mike257

All my upcoming international touring work is off, majority of my UK stuff is off or at least up in the air. All the corporate event production falling off too. I run my business with minimal overheads and have no direct employees, just a pool of freelancers, but I'm already having to look at finding work in other industries outside of live touring/event production. Plummeting consumer confidence is hitting attendances and advance ticket sales right across the year and sensible estimates are that this industry won't recover until towards at least after summer. I'll basically be putting my business on pause for 6-9 months minimum and starting over in something different. Very concerned for all my friends and colleagues in the industry, almost everyone I know, individuals and small businesses, has had their diaries wiped and are looking at huge financial loss already. 

23 minutes ago, Brook_fan said:

Interesting topic- its interesting that some have commented on this guy's GoFundMe as glorified begging.  As someone who has tried to set up a GoFundMe campaign (that hasn't really been successful) such cooments make me feel very uncomfortable, as I don't want to be seen as begging.  I guess in my case though I was at least offering something for the donations (a copy of the album when it was finished), that part of me thought that as I run a successful youtube channel with over 620 subscribers from which I have never earnt a penny I felt that those people who enjoyed my music might like to support me whilst I have hit tough finacnial times and had to sell guitars just to pay the rent; and that I at least only shared the campaign amongst frineds and my youtube followers.  I must admit, this guy's attitude is a little suspect- he already has presumably a good enough bass to play on (I am currently borrowing instruments from people) and he doesn't put his music out there for others to enjoy.  He's got more balls than me asking for money just because he wants a £4k bass to learn on!!

Robbie

There's a world of difference between running a gofundme to help with the costs of creating a piece of art which the funders then enjoy afterwards, and just asking for strangers to buy you a nice thing, because the nice thing you've already got isn't nice enough for you. 

14 minutes ago, cgull said:

Well the response has been a heap of fun 🤣  Thank you all for the good bad and ugly comments all enjoyed in a good spirit.

Just to clarify that anyone who starts bass at approximately 50 years of age like me and thinks he is the next Sting is bonkers, so lets just move on from the too old for Lego and must be bonkers stuff because I have no intention of behaving like all the other 50 year olds who watch box sets and rot when there's time to be spent playing bass before the reaper knocks.

Any way he who dares wins, so if no other bassist sets up a funding site (and I never once said it was a charitable cause did I?) and Im the only one then Im on a winning streak.

Theres got to be more bonkers people out there I just need to find 'em round em up and get them to buy a ticket. I mean think of all the people who have 6 strings .. thats bonkers

I can't agree mate. 

There's more homeless people on the streets than ever. There's people using food banks. There's people fleeing war torn parts of the world who've lost everything. 

You're a grown adult who's taken up a hobby. You have, presumably, a perfectly functional bass guitar already. 

You're asking total strangers to put their hand in their pockets so you can replace the perfectly adequate equipment you already have to carry out your hobby with an incredibly pricey luxury item that most people who actually play the bass as their profession and their living couldn't even justify owning. 

I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous. You want nice, non-essential, luxury items, do what the rest of us do and work for it and earn it. I work in live music, and there's still times when I've sold instruments that I was actually going out and earning money playing to fill gaps in my cash flow. I've never put up a gofundme and asked people to chip in to replace the instruments, or to help pay the bills I was selling them for. I just dealt with it, because it's just "stuff", and when I can afford to I might treat myself to a nice bass/guitar one day. You're not (as far as I can see from what you've said) dependant on it for an income. 

Nobody is saying you shouldn't play bass, or enjoy playing bass, or aspire to own beautifully crafted instruments. Do those things, by all means. Just don't ask people to part with their hard-earned to fund your hobbies and interests. If you really think that's sensible behaviour you need to go give your head a wobble. 

9 minutes ago, miles'tone said:

I'm a teaching assistant at an autism resource base within a mainstream primary school. The money is crap but I do actually enjoy going to work in the morning. 

It's the first job I've ever had where I don't have to pretend to be a something or other, I just show up as me and it's valid. 

Amazing thing to do. My little boy is autistic, I know how challenging it can be at times, so to deal with that multiple times over must take some doing. Hats off to you!

On 06/03/2020 at 22:38, Old Horse Murphy said:

Pah! I use one of these for the fiddly but in Alright Now

I nailed it. 

You're a bass player, what are you doing trying to play lead? 🤣

I'm a sound engineer/backline tech/tour manager and general live production dogsbody.

Occasionally get lucky enough to work with some great artists that would probably pass for household names (and for Basschat bonus points, I once spent three days on the road teching for Victor Wooten), but I'm more often found looking after smaller club tours, corporate events, basically anything where someone needs something making louder. 

