TimR

In a word - Dynamics. I think that there is generally the music has moved to a place where everything has to be louder then everything else. I saw 3 bands on a bill last month all doing originals. The first band on, the drummer was out of time, the singer was out of tune, but the songs had dynamics and worked well. Each player gave the other space. The second 2 were dire. Each one was 5 players playing as much as they could as loudly as they could. Each individully a 'good' player but the whole wasn't as good as each part. This has probably been going on for time immoral and certainly was going on when I was in my teens. Older and younger bands both suffer from this. However amplification has moved on, it's cheap and very loud and bands can't get away with playing everything loud all the time. Loud is relative, but without quiet and slow - what is loud and fast?

[quote name='4000' post='465811' date='Apr 18 2009, 01:22 AM']I don't expect people to fall at our feet, I just want to play a gig. Why should I have to play covers? It's like a painter having to make a living copying other people's paintings.[/quote] No its not. A painting is a permanent thing. Once its made, its made. Like a recording. I would agree what's the point of recording covers. But Duffy, Winehouse, Sugar Babes etc seem to be making a mint out of it. Playing live is completely different. Its more like an actor. How many actors turn down Shakespeare because every other actor has performed it and its just doing covers and they'd rather be playing in an original play. There are audiences for both. Why just limit yourself to one audience when you know there is a bigger audience for the other. Play pubs, do two 45 minute sets, 70 mins of covers, music you like played in your style with 20 mins of your best material thrown in.

Originals bands have been cutting off their noses to spite their faces for as long as I can remember. The originals band that I was in during the 80s refused to play covers. Its difficult to get your music out to large numbers of people doing your own material. The Beatles (and many other 60s bands) started as a covers band, they had to play 3-4 hours a night in the German clubs, they sneaked in their own material bit by bit, the tunes that went down well they kept and those that bombed were dropped. To go to a venue and play 30-40 mins of YOUR songs AT the audience and expect them to fall at your feet is naive at best. The band I'm in at the moment want to play "classic" 80's pop tunes. I remember the 80s and the lack of good music at the time, but there were 520 top 40s in 10 years so even with a conservative estimate of only ten singles a week released that would be 5200 singles. There's plenty of artists around, just don't expect to hear a great record every day. History has shown you only get 1 or 2 every few weeks.

[quote name='everogere' post='457811' date='Apr 8 2009, 09:01 PM']Thanks for all that info, thats what i thought really just wondered if there was any tricks ![/quote] What amp do you have. Set all your controls to a neutral position (usually 12 o'clock for the tone controls) then adjust each one to see how the sound is affected in that particular room. Return each one to the neutral before moving to the next one. Then go back and build from scratch. Don't start with everything set as they where when you where at home. Start afresh.

Get a timer socket for the Dehum unit. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackspur-BB-TS201-DAY-TIMER-SOCKET/dp/B0012UR3UC/ref=sr_1_6/279-4579110-2964046?ie=UTF8&s=diy&qid=1236983115&sr=8-6"]24/7 Timer Socket[/url]

Thanks for your advice. Two names? I'll take it to the band and see what they think. Might be easier to have two different bands

We recorded our demo live in a studio. ie the engineer set up all the mikes and recorded us playing for an hour or so. Then took the recording and mixed it. In total we recorded and mixed around 12 songs in a day. At the time it was a fair representation of what we sounded like and we do need to make a new recording. All a pub is going to be interested in is whether you can play as a band or not. Old Git is right about going in to hustle for the gigs, don't waste time on the phone other than to find out when the best time to go and see someone is. Go in and get a date. A lot of pubs book 3 or 4 months in adavance. Most people are on the net and posting MP3s is cheaper and easier than taking a CD. A photo of the band with a web address that they can look at next time they are on-line is really all you need.

I was checking on some search optimisation I've done on our site and found an agent that had our name on his site, but no link. I contacted him and apparently we had done work for him in the past. We hadn't, but one of our members had given him our details a few years back and we'd never followed up as we became quite busy through another agent. Anyway moving on... I asked him to link to our site, but he wanted an 'agent friendly' page. ie one with no contact names, numbers, emails, or prices on. I was thinking of creating a single page specifically for agents. What would be the best way to do this. Should I just get some free web space with an entirely different URL? Or can you recommend another way. eg MySpace is not supposed to be used by covers bands.

Depends on what you mean by ears and hearing. My listening has got better. Your hearing has got worse, you ears have got tired, but your brain has learned how to filter out the unwanted rubbish like guitars and drums. I used to live next to a railway, the trains kept me awake for a few days. I got used to them. Then I moved and I couldn't sleep because it was too quiet. Anyway... As you were. I'm not sure where I'm going with that, maybe the brain trains itself, I should chuck out the DS.

