Leaderboard

Saturday night at Cafe Indie in Scunthorpe. So many stairs to load in, I was sweating before I'd even started to set up! They had a brand new set of monitors, some sort of passive d&b things, but apparently they were totally maxed out and we could barely hear them. I switched to a quieter snare drum which seemed to pacify the singer somewhat, but it was still a terrible on stage sound. Apparently it was great out front so I guess the engineer did their best with the equipment available. Still, it makes for hard work Sunday afternoon at the Black Bull in Gateshead. This is a proper punk venue. No dressing room but as much beer as you can drink. This was a "matinee show" which our singer has started doing on Sundays, so we were on just after 5pm. It didn't feel that early in such a dark venue, and everyone had been drinking for a while. The landlord did the sound from around the corner. One monitor at the front of the stage, one on-top of the PA stack to one side, firing across the front... after Saturday night my hopes were not high, but somehow this guy got an awesome sound out of his rig. We've been playing some proper big professional shows recently, and this little punk venue in Gateshead had the best sound we've had for ages! That was the last gig of the year for us, nothing now until January. I might get some sleep!

Friday night gig at Backwell Village Club, SW of Bristol. Their beer festival weekend. Not out target audience, and we were more the band in the background while people chatted, but there were a few swaying and singing along. One of those 'get it under your belt' type. The venue and organiser were very happy though.

We love getting asked to play at Wembley Boxpark, although it can be quite a tough crowd, at times, as folk are eating and drinking with their mates and not necessarily wanting to engage with the band. Our singer, Ami, never fails to give 100% at every gig and she really helps to energise the rest of us when we're not getting that from an audience. I guess it can be all too easy to lose sight of how fortunate it is to have great bandmates, and it's lovely that she's still so passionate about the band which she's been fronting since 2016. Here's a little clip from last night:

Saturday night for a birthday do at a cricket club near Bradford. A few teething issues with our singer having had to shell out £620 for a new wireless mic and struggling to get it working properly; our guitarist was too quiet and our synth player too loud for the first set; there was a vox delay in the drummer's monitor so we had a few timing issues. Other than that we kicked butt, and my new Ashdown cab sounded gorgeous with my trusty Squier Precision played through it and the ABM. Dancing from the start and got good feedback from people who know what they're talking about. Even managed to find a fellow basser to geek out over gear with! Just need my blisters to fully heal before the next gig on 26th now...

Nice wee gig in The Cave in Paisley last night with Emergency Exit punk band. Turned out to be a good size audience. Lots of singing and dancing and a few fall-overs onto the stage area. No harm done but i had to stop playing to stop someone falling into me and the guitarist lost his signal when someone fell right over his monitor and pedals. Like any good band we carried on while he sorted out the problem. Complete Control by the Clash too which is one of my fav songs to play. I always worry when people start dancing while holding a full pint glass. Beer and mains dont go very well together. All in all a great night. Dave

I'm on my third. I've learned my lesson and stopped selling them. The Epiphone Jack Casady is probably my favourite bass of all time. It has attributes which technically should annoy me (brain dead bridge, only 20 frets), so for it to push itself to the front in spite of them should say something about how intangibly good I find them. Sounds great, nice neck, light, fun with feedback if you want to explore that. I play mine at any gig. I don't pigeonhole basses into genres. It gets played at rock gigs, or with my originals band which is kinda ska-ish. They're not for everyone. But you'll have to kill me to get my 20th Anniversary JC off me. If I won the lottery, I'd collect for fins. All the finishes. I'd have a JC room.

… going to mount this lot on a Metro 16 I traded with a mate. My thinking is having basic tone shaping capabilities. With this lot I’m also pretty happy with the Tetris layout ha ha 👍🏼

200 gigs...............nice one. We are starting to get offers coming in now. We were just getting up and running when covid hit and killed our first year into gigs with the Glam band. Had to start all over again but we did change our guitarist and that's made a huge difference to the atmosphere in the band. We started on the Xmas songs on Fri at a last minute rehearsal. They are fun songs to play tho. Doing the Wizzard Xmas song this year so that's a nice one to do. Dave

Utterly hopeless trying to resist. Looking for a status neck to go on one of the maple necked basses now.

