TimR

55 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

The first time I played keys through a big PA I got a shock at how much low end I had. I backed it off immediately and keep it in check these days. 

Piano is a full range solo instrument capable of being the only accompaniment  required. 

My dad has been playing piano for 75 years. When he calls me for backup, he says, its great to have a good bass player who understands chord structure, I can't be doing that driving left hand stuff all night. 🤣

53 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

She has got a 5 but generally just uses her Fender MIM Jazz 4 string.

This issue has become more noticeable since they've started playing bigger stages with big subs in the PA. Its not an issue in smaller venues, the bass cuts through nicely there.

Yes. It's really 'noisy'. 

They're all 'youngsters' and clearly having fun.

I'd say when you have big powerful PA behind you, you can afford not to smash your instruments hard and reign in the passion a little bit. 

It may be that the arrangements aren't that far off, its the loudness wars and exuberance that may be pushing the envelope.

The drummer is also hitting lots of open cymbals.

There's a balance between musicality and full out punk. 

Love the violin, but that also needs to be arranged around so everything else doesn't crowd it out. Make it a feature, everyone else doesnt need to be louder than the violin.

Hopefully this is positive criticism. Its about having a mature outlook to what is the feature instrument, or vocal, at any point, and what are backing instruments.  

8 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Amazing the amount of overdrive/fret-buzz & rattling there is in the original. 

He always sounds like that. 

We play this. Can't say I'm ever particular about getting the tone 100%. We only have guitar, bass and drums. No one has ever said to me "Great song, but you need to be playing a jazz with the bridge pickup on full". 

Play hard. 

In fact, we get people up and singing along to this without fail. 

On 02/08/2025 at 16:24, SteveXFR said:

We're in need of some advice. 

My daughter is in a band where she plays bass and they also have keys, guitar, vocals and drums. The recordings work really well and everything comes through nicely but live, the bass quite often gets lost and im wondering whether sound techs are struggling to differentiate between the low end of the keys and the bass. Are there any tips to make them work together live reliably and make it easy for the sound tech?

Here's an example of one of their songs for reference. 

 

 

OK. I've listened to that and in my opinion that song works really well arrangement-wise amd sounds really tight with nothing wrong.

So I went in search of more examples and found a live one from a few months ago. Others can search if they're that bothered. 

1. The keyboard player has a full size 7 octave stage piano! 😳

In the video I've watched they're really bashing out the same notes as the bass, with double octaves. I think they're used to playing alone and have a bit to learn about ensemble work.

In that situation the keys needs to chill, absolutely no need for those notes, and playing like that will clutter up the sound space because they won't be exactly in time, and any 'groove' (playing ahead or behind the beat) from the bass player will be lost. Especially when the drums are joining in. 

I suspect the video you have posted was recorded with protools and has had all the notes quantized and aligned. So live it probably sounds quite a 'mess', and that's probably more the problem.

So yes, get the bass and keys to meet up separately from the rest of the band and have a sensible chat about bottom end arrangements.

Is that a 5-string bass there as well?

The keys and bass need to meet separately to work on an arrangement that works for both of them.

With experienced musicians this can be done on the fly as they both will adjust using their ears. 

19 minutes ago, itu said:

If you are into tinkering, use a rotary switch to get options like in Kubicki Ex-Factor: OFF/STAND-BY/ON... but like passive/active... 

The problem with active/passive is that the control knobs will be different values and part of the active circuitry, so not just a case of switching off the amplifier bit and keeping the volume. Would need a bit of thought. What about balance and tone controls? 

18 hours ago, PaulThePlug said:

But, have you tried it passive?

I haven't. I think by the time I have purchased pots and wiring, had them delivered, soldered them all together, it would just be quicker and just as expensive to fit the pre-amp, which would only require soldering the existing barrel jack in.

Have lost the will to live with my Ibanez SR400 volume pot. Its a non standard pot that's soldered to the board. There's no equivalent pot that I can find, or a pot that will fit, and have the same diameter shaft that will fit the existing knobs.

So I have two options, ditch the electronics, make it passive, blank off two holes and go that route. 

or

Replace the pre-amp. A shadowski pre-amp is probably more than I want to spend. So thinking of taking a punt on the Artec. 

Anyone used one of these? I figure it must be better than a 25 year old Ibanez stock. 

I have the DXP and DXJ passive pickups. 

https://www.thomann.co.uk/artec_se3_basselektronik.htm?gad_source=4&gad_campaignid=1581403900&gclid=CjwKCAjwy7HEBhBJEiwA5hQNotlg5qVmdkmIFXkIzrbymxNpJCwbkNKlg38RMUSnd83RC-nDuTX3CRoCxZYQAvD_BwE

1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I don't know -  reading the posts from both sides, I don't see anyone being covered in glory here.

 

 

I thought the first post was a complete over-reaction and someone blowing up over a delay in getting into a studio, and losing their temper on the support line.

1st world problem.

I thought Meta referred to a 'Karen' style rant on Facebook. 

25 minutes ago, Gank Bass said:

This is so meta

 Karen from Sheffield...

