couple of days, sounded like they'd put reverb on the bass drum, just a sea of mud, my mate went up to the desk and actually told them the sound was rubbish, they just pointed at the high ceiling and said there's nothing they could do, come day 3 the sound in the venue was spot on, I just thought "Christ, people are paying £180 a ticket here and they can't even get a sound man who knows what he's doing"

I agree with you about certain members of the band turning up to loud in small venues, but how often does the sound engineer ask them to turn down? not often enough, like you say they just turn everything else up to distortion levels to try and compensate. A sound engineer I got to know used to turn up anyone who was too loud really high in their monitor, that usually got them to turn down

don't play many gigs with a FOH PA but when we do I make sure I've cut everything below 100hz off my bass signal and ask the sound engineer, very politely, to go easy on the bass drum. I've been banging on for ages about sound engineers obsession with the bass drum, oh yeah, and they hardly ever have the lead vocal loud (clear) enough either, if you don't know the song you won't have a clue what they're singing about

shouldn't really mention the 'B' word but I will, the Beatles, they were the first band I got into, and the Ramones for showing me you don't have to be a great musician to write great songs

the older I get the more I think that is true, one of the reasons I don't go to many gigs anymore is the idiots I have to put up with when in a big crowd, and why anybody would want to go to Glastonbury is totally beyond me edit, don't mind a big crowd when I'm playing a gig though

I've just put new strings on mine, so checked the set up, 3mm at the 17th fret on the E string, doesn't bother me, it sounds better like that, as @gjones said, 90% of the playing (well mine anyway) takes place on the first 5 frets

ah yes, I've tried busking, being totally ignored is far worse than people chatting while you're playing, the biggest amount I got was for looking after someone's bike while they went in Marks and Spencers

i think this has always been so?, people go along to gigs because of the media hype surrounding a band, get there can't admit they've wasted their money, pretend to enjoy it, then tell everybody what a great evening they've had, and in this age of social media it's a lot easier to fool yourself and everybody else

as others have said, if your band is having trouble with audience attention on a regular basis maybe you should look at what sort of show you're putting on, having said that it is difficult to keep the crowds attention all the way through a 2 hour pub gig

not always, but I know what you're getting at, I once did an open mic where I was asked to turn down because I was making it difficult for people to talk , I haven't been back since. Another thing is that if you're last or nearly last on the other 'performers' have already left having done their spot

try doing open mics ,

yes be very wary of small record companies, a band I know signed a deal where it's a 50/50 split of revenues but all the promotion and recording costs come out of their half which means they've not seen any money because all their bit gets spent on promo

we found the opposite, reviewers mostly wanted just a download,they weren't even interested in CD's through the post, we used dropbox

we had 500 vinyl copies pressed of our album, can't remember the exact figures but it has worked out about £4 a record, we were originally going to do 250 but i was only around an extra £40 to got to 500, it was all handled by Media Hut in Nottingham (as well as the CD's), we're selling them for £10

I'm not saying don't use any ear protection, just do you really have to pay out £140 when £20 ones will do the job? I realise when tinnitus and hearing loss has kicked in (as it has with me) the first reaction is to throw money at it, but mine has got no worse just using generic ER 20's and I don't suffer the isolation problem I got with the custom ones, plus they're a lot easier to take out when someone wants to talk to you.

can't see that getting much radio play

I do think the filters in the ACR's are very expensive for what they are, I lost one and thought I'd been well and truly ripped off a considering they're not custom made unlike the moulded inserts, which cost around £130 and include two filters

I just wonder if they're overkill, has anybody suffered hearing damage while just using say, the generic ER 20's?

couldn't really get on with custom ACS's made me feel isolated, I've lost one and I don't think I'll replace it tbh

never attended many auditions but, I knew one wasn't going to end well when the new guitarists said "I haven't had time to listen to any of the songs you sent , but it'll be ok I'll just wing it"

not just me then, I've found those clip on tuners for £2 via reverb seem to work as good as any