Boodang

17 minutes ago, martin8708 said:

We have keyboard Tourette’s currently , but have been party to guitar / drummer Tourette’s as well.

The new (ish) keyboard player always breaks into Bruce Hornsby’s  “ The way it is “ , but just the intro between songs .

We asked if he could play the rest of the song , umm , have not learnt it yet .

We collectively decide to learn the song for the next rehearsal, come next week , he has not got round to learning it , despite the rest of us learning the track .

Bruce Hornsby on the shelf , suddenly it’s the intro to “ Don’t let the Sun go down on me “ 

Do you know the song we all ask ? , 

No , just the intro is the reply .

God knows what it will be in a fortnight.

When it comes to musicians tourette's I don't know whether to laugh or cry(actually it's mostly cry). However, in another thread I've been talking about our bands recent use of a digital desk which in the absence of a sound engineer I'm in control of, so, as a friendly word hasn't had the desired effect in cutting this out, I'm now just going to hit the mute button on the guitars between songs... should be fun. I won't say anything, I'll just look for his expression of 'my guitars not working' after he tries to noodle. PS on the desk you can type in a description for each channel, for the guitarists I've entered 'feckwit1' and 'feckwit2'.... we love each other really!

20 minutes ago, Smanth said:

I bought an XR-18 here on BC a while back, used it in anger for the first time at an open mic about 3 weeks ago.

Performed to perfection!  The mixer was at the side of the stage so no super long XLR cables were needed.

All controlled over WiFi (via an external WiFi hub connected, the built in WiFi is near useless) from an iPad and my iPhone.

 

Control was really not bad, tho I've sprung the huge £5 or so to get the mixing station app https://mixingstation.app/

I've yet to fully set it up, but it is much more customisable than the x-air app.

 

S'manth x 

Ooh, might have a look at the mixing station as having issues with the x-air app.

1 minute ago, Franticsmurf said:

Our sound guy has just set up a router so he can use his iPad. At the last couple of outdoor gigs he was out front wandering about and sorting the sound from the audience perspective.

Yeah, the wifi remote tablet thing is great. No more snakes! When we get a new sound guy sorted that'll be the way forward.

4 minutes ago, Franticsmurf said:

In the Hulla band we use an X32. We have a sound guy who has put the time in at rehearsals and on his own to learn the desk. The band has 13 members and everything goes through FOH so with vocals that's 18 channels, and when the drums are mic'd an extra 4 or 5 channels. I'm not familiar with the XR18 but the X32 has snapshots of the settings (I think they're called scenes) and we have several set up for various regular venues. Without a dedicated sound engineer I think it would be overkill, or at least too complicated to run properly but for our set up it's brilliant. I have my own IEM monitor mix which means I have done away with back line for this band. The desk also records audio directly to a USB stick so we have a rough demo for practising to. 

 

 

 

 

The xr18 is just a small stage box with no controls. I connect a laptop and have that next to me. The fx and input gain settings are all done in advance of a gig, I then just have to worry about the overall mix and master level and with scene recall that's easy than using an analogue desk.

14 minutes ago, Dankology said:

We use the XR18 too - for rehearsals, recording and occasionally for gigs if we have to bring our own mixer.

 

We probably aren't using even a fraction of its functionality but it's a great piece of gear and it broke my longstanding fear of digital mixers.

We're going to use the xr18 even if there's a sound guy at a gig just so we're in control of our own in ear monitor mixes and not at the mercy of the engineer. 

We've been using a Behringer XR18 for the last few gigs and it's been quite the revelation. Impressions so far; metering is great, so setting gain levels is easy, as is keeping an eye on send/returns and bus outputs, plus an RTA which helps with overall eq'ing. Fully parametric 5 band eq, comp & gate on each channel is brill. The effects modeling is amazing, shame there's only 4 stereo fx slots but that's only a minor gripe. Still a lot of stuff to get a grip on like the dca groups and ultra net monitoring, so still on the learning curve with it. Oh, and it's got a small stage footprint and doubles as an interface for the home studio. 

