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mike257

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Everything posted by mike257

  1. For my sins, I've never owned a really good Precision, so the nicest P I could get my hands on, black/black/maple, job done.
  2. Usual advice is that you need fresh moulds every 4-5 years, as your ear shape continues to change over time.
  3. Band I've done a lot of work with this year had two basses in an Enki double and it's been rock solid. Much prefer them to the Scott Dixon's. I've yet to see a well-toured one that isn't bashed in and struggling to fit together.
  4. I'm currently touring with this show. All of the string players playing custom electric instruments through guitar effects pedals. Hearing our lead violin flawlessly knock out the solos to Killing In The Name, Sweet Child Of Mine and Master Of Puppets is quite something!
  5. Played a wedding gig with a hideous case of Norovirus once. Wouldn't recommend it!
  6. Monitor engineer here. I mix very few shows that are fully on wedges these days. Did a first show with a new client the other week who were on wedges and genuinely had a "how long is it since I've done this?" moment! Of my regular touring clients, there's a handful where one or two members still use a wedge, but it's becoming the exception. It gives the FOH engineer more control as they're not fighting tons of stage noise, protects the ears of the artist from damage, means I can give them studio levels of clarity and separation in the mix (if that's what they want) and is a much more consistent experience from venue to venue than wedges will ever be.
  7. You can already get 1/2 rack cases - lots of pro radio mic receivers, IEM transmitters etc are half rack width (for mounting two side by side) and the cases are pretty widely available. Just manufacturers not bothering to look if an existing standard would have done the job!
  8. I stood in for the guitar tech at Glasto. Band had chops for days and the girls were on top form. Great show!
  9. Four piece band and they play their derrières off! No miming anywhere on the stage either.
  10. Done it before on Ryanair, you put the passenger name as "Extra Item Seat" and give it the same passport number as the actual passenger. There's info on the process on their website if you look hard enough!
  11. Mixing Station is great - it was that much better than the official apps that they hired the developer to make the official XR-series mixers Android app.
  12. Glad to see you're keeping busy mate! I've had a lovely SD12 package out for a few festival shows this summer, spotted here on the main stage at Reading (or Leeds, can't remember which of the two this was!) On a run of much smaller shows out in Europe with another artist at the mo so have downsized to an SQ5 for a few weeks, wouldn't have fancied dragging the big Digico in some of these load-ins! Was hoping to fly my own one out but the logistics didn't work out so this one's come from Clair Bros out in Switzerland.
  13. God, this is going to take some digging up.... The Funks - aged about 9/10, with some kids from the next street. I was on lead vocals. Lasted two "rehearsals" before we got bored and went back to riding bikes and playing football Blueprint - aged about 16, some semi-competent original material and a load of covers, imploded when the drummers classical musician parents disapproved of us booking a gig at the Cavern. He became a very successful orchestral percussionist, so they were probably right B-BOM - aged about 17 - Played the usual array of underage local band nights, playing a handful of originals mixed in with Rage Against The Machine, Green Day, Nirvana, Foos covers and the like Amidst Speculation - 2002, a one night only, completely improvised metal gig with me, a guitarist, two drummers and two singers. Entirely as chaotic and ill-advised as the description suggests! Call To Order - 2002-2003, hit 18 years of age, was allowed in proper venues legitimately. First "proper" original project. Two members from previous band. Grungy, riffy, rock tunes with a political leaning. Mexican Alibi - 2003 - pre-existing bassless band