JTUK

Hear the line, 'pro player' used here by many and I wonder what most people think it means..? To me, all it means is that someone earns most of their wage playing music.. It is not nessecariliy anything to do with the standard that they play at...

I'd agree.... but they are all busking tunes first and foremost. IMO.

I used a LIne 15 300w combo in the studio recently. It did well enough and I think they go for about £490 new..?? Might suit the criteria..??

Not going to give you a hard time over it... and I do get the point that if an agent had done this, we would all likely to be having our say about that as well. As tough as it is... all round, I think you should try and be cordial and sensible about it so your stance about paying his 'dues' IF he gives you more work is a way of mending fences...a bit... but if he is going to bin you, which he may well do AFTER the pay-off, I'd think he can wait for his money, with all that goes with a complex overseas haggle. And.... lesson learned and the maxim should now be..as the poster above said, if the answer has to be now, the answer is No. He then would have had a chance to ask elsewhere and maybe would still have had to come back to you as you'd still be a 'possible' to him and you would have brought yourself 24 hrs or so. I say this because the reason he was so tough on his stance is because he was under so much pressure as well.... and he'd had no luck getting a yes elsewhere....???

We price ourselves out of the market so we don't have to meet up until the new year...

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1418136247' post='2627204'] It seems to be a staple, though most bands play it with more optimism than accuracy! [/quote] I had a dep drummer on his first gig with us tell me I should listen to it as I wanted it swung a bit...you'd have to hear it to know it worked... or rather it moved, instead of such a rigid 4 on the floor part that so many bands do... Well, if the drummer had been listening that hard he would have known it moved a lot more than he credited. We worked it out in the end and he was fine once he had loosened up. I took that to mean that he played tracks pretty strict and that isn't a bad place to start if you are depping, but he was good enough to move the tracks on. So we'd have him back [quote name='Drax' timestamp='1418684428' post='2632422'] It's such a depressing list. [/quote] Yes, you'd have to have some panache to be able to carry most of that off.......

I think the stand thing was over ages ago and the thread had moved on.

Just re-read the 5 weeks bit....thats around $5000 so you might owe him around £350 or so if the contract sticks. If it gets nasty... I'd take that now, tbh.. and anything less..negotiated, is a bonus. Hazards of the trade all round.

Yes..you can do all these things and the only thing that really matters is has he covered the gig. You can argue about this and that...and cause him grief but how much will it be worth it to get something like a $1000 recompense..on the basis of 3 months work or so from you..??? I think you may have lost the agent, and possibly a part of your good name to others in the field if he can't get fixed up very quickly with an alternative... ??? That would be my guess... You might want to offer to do the Jan gig as a way of repairing 'good faith;..?? but he probably isn't worried about that period if he wanted you to fly out immediately.... I agree, he is probably too busy trying to get someone else to bother with you just yet..??

I'm surprised he hasn't called you already. Anyone working to such deadlines is going to have everything piped through his phone so he can pick up mails and anything from the office. It doesn't sound the type of arrangement where he can go home and switch off... and you need to get the bad news asap so giving yourself more time to deal with it.

No idea what the consequences will be but I doubt he will take it well and I'd expect the very least would be that he drops you. FWIW... I don't think signing it at that short notice was a good thing and you'd would need at least a few days to sort, but that is all rather moot now. All I can say is I hope you don't get too stressed for too long over it until it is resolved..

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1418725750' post='2632635'] I must admit I find a couple of things odd with conversations like this; firstly I don't really understand the obsession with low action, but I guess that's just personal preference for feel & tone. But really; how do people think lowering the action makes their technique better? In my mind if anything it'll make it worse as you're stroking the strings rather than plucking them & your fretting hand can be less accurate because there's less side movement before the string touches the board. Once a string has been fretted cleanly what difference does it make if you press a little harder (in my mind once it's fretted it's fretted)? Not having a go, just curious as it seems like my understanding of how it works is different to others.... [/quote] My left hand can play the notes and runs without any input from the right hand if need be. I can nick gtr techniques and do left hand pull-offs and I can only do some of my things with a low action. I don't want to have to develop my left hand to the point where it has to tense to play things...that will reduce the speed at which I can play. I would say the high action/low action argument over tone is not a factor. I don't believe it really exists or you can't hear it. If I sound off ... the first thing I look at is how well the actual string speaks..and after time the feel of the string will be enough to change it. It is all about the response off the string sound-wise and feel-wise. Low suits me............ and there are some basses I wont even pick up as I can't play them or be interested in trying to. After a while you know what works for you..

No, I can't be arsed to measure it... but it is low. A grtr friend on mine said there are lower than his Ibanezes..??? All I know is that they are set up for me... and both about the same. I'll need to adjust the action probably twice a year due to seasonal changes ..but not a neck tweak, mostly. They will mostly choke if I am slouching on the sofa noddling and therefore leaning back. Both basses set up the same with the same gaunge string from the same maker.

Not really kept up with that 'top 40 thread' but I can know which bands round here mirror each others set and there is a predominance of classic 80's bands and they always feature two gtrs. This in itself is quite limiting as regards to the number they'll take on. Other times they'll be a 4 piece ( 1 gtr ) which can be even more so, so that and a lack of thought can easily back the band into a musical hole. Couple that with a shouty vocalist rather than a singer and you can see the whole thing getting all a bit samey. You can pretty much tell which bands will work out and be worth staying to listen to almost as soon as you walk in... and certainly if you hear any of them tune up, sound check. Compiling a set is quite an art IMO, and we've found we need 3 types; a pub set where we could put what we want in as long as we finish really strongly, a function set which HAS to get people dancing and a festival set which has to get the crowd involved. and some of our numbers would never cross over to the other two.. altho function and party are the closest to each other is terms of numbers shared. For my two new projects I am trying to get a feel for the songs we will want to do... depending on which vox I use..

