Leaderboard

They picked me up at noon. We had a 40 minute slot at this 10 band 2 stage blues festival. $35.00 to get in. It was a nice festival and playing 40 minutes is cool. We all walked away with $150.00. I could get spoiled by this. $150.00 each for 40 minutes. That's " big time" pay in my neck of the woods. Next weekend another festival, Burlington Jamboree. Blue

I played the Tower of Song in Kings Norton, Birmingham yesterday. Bit of an odd one; it was a Sunday matinee - three bands, doors at 3.00pm all done by 7.00pm. Early start, terrible traffic snarl up near Oxford (biggish detour) Venue is quite lovely to be honest. Clean, tidy, small bar, fantastic PA (all iPad/tablet driven) - two each side of HK Audio Polar 12s. First band were Year Zero - four piece punky band, the meat in the sandwich was The DC Spectres (the 'DC' being club owner David Checkley) - they reminded me of early Soul Asylum, then us (Eddie Roxy & The Adjacent Kings) headlining. We're only a handful of gigs in and I reckon this was the best one yet. No major f*ck ups (although inexplicably our drummer stopped playing during the first song...probably lost where he was) and pretty much everyone we spoke to after was very positive. So onwards. We're playing the Alice's Wicked Tea Party festival on 3rd June. Two weeks off.

Second 4 Play (🥴) gig with our new singer Dave. He’s great - excellent range, timing and feel. Good frontman too, and a lovely bloke. Excellent. Black Bull, Kirton near Boston. Good crowd, and only a 20 min drive. My wife came to see me play for like only the third time! The Dimension > GK > Barefaced continues to deliver in spades. I’m totally GAS free with this setup.

We've (Fine Lines) just played at this iconic venue, supporting The Long Ryders. We played an absolute blinder! The on stage monitoring and in-ear mixes weren't massively great, but we could hear enough through FOH to get by. Even though the audience weren't there to see us, they were very appreciative and I think we sold a bit of merch and picked up a few followers. It was one of those nights that makes me appreciate being in a band.

I know there's a few of us on here, both past and present. Here's a few classics from back in the day that conquer up memories of me high-jacking the car stereo on family holidays.

I want as much of the body weight to be towards the rear, but don't want it to be overall too heavy, so a couple of weight-relieving chambers in the front horns will be helpful. I like any use of router to be fully captive, so use the same approach that I use for pickup chambers... I start with a Forstner bit to hog out the bulk: Then use chisels and carpenters mallet to accurately cut the outline to around 10 mm deep: And then, and only then, use a top-bearing router bit to smooth the sides and cut to final depth: And, as I have the router out, I cut the channel that will be between the two pickups and through to the controls chamber for the cable runs:

Oh and… ha ha! I bass faced GOOD in this one 😊

I don't have any music vids unfortunately, but did find some pics on an old laptop, here's me in the full drag playing at some gig somewhere, we did some photos in the old nunhead cemetery, which was fun, no really it was...

An item will either sell or it will not. The only issue for me is whether I personally am happy to pay the price advertised by whoever is selling - be that private or business. If I like the thing and am happy to pay the price - wonderful. If I think it is overpriced then I don't buy it. I see no benefit in thinking about it more than that. I've got better uses of my time. Like practising my scales.... [Might not be true]

And from my two bands:

Plenty of great new bands around now. Shameless plug for my own band who also release a single this Friday. Promo for New SIngle!

To understand this I think you need to divide FRFR theory into two parts; full frequency flat response, and then using an active PA speaker to do that. Most bass amps and speakers are coloured, the frequency responses aren't flat and there may be other distortions too. That colouring has become part of what we all expect when we listen to a bass. Initially it was there because the amplification at the birth of electric bass just wasn't very good but generations of bassists used the colouring to their advantage to create music and sounds we all want to hang on to. The downside is that if you have rose tinted bass amps to listen to your bass is always going to have a rose tinted sound. Rose tinting is lovely of course and some people want to stay in that rose tinted world, but you might fancy a change. FRFR gives you your bass through clear glass spectacles. Multi effects units, emulators and so on will then let you add in whatever colours you want, you can buy in a ready made tint or mix your own depending upon your own creativity. It's really hard to get that exact rose tint to copy a particular amp and speaker but the fx have been good enough for as long time that you probably couldn't tell the difference once all the band are playing and the audience really won't. And that perfect P-bass Ampeg tone on you favourite record? That was probably recorded straight from the DI into the desk and fx applied afterwards, possibly mixed in with a little bit of what came out of the speaker. So then the question is whether to use a PA speaker to get your FRFR sound. FRFR is nothing new as touring bands have used floor monitors for years. The advantage of using PA speakers is that they are produced in huge numbers, more is spent on their design and there will be a cost saving because of mass production. If they are designed to put the bass and kick through they will handle bass and buying a box with the amp in means they will be perfectly matched and the internal DSP will protect everything inside from even the most idiotic use. The down side? All speaker designs are compromises, there isn't a perfect speaker out there and PA speakers are jacks of all trades. In cheaper PA's the bass driver will be quite limited, but that is true of cheap bass cabs. There is an issue with plastic cabs, a well built well braced wooden cab will beat a plastic cab every day, but the moulded cabs get better all the time. Portable PA cabs are designed to go on poles so their size and weight becomes an issue and some bass may be compromised to achieve portability. So my experience? The best bass sound I have ever got has been out of a couple of RCF ART310 speakers on poles. On the stage floor they sound completely over blown. I also have some ART 745's for PA. The bass through them on poles sounds like it does through studio monitors. On stage on the floor I don't like them much without a lot of eq to reduce the bass bloom. For gigs I use a bass speaker designed to be FRFR the LFSys Silverstone with my bass amp set flat and a SansAmp doing the colouring in. For me the wooden box and exceptionally good bass speaker combined with truly flat response (I've seen the measurements) works really well. What the audience get though is through the PA. Hope that helps?

