mike257

I Am Love is an epic, worth holding out the full 7+ minutes it lasts to hear it go from mellow slowie into space-funk workout.

Aye - typical room sizes, band line-up, backline used, number of individual monitor mixes needed, level of sound engineering expertise available are all useful things to know. What does your current system consist of and can you make use of some of it and just upgrade the bits that aren't up to spec?

Not yet, but I'm thinking about it! Only discovered them this week whilst googling this kind of thing. Been considering some diy Z bars but the positioning flexibility of these looks great. Hadn't seen a UK price until you posted, £20 is definitely worth a punt!

That takes me back. Looking great!

It was getting into the wedding/function circuit that enabled me to quit my day job and "go pro", for want of a much less w***y phrase. I earn my living from a mix of playing and sound engineering, but work with a couple of regular bands and am a go-to dep for a couple of other so get to do a reasonable amount of playing, although never as much as I'd like! I really enjoy it, for me the pros far outweigh the cons - yes, there's a ton of waiting around to do, but I work with a nice bunch of players whose company I enjoy so it's rarely a chore to spend an evening hanging around with them, or I use the time to get other work done rather than losing out on time with my family to sit and do my admin/invoicing and other such nonsense. It brought my playing on a load when I jumped from playing bass in odd time signatures for noisy rock bands to having to learn and absorb a bunch of different styles of music from the last six or seven decades, many of which it would never have occurred to me to play. It's not always the same old stuff, although there's a few songs I'd rather skip I just get on with it because I'm spending the night playing music, it's all fun! I worked for a "sensible" day job for a big company for seven years, it was a culture of distrust, performance management was bearing down on everyone, constantly expected to do more with less and do it quicker. I couldn’t go back to that world now. I always remind myself that the worst gig is still always going to be better than the best day at the office! So, in short... Wedding gigs are sound, go for it!

I got my rivet gun for a fiver in Aldi, plenty functional cheap ones about. I honestly think replacing the strip would probably be an easier job than trying to make new square holes in your existing strip.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1455994233' post='2984427'] Some of the places Mrs ET and I enjoyed while in Liverpool and environs ... [url="http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/i-am-thomas-a-brutal-comedy-with-songs"]http://www.everymanp...medy-with-songs[/url] [url="http://www.saltdogslims.com/"]http://www.saltdogslims.com/[/url] [url="http://www.thegrapesliverpool.co.uk/"]http://www.thegrapesliverpool.co.uk/[/url] [url="http://www.maray.co.uk/"]http://www.maray.co.uk/[/url] [url="http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/"]http://www.liverpool....org.uk/walker/[/url] [url="http://liverpool.gov.uk/libraries/find-a-library/central-library/"]http://liverpool.gov...entral-library/[/url] [url="http://www.salthousetapas.co.uk/"]http://www.salthousetapas.co.uk/[/url] [url="http://www.johnlewis.com/our-shops/liverpool"]http://www.johnlewis...shops/liverpool[/url] [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbre_Island"]https://en.wikipedia...i/Hilbre_Island[/url] [/quote] Maray is bloody lovely. There's a bunch of great food places sprung up on and around Bold St the last few years. Rookwood round the corner does a great burger. If you're up again and venture further afield to the "Baltic Triangle" area, a drumming mate of mine is the chef at The Baltic Social and cooks some stunning food. Glad you guys had a good trip!

The interface and features of the Soundcraft Ui series are great but the on-board WiFi has issues. Pair it with a decent external router and you'll be fine. Within the stagebox WiFi mixer world, I probably prefer the feature set of the Behringer XR series, but Soundcraft have the edge on price and also by not having a dedicated app - it's actually a web page hosted within the unit and you can access it from any device with a web browser. Means you'll never wake up to find your iPad has updated overnight and none of your apps work any more!

[quote name='mentalextra' timestamp='1455394939' post='2978837'] I'm talking about radio stations taking relatively modern chart singles and remixing. Just listen to kiss FM. Interestingly we have been out in the car and when they play their remixed version of "what do you mean" my daughter turns it off! lol [/quote] Remixes can be authorised by the label, or keen producers can get stuck in unofficially themselves, but I doubt it's the radio station that's responsible for them. It wasn't uncommon when CD singles were a thing to find a raft of remixes in lieu of a proper B side. Obviously it's more common in pop, dance, R&B etc than with bands.

It does vary. The artist may have terms in their contract relating to control/sign-off on remixes, or it may be out of their hands. As far as the extent it can be changed, sometimes a producer may be given stems, or a full multitrack to play with, on other occasions it may just be the main vocal parts that are made available.

Yeah, the X32 causes some divided opinion and heated debate! I think for what it is (in it's price range/market positioning) it's excellent. I'm not on board with the evangelists who claim that it's up there with the higher end stuff, but given a choice of the major players in immediate competition with it (Allen & Heath QU, Soundcraft Si series, Yamaha TF, those Presonus monstrosities) it'd be my first choice from the list. Have probably used them on a few hundred shows by now, including stints as an in-house in a 300 cap rock venue, function gigs, corporate work and for me it aces the opposition on it's feature set and routing flexibility. Obviously, given the budget I'd take something tastier, but I won't grumble if I've got to mix a gig on one. Does everything you need. The M32 is ace too - it's the same software, more or less the same physical layout, but better build quality and souped up internals. Replaced an LS-9 with one in one of my regular venues last year, much much more pleasant to mix on!

