Boodang

We use a Behringer XR18. With 6 xlr aux outputs you could create your own monitor feed for your iem’s. We did a gig recently with a 15 min turn around between bands and we managed it with time to spare. Admittedly not as complicated as your setup but the xr18 is very flexible.

Quick anecdote… I had an SWR combo with four 8” speakers. On it’s own it sounded awful, in the band context sounded great and cut thru really nicely. Basically, do you have a scooped tone that disappears in the mix?!

When I play in the covers bands we all make an effort to get the tones right, that’s where multi effects comes in handy for the guitarists, and if I’m on drums I make the effort to try and match those when I’m on the ekit. As for playing style, well that depends on what we’re going for but then we’re a covers not tribute. I’ve never been in a tribute… until now, sort of. I came across a guitarist who looks a bit like Hendrix, sings like Hendrix and more importantly, plays like him. We’re thinking of calling it the Jimi Hendrix Experience Experience! Anyway, it pretty much plays itself without much attention to detail as we’re well versed in what we’re playing (although I’m going through the Mitch Mitchell tutorials on Drumeo and attention to detail on the drums is going to make me a much better player when I nail it cold). However, I think with a tribute band I’d expect more detail than we’d put in on the covers, and we put quite a lot into that.

I think in this case absurdism is justified as 'real musicians....' is bit too much of a blanket statement.

Actually I was lucky on this one. My local luthier was retiring and wanted to reduce the amount of wood he had lying around so he only charged me for the parts not all his time. £800. Normally it would be double that, so not that much more than the target price.

Because it makes you feel better about buying a Chinese made bass!

So, it could be a cnc machine that gets rid of the excess wood or the wood could be removed by hand tools but… I had my local luthier make me a custom bass and he used only hand tools; it might all be in the mind but it felt all the more special for it.

Your post scared me there for minute but I’ve been to the mirror, pinched myself and I’m definitely real. All this despite buying a new boutique bass every 6 months.

Side note from the Islamabad spring festival…. As usual the electrics were a feat of improvisation. Don’t bother bringing your mains tester because as normal there was no earth. The electricians tapped into the floodlighting, the outside insulation of the cable stopped about a foot short of a wooden box with the two inner cables going to block terminals for distribution with no cover. The whole system had no fuses or rcd’s! And extending cables were done the traditional way of twisting bare cable together and adding insulation tape. Don’t touch a microphone and your guitar at the same time! Btw this is how every venue or event is put together here. This is what you walk past everyday….

Islamabad spring music festival finally went ahead. Stayed dry with a bit of cloud so not stupidly hot (only 35C at the height of the day). I played in three of the bands but the most fun was a Hendrix tribute as I found a guitarist who’s been inhabited with the spirit of Jimi…. Started with ‘Fire’ and ended with Voodoo and guitarist leaning his guitar live against the amp as he walked off stage, much to the consternation of the sound guy who wasn’t paying much attention until the howling feedback. Modest turn out but everyone stayed until the end and the food stalls were serving up great food. Right at the end as we were packing up lightning appeared in the sky and it was a mad scrabble to get everything packed away before it tipped it down but we got it done. All the bands used my Yamaha DTX ekit and it sounded superb through the PA. Getting 6 bands worth of musicians together was like herding cats but well worth it in the end.

So, we’re setting up for an Islamabad open air spring festival… 6 bands and plenty of side stalls. Typically 36 degrees and sunny all week then a thunderstorm this morning. Hopefully the weather behaves itself for the next 24 hours as we’ve postponed it once already due to storms. I’m in three of the bands so should be a long but satisfying Saturday!

It’s not the hardest thing in the world to tune your bass accurately with standard tuners but the ratio ones definitely make it easier, especially on the E, plus they’re well made.

Buy graph tec Ratio tuners. They have a different ratio for each string to make tuning more accurate. They will however cost 10 times more than the bass is worth but at least least you'll be super accurately in tune!

Not traditional covers band in what way?!

Funny you should say this…. have been in a very generic ‘jukebox’ covers band, good musicians, very competent, ok gigs. Accidentally (long story) have formed a Hendrix tribute (not an easy thing to do until you meet the right guitarist!) and the gigs have come pouring in.

John East is great if you want an active preamp on your bass, but not necessarily if you want passive. Vintage ‘vitamin’ caps not really his thing.

PS give serious consideration to a series/parallel switch as this adds versatility (every jazz bass should have one!). Coupled with a stacked vol/tone vol/tone configuration (why have one tone control when you can have two) and you'll have the widest tonal palette for something that is still passive.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/282279109716?itmmeta=01HX2FW2Q5WEDWZKBYT0S543NP&hash=item41b9256454:g:dLUAAOSw2fpaqBNo Starr Guitars. Got mine with a parallel/series switch.

At the expense of the dyslexic! Only joking… well, mostly. But you’re right and we should get back to the business of the thread and talk about gigs.

Oh no… now we’re going to have the comma police as well!!! Next thing you know there’ll be an exclamation mark police!!!!!!!

Unless of course @Dad3353 is saying people shouldn’t be lazy by using apostrophes and type in full instead?! Perhaps Dad could clarify this and the reasons for his obsession… but only if he does it in a dedicated thread to the apostrophe police or we’re never hear about people’s gigs again.

Id not really thought of it like that before but youre right, it is a form of bullying. Im very dyslexic and couldnt agree more. Plus, has to be said @Dad3353 now quite tedious and doesnt contribute anything to the discussion (unless it’s a discussion on grammar)…. a bit like this post really! Basschatters have never been very good at sticking to the subject and this doesnt help.

I changed my mind about Bonham’s playing as a result of having to learn some of his parts and thus you end up doing a lot of research to get it right. Not because of the technicality in playing his rhythms, as you say jazz drummers are the masters and a breed apart, but because I began to realise how many zep songs you can identify just from the drums. As for great drummers, one of the top me is Papa Jo Jones. He was an early proponent of the hi hat and bringing the drums forward as something other than just a basic timekeeper. Also, I use his ‘trick’ of having a floor tom to the left of the hi hat as I find this is a great way of making more interesting fill patterns.

I use three pedals; TC Electronic Spectracomp with the Captain East toneprint (it has a 30% blend). Aguilar Octamizer with a minimum amount of octave blended in. TC Electronic HoF with a small hall reverb toneprint with slight chorus added.

Two gigs this weekend, full on plugged in at the Canadian club and an acoustic half improvised at our Brit club by way of a farewell to our female vocalists who leave post soon. It was interesting to compare the two gigs back to back. Lots of energy at the first gig, plenty of people up and dancing, the acoustic gig was a very chilled vibe but there were moments where we had lots of people dancing and because it was low volume the families stayed and had a good time too. Interesting in a couple of respects. Firstly a lot of feedback to say we should do more unplugged and a whole demographic that prefer it to us in full blast mode and secondly a whole bunch of numbers we do better acoustically. A result of which is we might start doing an acoustic set at the start of our gigs and do some more acoustic nights as apart from anything else it’s a lot easier to set up.