Neck pocket complete. On to the headstock now

Did one in a local pub that reopened this year (which is a rarety round here, normally closing, not reopening). Paid way more than usual as he liked us when we did the first opening night when he started - which was an amazing night which, although I would like to think it is because we are great, is probably more becuase it was one of the first gigs after lockdown. Anyway, started at 8:30 as they have built a block of houses next to the pub in lockdown so they now get noise complaints and we have to finish by 11 - had a hard 'no one more song' at 11. Crowd were great, dancing from the 3rd song, very interactive, everyone seemed happy, came up afterwards asking where we were next, got some new people we haven't seen before, as well as regulars. Even the drummers mum said it was good and she normally doesn't (even though she comes to every gig).

Back view.

Another gig on the outskirts of Huddersfield last night, we really are world famous in Huddersfield. A nice cricket club, had a great night, lots of dancing, great compliments and happy punters. It was also a small landmark for me being my 200th gig with this band....ironic in a way as I went in as a dap for 8 gigs and just never left. Now as it’s that time of the year it’s time to learn the Christmas songs 🎅

For the 5 mins that i've played it through the cheap o Thomann practice amp i have at home - all i can say is WOW Get to put it to the real test tomorrow at the studio though the Barefaced 212T and Eich powerhouse T-900 Cant wait !!! (image from The Bass Gallery website as i don't have a suitable place / lighting to do it justice at home)

I think we’re just doing ‘the Slade one’ and lonely this Christmas. But our drummer wrote a Christmas song back in 2019 and what with the pandemic and what not it got sidelined. He offered it up to 70s glam band Hello who have recorded it and put it out as a single - check YouTube ‘glam fever - Hello’. We will work out an arrangement and do this song in December also.

Played our third 3 hour gig this year in a pub in Dereham yesterday, with the blues band I play in. They had a remembrance event and lunch for the Royal East Anglian regiment beforehand, so I wasn’t sure how we would be received but it turned out with enthusiasm. We also had enough of a following locally to get people to turn out on their Sunday, which was gratifying. I noticed a few members of other local blues bands checking us out. For this one we had the benefit of a sound man, so it sounded great out front. The singer/guitarist has recently got himself a wireless system and has taken to walking around in the audience, which seems to go down well. As we all have wireless, we are thinking of doing a 3 man conga at future gigs. All in all a good gig.

Just thought I'd do an update on where we've got to in the hope that it might be helpful to others making the same journey. Over the last two gigs we've made the transition from floor monitors with myself and the singer using in-ears to the whole band using in-ears with the floor monitors in place but muted. Last night was finally a complete success on the monitoring front. Three of us are using ZS10's (the drummer brings his own kit) and we are using a mixture of Behringer P2's and my ancient Trantec wireless connection. The mixer is an RCF M18 with six aux outs and the band use their phones and the RCF app to do their own mixes. Our guitarist looks after himself, he only needed showing at a rehearsal and given a low cost solution that he controls and he won't be returning that control to anyone again. Our singer struggles with the tech a bit, I have to persuade her to spend a bit more time in finding buds that fit and to stop trying to adjust the guitar and drums down when the earplugs come loose rather than just pushing them back in her ears. Solved last night because she had to share my mix so she could share my wireless system and was banned from using her phone to re balance. Last night we had the best monitor sound ever and from reluctance to use or trust the in-ears we've reached the point where they are telling me I'm wasting time bringing the floor monitors. We've agreed to leave them in the van next time. The other effect is on our front of house sound. We had a lot of compliments on how we sounded last night, "best sound we've ever had here" was the best, probably alcohol fueled but better than "you were shite" Just the reduction of on stage sound levels makes a huge difference and singing in tune helps, but you can do that if you can pick out your own vocals. Next task is to persuade the guitarist to turn down his amp as he is listening to it through headphones and the audience are listening to the PA. He does mic the speaker to be fair so needs something to mic but even a few db would take a lot of mess out of the vocal mic, particularly his. Hopefully the drummer will let me turn down my bass equally. Give us two or three more successful gigs and I think we will be completely adapted to in-ears, monitoring is absolutely better than anything to date already but a bit of tweaking is going to make it even better. The problems have been largely people based, It's about trust and patience and being prepared to demonstrate the system. Crucial though is the choice of mixer and i think it would be difficult without a digital mixer. Anything analogue with 6 or even 4 aux busses tends to have a lot of other things as well and is just too big and complex for a pub band. Maybe this belongs on another thread where people aren't already converts

you don't see many of the xciters around anymore. massively underrated piece of kit

I've come close to getting a pelham blue one. Never played one but it's so pretty that if I didn't get on with it I could just frame it and hang it on a wall.

