Auctioneer

I'm in! I may have to carve an exception for one thing I know may become necessary in the summer, but I'll commit to only making 'business' purchases as opposed to 'fun' ones. Playback equipment would be in the former category since my friend and I are trying to start a little business doing that. To maintain the spirit of the challenge, I'll balance any required purchases out by forcing myself to sell one or two things I don't use much first. At least that way it forces me to really commit to getting an item by ridding myself of something else.

I love making pedalboards for guitar and bass; very rarely do I play two runs of gigs with the same effects (less true on guitar now I have a Kemper). I've got a Hogmanay show coming up and I decided to buy Cioks DC7 to make a mini board with the Metro 16. It's easy for me to fall victim to wanting to pack everything into one board and future-proof it for any gig possible, but today I decided that I wasn't going to splash out on an expensive multi-effects and instead just pick what I actually use. 95% of the time this is all I've needed on bass (the other 5% being the occasional chorus effect), and even then the ODR-1 is just for one song in the set. Feels nice to travel light for once!

I think for me it would have to be an application called AbleSet, which is used for audio playback on Ableton. A fantastic piece of software from a solo developer that costs a third of Setlist, and frankly has better features! I do playback work from time to time and it changed the game for my friend and I.

Definitely notation seems to be the most popular approach. I was more thinking out loud about the merits of it as it pertains to flexibility (and, to be honest, maybe I was trying to talk myself out of putting in that level of effort!), but you make a good point that I would have a wider net to cast if I went about it that way. I'm thinking that non-readers should maybe just not be on my dep list? Or at least not cater to them for material in this instance.

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate here, although I do broadly agree with you. Certainly it's much more precise to know exactly what note you're playing and when, especially if the band isn't a 'jam band' (I don't use that term derisively - a lot of deps I do take a less structured approach and that has its own strength). My trepidation in using a score, other than the time required to write it, is that not everyone is a reader; in fact at least one of the people I would consider using as a dep isn't. Great player, just not something they do. Plus, you'd have to make sure your scoring was dead accurate to the band you're playing with. Where the lyrics/chords approach has merit is for being able to follow along with the vocal line to get a sense of where you are. This is typically how I lay out my own reference material, with the occasional passage of notation if needed. That said, it still requires someone to know how a song goes, roughly - and your example is a good one illustrating the lack of info such an approach yields (although I do often write some instructive text for myself). I'm hoping I can secure my deps far enough in advance that they'll be able to go over all the tunes beforehand, but I suppose that doesn't account for the instances where I might be hit by a bus the day of a wedding and need someone that day who doesn't know all the songs. I suppose the best approach would be a combination of all three styles, wouldn't it? Chords on top, notation below it, lyrics below that, with some structural notes written as and when needed. It would take a long time to make and get right, but maybe I just need to get on with it to give my hypothetical deps the best chance of nailing it.

Will do! No gigs planned up there for the time being but never say never

Thanks for the responses everyone! These songs are generally your usual wedding set stuff, so I'd definitely send over a list of the songs and keys to start with, and probably a link to a Spotify playlist containing the songs, at a bare minimum. I don't particularly mind about note-perfect accuracy, really - just as long as they can get through the songs. Would Chordpro not be suitable in this instance, given it can be converted/interpreted to having chords above vocals? A recent gig had me learn 80, and I had to prep all my own material, which was very time-consuming. That experience is actually what prompted this thread - I'd hate for someone else to go through that!

I'm on the east coast, though I've found myself doing a lot of central belt gigs as of late. Some lovely venues round there - grand stately homes and castles - but it does mean I frequently end up getting home at 4am! Still, a bit of travel can be fun.

When doing dep work for wedding/covers gigs, I've usually just made my own reference material for the shows. Now that I've finally joined a wedding band, I'm looking to prepare music for the times I need a dep. Thing is, I'm not sure what format is 'best' for this situation. iReal Pro-style charts? Chord Pro-style chords and lyrics? Full sheet music? I'm trying to find something reasonably compatible with all the various apps people use. Personally I'm a fan of making text documents with Chord Pro formatting since it can be imported by most apps such as OnSong and Set List Maker (though MobileSheets is my first choice) and it can be exported as a PDF, too. The band's previous bassist created chord charts in iReal, which has been fine, just a little different to what I'm used to. Even for jazz gigs I prefer a lead sheet. Any and all thoughts/preferences welcome. I'd also be interested to know what apps you use, if any.

Hi all, nice to meet you! I'm Auctioneer, based in Scotland, and I'm a session guitarist/bassist by trade. Still not quite full time, but after seven years or so I'm finally getting there. I used to be almost exclusively a bassist, then started getting guitar gigs so then I moved to guitar... then I started getting keys gigs so moved to keys... then guitar again... and now I've joined a wedding band as a bassist so that's making a comeback (while I still do guitar dep/session work). Oh well, variety is the spice of life, even if it does mean I have to have multiple different sets of equipment! I've joined these forums to ask a few questions about pro bass work, so expect the occasional silly question in one of the threads here. Looking forward to chatting!