TimR

On 31/08/2025 at 18:15, Maude said:

Generally at a gig, and especially in your situation, the people watching want you to do well, they're on your side. Remember this.

Don't worry about little mistakes, just keep the music flowing. If you really get lost, drop out for a bar, regroup your thoughts and come back in where appropriate. As long as the band keep flowing nobody will really notice. 

Try to enjoy it (as much as possible given the circumstances) and I'm sure you'll make everyone, especially your brother, proud. 

This is great advice. 

Don't worry if you have false starts, or falls apart. No one will be surprised. 

Above all, enjoy it. It's a celebration of life.

We are assuming the 3 people are the rest of the band and you're not playing solo. 

If it's a solo piece remember not to go off too fast. Take your time. Nerves can make your heart race and alter your perception of tempo. 

Good luck. 

Ok. I wondered how you'd tested it. 

All earths should be common. The 'Martindale' testers upthread would show missing/bad earths on sockets. More reason for performers to have their PAT certificates up to date. 

It could be being driven by lightweight equipment. 

I initially bought a lightweight amp and kept my old one as a spare. 

I've now bought a lightweight 10" cab and would be looking at selling my cabs if I upgraded them, but probably keep the amp. 

Regards recording studios. The last few times I've been in them. 

It's been. Ensemble drums, bass, keys, guitar, vocals - one or maybe two takes. Leave.

The singer can sort the vocals out on their own, and if the guitarist wants to do 1,000,000 overdubs, I don't need to be there until midnight listening to them all.

If the band can't play the tunes live with no mistakes, they're under-rehearsed and shouldn't be wasting studio time. 

Audiences on TV shows clapping along to the music. 

18 hours ago, Shaggy said:

Don't mind an f-hole personally, but I'd have to agree that there are more stylish variants  

 

 

Shouldn't this be on the "Guitars with faces" thread?

8 hours ago, Huge Hands said:

I assume it may have been something to do with his amp, perhaps earthing him faster through the mic, rather than the other way round.

Or a compelte lack of earth. 

If a venue has different ring voltages on the earth, that's not good and implies a problem with the ring earth somewhere. The earths in a building should be common. 

4 hours ago, Huge Hands said:

In my experience as a former sound engineer, these shocks are caused by potential differences in the earths between your mixer and your PA, backline amps etc.   If it is a small system, and everything is plugged into the same socket, it is usually fine.

The shocks I've recieved are where someone has removed an earth to prevent a ground loop hum. 

Eg. Guitar amp (hand)  to Microphone (mouth) where the Pa Earth has been removed to prevent hum from Keys. 

ŴThe two reasons seem to be:

The singer is inexperienced.

The guitarist is difficult to get along with.

My view would be to say that you were hoping the band would be gigging by now and thought that following the open night there are a number of things you need to address before you're ready to gig. Maybe have a 'nice' list.

From there, you can either judge the mood or suggest they find a bass player who is more aligned with their timeline and experience. I don't know. It's difficult to say that without sounding pompous. 🤣

I've just seen the new Ibanez Prestige range. This thread is keeping me honest.

<repeat>

I don't need a new bass, I've fixed mine.

<until false> 

On 23/08/2025 at 20:33, ricksterphil said:

Singers who roam out into the crowd and flirt with the audience. The band is on stage, the crowd aren't and the lines must not be crossed unless there's a fire

 

 

 

.....I might have forgotten to take my meds today so it's back to the padded room for me

As ever - context is everything. 

I saw a band on Friday night Papa Shango. 

Adult rock (Limp Bizkit?)  pantomime on steroids is how I'd describe it. 

Female and male lead singers, 4 backing singers and a lead guitarist wandering around the floor. Rhythm, bass and drums occasionally joining them.

Walking round the audience with squirty cream, biscuits, water pistols, it was a full on audience participation. 

If they're playing local go and watch it, even if the music isn't your cup of brandy. 

I'm all for that kind of ridiculousness. We have a tendency to take ourselves far too seriously. 

12 hours ago, peteb said:

Most of the people who look for attention performing on a stage are unconsciously trying to get their parents approval via an audience. 'look at me, look how special I am'. When you get older you don't need that. You have your own approval. You've accepted yourself for what and who you are.

That's an interesting take. 

Non-black extension leads.

When I did theatre work, nothing on stage should be visible if it's not a prop or a performer. 

Music stands. 

23 hours ago, ricksterphil said:

Too long gaps between songs on stage while the drummer adjusts his kit, retrieves his sticks and banters with the audience. Ok this is not irrational at all but it REALLY winds me up.

That's definitely not irrational.

Add to that the 6 note guitar solo played after every song.

The guitarist playing the first 4 chords of the song before the next song.

