mike257

I'm doing two or three decent paying function gigs a month at the moment and about to pick up a second function band. Also got on the list for a few dep slots, so things seem to be picking up at this end. The 'give up the day job and play music' plan is slowly taking shape!

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1344946525' post='1771433'] I'd 2nd this. I picked up a GS Gypsy on here a couple of months ago and I'm sold on them. [/quote] And a 3rd - guitarist I've worked with has a pre-production prototype GS Galaxy and it's a jaw-droppingly great guitar.

I guess they're saying if you can't fit one in there comfortably without the pre-amp, you've got no chance of doing it once its fitted. There's so many little variations in jazz-style bodies, the rout for the controls won't always be the same depth, have to see how you get on with shoving a Duracell under your current control plate!

I've got a set of ER20 and they are a lifesaver, especially when I'm doing sound and there's a DJ blaring metal through the club system while I'm setting up/down on stage! Definitely want to invest in moulds though. Drummer I work with has a set of moulded ones, you can swap out 15 or 25 db filters or IEMs - he ordered online and they made an appointment for him to get moulds at the audiology dept in our local hospital, do that might be another option for anyone struggling to find a local ear-plugging establishment!

Wouldn't flightcase my big bass rig, its enough of s lift already - as others have said, its just not worth it for a little club tour in a splitter van. Having said that, I've been tempted to get a flightcase for my guitar cab just so I've got something handy to stand it on at gigs, need to get it closer to my ears!

I think he's had a lot of chances already, but if you're young guys still at school you haven't got tons of pressure on you to get it completely sussed out right now. Is they guy a good friend? If he is, then give him a chance but be frank and honest with him - let him know that you guys don't want him as a frontman and are happy on your own instruments, and make it clear that he needs to improve. If you haven't told him outright, he may not realise what you guys are thinking. Put the recording on hold for a little bit and see if he shows any improvement in his attitude and take it from there. Of course, if he's not a mate and he's just a guy who turns up to play drums, tell him to take a hike and get on with getting things done properly!

I think in heavier music like that there isn't a lot of space to get widdly and simple root playing will often be what the song needs. Stripping things even further back with lots of space and emphasis on certain beats to push the groove can work well, and also give you space to usr a bigger, fatter tone. I like to go for impact more than anything with that kind of style. Where are the important notes/pulses in the riffs? Pound on them and let the guitars wind their way around the beats you and the drummer are pushing, when you do come in for some big unison riffing, it'll sound that much bigger for you having left the space beforehand. It makes it about the power and the impact of the whole band rather than how much each player can squeeze in.

I've never found it a big deal, although it's always been a case of the band playing in a particular tuning, and the most I've had to shift mid-set is down to drop D and back (or drop C# - same difference!). I can imagine using multiple tunings in one set would be a ballache, and that's why rockstars have a rack of guitars and a hairy bloke in a dirty t-shirt to hand them the right one. I'd be happy to take two instruments to a gig to cover it off, although the Morpheus Droptune/Capo pedals or a Whammy DT could be a lighter and less expensive solution for some people. If it makes the band sound better it's worth the minor (IMO, of course) inconvenience.

A friend of mine runs CDS in Chelmsford and does some great sounding stuff - go check out Fei Comodo on YouTube, have a listen to their recent singles. Top stuff and he knows his metal too. EDIT: Here's a link, was on mobile before! [url="https://www.facebook.com/pages/CDS-STUDIOS/117434231617766?sk=info"]https://www.facebook.com/pages/CDS-STUDIOS/117434231617766?sk=info[/url]

[quote name='krysh' timestamp='1344290431' post='1762452'] forget the pilot on the floor: and for rehearsal/recording the rig on the right: [/quote] Love that big red Guild semi, don't think I've seen one of them before. Did you build the amp yourself?

[quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1344009615' post='1758704'] Forget the left hand side of the picture and concentrate on the Moog on the right [/quote] Lovely stuff - is that your Jacko tour setup? Are you using the laptop for synth sounds too, or is the Moog doing all the heavy lifting?