that I joined on bass as an occasional live and studio member. Weird angular indie-rock with odd time signatures. Lots of fun sweaty local gigs. Seven - 2004, me and the drummer from Call To Order plus a couple of new mates. Moody, dark rock tunes with electronics and samples from films that we thought made us sound clever. Played a few half decent supports in the local Academy/Barfly venues The Idiot Rate - 2005-2007, three of us from Seven with a new singer/guitarist. Best effort at "taking it seriously", apparently one of the first unsigned bands to be booked on an Academy headline tour (in the smallest rooms, and nobody came to most of them). We were aiming for the early 2000s British post-hardcore thing (Hundred Reasons, Hell Is For Heroes, early Biffy Clyro) but everyone just called us emo 😄 did a lot of DIY touring and some decent headline shows and support slots at home (including Enter Shikari, Sikth, and a very early and raw Bring Me The Horizon, who we definitely didn't envisage becoming an arena filling rock behemoth at the time!) Connecting Flight - 2007/9 - mathy, noisy, At The Drive-In-esque stuff with the singer from Seven and a revolving cast of half the guitarists in Liverpool, which became.... In/Casino/Out - 2008/9 which was essentially the same band and revolving cast as above. Hotwire - possibly 2007ish - classic rock influenced with two mega guitarists and a singing drummer, joined temporarily for a few months to fill in The Buffalo Riot - 2008-2010 - a different direction, americana channeling Ryan Adams and CSNY with the singer from The Idiot Rate. A marked change after years of noisy riffs, and they're still going now! The Brave Kid - 2011 - my last solid effort at making original music. Big rock songs with singalong choruses, twisty riffs in strange time signatures and the best drummer I've ever had in a band. Imploded quickly due to rotating singer shenanigans. All my gigging as a muso since then has been in function/corporate world The Recollection 2012-2014 - function band, swapped the fat strings for the skinny ones and bought a Tele. My first dip in wedding world which led to a few years full-timing it Motown Gold 2014-2019 - pretending to be James Jamerson, who wouldn't love it? Hung up my gigging shoes in early 2019 because it was getting in the way of my other career/love as a tour manager and sound engineer, so I just make other people's bands loud now and only play bass at home or mucking about at soundchecks. It's brought up some nice memories racking my brains to think of it all though, and I'm sure I've missed a couple of bands along the way too, not to mention countless ones I've depped for that I didn't list!
  14. I used this chap, who's highly recommended on a lot of the drummers groups on Facebook, for a printed skin ahead of a tour earlier this year. Reasonably priced, good comms, and managed to do a rush job for us and actually hand delivered it to the audio company where our truck was being loaded. https://m.facebook.com/100042380572187/
  15. Ah, up the north end! You won't have a purple wheelie bin up there, which some will say means it's not technically Liverpool 🤣 I lived in Crosby briefly when I was about 13. I'm over in Wavertee in the south end these days. It's a lovely area, and you can add Harmonics Music to your guitar shop list. South Drive has regular live music in a few of the pubs/bars down there, done the odd pub gig and acoustic set over there back when I used to dabble in that. Again, nice places to eat/drink. The Plaza cinema is community owned and a decent place to catch a film. Crosby beach is lovely, and you've got the Anthony Gormley iron men on the beach for a nice bit of public art. We drive up to walk the dogs there every now and again. You've also got easy access further north to Formby - the pine woods are a National Trust site and the sand dunes and beach are great to explore with the kids.
  16. Sounds great! Know which part of the city you're heading to yet?
  17. Can't believe I forgot the Cali. Cracking pub in general, and like you say, a good spot for jazz. Now that I think on it, The Grapes on Roscoe St do jazz bits from time to time too.
