Phil Starr

Hi Sean I'm assuming that you mean the lights? I haven't really filmed the lightshow as such, I've got a couple of short clips of the 6 led bars I was talking about which I thought was on this thread. I'll look them out later. I've had LED lighting for around 12 years now but I've only recently started to think about how to do it properly and this thread is about starting a conversation with people going the same route. £3-500 is probably a decent stab at how much a gigging pub band would need to spend to get something decent which would improve their 'look' and hopefully their marketability, ie bring in more/better gigs. Having spent at least £500 and still not happy I'd say don't do what I did, have a plan based upon what is out there and what you want to achieve instead. I'm not too bothered, spare lights give me flexibility and I'll sell off all the lights I won't use once I'm happy. The good news is that a lot of the really cheap Chinese stuff is actually really effective and pretty reliable in use. I've only had one item dead on arrival and the UK supplier actually replaced the bulbs! I've got two laser lights that cost me £12 ea and fill the ceilings of venues with dancing green and red dots. So, before spending a penny think about what you are trying to achieve: Lighting to make the band look good Lighting to allow the band to see what they are doing Lighting to improve the audience experience You can probably achieve all of these with £500 but could spend thousands to do everythig well. You also need to think about convenience and set up times and this is my current issue with what I have. Lighting to make the band look good Any lighting will make the band look better, I even know one band who deliberately shine a light out of the windows to advertise that there is something going on inside the pub You need these lights to be in the band area/stage and at least some of them pointing at the band. These can dazzle you if they are too powerful, some activity is useful too but would have to suit the band, A punk band is going to want more active lights than a Jazz trio. Most of the cheap lights are designed for disco's so that the chases are often too busy to be useful. Slow fades are rare. Just bathing the band in red/blue/straw or even white light can be effective here but think about what you want to do before you spend. Lighting to allow the band to see what they are doing Steady lighting is good here. You don't want the fretboard plunbged into darkness or a powerful strobe at the beginning of a difficult solo. You probably want diffuse light too I've had a lot of complaints from band members about being spotlighted (which is what I think) or dazzled (their interpretation ) Most LED lights are pretty focussed so diffuse lighting is rare. Uplighting is usually effective but a trip hazard. Lighting to improve the audience experience Dynamism and sound to light is the thing here. Some of the automatic chases and sound to light is fantastic. Some of my lights really follow the bass line and/or kick drum so keep the lights in tempo. Otheres have multiple led's and seem to rotate. You can also now buy lights that scan automatically for under £50 and some project moving patterns (gobos) through mirror systems. Last warning, I always end up complicating things. All I'm saying is that if you have a picture in your head of what you are trying to achieve you'll spend more wisely. I started with a single bar with four PAR's like the Stairville one @Al Krow linked to. A couple of those ones would be brilliant if you wanted to keep it as simple as possible Two of the lamps can be set to white to illuminate the band and the rest will fill the dancefloor with light. The 40deg angle is ideall for a floodlight. Just putting two lights up controlled by a simple remote is about as easy and straightforward as you can get. I've had a beady eye on those for a while for the band where I do all the sound as well as the lights. My duo partner does the lights while I do sound so the lighting for the duo can be more complex. Gloucester is a bit of a drive but if you ever came over this way you'd be welcome to play with LED lighting over a coffee

How posh is that.😀 I'm jealous

This quote reminds us all about the reality of what we do. We’ve probably all played venues where there is no sound check.Food venues are the worst, I’ve been told no noise until the punters finish eating and had to wait half an hour for ‘Uncle Albert’ to finish his pud on more than one occasion. The other issue is how you are amplifying the band. If most of what the audience hear is from back line you are pretty much stuffed in acoustically poor venues. You can re eq the bass , maybe damp the drums but good luck with trying to get the guitarist to make adjustments 😀 If you are silent stage and using a digital mixer then using your saved settings and global eq for the PA is the only option that makes sense. The room interactions are with just two speakers. You know what you are sending to the speakers is what you want the audience to hear so the master eq is the tool for getting that as good as possible. I suspect most people are doing something in between these approaches, some proportion of the sound coming from backline with PA backup filling in the gaps. In some ways the worst of all worlds. I’d still be using global eq for the PA though as a first resort, In the end you are stuck with the situation on the night and just have to do the best you can,

Cm 🥹😅

Here you go two of the fane's in a 40l cab will do this with a fully rated amp driving 450W into the cab. That's a couple of db louder than most 12's. What it will need is a decent sized port as the amount of air that port will be moving at full power will be considerable. I've looked at using a 110mm soil pipe inside diameter 108mm 111.5mm long as a decent compromise. I'd be rear mounting the port so as not to weaken the front baffle too much.

