Stub Mandrel

Snippet from our band chat. 'nuff said?

The art of depping is to learn the songs, but be able to deal with key changes or structure differences on the hoof. The first takes discipline, the second is a skill best developed by joining in at jam sessions.

If you can dep, you know how to prep!

Works for me... I hate the feel of flats, so I rarely play them, and they last ages! 😁

Dovetail 🙂

I am waiting for someone to tell me that when I'm tuning one of my basses with reverse machine heads.

Rehearsal is about arrangements and fluency. Even the originals band, we share stripped down versions to learn new songs, although there is experimenting. So last night we mostly were sorting out where to put stops, how many repeats etc., but on one song we made some rhythm changes that affected what I play.

That's what I said...

Ons of my bands we have the blessing of a singer with enough range that he sings everything in the original key. More troubling is We Gotta Get Out Of this Place played in B/Alice Cooper style by one band and C/Animals by the other. I've managed to start in the wrong key with both bands.

That's an 'I change my strings for every gig' tone

Lol I had a Peco Big Bore back box on my Manta 😁

I suspect I overthink things sometimes...

Emergency capo tonight.

And Stradivarius woild have made his violins from carbon fibre reinforced plastic composites.

The hardest thing to get good results from is a sweepable mid. The problem is the ear tends to hear any change as an 'improvement' and you can go in circles. Also in a soundcheck situation, other band members are unlikely to have the patience for you to seek the ideal tone...

As the designer you will have the understanding needed to get the best from them. If mire active basses were truly 'flat' with all controls centred and had less aggressive cut and boost than is typical, then they would be easier to use for the average owner.

And that huge empty section... move the vips to one side and bring the audience within 6 feet of the stage and you could drop the volume by 10dB too.

Just a look at that photo tells you they couldn't organise a p*** up in a brewery!

What does 'gain resonance' actually mean? How do you measure it? Is it a good thing? The problem is resonance has two essentially different meanings in this context so we iften have different understandings of what we are discussing. In physics: "the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighbouring object." You measure it by applying different frequencies. E.g. play lots of notes and see which ones sustain longest. These will be the resonant frequencies. The ideal for a bass is the same as a speaker cab - to not have any marked resonances that cause particular notes to be exaggerated, causing other notes to seem muted. In music: "the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating." So yes we want that... but what does it actually mean for instruments? For an acoustic instrument it chiefly means a highly responsive sound board, (with no strong frequency resonances). For an electric instrument it's really just about reasonable sustain (how much do you need?) and a lack of dead spots. So to 'sound resonant' you want to minimise any 'resonants'. 😁

I have a Blackstar amplug, and with the gain up high it has a really heavy distortion that sounds great to me (in the right context) I haven't found an affordable distortion/overdrive that is comparable. It does seem to be heading for Darkglass territory but I don't want to spend that kind of money for maybe one or three songs. If anyone knows this sound and can suggest a pedal...

Well done Richard! I'm in as long as I get back in time to eat and then set up for my gig. Probably need to leave about 3pm to avoid stress

In order: Yes. Depends... is is a new material rehearsal or moshly a revision session with one or two new songs. If we can't get it right after 2 or 3 attempts it's "go home and learn it properly before the next time". What'sApp Not in any structured way.

My passive basses are much easier to get a good tone than my active ones. It's like having to solve a puzzle where >90% of the settings are poor and you have to find something in the usable range, then tweak it to what you want.

Nothing that doesn't pale into insignificance compared to amp settings.

Last night the desk defaulted to our last gig using their house pa for the first set. and as the pub had loud background music a decent setup was tricky.