Our foh and monitoring sound have definitely benefited from using this desk, I can't see me or the band going back to an analogue desk again. Anybody else using / getting into the digital desk thing and your impressions on using them?

42 minutes ago, odysseus said:

Another thing that gets me is when bands don't seem to have endings sorted out for songs and they resort to some bizarre ping-pong effort that sounds like everyone in the band is trying to have the last word.

I play drums in another band where the guitarist finishes a lot of the songs with a solo. In fairness they're pretty good and fit the moment but unlike songs with a definitive ending the solo can be indeterminate in length, so I've developed a method of ending songs by doing one bar of kick drum / crash as a signal. The beauty of this is that if I feel like I can make him solo forever!

4 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

In the spirit of 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em' (because you can't ever beat 'em...), get the other band members on board, and when it next happens (next gig, in all likelihood...), 'cover' the song that they're messing about with, and play it as a babd right through till the end. Then carry on with the rest of the set as if nothing had happened. You'll soon find out if the audience are up for it, and, if they really are, add some 'metal' to your set list. 

Well, I think one of the issues with playing metal songs is that it would be a bit at odds with the rest of the set and what we're known for, which is a mix of lounge stuff like 'fever' 'feeling good' and Stevie Wonder and EW&F numbers. And we have a violinist so it also goes into wagon wheel territory. 

I think there's some people in the audience who would love some metal songs but A. I wouldn't and B. They're at the wrong gig. We could always try and do Enter Sandman in the style of wagon wheel, that might be novel. Might also stop the guitarist noodling if he realises we'll take his favourite metal numbers and turn them into country songs!

3 hours ago, gjones said:

I think it shows contempt for the band he's in and the music you play. I've never been in a band where the guitarist, or any other band member 'fiddled about' between numbers, other than when I was in a school band.

 

I assume the guitarist is an adult and this isn't a school band?

Very much an adult band. 8 piece and nobody under 40. In fact the guitarist and I started this band last year and between us we provide everything (pa, mics, stands, keys, drum kit, even the bl**dy tambourines) and he has a rehearsal facility we all use with everything setup. The guitarist is very talented and dedicated, puts in the work so he knows the songs, which makes this tourette's all the more awkward as in every other respect he's spot on.

23 minutes ago, KK Jale said:

I feel your pain. I once played in a band where, in the breaks between songs, the guitarist would play a short excerpt from the next tune in the set, at full volume. He seemed to be utterly oblivious that he was doing it. As it happened the band didn't last long and I never got him to even admit to having this habit, let alone change it...

It's like an 'adulation' syndrome some musicians have (I'm looking at guitarists here) where the audience appreciation has to be just for them. 

9 minutes ago, JapanAxe said:

As a guitarist as well as a bass player, I am very conscious of the poor impression that between-song p!ssing-about can create. I am therefore careful to avoid noodling in the gaps. However, I do occasionally like to finish minor-key songs with a bit of ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’.

Id settle for a bit of ‘teddy bears picnic’ rather than whole segments of sandman… spare me!!!

I’m in a covers band and at gigs, between numbers, the guitarist blurts out death metal riffs, none of which we do in the set. Recently we got a second guitarist and, encouraged, is now doing the same. I was talking to the 2nd guitarists wife and she said ‘well, the audience seemed to like it’ but my point is yes, but A. We’re not doing the song the riff comes from (which is metal) & B. we do lounge numbers like ‘fever’. 
We’ve talked about this issue, particularly that I don’t think it’s very professional, but it still continues. I’ve never come across this before in any band. I’ve suggested that separately they form a metal band to get this out of their system! They want, and enjoy, being in the covers band but it’s like a guitarist form of Tourette’s where between numbers they can’t help themselves. 
At the moment we’ve lost our sound guy so I’m doing the mixing. Their noodling fecks me off so much that the ‘automatic’ mute function operates on whichever channel a feckwit metal noodling guitarist is using. They think this is unprofessional! So touché. 
Has anybody come across this sort of behaviour before? I haven’t come across this problem before at this level, but it doesn’t seem to extend to keyboard players, drummers or vocalists, if anybody it seems to be the province of guitarists. 