Have to say that 2x115 sounds like a recipe for disaster in terms of getting any top out of them. IMO You think one is lacking so apart from adding a second and it being close to your ear so YOU can hear it, that isn't going to help out in the room..at all, IMO. You need higher frequencies being produced to do that and 15's don't typically have them. As for low end dispertion.... low end bass gets everywhere, you can't target or focus it.

You can't have heavy hands with a low action.... it makes you play clean, which only you can decide is a good thing. I went down this route when I heard myself solo'd in the studio and it was sooo noisey. ..and bloddy awful, tbh... did I hate it..!!! Some players make a feature of it but I suspect the engr doesn't appreciate the time it might take to clean up some of the heavier handed tracks... The plus side of playing light is that you don't beat up your hands so much... not a problem now so much but maybe after 30 years or so... and you can get more nuance into your playing, typically. The down side is you need more headroom in your amp...and if you DO have to dig in, that serverely compromises what you can play, especially when the volume rises. If you have the action close to choking and you can't keep it clean...you aren't tidy enough..it is that simple. So maybe you need to set the action at a height where you can play it without fret noise.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1418668847' post='2632180'] We have a small theatre in town that caters for great music, I went to see Dan Walsh there last year it was fantastic, harp player, fiddle, drums, banjo, guitars and bass really top quality musicianship, put them in the pub over the road and no one wants to know, they want sex on fire, livin on a prayer, sweet home etc just like they do every week! [/quote] I don't think they want those numbers from pub bands...that is just what they get because bands can be lazy and give the set no thought. Of course, there is a point of diminshing returns as pubs pay poor money.so players go after better gigs, ..but that doesn't mean at all, that function bands are always better as I know plenty- well, more than a few that wouldn't/couldn't get work elsewhere- it just means that a poor band is a poor band anywhere. And bands that take the easy way with 'classic' sets probably have no other cards to play anyway. I am always 'amazed'...well, again, not really, that bands don't put any effort in, go for the lowest common denominator set list and then still wonder why no one notices them... They are the bands that people should walk out on.... But it is funny... and I do take note of this... certain bands do ok in some towns and bomb in others and the main reason for that is the set... but bands that have more about them than just the set, get by most places, IME.

Seems all good to me... Not sure I'd go with 5 vox myself... but don't really know anymore about them but the show reel. I doubt the band price factors in the P.A/light and staging...

Maybe you are.. I want to see a band do something...not play the entire evening by numbers. I want to see them stretch, go thru a gear or two and bring something along to the party... not sound like eleventy eight hundred other bands all doing the same set the same way.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1418664579' post='2632114'] Well I hope we can all agree then that it's disgraceful in this day and age that you can walk into a pub for free and the band who might be getting paid £250 between five of them don't or can't put on a show equal to that of a fifteen hundred pound function band, I think it only right to walk out and go to another pub that hasn't got a band on at all yet will charge you exactly the same price if not a bit more per pint? [/quote] Cost of the band goes on the pint around here.. so they need to be worth the difference... and sure, some bands aren't I know this because I go and see a lot of bands so a lot of the times, no music pubs are better..

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1418649149' post='2631947'] If some one was serious that they walk out without the band playing a note I suspect the band would be better off for that type of person not being in the audience, I'm sure we've all seen these experts explaining to their friends what you are doing wrong all night, just sucks the fun out of it IMO. [/quote] It doesn't have to be like that tho.... I've heard many a band in 'soundcheck' and I just know it is going to be a band I can't enjoy.... mostly because they'll be a bit crap... and there can be quite a few reasons why that is, but it doesn't hide that essential 'fact' You know it, and you'll stay a few songs and confirm it..and you'll just shrug your shoulders when someone else happens to mention the band being crap. You only stayed because the pub was rammed... and the band happened to have all their rele's turn out and your also have only just got your drink in.

But the core sound of all instruments is what helps the overall sound mix so it helps if you know what you are doing, what you can work with and where you need to get to... If you don't have a good band mix on stage..and sometimes that is THE mix..you have no hope of it magically fixing itself elsewhere...

It is easy to tell whether a band will be worth catching or not, tho... a few bars in the sound check is sometimes enough. You might want to wait to hear those fears confirmed after a song or two... but that will pretty much set the tone and there is no way the band will rescue the night, I'm afraid.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1418140975' post='2627284'] At some point you realise why you're gigging. I'm guessing that the awesome bass tone is probably not one of the top reasons your band has been asked to play, or the reason why people are coming to see you. Just saying... [/quote] But as a sum of parts it is pretty important. It is pleasing when the audience tell you that the sound was very good..could hear everything etc etc .. and since I tape most of the gigs, I get a pretty good idea back as well.

Not sure about the abm range of 210's so don't know if it would solve your problems but in general, I'd have no problem adding a 210 to add the higher end to a 115 with 'matched' cabs... But if you don't really like the 115 from that maker...I'd not be confident that a 210 will rescue it... so on balance, I'd sell it and get cabs that you do like better.