6 minutes ago, tvickey said:

Anyway, asking a customer to deactivate the fire alarm is incredibly dangerous.  It doesn't matter if your call center in South Africa saw vaping, or thought they saw vaping.  What if the alarm was triggered for another reason?  What if the source was something smoldering away in the walls?  

We were taught as kids in the 70s how to search for a fire. Is this no longer taught? 😕

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.  

Same problem, with my SR400.

The volume pot is a non standard Alpha Tiwan RV16AF-41 ?? 25R B500K

The problem is the ??. I've measured the bushing and it looks to be M8 17mm.

I've messaged Rapid Electronics to see what they can find. I've bought the standard RV16AF-41 off their website but its too short.

I'm going to dismantle it and see if the top is swappable. 

Edit - it's not.

12 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

But they would give advice on what to do, and I'd trust them more than Pirate.

Yes. Contact the key holder. 

The fire service will only advise the owner, its down to the owner to implement the policy. 

https://www.syfire.gov.uk/business-advice/fire-alarms/

South Yorkshire fire service will only attend if there is a confirmed fire.

Have a read of the latter part of the Pirate Studios thread. It may be those of us on BassChat are more selective with the gigs we go to and the bands we play in.

49 minutes ago, ian61 said:

A breach of the peace is just that and it doesn't take into account who had first dibbs so to speak, which is galling when a venue has been in place for years and then the new build next door has the power to shut it down....AFAIC the law needs changing.

A breach of the peace is something else. 

Somewhat of an overreaction.

Resetting the fire alarm won't result in any liability. It shouldn't allow you to reset it if a break glass or smoke head has been activated. 

1 hour ago, KingBollock said:

A friend of my wife’s owns the only pub in the village. She’s always been strict about closing at 11pm and is only open four days a week. She used to put on live music in a dedicated function room.

 

Then a couple moved in next door and started complaining…

 

So, no music anymore, live or otherwise. This isn’t good enough, though, oh no! They don’t want people talking while walking past their house at closing time. So she had to buy signs that tell people to be quiet when they leave.

 

She has decided to sell the pub, and those neighbours are part of the reason for it.

 

There used to be two pubs in the village but the other one got turned into a bistro/deli. Who knows what’ll happen to her pub once it’s sold?

That falls into unreasonable expectations in my book. 

I back onto a pub car-park. We get doors slammed, occasionally people fighting, lots of noise as people arrive and leave during the Sunday lunch rush, a bit of noise carry from the garden on the other side of the carpark. Most of it can be easily ignored.

One day some of the locals decided to move one of the benches down the carpark outside my fence (because it was jn the sun), started swearing and throwing cigarettes over the fence. 

That is not reasonable. That resulted in a robust face to face confrontation where I was told "You moved next to a pub, what do you expect?", and I told them (the above), explaining that I moved next to a pub carpark, not a pub, and that my small children were listening to the swearing, and having cigarettes thrown at them and their trampoline. 

Some red-faces, sweary people apologised and moved the bench back into the pub garden.

But some people are really over-sensitive and a precident has been set where pubs have been refused licences. Bad reporting in the press has resulted in people thinking they have the right to complain about reasonable noise. 

If the owners of The Venue were honest with themselves, it wasn't a suitable place for loud concerts, and spending 10s of thousands of pounds on soundproofing was short-sighted. 

Ultimately, the financial crash of 2008 was what bought them down. 

I went to see Iron Maiden at the London Stadium last month. 

It was loud, but not overbearing. They had a 10pm curfew. They just started a bit earlier.

Contrast that with their Hammersmith Odeon gigs in the 80s, my ears were still ringing 3 days later.

I always take my earbuds to gigs now (even pub gigs) and I had to wear them at a recent gig at the Underworld in Camden. They shouldn't really be necessary if we are honest with each other. 

5 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

But in that case almost anything can be called a health issue. e.g. other people, especially other drivers, having to work, not having a job,  traffic, the guvment, people complaining about the noise etc. etc.

 

Those things are 'reasonably expected'.

You expect a music venue to make a reasonable amount of noise.

As I said upthead, a lot of these venues make unreasonable amounts of noise well into the early hours of the morning, during the week and on Sundays. 

And allowing pubs to spill put into the street in city centres is one thing, but in an area where there is housing, without the landlord being expected to control rowdy behaviour is another.

Having people eating, drinking and talking all week outside your front door is one thing. Having people shouting and swearing is another. 

Again, it's about what is reasonably expected.  

2 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

It's a case of who was there first. If you build a dwelling next to a noisy venue then that should be your responibility. If a bar/cub opene up next to you then it's their responsibility.

 

It's the "Agent of Change " princible.

It's a case of the level of noise that is reasonably expected. 

If I moved next to a pub that played music, I'd expect music at certain times of the week and at a certain level.

Bands are getting louder and venues are staying open later.

There are developers that do stupid things like build retirement flats next to music venues, that kind of thing should be thrown back to the developers to fix. But we know developers vanish with regularity for a new company to spring up in their places.

It's far more complex and nuanced than; buy a place near a pub and you should expect trouble and noise, just put up with it.