chris_b

Nice one. Learn to love it. It’ll pay you back in spades.

I used to go to music shops during the week. Saturdays was a nightmare with multiple guitarists playing loudly and badly. You couldn't hear yourself think!

Give it 100%. You're professionals and good at what you do. Don't let anything put you off doing the best gig you can.

I haven't walked off, but on one gig the guitarist was so loud I stopped playing and stood there with my fingers in my ears. The guitarist started ripping me a new one, but his wife (the band's singer) weighed in on my side, telling him his volume was stupidly loud. We were half way through a contract playing US airbases in Germany so were stuck with each other, but we never got on after that.

Many years ago I played with a very good guitarist. He did a lot of recording and West End theatre work, and got every tone of every guitarist at very sensible volume levels. He was using pedals and his amp properly. It was a treat playing with him.

2 guitarists is one too many, 3 is madness. I do occasional gigs with a cover band and I've told them that they are too loud and play the songs too fast. . . . it's water off a duck's back!! I bought 26dB filters for the very loud guitarist I play with and find I'm wearing them for most gigs these days. Volumes are definitely going up, across the board. I guess it's in proportion to how deaf everyone is getting.

Hi Dave, the music shop under Centre Point was Baldwin, the piano company who bought Burns. I played my first bass though an amp in that shop, a Rickenbacker 4003, probably through a Burns combo. They had glass cubicles where you could sit and play the instruments.

While it's not as clean sounding as a Barefaced 112, a Barefaced One10T with the right amp won't sound "rock"!! To get the best sound out of any cab you have to be looking for high quality, properly designed cabs. My shortlist would consist of your Barefaced suggestion and an LFSys cab.

I drove past Bell's yesterday. It's now a Hairdressers!!

For our Belgian members. . . . Anyone remember Euromusic, Parys Flore, Rue Du Midi, Bruxelles? I just found the receipt for my Fender Precision, which I bought in 1969 from there. Great shop and friendly staff.

A long as it's too high for the punters to reach.

I went to school in West Ealing, only a short walk from Marshall's shop in Hanwell. I spent many lunchtimes looking at the basses and getting in the way of the staff. 33-37 Wardour Street, W1, the Flamingo Club was in the basement, the Whiskey-a-Go-Go was on the first and (maybe) second floors floors, and Pan Music was on the third floor. They always had a fantastic selection of basses hanging on the wall. That's where I saw my first Fender Precision bass in the flesh. I bought my Vox Foundation from Pan.

Basses that sound better when someone else is playing them. . . .

You could have highlighted the rest of my post.

Where the bass is made is irrelevant. The QC is solely dependent on the contract between the factory and the client, and is down to how much the client company wants to spend making each bass, and how well the client polices the build quality.

I get bike boxes (free from bike shops), cut them down to the right size and line with expanded polystyrene sheets.

Gain is your tone, Master is your volume. My SVT3PRO User Guide said, dial the master as loud as it will go and balance your volume on the gain. Maybe that was because it had a valve preamp. On my D class amps I prefer the gain to be pushed and using the master to balance the volume.

I took the covers off my Precision because I played right over the pickup, I didn't like the sound of the foam, it was a hassle to change the strings, and most importantly because John McVie took his off. I was easily influenced in those days!!

We had the same problem with O'Neil's in Richmond. We were very loud on stage and on the dance floor but because of the low ceiling the sound didn't travel to the other end of the pub. The management complained about the lack of volume and in the end put the pub music on in the bar area! We did get rebooked but O'Neil's moved out a year later. O’Neil’s in Harrow was run by a nice woman. She always filled the place, but was fired, fingers in the till! The next guy didn't care and we played to half empty rooms. We got the blame for that and they dropped us. O'Neil's had the right attitude in the beginning. They told us it was their job to get the punters in and it was our job to keep them there. Fair enough but that changed, and the pub managers started asking why we didn't bring a crowd!

. . . . and then Monica arrives with her noisy weekends!

The screw pixies ran off with mine sometime in the mid 80's.

Some promoters are morons. We were playing a well known pub chain and the manager had to fight his way across the heaving dance floor to tell us he wanted us to play more danceable music!!! The dance floor was full, so we carried on with the set and everyone had a great night. . . . and we didn’t get rebooked!

I had the Staccato and RH750 and had no problems with either. Forget the silly press on the power amp figures, my amps were easily as loud as claimed. I finally decided the TC sound wasn't for me and moved to Aguilar. I found "The" tone with a TH500.

You've got 10 pedals. . . . . . ?

Ask the sound guys if are having trouble differentiating between bass, bass drum and keys. Their answer might solve everything. My suggestion, take some bass off the bass and add low mids. Take some bass off the keyboards and, while I didn’t hear keys overplaying on the recording, make sure the keys aren't playing bass guitar lines. Yesterday I played at a festival and the FOH was boomy and indistinct. The bass drum drowned out the bass! The sound guys didn't seem to have a clue. If that's what your sound guy is like, get another one.