TimR

Watched it without sound - looks very uninteresting. The whole band aren't interacting with each other nevermind the audience. Remove barriers. 1. Music stands - low as possible and to the side, not between you and the ausdience. 2. You can't do anything about that rail, other than move closer to it. 3. Move that speaker to the left as far as you can. It's blocking the view of the band for anyone on the left of the stage. 4. Lighting is there to light the band, not dazzle the audience. If you move the lights to the front and side and point them at you then you won't be in shadow and the audience won't be blinded when they try to look at you. You'll get more eye contact with the audience then. If you have to shine lights at the audience shine them on the ceiling or floor not into their faces. 5. It's down to all of you to interract with each other and with the audience, don't leave it up to the singer. You have to support her not just musically. Not all singers are front people. If you have a guitarist or bass player who is willing to go up front and be the looney that's fine but none of you are delivering the goods. Musically I've heard some really cr@p bands who sell themselves and get the audience going. It's taken me years to realize its not what you play or how well you play it but it's all down to the performance.

I went to the wrong Taylor once. He gave me the wrong trousers.

[quote name='squire5' post='1203058' date='Apr 17 2011, 11:10 PM']Wow that is spooky.I just started reading this post with interest as the same thing just happened with our PA.What kind of speakers?? Peavey Pro-15s! Both horns gone at once.They're less than a year old as well.We've also got a gig on the 23rd,and I'm hoping the replacements will be here tomorrow.[/quote] LOL. They didn't seem suprised and got some next day. Watch/listen for clipping. This is particularly bad for PA tweeters. Make sure that the volume is turned right down before you turn the amp on or off.

Andrew McKinney's [url="http://www.andrewmckinney.co.uk/ahm/Articles.html"]website[/url]

They're not Peavey Pro15s are they? My brother was using our PA for his band and getting constant complaints that it wasn't loud enough. So much so that he hired some subs for a gig because the drummer said his bass drum wasn't sounding punchy enough (go figure). I found both had gone and Wembley PA supplied us with a couple of drivers next day. Tweeters are very susceptible to distortion at levels much lower than the main speakers are. Make sure you are sending a clean signal though your speakers.

The guys on the [url="http://forum.warwick.de/forum.php?katID=14571&cl=EN"]Warwick forum[/url] are pretty good at answering questions quickly. A few of them work at Warwick and I've found them helpful.

In the early 80s I was privileged to attend a Level 42 concert when the esteemed bass guru Mark King threw his towel into the crowd. In the resulting melee of teenage girls I was lucky enough to tear a strip from the towel. For 30 years it remained in a sealed container in a strictly controlled environment. I have now obtained a tincture of the sweat molocules from this towel by using the homeopathic processes of [i]potentisation[/i] and [i]succussion[/i]. This tincture is in the form of 30C standard Homeopathic dilution using distilled water as the base liqiuid and original fabric of the towel as a cover to an 1980s Jaydee fretboard as a striking board. I am making 100ml bottles of this liquid available to bass players of all nationalities (apart from Northern Ireland) for the bargain price of £9.99 +P&P. This tincture should be kept alongside your bass in its case where over time it will impart the essesnce of King's playing into your bass. Not only will your slapping become the envy of your peers but we have noticed on some basses a firey glow appearing on the fretboard in the places where Mr King had originally installed LEDs on his bass.

IME we bass players seem to want a lot more information than we actually need or is available. I was asked to dep once for a band for another bass player. I was given a phone number of the guitarist, told the date of the gig and that it would be in North London. I rang it every day for a few days then phoned the bassist back and told him I'd had no luck. The bass player told me not to worry they would be in touch and I was definitely doing the gig. Eventually the guitarist called on the Wednesday of the gig. I asked if we were going to rehearse and what was the setlist. He said don't worry they're just playing standards and he would be back in touch with times and actual venue detail. Saturday lunchtime he called back. Be at ..... at 7pm. Wear a coloured shirt, black trousers and shoes. See you there. I got no pad, no rehearsal and spend 3 hours playing tunes I'd never heard before (seriously standards?) by watching the guitarists hand and listening hard. Really what more info do you need?

