Jack

I have to preface this story by saying that everywhere we play gets a set of posters a week or so before the gig as well as phone call 24-48 hours before to double check and confirm everything. I get there first, see a bartender, "Hi I'm Jack I'm with the band, where's the stage? What door's best? etc etc" So I start loading in. Guitarist joins me, as does singer and drummer, everything is now in the bar. The first thing to go up is our backdrop so we put that up and then start setting up everything else. After clocking the backdrop said bartender nervously comes across and asks if that's our band name, we say it is. She says that's not the name of the band that's booked tonight. Blank looks all round, lots of fervently checking diaries, etc. Eventually we find the facebook messenger between our singer and the bar manager, which goes something like this. That's it. No response from the bar. He's made us drive all the way down there after work to a venue that never bloody confirmed in the first place. Idiot. Does that count as a bad gig? It wasn't technically a gig, so maybe it's not the worst gig I've ever played. It's certainly the worst attempted gig I've ever played. We couldn't even demand any kind of payment (from the bar at least) as it's clearly our singer's mistake. I wonder why the bar didn't say something when they got the posters or the phone call, maybe whomever dealt with those wasn't the one booking bands. Oh well, here's hoping tonight is better.

I would happily swap my Joe Dart head bopping talent for some Joe Dart bass playing talent.

Speak to James at Brightonion. He's done 2 custom projects for me and they're both brilliant.

I can't tell if we agree or disagree...

Then you might really enjoy the 'di after the head' route, at least more than most. Despite the fact that I've said it wouldn't be my first choice for this application, my countryman is one is the best bits of kit I've ever used. Can recommend.

Yes but in that application they do come across as being very bright. Most (stereotype alert) people using big valve amps are using coloured cabs of the 8x10 or similar ilk, very unlikely to have tweeters etc. The amps are set up to 'combat' this so they sound good together, as a package. Taking a feed from just the amp can sound less than good in this case. Usually you'll want some sort of speaker sim, ir, or just drastic eq on the board to approximate the sound you get on stage from the cab.

One of my favourite local venues last night. We thought we were in for a kicking to be honest because Big Country were playing upstairs but we still managed to pack the place. Our drummer's (very attractive) day job colleagues showed up mid way through the first set and once pretty women start dancing then everyone starts dancing.

I need more confidence in a bit of used gear that I bought cash in hand behind a petrol station to work flawlessly on a paid gig. Y'all make me nervous. 😁

The two Rancid recommendations missed my absolute favourite, Fall Back Down. I'd also suggest Welcome to the Jungle.

Sacrilege.

We were the first band ever at a seaside hotel that's just changed hands since the pandemic. Bit odd, we had to clear the filthy stage area ourselves, which we said we were doing this time and this time only and that in general bands expect it clear for them. We opened to literally nobody but as we started playing a small crowd came through from the bar. We found out at half time that this was actually the entire bar, very low turn out. Seems all the bars around there are losing customers to a big trendy stack that's just opened. People seem to prefer IPA, delicious street food and sitting on the beach over Fosters, peepeepeanuts and muted TV. Can't blame them.

😉 My apologies, no admonishing intended! I do think you're right though, I wouldn't (and haven't) bought an SM58 when there's better stuff around these days.

Fender P Bass Ford Mustang The BBC Rolex Submariner Technically-better things come along all the time and they don't displace the classics. Blame the people for the hype, not Shure. If you ran Shure and people still bought millions of the things every year you wouldn't change or cancel it, they are the number one best selling thing on Thomann ever, despite the fact that you're absolutely right.

Sound? Can't say I did. I know wireless units compete over build, battery life, range, that kind of thing (and the Shure is great!) but they all kind of sound the same to me. The one exception is my super cheap unit (which I incorrectly said up there was Amoon and it's actually Lekato) which I definitely think compresses the low E string a bit. But it was £30 and never leaves the house, so we'll accept that. Honestly every unit I've ever used apart from that one has been excellent. The best in terms of range was my Line 6 G55, but that's probably because it was in a rack on top of a tall stack, if I put my pedalboard on a stack I'd probably find the wireless range on there improved too. I was a bit worried about cumulative latency, given that like most people there are several ad/da conversions in in my chain, but that's never been a problem either. Maybe I'm just not picky, maybe I play easy stages for wireless units, maybe they all broadly work ok. With regards to batteries, that's an interesting one. I find the battery life excellent but it does worry me that you can't just throw a set of fresh ones in when they die so I always have two packs with me. There's a pack with each of my boards and charged spare that lives in my gig bag. I didn't really get behind the battery charger, seemed easier and almost as cheap to just buy another pack. Shure recently cut the capacity of the batteries by about a third and now there are rumours that they are discontinuing the GLX series. I wonder if there's a new product on the way that is maybe more power efficient and designed to use the newer, smaller batteries. Given how popular the GLX set is I can't believe that they'd get out of the market entirely, it's always the number one recommended pedalboard wireless on every thread on every forum and blog. My personal theory is that the rackmounted units aren't as popular and they will all be dropped, leaving only the '16' set for semi-pro musicians with the smaller batteries.

The Sansamp, it's really quite incredible... 😁 In fairness I've had the current Shures, a Smoothound, the Line 6 G30 and G55 and an Amoon set. My guitarist in one band uses the Boss one, another uses a Thomann set. They're all fine.

Shure!

Have you seen most pub bands?

I used a head that was theoretically capable of 800W (GK Fusion) into a very small cab (original BF Midget) for loads of gigs. The volume control works both ways and I never gave the little 8 ohm speaker anywhere near the c 500W that head could have given it.

Just back from one tonight but it reminded me to post last week's. We were the penultimate band in a scooter rally, pretty standard fare for us as this is a mod/indie outfit. Everyone was expecting to be outside but the forecast was rain so the whole shebang moved inside before the pa was set up. The outdoor pa. 4x 2x18 subs and 4x 2x15 tops ended up in a relatively small function room. It was... unnecessary. Gig was OK until the sound techs blew a breaker somewhere but that only happened once. Then I left a really nice (£25!) designacable xlr. All in all a mixed bag. 🤨

Did this sort your problem? If not I'll measure mine over the weekend?

I'm in the repressed minority of 'loop on the pedals'. Because that way they don't take half the carpet with them if you use them off a board.

I did my school work experience in sound control in Newcastle along with my then best friend and the guitarist in my teenage school band. I was upstairs with the basses and he called up saying I had to come meet this guy he was talking to as he had the same bass as me. I walked downstairs to see him talking to Mark Knopfler. Guitarists man, oblivious.

2007, so 15 years in 4 days time. And I've made 1844 posts, a little over a third of a post a day. In other words I joined basschat 5 days after @Happy Jackand have made about a tenth of the posts.

Can you remember where that test was? I'd be curious to see it. I reckon there's one or hifi reviewers for magazines who'd call that a meaningful difference! 😄