mike257

The old adage about something being too good to be true....

Just looked this site you as I wasn't familiar with it, many many tales of woe, payments taken and items not received. Proceed with extreme caution!

On 06/02/2018 at 21:54, KK Jale said:

A friend of a friend once guitar-teched for Van Morrison and band for a whole tour... handed Van his instruments on stage every single night. Morrison never spoke one word to him, ever. 

He's a notorious prick though. Never heard a single person who has encountered him in a personal or professional capacity have anything positive to say. 

+1 for Orchid. Absolutely the best bang for the buck. £25 quid for the little Micro DI if you don't need to link through to an amp (perfect for keys, acoustic etc) or £35 for the Classic DI if you need a link through and a couple of extra features.

Hand built in the UK for the same price as the mass produced cheap stuff. Can't go wrong!

Having his core tone come from his board means it's consistent at, for example, festival shows or fly gigs with a hired backline.

5 hours ago, bazzbass said:

I said artists that ONLY use samples. If they actually do something creative with them then that is different.

 

If you ONLY use samples from preexisting pieces of music, and assemble them in a different way to create something new, that is creative by definition. 

Sometimes it's done lazily, sure, but no more so than lazy songwriters knocking out obvious progressions/cheesy lyrics. 

Do you have cases for them?

Done this on functions - so long as you manage your expectations and don't expect earth shattering bottom end, you'll be fine.

Whilst my preference is a system with subs, I have a client who are a function band agency who just book a basic package of 12" tops and a couple of wedges for their bands. Have had 7 piece bands with brass, keys, multiple vocals and you can make it work if you do it sensibly and don't expect monster levels from it. Done it with various boxes including HK Actor DX, Yamaha DXR, Thomann's own brand Achat Pro 12M, Mackie C300z and others. 

Not my first choice and not what I spec for my own bands, but it's certainly possible to do.

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

I used the Maplin version of this altho it comes as 2 normal side stands that will also take the crossbeam if required. 

Otherwise they can be used at the side or front to side stage light rigs.

https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/goal-post-stage-lighting-stand-gt62s

This has double the maximum weight loading of the Thomann one too, so potentially a better buy if you're planning to rig some lighting from it too.

And I see the profanity filter doesn't like the word "ar se". It's a bit overly keen, isn't it?

I have one of the little micro amps and the sole purpose I use it for is when I'm touring as a backline tech, to sit inside my guitar tech workbox as a "check this is in tune/working" speaker.

It'll make a sound something like a guitar, but it's very limited and I'd imagine anyone playing guitar through it regularly would get quickly frustrated. It sounds like absolute derrière with a bass!

On 15/12/2017 at 16:05, PaulWarning said:

So when we play a pub gig and we're the only ones on we'll get £6 regardless of how many and what songs (originals or covers) we put down on the set list?

You don't get a penny for playing covers. If you're a registered PRS member you'll get paid if you're playing originals, so if that's the case, yes, you'll get £6.

Well, I really want to buy one of these now. Nice one. I've managed to go YEARS without buying any basses, but there's been a growing itch to get hold of a five string and this is so tempting!

Don't want to add to my credit footprint as we're in the middle of a mortgage application, but if that comes through this week, there might be some sweet "Buy Now, Pay In 12 Months" action on the cards here!

Not everyone uses them on their pedalboards, but almost everyone will be compressed. A lot of amps will compress naturally anyway, and, at small club gig level and upwards, it'll almost certainly hit some sort of compression somewhere between arriving at the mixing desk and departing from the speakers.

I can see where he's coming from - I've got a channel down on one of my 01v, but for the price they can be picked up for, it's barely worth paying an hour of bench time with a repair tech. Might as well just keep stockpiling cheap ones as and when they appear!

Burns-bass is right - if you're touting yourself to multiple agencies, you need unbranded promo. It's not at all unusual for the same band to be on multiple agencies under different names, to avoid the "why are this same lot cheaper on this other page?" scenario. You'd probably be expected to use a different name with the agency than you did for your direct business, at the very least. Unbranded promo means they can also easily overlay their own branding on to it when it's published on their site. 

With regards to your original question - I've always found Function Central the best to work with out of the bigger names. I'd say 90% of enquiries we'd get from them would turn in to solid bookings, whereas some other agencies would call with all sorts of spurious requests that never went anywhere.

The Trifibre Challenger series cases that EBS linked to are great. They're budget clones of Pelican cases, which are the dogs danglies, but I tour two Challenger cases that spend most of their lives rattling around splitter vans and bouncing off flightcased and they're rock solid. 

The 5015 model and larger ones come with wheels and a pull-out handle, and can be ordered with ready perforated pick'n'pluck foam to make a custom insert with, very handy indeed.

[quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1510155748' post='3404344']
I'm a bit surprised more hasn't been said of Kevin Bacon's bass playing for the Comsat Angels, especially prominent on 'Sleep No More' from 1981. Maybe one to cover sometime?
[/quote]

I think everyone is just sick of those EE adverts he does now.

"Our website is currently under development and will be launched in time for autumn"

I mean, they posted this in the second half of October. When does their autumn start?

Haha, that was short lived!

There's an 03D in a Cash Generator near me for £180 if you're after another.

Good to hear! Along the lines of how I feel about my little stash of 01Vs. Handy, flexible and full of useful features considering the price point. Glad it's working for you!

I've had some less than stellar experiences with Gee (admittedly a long time ago), as have various acquaintances over the years.

If Liverpool is in range, look up Dan Whitelock-Jones, he's by far and away the best amp tech around here, and a lovely bloke too. Based in Aigburth, South Liverpool. Roland Lumby in Salford too.

Doesn't the 03D have a desperate shortage of mic preamps?

+1 for Powercon. Rubber boot on the back into a plastic enclosure mounted inside the rack. Use block terminals inside to split the power, cable glands with flying leads out to the IEC inlet of your kit.

I've got mixed feelings about it. I think it's a very well featured piece of kit for the price, capable of a lot of useful stuff, but that's been very much hobbled for me by the connectivity issues I've had with it. I think it's (in principle) a great solution for small gigs where putting a desk in a FOH position is impractical, but reliability of connection has to be paramount in a device with no physical controls.

Bear in mind that despite the excessive Soundcraft/Lexicon/Digitech branding liberally splashed across it, the Ui began life as the SMpro Umix - it was a fully developed product and Harman bought out the company to save them designing their own entry level tablet mixer. It just got a swish rebranding, but the interface and features are near exactly the same as the original SMpro version. This wasn't developed by Soundcraft in any way.

Electronics don't just fail on 7 year old basses. All my instruments bar one have been with me longer than that, and all of them are more than seven years in age. The only electrical problems I've ever had are the mechanical failure of jack sockets, which is normal wear and tear and easily replaced.

As for customs, it's a game of chance that I wouldn't like to lose. I brought a bass back from Australia when I was 19 and naive, luckily I didn't get challenged about it. The general rule of thumb is to expect charges of around an extra 25% when importing to the UK.

Wuth regards to the value of custom instruments, a custom build from a small luthier is often hard to sell anywhere near its original cost. They simply don't have the name recognition, it's a much bigger risk in that respect. I'd feel safer about buying a production instrument from a known brand in these circumstances because they generally have a fairly stable market value and you'll be able to move them on for close to what you paid. Rarely the same for an obscure custom instrument, no matter how we'll put together.