TimR

That's a lot of words to say they released an album 11 years ago and did some tours and festivals. 😂

What bits do you need to learn? I'd say a bare minimum to aim for is E to B on the E string. A to E on the A string. D to G on the D string. G Bb C on the G string. Then go from there. Fill in the gaps by playing to chord charts in different keys. C, Db major and Bb minor will help a lot.

Not much has happened in the last 11 years. One Level 42 Album in 2013. A couple of awards. One Album in 2017 with supergroup Gizmodrome. Level 42 are playing in London in November and last week at Bestival.

You need an audience even if you're not getting paid or not interested in the money. They may just be paying in applause or showing some appreciation by not leaving. But if you play a venue and empty it, even if you play for free, you won't be asked back. If you have no shortage of audiences or gigs then you are not solely playing songs for your own enjoyment, you are choosing good popular music to play that other people enjoy. If I primarily played the music I listen to at home, I'd not find a band and not play any gigs.

Quite. Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi are more than enough.

Probably said it upthread. You're being paid to entertain. If you're not playing music and entertaining people they leave before the second set starts, or they don't book you again. If you're not enjoying the music, it will show, and you'll probably not be very entertaining. So play music that entertains everyone including yourself. There's enough music out there. The sticking point is always finding music that all the band will be happy playing. Personally I'll play anything (except Beatles and Stones) if the audience enjoy it. Reverting to tired standards is low risk and musically boring if you're playing the same songs week in week out, but the same happens to all tunes eventually. So you need to rotate tunes, especially if you're playing the same venues each time.

Photos of the gig on Sunday have been posted. I don't think I've posted any photos of me playing here in the 20 odd years I've been a member. However, this deserves a special mention. So there I was, busy playing a G. When two dogs started fighting outside. One got off his lead and the lady had to run after it down the middle of the road. And the other one was getting a roasting from its owner. Never a dull gig.

Maybe should have called it the Pheonix.

Dispersion frequency is inversely proportional to speaker size. 172000/diameter(mm) So any higher frequencies coming from the ports. Will be constructive/destructive to what's coming out of the speakers. However, in practical very unlikely to hear any difference unless the ports are at ear level.

The real answer to this is found in the answer to the following questions: Can your drummer play at the appropriate volume? Can your guitarist play his amp with the "Stun" setting disengaged? Do you have effective monitoring for the singer? If the monitoring for the singer is bad and they can't hear themselves and/or have to turn the monitor up to feedback levels due to the aforementioned drummer and guitarist, then it doesn't matter how much power you have - you won't have anything coherent anywhere in the room.

Isn't that "A problem I never had"? Other than "I got paid for the gig and want to spend my cash." My laptop died yesterday. Sunday's gig money has just been spent on a non musical item. Well actually it was spent on a family meal on Saturday night. I always like to spend money 3 times. I need to do 2 more gigs last week. 😂

@dmccombe7 Are you measuring them under load or disconnected? There is a lot of voltage sag on a 9v battery depending on the load. So an effects pedal will be drawing more current and the voltage will sag a lot lower, compared to an active bass. The open circuit measurement won't tell you a lot. Best way is to use an actual battery tester rather than a multimeter.

This afternoon's gig. Pedalboard consits of Korg PB-1 tuner, Keeley Bassist compressor, Boss Chorus and Joyo Double Thruster. Tuner - used twice. Compressor - always on. Chorus - always off. Double thruster - always off. Pedal board bag, useful for carrying pedals, power supply and leads.

9v batteries are good down to 7v.

Just back from this afternoon's gig. Busy pub, loads of people in the garden. 2h30m including a 15 min break. Polite clapping after a few songs, more enthusiastic clapping and cheering after others. Some singing. Mostly lots of blank faces while we played though. Calls for an encore. We played 2 more tunes. I'll never understand audiences. Too hot to jump around. We got paid and will go back at some point.

You're You're definitely changing your Volvos too frequently. One 740 and one 940 should have been ample.

There was an old thread about music stands. My view has always been that any physical barrier between the musician and the audience detracts from the preformance and the show. I am particular in making sure that any aids don't distract from the performance and the audience are not aware of it. Autocue is widely used by professionals. Even click tacks and cue tracks in ears is widespread. A bad performance is where people are focused on the sheets, the fretboard or their shoes. Glancing at something by your knees for cues shouldn't be perceptible to the audience or distract from the performance.

I have bought a new bass head and am worrying about how I'm going to get rid of the old one.

I've been in bands where the role rotates. When I joined one band the guitarist did everything, then he got busy with work and it was down to me, now the singer has stepped up. If everyone is an adult, leading is easy, you just ask people, and they do what's required. It's not like you're bossing people around and putting unrealistic expectations and timelines in place. Singer asks if we can do a gig on a date. We say yes and turn up.

My pad has over 200 tunes in it. Three hours of material for my cover band. 2 separate one hour sets for 2 originals bands I play with. Two hours of tunes I play with a band I occasionally dep for. Plus three hours of jazz tunes for the occasional jazz gig with my dad. Some of the gigs are so far apart and such short notice that I'm not going to be even rehearsing with the bands let alone have time to be learning the material. I can literally press a button and find the tune I want. Or spend 10 minutes assembling a set. No folder to juggle and reassemble every time a set list changes.

I think you probably need to say the name of the song out loud and then play the first 4 bars. Do this a few times for each song working through your set list. Practice the bit you can't do: marrying up the title with the intro. Practicing the bits you can do is wasting your time.

Tablets are a game changer. Especially if you have a very low stand and put it to the side so no one notices it. Put it at chest height in front of you, and we may as well resurrect the Music Stand Thread...

And then you start to resent all the hard work you're doing when no one appears to be pulling their weight. You then have to question whether they're the kind of people you want in your band. Personally I've been in the band leader situation where everything you do is criticised, no one replies when you ask for availability, people decide they'd rather go to the pub to watch football with their mates than play a gig... Now I play bass, give a bit of feedback when I think it will help but don't get to worried when it's not taken. And make sure I'm available for all practices and gigs and reply as soon as possible when asked. We have a gig on Sunday. No one can practice this week. We had a practice a week ago and one about a month ago. The WhatsApp group is very quiet. Hopefully we can pull it off but I'm expecting a load of "What time are we on?", "How long are else playing?" Type questions. Which I'll let someone else answer, mainly to avoid filling the chat with lots of different answers.

If it's your band that you put together, hired all the musicians and the original premise hasn't changed then you need to sack the ones causing issues. If, on the other hand, you have defaulted into the band leader position because the rest of the band are flakey, then leave and join another band. The third option would be that the band has just drifted into being something that no one actually agreed it would be. In which case, you all sit down, discuss what commitment levels you have, what gigs you want to play and what songs are and aren't working. Basically discuss all the issues and see where the band is. And then leave or have a more realistic expectation of what the band actually is and where it's going.