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='378923' date='Jan 13 2009, 12:57 PM']... I remain truly astonished that so many people apparently value their signature so highly that they dare not "waste" it by signing up to a petition which may or may not be 100% kosher/valid/accurate etc etc.[/quote] As the government record on keeping personal data secret is so good. I'm very happy to have my name, address and email all in one place on a public website, safe in the knowledge that my address won't be shown anywhere. Where do I enter my NI and bank AC details?

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_(fable)"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_(fable)[/url]

It may be to protect the bar staff and other workers, but as you say it is a point of informed consent. We had the same problems when the H&S exec brought in the working at heights legislation and tried to apply it to rock climbing. In the end the H&S exec worked very closely with climbers so that the element of risk and the sporting activities where preserved and a best practice was adopted. There are a lot of people who moan about the nanny state, equally there are a lot of people who say that if it was dangerous 'they' wouldn't allow it. Recently there was a lot of press about mp3 players being damaging to hearing and despite there being warnings on the packaging about listening at high volumes, people still believed that if it was actually dangerous they wouldn't be allowed to sell them. There are also people who believe "If its not dangerous, its not worth doing." I still believe this is more about reducing nuisance noise for residents living near pubs and is just another thing to try to placate the NIMBYs. If you buy a house near a pub you can expect a reasonable amount of noise. But what exactly is a reasonable amount of noise? One person’s idea of music is another’s idea of noise.

Its called vestibular hypercausis. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_hyperacusis"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_hyperacusis[/url]

I have a zoom Rhythmtec. Its nice and simple. Older ones on ebay. New ones are about £100. [url="http://www.andertons.co.uk/acatalog/info_RT223.html?utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=pricecomp&utm_content=allproducts&utm_campaign=googlebaseRT223"]http://www.andertons.co.uk/acatalog/info_R...googlebaseRT223[/url] A metronome will help your bass playing more, a drum machine will make you think you are better than you are. BUT you can always set a drum machine to only play 4 beats in the bar

It seems strange that they think that the drinking is due to the noise levels. It is well established that it is the other way round. Hearing is impaired by alcohol. The more people drink the louder they get. I know a lot of musicians who seem to think they play better after a beer and drummers who definitely get louder after a beer. First lnk I ggogled, there are counless others: [url="http://www.indiana.edu/~adic/effects.html"]http://www.indiana.edu/~adic/effects.html[/url] In order for people to take responsibility for their actions, they need to be informed of what their effect their actions will have. How do you know how loud it is in a bar or how loud a band is? I've played in places where they will not put the band through the limiter, but use the limiter to guage the volume of the band. The manager will tell you to turn down if the red light stays on too long. If you ignore it you don't play there again. Simple. It'll never get set to 70dB as a crowded bar is louder than that. I would refuse to plug my amp into a power circuit that will turn itself off 'randomly' and could then be reset by someone before I can kill the PA outputs and get my speakers blown. My guess is that it will have to be less than 80dB outside the venue and there will be strict limits on the amount of time that the music can be louder than a certain level inside. Unfortunately if venues don't take voluntary measures, the government acts like this.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='370495' date='Jan 4 2009, 11:23 PM']Well hello and welcome Tim! Your stand on 'technical' V's 'real life' is duly noted and you might find that you even have allies when it comes to NOT mixing drivers but where do you stand on 'vintage bass' V's 'just a load of old tat'? [/quote] Thanks for the welcome. Sorry. I don't mean to make a stand on mixing drivers. Just as long as it sounds musical, but just adding a 15" or a 4x10" thinking it will sound better, isn't always the case, and using power ratings to judge whether a speaker will sound good is not a good idea. (I had a 15" and added a 2x10". Not only did it sound really terrible but it was quieter too!) I'm obviously new here and have only lurked a bit, but thought I throw something to think about into the pot. I guess the mixing drivers discussion must come up fairly regularly then. vintage bass v's a load of old tat? Well I can only play old tat as I'm not old enough or rich enough to have a vintage bass, just some old tat from the 80's and something from the last millennium

All this talk of 15" and 10" and power into each driver is all very well. These are 'nominal' impedances and power ratings. Using ohms law and DC is OK but in reality the impedance of each speaker varies at different frequencies. The impedance of the 10" is unlikely to be the same as the impedance of the 15" for any given frequency so the power distribution will be much more complex than just saying 225watts and 4x56.25watts. But all they give us is nominal figures so fag packet drawings and schoolboy physics are the way to go, and are ok if all you are interested in is whether your speakers or amp will blow first. E.G. say the 10"s were 25ohms at 40hz and the 15" was 15ohms at 40 Hz, what happens to the power distribution then? How much of that amp power is going to get used at 40Hz and where will it go? Since the 15" is more likely to have a lower impedance for a given frequency than the 10s, a good deal of your power is likely to go in the direction of the 15". That's just electrically, never mind what then happens acoustically. This is why mixing drivers doesn't always sound good, even 2x15" from different manufacturers. Regardless of what you think the specs say, your ears are your friend.