Well we managed to change one thing about our band. Our lead guitarist or His Royal Highness as he was know, has fallen on his sword and buggered off. Sadly missed by no one and as an added bonus, we managed to find a great replacement within a couple of weeks. Ya ba dab a feck*n doo!!

Bit of an update…. I didn’t expect a fun project like this to end up being my number one bass, I really didn’t. After many hours playing and a couple of rehearsals, the band love it, I love it…. it’s superb. I assume the pickups (pictured above) are Chinese standard fayre… but honestly they sound immense paired up with the new JHT loom. It’s like you’ve got a Kawai piano strapped around your neck (same weight too), it’s really clear, sustains for days, big clean highs and deep lows…… it’s all the TB you could ask for honestly. I tried a Gibson last week… I prefer this. Yes, the only original parts are the wooden bits and the pickups, but man, these pickups are awesome, whatever they are….. AND in my opinion, proves the point, when upgrading electronics, change your EQ first…. chances are the original pickups are fine with decent pots driving them. Hats of to the Newtone strings too… they play their part in the sound, lovely. So there it is, done, and I haven’t touched any of the other basses since.

That's what it means, but for the most part it's not the case. By and large bass combos and inexpensive powered PA boxes use the same woofers. In boxes of similar size they'll have similar low end response. PA boxes tend to use better high frequency components, which allows a lower crossover frequency. That doesn't make response any wider. It does make for better off-axis dispersion in the mids. The main difference lies in the amp EQ voicing. Bass amps tend to have a lot of coloration, powered PAs don't. Most players prefer the coloration of bass amps. If they didn't it wouldn't be there.

I'd fit a DFA knob so you can be seen to turn down when someone says the bass is too loud.

Most of the time I look like a miserable sod. But occasionally I do actually smile.

Well, that escalated quickly. Found a real good offer and could not resist. LMB3 incoming… 😄

I run the gamut from "WhoTF said that?" to "mildly unhinged" via "almost asleep" and "damn, this RD Artist is heavy"

Well, @Waddo Soqable, seeing as you've show us yours.... I was eighteen when this photo was taken. Not much has changed apart from being older, fatter and more weatherbeaten.

Now that's what I believe is the acceptable balanced solution. Nice little light weight combo producing sensible on stage volume & vibe with great DI to allow the FOH to amplify the on stage performance. There are some very interesting new options available Fender Rumble 800C, GR Bass AeroTech Full Carbon 800 Combo, https://www.markbass.it/product/mb58r-mini-cmd-121-pure/. Plus your fav amp with a LFSys Silvertone or BF SC, or Two 10. So a compromise, lowish onstage volume with enjoyable tone, feel and great FOH production. Have I missed something??? Of course I haven't spent a fortune on supa dupa IEM. But I really do apologise, I am a 70 year old, olde F**t who absolutely loves playing bass having grown up in the 60's, 70's & 80's and does not get the vibe thro a set of plugs stuffed in my ears ( especially with my tinnitus) . Sorry Luddites R Us😂😂😂

Quite a few bedroom dealers around on social media/gumtree/ebay who are asking prices in-line or in excess of what actual shops would sell the same instruments for have distorted the market and sellers expectations. Not a lot to be done about it really other than have a polite discussion and offer what you think is fair - as a general point of principal I avoid dealing with people who are being obviously unrealistic.