  18. Welcome to Liverpool, it's a boss place to be! Live music: for big stuff, we've got the arena, the Olympia (which is architecturally wonderful with a fascinating history, if a little scruffy), the obligatory O2 Academy, and Arts Club (which was a favourite haunt of mine before Academy Group took it over and sucked the soul from it, but still gets decent touring gigs), and the Mountford Hall at the uni. The Philharmonic is gorgeous for classical and for gigs in general. Smaller stuff, there's Frederik's if you're a jazzer, and Phase One, Jacaranda, EBGBs, Jimmy's for 100-200 cap shows with a mix of touring and local artists. The Zanzibar was a legendary small venue but it changed hands in recent years, was largely rebuilt and by many accounts has lost both the character and the excellent sound quality that made it what it was. 24 Kitchen Street has the more interesting/out there stuff and does a lot of hip hop, jazz, electronic stuff - I occasionally mix shows in there when I'm off tour and there's always interesting things going on, a very cool spot. Outpost is smaller again and does a lot of the independent punkier/heavier stuff. There's obviously The Cavern on Mathew St, and a fair few bars down that end that have live music, but it's predominantly covers gigs and a bit of a tourist trap. I'm sure I've missed a couple of others too - I don't get out in the city centre that often these days between touring work and the kids! Music shops: you've got Curly Music in the city centre, Moran Sound (oldest music shop in the city) out in the suburbs in Gateacre, PMT are headquartered in the south of the city and have a collection point at their HQ (but not a shop/showroom) and Frailers is out in Runcorn, a short drive away. For techy/recording stuff, Studiocare are out in Speke and have a small showroom attached to the warehouse. Luthiers: you've got Palfray Guitars working out of Sort Rehearsal Rooms (which is a wonderful, clean, well equipped and modern rehearsal studio run by lovely people), or you've got KGB over the water in Birkenhead, both are great. It's a thriving city with a huge musical community, loads of culture and history to soak up, some cool things happening outside of the city centre on Smithdown Road, Lark Lane and the like, and a great restaurant scene both in the city and the suburbs with a lot of boss independent cafes and restaurants around You'll love it!
  19. There's a hell of a lot of incidences of crucial bits of kit going missing or getting delayed on flights at the moment with the state of the airports at the mo, so wouldn't be at all surprised if that's had something to do with it! One band recently had 14 items of their fly pack go missing at Heathrow, and a tech friend of mine has just flown to America with a touring party and none of the backline made it to the other end, nor did his personal luggage!
  20. Having been there over the weekend working with a few bands, I'd say that the alternative elements are still very much in existence. There's so many stages across such a huge site, and unlike most festivals that are one big centrally managed entity, there's whole corners of Glastonbury operating in their own little independent bubbles. There's still the hippy gatherings, independent traders, weird and wonderful happenings in tiny tents, niche artists, debauched club nights, family friendly areas, and who knows what else. The mainstream TV coverage is focused on the handful of bigger stages with the more recognisable artists because that's what most people will tune in for. What I saw whilst dragging my tech box on the mammoth walks between stages was that there's a huge breadth of things going on there behind the obvious headline grabbing stuff.
  21. It's not often the case that recording engineers are involved in the live production as it's a very different skillset, although the handful I can think of that I work with who split their time fairly evenly between studio and live work are actually some of the best live mix engineers I know.
  22. The desk at the side of the stage is the monitor engineer's console, he's mixing what the band hear and has nothing to do with what's out front. The front of house console is out in the auditorium and can hear exactly what's going on. The tour didn't decline the house rig. The main left and right PA hangs and the flown sub array of the in-house system were used, and augmented with additional ground stacked PA and subs from the touring rig. There was a problem with the in-house system that occured early in EC's set which the touring team identified and worked with the house team to resolve. As for where I'm getting "that gem" from... I'm a touring engineer and production manager myself, I have a number of colleagues and friends on the EC touring crew and also with the support, and I'm well aware of the issues that they had and how much was done to resolve it as soon as it happened. Everyone who works on a show at that level is striving for it to be the best it can be, every day. We put redundancies in place, we plan, we test, we check, but sometimes issues develop that do affect the show and all that you can do is try your best to make it work with the resources available to you. Often, this happens completely unseen and the audience would never even be aware there'd been an issue. Sometimes, unfortunately, that isn't the case.
  23. There was a serious technical issue with the sound system that hadn't presented itself during the soundcheck, and that the touring tech team worked incredibly hard to resolve during the show. Sometimes, despite everyone's best efforts, things can go wrong.
  24. I was their tour manager for the last year. Recently stepped down because of other touring commitments. Lovely bunch and all wonderful players!
  25. I've worked with Lyndon a lot over the last year. Absolutely wonderful guy and insanely talented. Currently playing keys for Go West.
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