I'm well thanks, David. My band is very slack at the moment, we only did 5/6 gigs last year but I don't really have enough time to comit to much more than that at the moment. I just tend to spend a free evening with YouTube. Pick a tune at random, play along to it. You should get the hang of it (or close enough) after a verse and a chorus. At the end of the tune move on by clicking on the first tune that catches your eye on the suggestions on the right. Its more fun and real life situation relevant than exercises. Do it in addition to the other stuff. You'll also find a huge number of tunes follow the same relative chord progressions.

[quote name='charic' post='1187515' date='Apr 4 2011, 10:42 AM']What's Practice? [/quote] Cheating.

David, are you having a crisis of confidence? This is pretty natural when you're not playing in a band or the band you're in is not doing gigs. You just need to remind yourself that you can play. Within the bass players set of qualities that we as bass players aspire to there are some key abilities that are needed to play in a band. Theses are, in order: 1. Face fits/right pace at the right time. 2. Reliable timekeeping/transport 3. Good gear 4. Be able to play root notes by name. The rest is all just filling. Hope you find a band soon. In the mean time chill and play along to some old tracks that you know well and do some ear training to some well known tracks you don't know yet. You'll be surprised how simple some of them are. or find a jam night!

If you're a pro you will be getting paid for rehearsal too. So it's unlikely that you will be rehearsing if you don't have a show lined up.

I think there are quite a few amateur musicians who spend too much time practicing the wrong things. I don't know what the point of practicing the same tune over and over again is. If you are at a professional standard there should be very few tunes that you can't nail at first play through. There may be individual passages that are technically difficult for individual players that might need a few play throughs to get right. I've been in bands where if we made a mistake the band leader would stop the tune and start again from the beginning. We could play the intros, first verses and chorus brilliantly but going from the second verse into the mid section was impossible. In better bands we would just practice from halfway through the second verse into the mid a few times. The better bands usually had musicians who were formally trained and understood the concept of practicing the hard bits. It's about practicing the right things and making practice efficient. BUT that's when learning a tune for the first time. Once a tune is learned there should be no real need to practice it other than a play through every few weeks if you're not gigging it.

No you're not alone. I find I have to EQ quite a lot to get my G string and sometimes in certain venues the D string to sound as strong as the E and A. I think it's more likely that the strings are dead but heavier guage D and G may last longer. I'm sure you can buy individual strings on the interweb.

[quote name='chris_b' post='1179986' date='Mar 28 2011, 08:39 PM']If the audience has had enough of you by the end of your last set then you've got to start doing a better job. No encore? You screwed up![/quote] I think that's the point. If they're not cheering for an encore then they probably don't want one. If we have a dance floor full then we've probably done the job we set out to do and it's time to go home.

In my last band whenever we did gigs we had the iPod queued up ready. We hit the last note and hit play. The audience continued dancing while we got a beer and then packed down. At clubs we used to give the DJ the nod on our last tune so that he was ready. The singer then just handed over to the DJ. Sometimes the DJ wasn't ready but that was their problem. Keeping your best tunes for an encore? You actually have tunes that you consider to be better than others? Shouldn't they all be the best you can play? Our drummer had the encore mentality. We're not playing Wembley Stadium mate - just crack out the tunes and leave them wanting more.

[quote name='chardbass' post='1179016' date='Mar 28 2011, 12:24 AM']If everyone in the band is pro-active in some way then keep it as an even split but if someone is doing all the legwork in chasing up every gig then there is a case for them getting a little more wedge. Problems begin if someone is sat on their arse, happy to wait for the gigs to come in and take the same cut as the fixers and chasers.[/quote] I don't mind if people sit on their arse waiting. It's when they start to complain about what you are doing essentially for free that it starts to gind.

[quote name='JTUK' post='1177982' date='Mar 27 2011, 09:54 AM']... FWIW, it takes two very good gtrs to not get in the way of each other as they all seems to think they HAVE to carry the song on their terms, alone. ...[/quote] This may have been the problem. If the lead guitar was playing everything (ours tries to as well) this often leaves the rhythm with nothing to do. If he was good then he would be hanging back. If he was bad then he may have been overplaying and the whole thing would sound like a train wreck. I usually have to stop our band when we have run through a tune after the first 3 or 4 run throughs because they're both trying to play the same. The rhythm and timing go out of the window. If they actually played the same there would be no issue, but playing in unison takes a hell of a lot of practice. Why have two guitars if they both play the same?