I've got a spare set of panels and a speaker. I was going to build and document the build sometime soon so I'll have a pair of these. I'm also happy to design a 2x8 for anybody who wants a go at building one. (this is where I'm tryiong to remember if I've already done this design for anyone)

Is this a bassist thing, carrying spare mics for the rest of the band

Yeah, I think asking someone who has used the SM58 to change mics would be like asking Brian May to change guitars I have to say though that if anyone is going to spend a digital mixer is probably going to make a bigger difference to the sound than changing the mics. My mixer is pretty basic and I've got four band parametric eq, compression, gating, reverb delay and detuning on every mic channel, plus a lot of stuff I've never even looked at. The pre's are audibly better than my old Yamaha MG desk too. Tweaking eq is much more intuitive and best of all I can save anything that works well. I'm intrigued by the Shure SM86, it's a lot cheaper than I was expecting, cheaper than the E935. I'm wondering if I should have looked at that first.

Welcome to Basschat

I really feel for you. You are at least behaving decently. I really hope it works out for you

I hate all this, the only bands that really work and have longevity are those that avoid all this. So as written is C the replacement for B and friend of A? If I'm reading this right then there must be a D and maybe an E??? My experience is that if C is a friend of A (and that may be the qualification that makes him 'better') then the two of them might potentially gang up on you andl become the united powerhouse of the band. You will then be the semi-detached bass player when decisions are made. We all have videos of ourselves playing at our best and in practice he/she/they might not be so proficient as the video shows. Ask yourself what you genuinely think of B's playing. Were you concerned before this all came up? If not then this is a stitch up, probably. Then there is the human and moral side of this. This is really awful treatment of B and you are clearly uncomfortable with it all. If B is genuinely holding you all back you need to be honest with them and give them the chance to fix any issues. Even if they are awful and you are confident that they will never be good enough then there are ways of dealing with this that are open and honest. It's never easy to say these things but it can be done kindly and decently even if it is tough at the time. I sense that you think this is a really S****y way of dealing with things. If there are a D and E then talk to them, see how they feel. If there are only you three then I'm afraid you have to choose between them. I know from past experience I'll go against the one making me choose. You need to tell A that you aren't happy. If you ant to stick with your current line up then say so. If you aren't happy with B then agree how you are going to deal with that without stabbing him in the back. I'd be saying that if you collectively want a replacement then you should audition several musicians and choose the best, not just hand it to a friend. Balance that against ending the band. I've been kicked out of bands for insisting we should all behave professionally. based on your post alone however A is a bully.

I'm a big fan of the Sennheiser E935 and completely agree about the E835 which I found really thin sounding. I really find super/hypercardioids demanding when singing, you have to get your position on the mic spot on and when you are playing an instrument it's just one more thng to worry about. I'm pretty loud so feedback isn't an issue for me. I've a couple of AKG D5's I used for other singers and in the hand of someone with good mic technique they are crazily good for the price but when I use them myself they have such a tight pickup pattern I had to find something else. There really aren't a lot of cardioids round now so the E935 was a big step up in cost. I had an interesting experience last night at rehearsal though, I have an old EV ND757 super cardioid but this one has a trick, it has some sort of filter which removes the bass/proximity effect it's a nice mic too with a really clean vocal sound. I don't think I've ever sounded better. They don't make this any more but the EV ND96 seems to have the same switch and to be the modern equivalent. My experience is that your mic is a much more personal choice than any other part of the chain. There isn't such a thing as a flat response mic so that makes sense. It's not just response though, there's pickup pattern, handling noise and feedback rejection if your voice is quiet. Then once you have your mic there is a learning curve on how to work with it. The ND757 has got me thinking though, it was damaged and didn't go out of the house but should I change from my E935?

I've had the same problem with DMX where the protocols are changed and all you have is an out of date manual. It's the problem with a lot of the Chinese made stuff, they make a batch and send it out and then decide to add extras not allowing for users needs. Mind you buying from the brands you find model ranges change frequently. I now make a quick decison and if I like a light and want a pair or whatever I order the second as soon as possible. I have to confess my DMX controller is largely unused and I tend to only use the internal programmes. I don't want my lights to be as big a job to set up as my PA. DMX for me means I can pair my lights with one as slave, this halves my set up time. The problem is usually with access to the built in chases and so on. If you've 256 onboard presets and each has a different code then trial and error is going to be challenging. Using fewer DMX channel modes keeps it simpler I've found and 3channel mode usually gives you control of RGB. All my lights are RGB to date though to keep this simple but I love the colours with RGBW

I have the 5.8G Lekato system as above and so does my guitarist in our duo. They just work and so far go on working. I think I've had mine for three years. Before that I had the Line6 system with the 2xAA batteries which is still going strong but I preferred the fom of the Lecato ones with no more fiddly battery, covers bought the Lekatos to try and never looked back. Hmmm a second pair so I always have some charged.... @neepheid you may have started something.

I think that is right. What are you intending using the speaker it for? The Fane's of that era were pretty unreliable and would end up making magic smoke if run at the full power rating. If I remember clearly they changed the voice coils to something fireproof not long after this generation of drivers but I think these had 'treated' paper coil formers. If you are going to use it I'd suggest limiting the power to less than 50W. The only reason to use it is if you are doing an authentic restoration of a historic cab but treat the old lady with respect. She was born in the 1970's/80's. Somewhere I have Fane's book of cab designs which used the Fane Classics and the then newly introduced Crescendo range. thre's some huge cabs trying to squeeze every last bit out of the low powered speakers of the day.