Muzz

It's all rather pathetic, really, the taking to social media to snipe when not everyone loves you...it's very needy, more than anything... I took my lad to a gig of ours a few years ago at a smallish festival, he wouldn't even stay in the same space as we were playing: I found him later wayyyy across the field sat on the grass reading a book with his headphones on...

I've played to an audible click (inears) before, and it's not my favourite way to do things, but I've also been lucky enough to play a lot with a very talented drummer (who's also a talented producer...yeah, I know...) who has always read and played to his own click (actually the flashing tempo light on his iPad), which means the songs are always right...he can be a machine if required, but he/we can also push and pull around it. We're in a new project that's going to involve a lot of clever live Logic/Helix Native/Mainstage stuff, with tone and patch triggers happening automagically, so that means a click...but again, it'll be him controlling it all... TL:DR - as long as you have a good drummer, only they should need the click: I don't see the value in having it for everyone...

Went to see Roger Waters Satdy night at the (insert current sponsor here - I forget) stadium in Manchester, on a last-minute cheapo deal from Twickets, and for the first time in possibly ten years the sound in there was very good, aided more by the layout than anything, I think: it was a central stage, and the arrays were in four sections, radiating the sound out to each stand; this meant that they were no more than 50-60 feet from the stand they were facing so they didn't have the whole length of the place to cover, plus it wasn't ear-bleedingly loud as the FoH engineer didn't try to hit 125db at the back wall... The rest of the gig was a Curate's Egg of a do: Rog is still furious at 79 (looking good and mobile for it, too*, tho it was a grin moment when he sat down at the piano with an audible 'Ooooof' 🙂), and still delivering. The Floyd numbers were spectacular, tho it's a very polemic/political gig, so if you think, for example, Julian Assange should be extradited, or that US Presidents shouldn't be on trial for war crimes, it wasn't your gig, but as I say, the good bits were very, very well done...apart from the solos that Dave Gilmour isn't allowing him to do: Comfortably Numb, for example, had a huuuuge hole in it without That Solo... Overall, it reinforced my long-held view that in general he did his best work with DG and the other two, but maaaaan, he can ramble on the mic: the encore was particularly painful: after the 'why is this in the encore?' rendition of Two Suns In The Sunset (which is just flat depressing) the band gathered around his piano (and an accordion appeared from nowhere, an immediate red flag) and he set off into an explanation of a new song about his brother, so I went to the loo in order to beat the rush, and when I got back to my seat he was still blathering on...we left halfway through that one, and it all ended not with a bang, but with a whimper... * I'll take his levels of energy when I'm 79...

There's a bassist chap comes to our regular Jam Night who's six and a half feet tall, I handed him my Westone Quantum the other week, just for the look of the thing... 😁

It's not the watts that's the issue, it's only a single 12 in smallish box is the problem (well, my problem - as can be seen above, lots of folk are fine with it) - I replaced it with the same amp (a LMIII head) and a 410, and that was night and day. My 'big rig' these days has a 300w head, and that can go stooopid loud... I also had the same head in a 15 combo, I used that with the 15 extension speaker...which was plenty.

In a bit of a YMMV, I found the 121P struggled at gig volumes...It'd be fine for what I'm doing now (112 for stage monitoring, plus DI to the desk), but without support I thought it wasn't enough.

I've been in several 'no hits, no wonder' bands...

I don't play through an amp at home, ever - I use my iPad with Jamup Pro and a SonicPort to play along with stuff (and faff about with amps and effects), but even then you can hear the difference immediately between a pleasant solo sound and something that fits better played along to a 'band'...it makes for a good learning curve instead of having bandmates stand around while you fiddle with your EQ...

Where did you get one of those? The wife, I mean...

I use a pick mostly (Dunlop Nylon 88s, always), but when I switch to fingers, I just put the thing in me mouf...can backfire, though: we were playing a festival over the weekend and the geetard/singist was last to arrive (from a solo set elsewhere), so I set his geetar up...and realised I'd put his pick in me gob while twiddling leads...ew. 🙁

Played an outdoor festival - one of those 'back of a flatbed HGV' setups, and used my 100w 112 as a monitor (bass dialled out, just some mids and highs) on a tiltback 'point at yer ears' stand, with the rest through the PA. Admittedly, the PA was close by, but it sounded immense; it's an odd thing how your ears focus on the location/direction of the highs and mids and attribute the bass to it, too: it sounded like I'd defied the laws of physics, and it was all coming from a tiny box... 😀

Nail -> Head here from Lozz...if you need any convincing, then have a listen to some isolated bass tracks (a delve on YouTube will locate some) of famous bassists, and their isolated sound is always somewhat harsher (genre dependent, obv) than it sounds when the whole band's in...Mids are your friend...as is judicious use of compression...but that's whoooole other box of frogs... Way before I moved to digital pedals (I had a MS60B, now I have a Stomp) and was just using an amp, I had a Schroeder cab that was the smallest 2 x 15 in Christendom, and as such sounded harsh and honky and boxy when played in isolation...but with the band, it just worked...

Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that... 😐😁

I was never a Goth, but a lot of my good friends were...my favourite and most-frequented club in Manchester back in the day was the Banshee, which was generally Goth downstairs and Hair Metal upstairs, plus on a Monday at the Ritz it was Goth night. I went with a friend who was going there for the first time, and as he watched a full dance floor (and it was/is a sprung dance floor, so even more amusing) of Goths, he said: 'Errr...are they having a good time?' 'Yeah, course.' 'How do you know?' 🙂

Good luck...and don't forget to glare at the drummer if anything goes wrong... 🙂

Promo from a little while ago, shot at a posh Do in Cheshire, hence the Sparkly Jackets...sound is captured live, then remixed...and who says you can't play modern dance music on a Fenderbird? 😀

ISWYDT... 😀 I love a P, I do - I don't have one right now (tho I really, really must go to Jon Shuker's and pick up that JJB that's been sitting there waiting for me for months), but the vast majority of my basses have a split-coil pickup in the P position, so no matter what they look like I can get a P-Tone out of them. They all have a second pickup, too, so J-territory isn't far away, either (tho I never go there), sooooo... P/J? Wouldn't that be the best of both worlds? If you don't like the P shape, there's Jazzes with a split in the right place - Aerodynes?

I think there's a fine line between the evangelical zeal of discovering something that works very well in a particular environment, and the insistence that this is THE BEST WAY...I'm in three bands, one has embraced all/some of the no/minimal backline/DI/IEMs route, one had a go but it the IEMs didn't really stick (there again, that band doesn't rehearse, so trying to get it all running during a soundcheck was, erm, fraught at best), but the third is a startup, and from the word Go it's all going to be DI'd (triggered kit) and processed - luckily, the drummer is also a talented techie/producer, so he's driving all that. As I've said previously, I haven't used a big (i.e. head and cab(s), bass sound onstage) rig for a good while now, and I can't really see me going back, but those standbys YMMV and IMHO always apply... On the in-ear volume thing, yes, headphones can can cause significant damage if overloud, but judicious use of the Volume knob is at least possible...not so much when you're standing next to cymbals and big rigs; as a long-term Tinnitus Boy, I'm very aware of my personal volume levels (I wear ACS attenuators when I'm going to other band gigs), and the Brave New World offers opportunities which weren't previously possible at the levels (SWIDT?) a lot of us are playing at i.e. pubs, clubs, functions, etc...

On the plus side for cricket, I've never been to a game and not spent the whole afternoon getting casually drunk in the sunshine*; the match itself just kinda goes on in the background as a mere incidental to the rest of the proceedings...we played a posh corporate gig at Old Trafford (huuuuge ground in Manchester) for some official awards ceremony, and were introduced to the whole England team; didn't know who any of them were, just smiled and waved...the food was particularly nice, though... * No idea what happens if it rains: I presume everyone goes into the clubhouse and carries on drinking...

Bear in mind (and I may be wrong, never having heard it) that the Markbass won't be anywhere near FRFR...let us know how you get on...

Sounds like a plan... 👍

Well, I play (with the same bass-dialled-out-12-combo as a monitor) in another band that has no sub, but the RCF 15" tops, and that sounds pretty good, too (and goes loud) - that sounds like it might be a more practical solution for you...

We play a few Smiths songs on occasion, and they're the ones I look forward to the most, because those lines are the song...59 is no age, but as someone said above, there is a light that never goes out...

Oh, man: Andy Rourke and now Algy...it's been a bad few days... 🙁

We use a spare overhead mic for 'room', which opens up the inears - IME the vocal mics are too focused on the voices themselves, plus the room mic can be adjusted separately for 'colour' I have my bass EQ'd in my Helix (which is done in headphones as well), but any monitoring EQ-ing required I do on the Aux channel - we had a couple of Technical Rehearsals to get this right, and, vastly different drummers notwithstanding, the theory is that this shouldn't change, it's only the FoH mix/EQ which should need adjusting per the room... This is the sub we use: not cheap, I know, but we only use 12" RCF tops, and this completes them - I can't think of a gig (pubs and clubs) where we've thought we needed more... https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/rcf-sub-702-asii-12-active-subwoofer