I'm Gonna Wash Pacman Right Outa My Hair ～ Rodgers & Hammerstein

Mine is branded Peerless who are the Korean Company that made them originally for Epiphone before production moved to China. Superbly made and great sounding bass. I don’t seem to have the problems others mentioned, neck dive and twisting. However it does have a thick neck, a chunky feel that’s really different to my other basses.

This. Fentanyl isn’t gonna cut it for this one. .

I was working away in Cardiff in the early 70’s and I used to go to a “Rock Disco” at the Top Rank club, they had a massive sound system in there, I will always remember the intro to Faith Healer coming through it, absolutely massive. Managed to see SAHB live at the Knebworth Festival in 1974.

Unless you can hear it I wouldn't bother. There are pleny of blade and dual-rail strat-style pickups out there. You are spoiled for choice.

Same as it ever was

The problem with this stuff is it’s all subjective. My daughter is going to see Pixies live. I wouldn’t bother seeing them live anymore as I saw them several times during the Surfer Rosa and Doolittle years and for me that is what they look and sound like. Another generation just get to enjoy the current line up warts n all and don’t have the same expectations.

Would it be ok if they were thin blokes doing covers?

There's a few points to address here. 1) Ply generally uses lots more glue and can be relatively heavy 2) Laminated necks are a different construction to ply but both use the process of lamination. Hence potential for confusion. If someone were to make their own ply from, say luthier quality 3mm veneer and laminate using epoxy resin rather than PVA and a vacuum bag to cure...they might end up with something that sounded closer to a carbon composite. But it would probably be quite heavy compared to a piece of alder.

(ship called) Dignitas - Deacon Blue

this is a bit of a noisefest to be honest.... but no singing! I didnt realise it lasted as long as it does , it must be such an easy listen that time just floats by ! Its kind of a homecoming theme

I'm sure many here are familiar with Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" having been introduced to it through Emerson, Lake and Palmer. There are two basic versions - the original piano suite and that suite orchestrated (by Ravel) for a full orchestra. And of course, our beloved ELP created their own masterpiece from it. Because what I'm going to suggest is playing electric bass along with a recording, the piano version works better than the orchestral version - there is no low frequency clash with the double basses. Not every electric bass guitarist is interested in classical music or playing his or her bass guitar along with a classical recording. If you are someone who's open to doing that, maybe for the first time - I have just the piece. "The Old Castle" is about 5 minutes into "Pictures", occurring after the second promenade. It is very unique in that its bassline remains on G# for the entire piece. You'll pick up the rhythm quickly - it's a slow 6/8 time. The payoff here is the amazing complexity of melody and harmony created over this simple G# pedal note. You can use any recording, but I would highly recommend the 'live' version (34 min) by Alice Sara Ott. She's brilliant. Link - If you decide to take this on, you will be playing with one of Alice's left-hand fingers! Because of course, she has to keep that G# going. Again, it may surprise you, as it did me, the incredibly beautiful melodic and harmonic development happening here. Mussorgsky was a genius. Just tap that G# on your bass and sit back and listen to what's going on above you and that root note.

I did some body radii and started contouring. I’m definitely thinking natural finish is the way to go!

Go with the pedals. You'll spend a ton of time trying to get one of the multi-fx modelers to do exactly what the Bass Butler & Drop pedals do. That is the strength of dedicated pedals that do specific things very well, whereas the strength of multi-fx modelers is that they can do a TON of things pretty well. This is not to say that the HX Stomp, for example, can't get you something very close (and only you could know), but it's a matter of time spent programming and testing. Even if your budget were tripled so that you could entertain a high end modeler, there's the down side of time spent with the programming. So IMO, based on what you're saying, spend the proper coin on the dedicated pedals and get down to making music ASAP. This coming from someone who is a pretty hardcore multi-fx modeler user. Get what the gear that you know will deliver the goods. Good luck!

Got a very last minute gig on Sunday night for an end of season party for staff at a PGL centre (they run residential activity holidays for school kids) near Woodbridge in Suffolk. Amazing Manor House but when we arrived, realised that the crowd were pretty much all in their early 20's so a bit concerned about how they'd like our 60's/70's/80's funk and soul set. Needn't have worried. This audience, lubricated by some cheap sparkly, were determined to dance all night and loved the music. What a great night and no more assumptions from me about what people might or might not like! 8e5242bd-98c0-47a4-9234-ce3a4b4b074a.mov

My DarkRay now with a matte black pick guard.