"Give me a gig!" at the very start of this video says a lot about where Jaco was mentally when this was recorded. Has to be one of the most unexpected starts to an interview for someone of his talents!

4 hours ago, jimmyb625 said:

Well, that was good fun!

We (Fine Lines) played at the o2 Ritz in Manchester, supporting Kiefer Sutherland on this re-arranged date. 

We were on the full UK tour last year, but unfortunately, he caught covid, meaning the last 4 dates had to be cancelled.

We weren't sure if we'd get any of the new dates, so were really happy to get Manchester, as it was almost a home gig for us. We certainly had a surprising number of people venturing from our home town to the show, possibly not all to see us, but it seemed like a good proportion did, judging by the repsonse.

The crowd were brilliant, some of the ones on the front row knew the songs (from following thebtour previously) and they were very enthusiastic in their responses.

We played with a dep drummer, who did a great job and really put some work in, having had only 1 rehearsal with us. 

All in all, quite a splendid time was had by all.

'Cross stage' monitoring only, how was that? Or were you wearing in-ears?

4 hours ago, knirirr said:

On Sunday I managed a piano trio gig (pictured). This was good but most of the audience sat outside due to the heat. 

Then there was a jam where I cocked it all up. Caught something unpleasant as well. 
 

 

Love the drum set up!

22 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

That wouldn't be that unusual for us - the wooden bit in the bottom middle is the bar, the built in seating is round the right and the double socket is on the side by the door!

 

Acrylic drum set is cool!

Jaco wasn't in a good place mentally when this video was put together and I think Jerry and friends did it to highlight his talent. It's a shame it's not a full on structured tutorial 'method' style book/video though but given the circumstances at least we have this to look back on. Two years later he was dead, a really sad story.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it, a really good documentary with some great interviews with Zawinul and others who played or knew Jaco is;

Jaco Pastorius "The Lost Tapes Documentary" (on youtube).

Eq is what you need. Basically you're going from a more mid emphasis finger tone to a scooped mid slap tone. There are various ways to go about this, a pre amp with two channels of eq, a pedal with eq presets like the source audio eq2, or keep it simple and have the creation audio funkulator which has one knob to scoop the mids, just kick in when you need it. 

I'm a pedal board guy, my current setup has 14 pedals on it (soon to be more!). I've been down the multi-effects pedal route (and I still check out the latest offerings) but the reason it's not for me is the interface, I like knobs and hate screens. 

Also, with few exceptions (mostly synth sounds I'd say, so not bothered), my pedals sound better and I have some analogue pedals which digital versions in a multi can't really replicate. I think the nearest I came recently is the TC Plethora as the interface is ok, but I'd still have to integrate it with my analogue pedals. 

And then there's the biggest reason for having pedals... the artwork on them is better!

Have had success with parcelforce. No hassles with the length of the case (for some couriers it's too long). Even managed a delivery to a remote part of Scotland with no problems. 

Worse ever was Hermes, now called Evri I believe. It's still the same company and if the name is the only thing that's changed I wouldn't touch them with a hazmat suit on.

On the basis that the pups on a ric and a jazz are in different places, would be good to combine them into a 4 pickup bass. 

I can't comment on the Maui, although it does look a good solution for small venues. We did however buy the LD Icoa 15a speakers and they've been great, so a thumbs up for LD with our limited experience of them. Did a small outdoor gig (around 150 people) and the Icoa handled the FoH duties no worries. Was particularly impressed with the reproduction of the kick which sounded like it was coming out of a bin rather than just a ported cab.

I have to say it seems almost a random way to achieve your sound! After all, every active eq will have different Qs, peak frequencies etc. Having said that, if the ears say yes then who cares! 

You're going to have to help us out here.... 'mellowship'?

2 hours ago, Mudpup said:

 

 

 

You've put your drummer in a cage!