Commando Jack

Musicians tend to overrate creativity in my experience. The rest of the world doesn't value it enough.

My 2 cents: Gigs: I think it would be more appropriate if you're in the wedding circuit to possibly attempt to get some wedding work either instead of or in addition to pub gigs. I don't know your personal circumstances with the band leader in your wedding band, but I feel its normally appropriate to ask for a referral if they can't do a gig. Also if they are part of an agency that's the first one I'd try. If you must go down the pub gig route, then asking local bars and being persistent is really the only way without a name or referrals. If you make yourself available to late cancellation relief you might get in their good graces, although it depends how available you are as a group. PA: For the type of music you're playing, and the venues you seem to be targeting, I'd advice picking up a pair of 12" active tops and a small mixer. It's the bare minimum, but at least you will be able to do the majority of smaller gigs, hiring when you need to. Going second hand will mean that you can sell it for the same price you bought it for when you go to sea, so there's no real investment involved. Demo: I agree with some of the sentiments expressed already, mostly that your band's image feels underdeveloped. If I went to see a lounge band in a classy lounge and a whiskey sour, I'd expect to see cocktail dresses and nice suits. People unfortunately hear with their eyes, so you have to cater for that in a video demo. The sound of the demo was quite thin to me, listening on cheap earphones on the PC. Now, that is an unfair representation of the sound quality, but it is the route the majority of your customers will probably take. I would advice recording a professional sounding demo (i.e. multitracked, properly mixed and mastered) and playing along to it to get the video. And, if you're still with me, bloody go for it!

Definitely not done here in Northern Ireland, and it'd be a bit odd. Having a jar or bucket out seems to wreak of obligation which would put punters off here. I do remember a guy literally shoving a tenner in my pocket for playing 'the gambler' and while the sentiment was nice it was pretty awkward feeling. More common is a charge for requests, ie tired crowd pleasers the band doesnt want to play.

Seeing it was on stage I agree with most of the list, except the medleys and solos stuff. A good medley is a real good way for bands with a large back catalog to nod to their fans. Of course a bad medley is horrible to sit through, but a good one can make a fantastic piece of music, and its even better if its a "spot the obscure album track" sort. As for solos, there are ways to do this too, and maybe it's because I'm a musician, but I like to see solos from at least some of the band members. If the band is backing a solo artist, the last thing I want to see is them sitting in the back, playing off sheet music exactly as the artist demands. It adds so much to the show when the artist becomes part of the band for the night, and these often excellent musicians are given a chance to show off and entertain us in their own way.

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1372361484' post='2124931'] maybe there aren't many because a lot of pa speakers are going self-powered? [/quote] Powered speakers and powered mixers would also be my guess. Funnily enough, the only thing we don't like about our 2 piece setup is the monster of an old Peavey power amp. Oh how'd love to find a super light 1K power amp.

I love stuff like this, the brain is a fascinating thing. It's nice to see that although they aren't curing Parkinson's, at least there are advances being made in its treatment.

As far as I'm concerned a dep is a sub-contracted party who comes in to do a job. It doesn't matter what the profits/overheads of the band are, the price should be agreed at the time the gig is booked. If the band asked the dep to join them as a full time member, I'd expect equal pay/ a share in the profits, but I'd also expect to have to buy into the business (usually having to buy a share of the PA or some such up front).

It's easy to laminate the pieces together and plane them to thickness so I wouldn't be worrying about the thicknesses of the boards too much. It's definitely good for the body of the bass, but depending on the species it may not be great for the neck. There are a number of species of tree that all give you mahogany wood (Honduran, Brazilian, etc) and they have different strengths and hardnesses depending on that. A luthier may be able to tell you more but if you don't ask, you don't get. If it happens to be valuable, maybe you can work out a deal to offset the cost of the bass for the rest of the wood if you don't have any other uses for it. It wouldn't be a hell of a lot but better than nothing. Btw the wood in our labs was teak from what I remember. And whatever you do, leave it a natural finish!

I'm left handed but play right-handed. Still voted yes because it makes so much sense to separate bass handedness and stop any confusion when hunting through.

Pretentiousness.

I think that the extension cab would be worth a shot as you should be able to make a cool wee stack out of it A 10, 12 combination is not unheard of and gives great micing possibilities. I noticed that your amp has a line out as well, so this would be easy to connect direct to the PA, and that amp would be all you need for any gig. Of course, the purest way to amplify your amp and leave the tone intact is to just stick an sm57 in front of it.

[quote name='WalMan' timestamp='1362417032' post='1999359'] So I don't say Ab when playing fifth fret fourth string, I say A. Or perhaps I've misunderstood the question [/quote] This is standard practise in classical music, where a transposing instrument such as a saxophone or trumpet will say they are playing a C, but really it's Bb. It's up to the composer to make sure everyone's playing in the right key when he writes the parts out. The only issue is that this method requires the bass to be tuned in 4ths to make any sense, and the OP is not tuning in 4ths.

These pedals seem to come in only one size - big. I remember having a look a while ago for the purposes of some harebrained scheme but I didn't find anything suitable. Alternatives to the roland are the Behringer FCB1010 and Yamaha MFC10. I think Yamaha might do other models but I don't know if any are smaller.

Specific songs: In the morning (razorlight) All these things I've done (Killers) Yellow (Coldplay) Anything by Snow Patrol

When I was in a three piece we would do anything that was popular and to be honest, so long as it had a strong melody and good rhythm nobody seemed to care. Basically, life is a lot easier if you do "a version of" whatever songs you want and accept that the little filler guitar parts/lead lines are just that - filler. 9 times out of 10 the punters will still be happy. Of course, you have to be careful, because some songs are only good because of their production, and are actually terribly devoid of harmonic content. For example, Rhianna's "we found love" (not your genre but an example nonetheless) is a floorfiller in a club, but also a monotenous chorus line with very little beneath it, apart from waves of electronic instrumentation. I've seen people try this and its always poor because they don't have the instrumentation to do it.