Muzz

Just for the record, our BL did a recap of 2025, and we did 56 gigs (I also did, IIRC, 8-10 gigs with other bands), and looking at dates, 42 of them were with the Lekato MS-02 system. Probably a dozen rehearsals, too. No dropouts, no issues, most gigs they're switched on for about three hours from start of soundcheck to inevitable encores, no battery life issues. I may have been lucky, but I'm stil rolling with the MS-02s, especially for the money. Still running in mono, mainly because the BL won't cluster two channels to one out of his XR-18 to give me a stereo feed.

While I'm listening to Liv Warfield, this is her absolutely knocking Ann Wilson out of the park (no mean feat in itself) in Nuno Bettencourt's bar band...  

On 16/12/2025 at 20:58, BassApprentice said:

This has been stuck in my head for the past 3 days. Would absolutely love to be in a band like this.

 

 

I'll see your Raye and Raise you Liv Warfield with the NPG Hornz...  😀

I've spoken to ACS about their Ambient series, and while they do acknowledge there'll be some loss in bass response, their approach has been to design the inears to minimise this. It's a trade-off, I guess, and the results will be acceptable to some and not others. Sadly I don't have the cash to try them out, and like all custom inears it's a leap of faith. I sometimes have to pop one inear slightly out to hear the drums properly (venue/setup depending, especially with deps), and even then (with the bass turned up in my mix), it's plenty.

Talking to other band members, though, I think the ACS 'squidgy' casts are more comfortable than the harder shells of some other vendors...I can wear mine for hours, where the other guys (on a long day's session) were getting uncomfortable.

I would add that I've done some gigs on the runup to Xmas with bands that don't have the full quiet stage/inears setup, and I absolutely wouldn't go back; not hearing myself clearly and accurately (as well as at a volume I can control) is a deal-breaker for me these days.

Well, if that cheapo really is 7lbs dead with the neck and standard tuners (and if it isn't it's going straight back) then I guess I've got some wiggle room with the neck weight, as it's unlikely a cheapo neck'll be very light, and I'll be fitting Ultralites or somesuch anyway...I note Gotoh do Res-O-Lite cloverleaf tuners (the GRL510C-9) which are almost HALF the weight of Ultralites (36g!), but I can't find them in the UK.

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

And there goes all your bass.

Really? Have you tried them?

4 hours ago, Len_derby said:

oh dear, poor old Basschat, the future isn’t looking bright …😂

Still, it's a lot easier to sit at home and post hoohah than actually get dressed and leave the house... 😀

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Here's an example of a club that does it right. One thing they do is allow promoters to puit on gigs in 'the Hall'. In the last few months we've had Focus and Curved Air (not tributes).

I've got five gigs there across three bands next year. It's a brilliant place to play.

Two notes from the above (which looks great, I'd be there quite a lot) - Ozric Tentacles? Are they still going? Blimey Charlie, I'd be tempted.

And, of course, my new favourite Sabbath Trib name, Children of the Gravy... 😀

I'd also say that any business where the clientele age averages more than 65 is on the slide without new blood anyway...

Ooooo, yer all posh: for a good while (maybe 30 gigs?) I've been using a pair of £62 Lekato MS-02s - super light, tiny and handy, battery lasts hours (never got down to even half the charge lights on them with 4-hour gigs (start to finish)), 5ms latency, no dropouts and even a stereo option that, as mentioned above, I've never got to use...you'll need an XLR to 3.5mm jack adaptor, but that's it...

Y'see, I did apologise for mentioning the t-word...it was only as a comparitive example, yer Honour... 😐😀

Hokay, so apologies up front for anyone I'm boring to tears with my neverending search for lighter and lighter basses, but I'm also looking at the Frankenstein approach to putting something together, given how good the Squier Sonic P is sounding after I'd finished with it (replaced bridge, tuners, pickup and EQ).

Soooo, I've found a Paulownia-bodied P-bass for buttons (it's apparently 7lbs on the nose including 'normal' tuners, etc, so I'm thinking I can get that down a chunk with Ultra-Lites and an Aluminium bridge), and I'm thinking a replacement neck to elevate it a little - I thought this about the Sonic, but it turned out to be good enough not to bother...I doubt this one will, tho.

To the point (hurrah!): anyone have any guides as to what's a heavy neck and what's a light one? Or are they mostly close in weight? I'm looking at a Northwest Guitars jazz neck (amongst others), should I be paying attention to the weight, or am I overthinking the whole thing?

Cheers,

Muzz

It's not the speaker size alone, it's the speaker plus enclosure which sounds the way it does; I had a Schroeder 1515L for years, and while I loved it (very honky soloed, on a stage very present; not tons of low bass, but then that's my taste), I'm gonna say it sounded like no other 2 x 15 I'd heard before or since, and that was down to the enclosure design.

Technology has moved on a lot in the last few years, and a wide range of drivers can sound any way the designer wants without relying on/starting with cone size, so cone size itself is moving into the personally-observable and personally-preferential areas of things like, erm, tonewoods...

Sorry about the t-word...

That very much depends on the mixer - some will let you do this, some won't. I've worked with both; it does add another layer of faffing before the gig (tho this can be reduced by saving scenes, etc), so it's all about On The Day.

Another example of this is stereo monitor feeds: my inear setup will do stereo, but I've yet to convince a BL to give me two channels and send them to a stereo out...