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1455205396' post='2977040'] Many people seem to use domestic white cables these days, which looks a bit Micky Mouse, IMO. Waitrose do a 5mtr, 13amp, 4 way, roll up casing, with a trip switch for £9.99. It has some red on the casing but everything else is black. [/quote] I've still got the odd one hanging on in my cable trunk, we probably all have! Most of my stage power cable for my PA stuff is on 16a ceeform now, I'm replacing all the tacky stuff as and when there's a few quid spare!

I'll have to fish out a pic of my Fender. Early 90's Champ 25 - was only around for a couple of years, a bit of an oddity as it's a solid state preamp, but a valve PI and valve power section (25w from a pair of 6L6) into a 1x12. It's REALLY bloody loud and very clean. Seen people describe it as a "mini Twin". As per usual, the drive channel is a bit iffy. It's got tons too much gain on tap, with the gain right off I get some nice breakup tones with a Tele, but anything with humbuckers is just too much. Clean channel is ace though.

If cowboy chords is the extent of your singer's guitar playing contribution, I'd suggest getting him to hold off, play less and save him for dynamic inpact. Using less full and less heavy guitar tones will help leave sonic space for you all too. Dial down the gain and the bottom end etc. Arrangement is the key - you don't all have to play all the time! Have a listen to some Oceansize, they used three guitars brilliantly, melodic and atmospheric parts darting around each other, and when they do all pile in on a massive riff, it sounds enormous. If you're looking at the Foos as an influence, worth noting that Pat Smear plays a baritone on a lot of the Wasting Light tunes that were written with the three-guitar line up. Gives a bit of space between what they're all doing and makes the low end extra chunky. Worth having in your arsenal as another option.

Masterplug 4 gang trailing sockets are a fiver on Amazon with free delivery if you're on Prime, proper rugged hardwearing ones. A couple of them, a couple of 13a plugs and as much 2.5mm mains cable as you need will give you some top quality, repairable mains extensions for buttons. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0085HXFXY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0085HXFXY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00[/url]

God, when I was at college back then, I'd have killed for a Soundblaster Live, with that front panel that sat in one of your drive bays! I definitely don't miss MOST of doing it the old fashioned way, I certainly wouldn't ditch a DAW for countless hours twiddling that Akai, but I don't think I'll ever be happy mixing on a mouse. I don't do much recording these days but I'm in the process of doing promo stuff for three or four function bands I work with, I'm probably going to pinch an X32 from a bloke I do some work for and bounce it all out to mix on that. Guarantee I'll have something I'm happy with in half the time that I'd spend dicking about doing it solely on the computer screen.

We eventually ditched the DA88s for a Tascam MX2424, which had it's own set of interesting quirks and issues - I spent a lot of time on the phone to Tascam! It's a different world now, makes me feel a right dinosaur. If we wanted to edit the structure of a song, I used to sample bar or four bar long chunks of tracks into our trusty Akai S6000 and rebuild a whole song in bits like that, triggered from MIDI running off the steam-powered PC we had. Five minute Pro Tools job now. Oh, the early 2000s!!

That's pretty much the setup we had - a cascaded pair, but with TDIF cards and a rack of Tascam DA88/DA38. How I learned to mix! Oh the joys of making endless locate points and programming punch-ins on digital tape and waiting for the three of them to all sync up! Kids these days don't know how easy they've got it, haha!

What Chris said. It's expensive stuff to move internationally. Players who have endorsement deals will often have gear supplied in country through the dealer network. When Vic Wooten was in the UK a couple of years ago, Hartke dropped off a nice fresh rig for him and it travelled with the rest of the backline that was supplied by a local hire company. Band were just carrying guitars, pedals, cymbals. Just the bits you can throw in an overhead locker!

Here's a bargain if anyone is expecting JT's Allstars along and needs d&b monitors. Six wedges, cases and amps, second hand. The price? A mere 27,000 euros. [url="http://www.solarisnetwork.com/used/max15-package/40978"]http://www.solarisnetwork.com/used/max15-package/40978[/url] Is that what you're ringing venues up and requesting?

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1454796294' post='2973144'] At last. Some sensible talk in this thread. Right. What about the lighting rig? [/quote] Nothing less than a full Kanye will do. [IMG]http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/40f9cba349989a39e28ab7ae54035758ccc2e4d8/c=220-0-2880-2000&r=x408&c=540x405/local/-/media/2015/09/28/Phoenix/Phoenix/635790435636337010-KanyeWest-melissafossum-3.jpg[/IMG] The landlord's eleccy bill goes through the roof, but if they don't want to pay for a proper show then we'll just take it elsewhere. Got standards to maintain.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1454795478' post='2973140'] Ok so that's the monitors sorted, what about foh? [/quote] This. Because apparently you can do whatever the hell you want with your stage levels, regardless of how it affects FOH, so there's no point bringing anything decent.

No, he's getting a Heritage 3000 in to sub to the occasional touring band and use down at the Cock & Bull on the nights it's not hired out.

God, that's going back. Pretty sure we had one in the studio 02R back in my days as a teenage studio assistant but couldn't tell you with any confidence how it would stand up now. Teenage me wasn't discerning enough to know and a decade-and-a-bit gap won't do wonders for accurate recollection of it either. I wouldn't blame you for taking an extra Yamaha over the Soundcraft though, if nothing else for the per-channel dynamics processing that the Spirit lacks.

[quote name='dave74200' timestamp='1454657719' post='2971664'] Buy an Ashdown ABM 810. They normally go for really good prices, 200-300 and are awesome cabs. [/quote] This, if you've got the means to transport it. I've seen some unreal bargains on used Ashdown 8x10 cabs in the last couple of years.