Did make at least part of my living playing bass for a good while but haven't played a show in just over a year and don't expect to any time soon. I did enough of it for long enough to prove that an utterly mediocre level of playing ability is no barrier to a professional career though 😂

16 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Historically, I’ve struggled with the concept of talking about what I used to do with people I don’t know. My head tells me it puts barriers up before we’ve even got to know each other, which has happened, but I really should be less bothered about it....

I’m a retired Police Officer. I served 8 years before I specialised. Carried firearms for the remaining 22 where I further specialised as Rifleman. I was an Operational Firearms Commander for the last 16. I have a few stories. Quite a few of which I can’t tell.

Now I just play bass 😀

That's a huge responsibility that must have entailed some difficult decision making. Respect to you for doing what must have been an incredibly challenging job. 

32 minutes ago, kevin_lindsay said:

He wouldnt be aware of my faux pas a few minutes before that! Hahaha 

 

He is now, haha! Glad you enjoyed it mate. Ian is great, and I've got a couple of friends on the Elvis touring crew too. I hear it's a great show. 

On 06/03/2020 at 01:10, kevin_lindsay said:

Oh, and here's a tip for you all - if you're really impressed by the support act, and decide to pop out to the merchandise stand to let them know, and to also purchase one of their CDs - whereupon you see the guy and then say, "that was great! Loved the songs, and the audience really responded to you" - make sure that the bloke you're talking to is in fact, the artist, and not just a tousle haired guy from the audience that you've accosted as he was attempting to make his way to the toilets!!! Oh dear. 

Prowsey is a mate. I'll tell him that, he'll be tickled 🤣🤣

6 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

ETA I suspect you're under 18 (I'm going to guess 12, from the Lego set?) which will restrict your access to credit. If you're over 18, less so...

He's 50. Starting a gofundme and expecting strangers to buy him a £2.5k bass is bonkers!

4 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

How much is a Mayones Viking?

A cool £2.5k

1 hour ago, cgull said:

Ok, so I'm trying to scrimp and save for a better bass (a Mayones Viking I tried at the awesome bassdirect.co.uk) , but that final figure is just so out of reach.  I don't want to wait years so I'm trying to think up novel ways to raise what I need before my savings shrink with time.

I created  a lottery where people can win a cool Lego set ( my bass lego lottery ) and then I created  web fund-raising site ( my bass fundraising site ).  But after setting those up I discovered I had no idea how to get people to find my sites as I am clueless about marketing and social media and maybe they are deluded pursuits.  I hope it's ok to even post about it here within rules and such, but the main point of this posting is this:

Do any of you people have some better ideas on how I can get a step closer to my goal ?  I'm looking for some creative ideas.  What do you think of the two ideas I had above - worthwhile or a waste of time?

Honestly, when you look at all the charitable fundraising causes on those sites, I think it's a bit of a stretch to expect people to throw in for a grown adult to replace the nice non-essential luxury hobby item he already owns with an even nicer non-essential luxury hobby item. 

Owning a better bass won't further your playing, won't get you more gig opportunities or more bands. I bought my nice expensive instruments when I was in my late teens, working three jobs and playing in bands. The reality is I couldn't afford to do it now at 35 with kids to feed and a mortgage. 

Very few bassists will ever own an instrument as pricey as the Mayones you're looking at. I tour as a sound engineer and guitar tech and can tell you with certainty that very few of the professional working players I've come across, even those doing massive shows with household name artists, own and gig anything like that. 

Honestly, if that's what you really want - save for it, cut out non-essential spending, sell off other things that you don't need/use, put any money you earn from gigging in a pot. Expecting other people to chip in on a fundraiser for you to own an incredible luxury item that most people could never dream of buying is a bit of a stretch though. 

19 hours ago, Cato said:

I had no idea he was in the Morisette touring band.

Pretty sure that's how Dave first met him, they were on the same festival bill somewhere. 

10 minutes ago, Jack said:

I think there's a female vocal preset here.

I'm always a little wary of presets. If it's a full channel preset, with EQ, compression, gating etc dialled in, it's often hard for someone inexperienced to spot where the issue is if something doesn't sit right, and whilst there's starting points I'll work from for many sources, there's definitely no one size fits all and every voice or instrument will be a little different. 

By all means have a play with them, but I definitely think keeping it simple is a smart approach, at least while you're getting a feel for the desk and the depth of capabilities available compared to the simple analogue set ups most people are used to. 

I've always found good ones quite tough to locate. 

There's a huge number of pianists calling themselves keyboard players, who'll vamp big heavy full-sounding two handed chords through everything because it sounds great in their house on their own. 

Good keys players who understand their instrument and how to get the right sounds out of it, and that sometimes they only need to play with one finger at a time are gold dust. If you find one, grab on tight!