Singer texted the band on the day of the gig to request we change the key of a song.

No one replied, no one said anything, nothing got marked on any sheets.

Come the song we managed to have everyone (apart from the drummer) manage to play in a completely different key to everyone else. 

On 21/08/2025 at 10:49, Woodinblack said:

 

Yes. There are 4. I have 3. no-one has the 4th!

 

and seeing as the two badges that match hellzero were awarded on the same day as his I reckon that that is when they were setup.

There was a massive site update on 22/7/21 to the current version. 

2 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

I love showing off. I regularly go to classical recitals where it’s 2 hours of virtuosity. I play jazz and that’s basically continual showing off. I’ve played so long the whole point now is showing off because the basic stuff is dull.

We all do. 

The difference is, people either walk out or clap. 

I'm guessing the Edinburgh Fringe is kind of like a real life TicTok where you actually see the faces of the people scrolling past. 

Maybe there will be a point at which someone will put a vertical window in front of themselves so the passing people actually have to stop for a few seconds to look in before passing on to the next performer.

I knew a bassplayer in the 80s who could play the entire back catalogue of Iron Maiden songs.

It was very impressive when you first heard him. It got boring very quickly, he was unable to play anything else, nor could he jam with a band, and didn't know any of the fretboard. 

About the same time I knew a guitarist who had quite an extensive repertoire of Beatles tunes. But again, that was his limit.

But that was what made them happy. 

37 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I looked at a website promising 'ten hard basslines'. They were all what I'd call "intermediate", but I think the point of the article was they demanded groove and feel or consistency rather than sheer speed. 

 

 

The click bait worked then.

The problem now is you won't bother looking next time, so in order to get your attention it will have to be 10 Hardest bass lines, then 10 Impossible bass lines... The algorithm already knows you're interested in Bass Lines, you're now on their target list.

As I wrote upthread, everyone is searching for something that doesn't exist - and the creators are promising that 'something'.

At some point, people have to go outside into the real world. The problem is they take their phones with them.  

On 01/08/2025 at 09:23, TimR said:

Under "breakages" I have ordered a new volume pot. The old one crackles like mad amd no amount of Servicol switch cleaner will resolve. 

 

It's going to be a bit of a mission to replace as the new pot isn't a straight swap. The old one is soldered to the preamp board and is much longer. This one will have to be fitted to the bass body and have extension wires to the preamp.  

That didn't work. Have given up and had to replace the whole pre-amp with the Artec SE-3.

Hopfully that's allowed.

42 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Reflecting on it, the point I'm making is that they're playing music but so much of it isn't musical at all. It's showing off. I mean, in what circumstances would anyone *really* want to hear double tapping or an extended solo on the bass? 

 

There's a market for it, otherwise it wouldn't be trending. 

Although the market is just a prosumer market with no financial worth to the consumer. All the money is in the adverts between the content. 

If there truly was a market for it, the musicians would all be doing it on subscriber channels. SBL and the like have additional content that you pay for. 

1 hour ago, Dood said:

that no one can handle any more than about 30 seconds of any video before the next micro dopamine hit is required triggering and almost involuntary action to scroll.

They're not getting their hit. If it doesn't hit within 30seconds, they know it's probably not coming and move on to the next video.

That's why the videos have to lure people in, and have to be engineered to hold people's attention. It's why people spend hours searching, they're not getting the hit, if they were, they'd not be on the phone for hours. They're all searching for something that isn't there.

They understand how dopamine works. It's not about the constant scrolling, it's about finding something that's better than you expected.

In a sea of mediocrity everyone is scrolling, scrolling, searching for something that presses their button and ticks their own personal box.

The genie is out of the bottle. Just performing good music, well, no longer gets people's attention. 

To be honest, it never has, its always been about the next best thing, audiences are fickle and constantly changing and evolving. Beatles vs Stones, not about the music, Mods vs Rockers, Blur vs Oasis, Dem vs Rep, Gen Z vs Gen X, Feminist vs Trans, it's not about music, it's all about being a member of a tribe. And media and politicians know this is how it works. 

You need to be ahead of the game and finding something new and exciting all the time.

The problem is, now we have come so far along the line, there's very little that is new and engaging.

Hence, people continue to scroll endlessly in a pointless search, and when they do find something that's new and exciting and fresh, are swiftly disappointed when they find it's not real, all smoke and mirrors, the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. 

5 minutes ago, Skinnyman said:

People around the world are dying in conflicts, children are starving and none of this sh*t matters one iota. None of it is worth the server space it takes up.

It gives them a sense of purpose and it does influence a lot of people to take up worthwhile activities. 

I mean we could moan all we like about people pretending to play an instrument, but if a handful of people are inspired to pick up an instrument, then that's quite worthwhile.