Bauhaus now that's a blast from the past. Thanks. A night of Patti Smith and Bat Cave stuff awaits. The Sky's Gone Out! Use [ instead of < <youtube>hW2cmsMS4BU</youtube> hW2cmsMS4BU is the code from the end of the youtube URL in the address bar.

[quote name='Clarky72' post='1175644' date='Mar 25 2011, 09:46 AM']I've found that too... the rest of the band mock me for turning up with my case of bits, then as soon as their crappy gear breaks down who do they turn to?[/quote] They need to feel the pain before they'll buy decent gear. While they know you are able to fix their old gear nothing will change. Either that or service their amp [b]before[/b] you get to the gig. Trust me. My toolkit stays in the car, I don't take it backstage with me, I have enough things to worry about without having my professional work gear getting nicked. It has similar stuff in it to Ian's. I've never needed it for my own gear and the most work I've done at a gig has been rewiring 4 dodgy mains plugs on a keyboard players rig. I'm just not going to sit down and resolder jack plugs at a gig, fault find an amp or lend my socket set to the drummer to rebuild his kit.

This question comes up every now and again. It seems that there are two camps. Those who take tons of unnecessary stuff and seem to be prepared for every eventuality, and those who've been gigging years and have found that it doesn't matter what you take you won't have what you need. When you start out playing gigs you take hardly anything. The amount of stuff you take gradually increases as the gigs get more important and you get paranoid about; what if this happens, what if that happens. Then as the years go by you realise, if you have good gear, stuff just works like it should and you cut right back down to bare essentials. Toolkit: wire cutters, screwdriver for bass battery compartment. I fix stuff at home I replace stuff at gigs so I carry: Spare bass, spare strings, battery, DI for PA (in case of amp failure), spare mains lead.

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='1174961' date='Mar 24 2011, 05:27 PM']* Two bags of grass * Seventy-five pellets of mescaline * Five sheets of high-powered blotter acid * A saltshaker half-full of cocaine * A whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.[/quote] What happened to the Bessemer converter?

Don't underestimate the main two stresses. 1. Owning/settingup and running the PA. Especially when the diva singer can't hear herself because the drummer is too loud. 2. Doing the customer liaison bit, facing the band when the gig turns out to be in the worst venue in the world. The rest is just every day stuff that all bands do - many of us forget that we volunteered to do the website/book the studio/sort the setlist/buy a van etc mainly because no one else will do it. Once you bring up those reasons someone will chip in "but we never asked you to do it." ,"My mate does web sites and he says ours is s**t." or "my mates got a better van". Everyone knows that the "mates" won't do anything for free or will always be too busy but that's beside the point. So be careful when you argue those points. I had the discussion purely in the PA basis as I've been taken for granted in the many bands I've been in. "Tim's got a PA we'll use his." the first time the PA fails or you're late you get loads of flack even if you're providing it and your extra time free. You'll also be doing spares and repairs for free. While the rest of the band are tucked up in bed you're still loading the gear back into your lockup etc at 3am. A charge for hire well below the going rate is usually accepted. If you book a duff gig you get flack from the band as well. I've booked some really good sounding gigs that have ended up being in very rough areas. The drummer then spends an hour moaning about how he thinks his car was going to get nicked/torched. Agents take a 15% cut so 10% seems more than acceptable, but they must be willing to do all the prganisation up to arrival at the gig when the band leader should take over. 10% just for an introduction seems a bit out of order.

There's a big difference between the stuff that has to be done by a certain time to get the gigs and the stuff that can be done at any time. The person who picks up the PA and drops it off/unloads it at the end of the night should get extra. Especially if they own it. They have to do it on the night and can't chose when to do it. You should have a set price for this. The person who fields all the phone calls or deals with the customer should get a cut proportional to the time spent doing it. They will get called and have to call when it is convenient for the customer. If you spend an hour on a gig doing this and the gig is 10 hours out of the house then you should get an extra 10%. The people who sort music arrangements, write setlists, decide on look, build websites etc might get something extra, but essentially you can do this in your own spare time when it suits you and have probably volunteered to do it in the first place.

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