5 hours ago, Jakester said:

Does anyone have a good baseline starting EQ for a female vocal using an SM58?

The big one is to keep it simple. If you do too much to it, you'll get so far away from a natural sound that it'll never feel quite right. It's something I see a lot when people go to digital - the temptation to use all sorts of processing just because they can. 

Flatten it all off, and start with the High Pass Filter at around 120, and cut some of the low mid mud out around 250ish, and see how it sounds from there. Less is often more. 

Go easy on the reverb - maybe shorten the reverb time but try increasing the pre-delay a little. This can help get it "out of the way" of the initial transients of the vocal sound, so you get a little more clarity. I often find myself cleaning up the low mid of the reverb returns too, in similar areas to the main vocal channel. 

42 minutes ago, police squad said:

this one?

https://en-uk.sennheiser.com/microphone-wireless-system-vocal-instruments-ew-100-g4-935-s

 

That's the current G4 model, which is great. The previous G3 isn't hugely different though, and is basically just as good. There's god second hand deals on G3 as people upgrade to G4. 

Unless you can afford seriously high end digital, I'd stay analogue. Too many issues in the 2.4GHz band. My suggestion would be to get the best analogue setup you can afford. 

Although you're comfortable with Shure, I'd strongly suggest a look at Sennheiser radio kit. For the same price as a brand new BLX, you could pick up a used Sennheiser G3 system which is much better radio kit and still in regular use on pro stages. The Sennheiser handhelds can take interchangeable capsules and there's heads corresponding to most of their wired handheld range. 

13 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Nobody on that bus is a known brand or famous. I don't know how they can  afford that bus or hotel rooms.

I would bet they're playing small venues at $10.00-$15.00 per ticket.

Blue

 

It was a month-long club tour, but from the sounds of the video, the three guitarists shared the bus, the crew and one backing band between them all - so already, what would be three artists worth of costs are cut down considerably to be closer to one bands expenses. With the costs pooled and cut back like that, across fees for the three artists, it suddenly becomes a lot more affordable. 

Not so much in the UK, but it's definitely affecting gigs abroad for people I work with (and potentially me soon). I've had various techy and muso friends had things pulled in the Dubai/Bahrain/Saudi area in the last week, another friend had a big Asian tour cancelled, and a few big exhibition/conference events in mainland Europe have had the plug pulled, leaving a lot of production companies in a bit of a hole. 

I'm due in Italy for some gigs in mid-April. The production manager isn't booking the flights just yet though, he doesn't sound too confident!

Aux fed subs are an oft-misunderstood approach.

Even on festival-sized rigs, you'll still not find a consensus amongst engineers as to whether or not it's a better method. 

The right way to do it is with either a fixed-level subgroup or any post-fader aux with the sends set at 0db for the channels you need sub content from (generally kick, floor tom, bass, keys and any samplers/tracks etc, as well as whatever you're playing your interval music from!). This means the content hitting the subs tracks your fader movements and stays proportional to what is hitting your tops. 

With your setup, you'd still want a crossover in line with the tops so you could filter the low end out that the sub is giving you, or you won't get the benefits that aux fed subs provide - reducing the load on your tops by stopping them fighting to reproduce low end energy that they can't do efficiently.

As far as subs go, that Evolution one you're looking it is, to be brutally honest, absolute pants. It'd definitely be worth your while saving a little more money up and getting something more capable. 

Some tours are using smaller individual perspex screen in front of each cymbal, which is a nice middle ground. 

Vocal mics can effectively act as another overhead, the amount of cymbal spill that generally finds its way in to them, so anything to mitigate that will help get a clearer vocal sound and higher gain before feedback. Certainly helps the engineers on a loud stage. 

Most monitors aren't designed to be adjusted during a gig by the person stood in front of them. They're, generally speaking, controlled from the mixing desk. 

The only type I've seen with EQ controls accessible on the front are of the extremely cheap and cheerful variety. 

What are you struggling to hear on stage? There's usually a better solution than just making your wedge louder, because that'll just contribute to other issues with overall stage volume. 

1 hour ago, CamdenRob said:

Jesus that video makes me realise I never would have cut it as a touring musician even if I had the technical chops...

Just imagining being in that closer quarters with other people makes me feel quite unwell 😕

I’d have to skip directly to the private hotel suite megastar stage 😐

Very much depends on the people you're with. I did a run last year where we were on two buses for a bit. Seemed to naturally separate in to the quiet bus and the party bus. We had a couple of last minute escapees join our bus when they realised it was the more civilised option 🤣

14 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Sounds good

Blue

It is, but I'm still always very happy to see a proper hotel room after a few days of it!