It's generally called 'the occlusion effect'. the two easy fixes are a room mic you can mix in, or there's a whole lot of newer IEMs which allow ambient sound in, like these: https://acscustom.com/uk/products/ambient-series/evoke2/

19 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

We played a club near Bolton for the fourth time. The Concert Sec there lives in the 1960's and puts some real clunge on. He's been ignoring my whatsapp messages about next year. He came up to me before went on and tauntingly reminded me that I had gone up to him and shown him a fake Rickenbacker the last time we played. I had two with me that night, plus a P Bass. He wouldn't have it that the Ric I brought last time was real. It was a 2002 4003FG and it was on my stand. He very grudgingly admitted it was real.

We always get told what a breath of fresh air we are when we play there. We went on played our two spots, went down like heroes with a 1.05 second spot with dancers throughout.

 

When he came to pay us at the end, I reminded him that he hadn't responded to my Whatsapp messages and laughingly said that I thought he'd died. He told us that though he really likes us we aren't right for the club. Some people left. Like they do when it's cold and dark out and not far off Christmas, etc.. I remined polite and cheerful, as we aren't short of work. Instead of losing my sheet, I just said, we will go down far better than some of the acts you've booked up to June next year.  You should've seen his face. Permanent worry-lines forming. He was beyond horrified and demanded to know which ones would frighten their punters and clear the place. I was too much of a gentleman to tell him.

Ahhh, Dobbies...one of those dinosaur venues with a power-mad Conc.Sec. and everything*...you can get a reaction out of the crowd, but with pliers and gritted teeth. For the majority who don't know the place but will know many similar (still), there's total silence** for the bingo but they talk through your first set unless (metaphorically) grabbed by the collar, and the general vibe from the management is 'Why can't you be Matt Munroe? I liked him.'

Last time we were there I gave Herr Conc. Sec. the hairdryer because as soon as we'd finished some fool on their side hit the smoke machine onstage about eight or ten times as we were packing down, it was four feet deep and you literally couldn't see the floor, I nearly walked off the edge. I lost 75% of my sheet, went to his table and gave him a bollocking, he tried to laugh it off till I pointed out if someone did fall on (or worse, off) the stage he'd be hearing from lawyers (and I'd taken pictures) about breaching H&S, and he shut up. We haven't heard back from them, but to be honest it's no loss.

* Where you're referred to as 'The Turn'...

** The sort of silence only encountered in the bleak chill of deep space or Northern Club Bingo sessions, it's uncanny, unnerving and something I think CERN should have a look at...

Cancelled. Friday night, turned up to the pub for 7:30pm as agreed with the owner at 11:30am by text, to find 30 or so people still eating and drinking in the band area of the pub. Duty Manager (amazingly, the actual Manager was nowhere to be found) told us they'd had a funeral/wake group come in about four, and they were still there. Apparently there'd been a cancellation text to our BL about 4:30pm, which he hadn't seen.

I mean, I get it: that's 30 meals plus probably 120 drinks extra, or pay the band. Turns out they'll be doing both...the BL's furious and he'll be all over them tomorrow.

Still, an early night, and we'll get paid (BL's enthusuastically litigious)...eventually.

On 12/12/2025 at 13:25, SteveXFR said:

 

Mine is my lightweight bass! Its definitely lighter than my Spector and doesn't neck dive.

On 12/12/2025 at 15:13, Chadu25 said:

Mine weighs at 3.67kgs. No neck dive too. 

Yeah, it's all relative, but 3.67kgs isnt lightweight for me any more, I'm looking down around the 3kg mark these days...it's a shame...

I still love a BB, although these days the weight has taken them away from me... 🙁

On 08/12/2025 at 17:35, martthebass said:

There’s a club we’ve played a couple of times in Hull, great gig but they insist on playing music at 130dB between spots and at the end of the night during pack up. We decided to knock it on the head despite request for return next year.

There's a place we play I call The Weasel Dust Palace, which turns into a club (we basically play on the dance floor, it's a nightmare packing down around people who immediately invade the band space once the DJ starts) as soon as we finish, and recently they rebuilt the sound system with 18" subs in the walls and a generally bigger system. The DJ is the owner's teenage son, and the sound level as we were packing down last time was unbelievable - you could feel the air moving the hairs on your arms - I had to put my inears back in (unplugged) it was so loud...

Au contraire; I used to go to a jam night where a chap would turn up with a fully Xmas Lighted Status to plod some serious straight 8s all evening - you just have to have the confidence... 😀

Last time I used a rehearsal room rig it was an ancient Peavey...it was great for the room, but you couldn't have paid me enough to move the thing... 🙂

Sky Arts trails programme about bass(ists), but for general consumption, not the 1% of the audience who are bassists...

The 1% who are bassists:

3.4kg? I want one...I thought they'd be 8, 8 1/2 lbs...

7 minutes ago, cetera said:

I would say the increase in people chatting throughout shows is more to do with a decline in manners and respect, enabled by social media. After all, people seem to feel like they can do or say anything these days and there will be little/no consequences..... despite always protesting "Cor, you can't say nuffink in this cuntry anymore.... you get locked up for freeze peach!"

Completely agree - see my moan/rant about last Friday in the Who Did You See Live Last? thread...tho the main ars*holes were two blokes in their sixties...