There's plenty of us here dabbling in other instruments so I thought we should have a thread of our own for our rigs - guitar, keys, drums, xylophone - whatever you're rocking out on, stick it in here! Here's my guitar toys to start us off - the nice UPS man just turned up with my Orange cab this morning so thought it was time for a photo. I've not tried the it with the new cab yet (sleeping baby son in the next room!) but think it's going to bring my old Carlsbro 50 Top head to life!

I used to have a Korg DTR-1000, great tuners. I had a mute footswitch on the floor for it though, and eventually decided that if I was going to have something on the floor anyway, it might as well just be the tuner!

Also, it's likely that the output for your PC speakers from the soundcard is a standard two channel stereo signal, and that the speaker system will have a crossover that splits the low frequencies for both channels and sends them to the subwoofer. If the jack that plugs from your speakers to the soundcard is TRS (two black stripes around it, if you're not sure) then it's two channel/stereo and you can follow OBBM's suggestion about running everything to the mixer, and the speakers from the mixer's main outputs.

The DI output on your amp should come before the master volume in the circuit - just turn the master volume right down on your amp, and you should get no more sound from the bass amp but still have a signal passing to your mixer

Drums was the first instrument I ever dabbled with - I love playing them now whenever I get the chance and recently picked up a cheap electric kit to get some extra practice in. I think the drumming informs my bass playing, guitar and songwriting in a big way - makes me extremely conscious of rhythm and how everything fits around it. I think learning more about music in any form can only be a good thing, and picking up another instrument can inspire your playing in new directions - give it a try!

There's a Silverstone cover on the Orange cab I've just grabbed on t'eBay - judging from this thread, I won't be picking up a matching one for my head! Off to Roqsolid for me then.

Old thread bump - did anyone else go in for this? Got my email this evening to confirm I've got one of the guitar slots so I'll be amongst the unwashed masses with my six-string. Be seeing any fellow BC'ers there? Mike

I've always loved the SVT3, I owned one for years and only moved it on out of necessity, still miss it. The 4 is essentially a higher powered version of the same thing. Will definitely do growly for you. I haven't got personal experience of the Warwick stuff but ny usual rehearsal rooms had a bunch of them as house backline and they had terrible reliability issues - they were there lower models though, don't know how different the 10.1 is. Can't add anything on the others apart from to say that I've heard both in action at gigs and they sound fantastic - don't think you could go far wrong with either of them or the Ampeg.

Hey fella, forgot to post the link to the guy who shot the video, d'oh! His website his here: [url="http://www.power2thepixel.com/"]http://www.power2thepixel.com/[/url] Tell him Mike from BOOM! Transport sent you

More lovely work mate, well done. I remember laying the new wooden floor in the studio I was assistant engineer at back in my teens - cut and planed all the reclaimed wood ourselves, and then, being the lowest ranking fella (there was only me and the boss!) I got the lovely, dust covered job of pushing the giant sander round the floor all day. Grim, stinky, and for weeks I was finding sawdust in places you'd never imagine you could get it! Great to see the control room taking shape, makes it feel like things are finally coming together. Just realised that this thread has been running since early 2009, must be the longest running build thread BC has ever had!

It's really disheartening to go that long without something happening for you, but the next band might be just around the corner. I left a (very good) band in Nov 2010 because there was too much ego flying around. Resolved to finally do my own thing with the music I was writing and spent all of 2012 with a revolving door of let-downs trying to get it together - believe it or not the only constant was the drummer! With a year of wasted time and money and a baby on the way I was almost ready to pack it in at Christmas, but glad I didn't. I'm now playing in a regularly gigging function band, with other dep work coming my way, and on the verge of getting involved with a great new originals band with a good manager and some realistic prospects of them bagging a decent agent and going out on some good shows. I went 18 months without stepping on a stage and I'm now at the point of considering pursuing music full time, things can turn around!