Ha, there was a related billboard ad from around the same time with the strapline "cheer up goth, have an Irn Bru" which is a favourite of mine 😅

The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) - The Jam

With the neck blank done, I could start trial-fitting the wings and top. I joined the book-matched ebony top and cut out the broad shape. I also cut the alder back wings slightly oversize and a couple more strips of ebony between them and the neck and dry fitted them to make sure everything was going to end up in the right place: The ebony will have a sheet of constructional maple veneer (1.5mm) as a demarcation: All good so out came the sash-clamps: The neck is the top face of the original billet and the length between the top wing front join to the tail is angled the 3 degrees to give me the required neck angle. Double check that I've got it right before the next stage:

Or the Lee Sklar variant: the Producer Switch. 😉

I reckon you're smiling 'cause Frankie Boyle on geetar just cracked a joke?

Its a Serek Midwestern (hand made by Jake Serek and his team in Chicago, as played by Tim Lefebvre, Brandon Boone of Tedeschi Trucks etc). Serek designs are based on retro basses like yhe Newport and Gibson Ripper. These are mine:

I rarely smile so in the unusual event that I try my face muscles don't know what to do and I just grimace. Generally I stare at my hands or shut my eyes.

My resting face is borderline stabby so I have to make a concerted effort to smile whilst playing. If I'm sight-reading, forget it. Here's a rare snap courtesy of Mrs Axe:

Almost always. Well, isn’t it about the most fun you can have with your clothes still on?

I'm in a Goth band so I look like Camila Parker Bowles, dressed in black & drenched in smoke!

This, except I'd remove 'whilst tuning up' from both statements. 😉

Whey Down Elvis

The latest album of Cradle of Filth should get me through the day.

‘Put yer ring on ma doo dumma dah, whack for my daddio...’ often wondered if the singer and Captain Farrell really were whacking their daddios with both barrels...

As you are all probably tired of hearing I've gone the FRFR route and I'm completely sold on it. In the majority of my rigs for the last 35 years all my important sound shaping was done at line level using various multi-effects and therefore my amps and cabs were supposedly there just to make the sound loud enough for me, the rest of my band, and very occasionally (when the bass didn't go through the PA) the audience to hear. Most of the time I was using PA amps to drive my cabs and therefore in was only a small step for me from that to an FRFR system. I haven't really wanted my choice of amp and cabs to influence my sound. It's fine if you always use your whole rig every time you play live and if the bass is going to be going through the PA it's done by mic'ing up the cab(s), but in the real world of equipment sharing and DI'ing the bass that simply isn't going to happen, and if your sound is important to you then removing as many variables from the equation as possible has got to be a good thing. The typical PA-type FRFR isn't going to be perfectly flat, but it's a lot less coloured than a standard bass amp and cabs, so if you can sort out your sound at line level using something like a SansAmp or Helix then you're going to get a more consistent sound FoH and in the Foldback. Theses days TBH even my FRFR is mostly redundant when I play live. For one band we've made a conscious decision not to have any amplification on stage and to rely on the foldback of the venue's PA. Even at the one gig we did where the "foldback" was a tiny personal monitor for the vocalist, because we have an otherwise silent stage we could hear everything else perfectly well from the PA speakers. For the other band the FRFR is only used at rehearsals and as a personal monitor for the smaller gigs where the quality of the foldback is unknown. Because of this I'm not particularly bothered about the sound coming out of the FRFR so long as it is sufficient for me to be able to hear that I am in time and time tune with the rest of the band. Because I love the songs that we play, I find that is all I need to give me the right vibe for putting on an excellent performance and I don't need to agonise about the on-stage mix not being perfect. I'll save that for when I've had a couple of million selling albums. Finally since I switched to using an FRFR I have done two gigs where I needed to use it to supply the bass guitar sound FoH. In both cases it did a much better job than my traditional bass rig which on the few occasions I have not the bass in the PA had to be so loud to get decent bass guitar coverage in the venue that I could barely hear the rest of the band on stage. Using the FRFR with its better dispersion and projection means that I am only slightly louder than I would choose for personal monitoring levels.

Lusting after funky donkeys will lead you down a very dark road indeed Nilorius.

Ok, unexpectedly, got my bass back from my tech quicker than I thought, after getting the body and neck etc back last week. Here’s a teaser. It’s stunning. : I’m still sorting things like pickups heights, setup, etc. Annoyingly I have worn out the centre detent on the blend control through repeated use, lol. I’ll work around it. It sounds fantastic with the Lusithand Double NFP and the original Turner pickups transplanted over and Andy’s neck on there. Great pickups and I’m always going to be a fan of this preamp. Spoiler…It does sound a bit different, but I’m not yet convinced the mahogany body has made a huge difference over using alder. It is different, and it is noticeable, but not the way a different fretboard wood or completely new neck construction was…however I will keep playing and get some Youtube recordings up soon.