Leonard Smalls

Back in about 1990 we were playing the Powerhaus in Islington. So we soundchecked, everything was excellent so we thought we'd go for some food. There was an Indian restaurant round the corner which had an all-you-can-eat buffet. Being relatively skint we thought this would sort us for the night and probably for a big chunk of the next day. So we ate all we could, then a bit more, then a bit more to make sure. It was very tasty, but we were definitely sated. In fact we were the past-participle-future-pluperfect of sated, Satan! We were so stuffed it took us about 10 minutes to wobble the 200m back to the venue. Then we sat there very quietly... When it came time to go on stage we all took chairs, played very gently and moved as little as possible in the hope that none of us would cover the stage and audience in part digested Rogan Josh and mango lassi. Funnily enough, the audience seemed to enjoy it; we were quite a raucous punk-funk band, known for wearing daft costumes or being painted as we played so they probably thought it was our latest stage gimmick! Needless to say, we didn't do an all you can eat buffet again before a gig...

Aye! We all expected her to turn up with star signs costumes... In fact we kind of hoped she would, as we'd have probably worn them!

We were late 20s. It all ended ok because an excellent funk drummer I'd played with years before suddenly became available. Which was nice!

Back in the early 90s I was in a punk-funk band. We thought we were going places, had headlined the Marquee, supported Carter USM and Gaye Bykers on a number of occasions, when our drummer left. So we advertised for one; we had a number of assorted chancers who couldn't play, or didn't have their own gear and expected us to buy it for them, then a Dutch guy turned up... He had long hair, denim, was obviously from the 70s (!) and didn't really fit in with us (mohicans etc) but wasn't a bad drummer. His only problem was a tendency to put the "EastEnders"/Phil Collins drum bit into everything, but we felt we could perhaps funk him up a bit. He turned up for the 1st rehearsal with his girlfriend. Who was called Janine (you know where this is going!). We started teaching him our songs, and she kept stopping us to say things like "I fink the guitarist should do a little peggio there", or "what this song needs Is a flutey sound on the keyboard". We politely declined all her suggestions, then she said she'd do a better job than Mikey, our manager (and m8 of many years), and she could get us a great gig in her local pub... We managed to struggle through 1 gig with him before he left to (as she said) "join a proper rock band".

Aye - that's why I blend a big chunk of its tone into the fx to produce something (relatively) new and different...

One man's "best" is another man's "deeply dull" - taste is a many splendoured thing! I blend the sound of my Wal with envelope filtered tube distortion, envelope filtered bass whammy and bass synth to produce a meaty funk tone that cuts through, and doesn't sound like any other bass this side of a Spacebass... Each to their own!

Just bass into tuner into amp for me too. However, there's 6 pedals making 3 loops plus clean hanging off a Wounded Paw blender attached to the FX loop

Funnily enough, the ones I liked least were the P-bass and Ric... Best for me were the Warwick and Stingray!

We do that one too. Always goes down well!

Here's some good'n'raucous not-trad jazz!

How much d'you want to spend? Presonus are always very good value as well as being surprisingly even handed...

Had a couple of hours spare, so here it is! Lurks asked for funk, so that's wot you got - featuring my new bass synth dominated pedal board...

Also not necessarily true... Some hifi gear is incredibly flat - frinstance my Leema Xavier hifi speakers (designed by a chap who used to be a BBC sound mixer, then worked at Air Studios) have about +/-0.5dB variation between about 35-20KHz, which is quite a lot better than my Adam A7s which are more like -2dB at 800Hz... And they'll do 28Hz at -3dB. Though to be fair the rrp was about 3x the Adams, and I stick a serious hifi version of a studio amp up 'em (Bryston 14bsst).

Not necessarily! Decent active monitors have the advantage of having a channel of amplification per driver, with optimised protection circuitry for each, and the amplifier is optimised for the driver rather than 1 channel having to drive everything through a crossover. So a fully active speaker , with no passive crossovers and lossy stuff like that is usually better sound quality than a similar passive. However, a cheap active won't necessarily have any of those benefits - a cheap and probably coloured home hifi speaker is likely to be better. But you (mostly) gets what you pays for...

I'd go and have a play with some stuff and see if you like it... I used to be a No Pedals man; now I've got 3 lots of compression, plus a Wounded Paw V4 blender to mix clean with Bass whammy/DOD envelope filter, Darkglass tube distortion/3Leaf envelope filter and Boss bass synth. Clean with a hint of those 3 FX loops gives a very 70s funk/Headhunters/Bootsy sort of sound that cuts through the rest of the band. It might not please the band and audience, but it pleases me

I use Ableton 9 intro... For amp sims I got a freebie through Focusrite - BiasAmp. It's pretty good for free!

And there's more!

As Wintermute says, latency can be a problem, this not only depends on interface but also on amount of fx. The guitarist in one of my bands uses ampsims on a laptop with no noticeable latency, but I've found that with about 8 fx there is enough for it to be a problem. So live I use a ridiculously oversized pedal board...

If you want budget, as I said earlier: AKG WMS40 Not as long a range as the Smoothhound, but sturdy, and it works well... And you'd get 2 for 1 Smoothhound. Worth a punt in my book!

Pedal-wise, i take wireless output into tuner, tuner out goes via cable into preamp and pedals are on preamp fx loop.

I bought an Akg micro wireless t'other day from Knighton Music for £69. Cheap, 25m range - used it for a gig on Friday and it was excellent.

Oh my Bosch! If I get a spare moment...

Filmed on an iPhone...

Shame y'all couldn't come... Next 2 are 11th May at Paradiddles in Worcester and 19th May all-dayer Royal Bedding benefit at The Grapes in Hereford - both a bit of a hike from you! Trying to get a gig at Telford's Warehouse or the Live Rooms if they'll have us - unless you know any more likely Chester venues?

We did a last minute fill-in at Percy's in Whitchurch, Shropshire last night - 1st gig there and only our 3rd gig overall supported by proper tight metallers Elyrean. The venue is excellent, full of odd curios - like a pair of stuffed tigers and a lit stained glass window behind the stage. And the stage is effectively out side, so was a bit chilly - I wore my leather jacket and wasn't sweaty by the end of it... However, we played well - couple of minor frunk-ups but not so as the audience noticed, and the venue liked us enough to offer a better paid Saturday night spot in the future. As it was we still got paid (for doing originals!) which made a 120 mile round trip in pouring rain, arriving home at 2am, well worth while.