Wow - tons of really great posts full of good advice and experiences, thanks guys! I've been dropping in reading them but in the midst of doing loads of jobs in the house so only just had time to reply! [quote name='silddx' timestamp='1342964496' post='1743190'] You'll also need to be very organised and clued up about your tax affairs, and running your own business to maximise your income and minimise your outgoings. [/quote] Great stuff again Nigel, thanks - this is something I'm really trying to dig in to. An ex-bandmate of mine is a qualified accountant and now runs his own business managing bands and promoting/booking tours, had some good advice from him in the past and hoping to grab some more! [quote name='musophilr' timestamp='1342965146' post='1743196'] .....IMO quitting requires serious unpleasantness going down in the day job coupled with guaranteed rewards in what you look at next. Both conditions are necessary; stay out of what you used to be good at for long enough and no matter how good you were, you'll find it very hard to take it up again. [/quote] Phil - it's not something I've considered lightly. I used to get a lot of satisfaction from my day job, but with this latest redeployment it's almost like a demotion - I've been moved to a job with little responsibility or accountability, and little chance to gain any job satisfaction or progression, and I was moved almost on a whim to balance somebody else's budget sheet. Completely de-motivated and angry about it after helming a project that has won awards and saved my employer tens of thousands over the last two years. I've tried to pick up as many transferable skills as possible so I'm not tied to a narrow selection if I do have to go job hunting again! [quote name='gjones' timestamp='1342965642' post='1743202'] You have a van? Isn't that how Bill Wyman got the Rolling Stones gig? [/quote] It's amazing how many best mates I suddenly got when I bought a van! [quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1342967838' post='1743228'] Can you read? Reading opens up a lot more possibilities for paid work. [/quote] Not a great reader at the moment Jake, it's something I'm aware is a gap in my skills that needs to improve. I've got a pretty solid grasp of theory and I know what I'm playing when I play it - I've just not put a huge amount of time into interpreting it from a score, mainly because it's never been necessary for the gigs I've had. I realise that becoming more proficient is a doorway to more work and it's definitely something that's in the plan. [quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1342980547' post='1743397'] - If you decide to keep your job, or find a better one, can you live with the thought of never having tried living off music? [/quote] This is the bit that keeps me up at night - I don't want to live with the "what if" of never having tried it hanging over me. [quote name='dood' timestamp='1342988962' post='1743582'] I'd say for anyone wanting to go down this route, do not place all your eggs in one basket. Use your talents and skills to form multiple streams of income so when one dries up (which it most definitely will) you have something else to fall back on whilst you fill that gap. [/quote] I'm hoping that I'm covering that off by mixing playing gigs with tour management, engineering, band transport etc - I know there's not really anyone else locally providing what I do with the splitter van, especially with the extra things I can offer on top of just turning up with the bus, so freeing my time to take more work on in that area is hopefully a good thing. [quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1343000342' post='1743763'] The kids are your biggest responsibility. [/quote] Definitely, and I'll only be writing my resignation letter when there's enough in the diary (and the savings) that I'm not panicking about where the next few months rent is coming from! [quote name='fatback' timestamp='1343042614' post='1744083'] First off, most people who make a living from music do it mostly from teaching not playing. Will you like teaching? Will you be any good at it? Is it what you imagined you'd be doing? [/quote] Done a bit of it before, and also a qualified trainer and provide training courses in my workplace - obviously slightly different but a lot of the experience is transferable. I'd be more than happy to do it, although there's some areas I'll be brushing up on myself too! All the advice so far has been great, lots to think about, and also reassuring to hear from the guys who are making a living from this. I'm not harbouring dreams of super stardom, and never have, but I love music in all its forms, it's always consumed so much of my life, and nothing would make me happier than to make a living from what I love doing most. I think bagging some more regular function work and doing some serious business plan-writing are next on the list, and Nigel's suggestion of cutting back to part time hours as an intermediate step has got me keeping my eye out for opportunities.

Possibly, yes - I work for a pretty big company and have experience in a number of areas within what we do, so it's certainly something that I could look in to. My employer makes regular use of contractors via a couple of employment agencies to cover times of peak demand for engineering work too, so it's something I could fall back on if money got tight.