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It's been an absolute pleasure opening for these guys every night 🙏😊 A dream come true. Cannot say enough good things about Mark and his crew, they're just the best!! Even got to hold Mark's original "ol' girl" on his 65th birthday. It felt like my own birthday!! 😂

I remember being put in charge of the footswitch for the smoke machine but not being told it only needed a short press to get a reasonable spread. Cue me standing on it for far too long as nothing appeared to be happening, and the pub being completely filled and resembling a scene from The Fog 🤣 On another occasion my bandmates previous band that carried a big stage show of props and costumes (think The Tubes or Alice Cooper) had an idea to create a dry ice waterfall from over the lights behind the drummer (old PARcans that created a lot of heat in pre LED days). Rigged a tube from the machine to the light bar. Came to use the effect during the set but by the time the cloud got to the end of the tube it had largely condensed so instead of a nice cloud effect the drummer was sat under a cold shower 🤦‍♂️🤣

So I took a drive from Bromley up to Cambridge to a meet up and buy from Mike. Lovely chap. I am now the proud owner of my 2nd Walsh Bitsa P bass! What an amazing bass. Thanks Mike!

Time to share my shorties here. Gibson LP DC Tribute and 1973 Fender Musicmaster Bass

Donations from D'Addario

Saw them last night at Reading Hexagon. Fantastic show.... so tight and funky.... and FUN! Lots of smiles, killer horns and the drummer was off the chart. As for Mark King.... I've never particularly wanted to play like him but wow.... not sure how he plays/sings like that but he's hugely impressive. How does he not have an arthritic thumb/right hand?! lol! So great to see my old bass mate and fellow BassChatter @Bobby K nailing it with The Christians too! 😎

Updated board. Just got the Stomp and the dual switch from bright onion pedals. Still keeping the C4 as the OC-2, filters and other synth presets I have there are unmatched.

Little Boss board: This is probably about as far as I'm gonna go with my Boss fad. I've got the AW-3 for sale, a C4 will cover for this and an OC5 that @Al Krow kindly let me borrow. The C4 will ruin the Boss aesthetic but gets the job done in one pedal. My Amp has decent EQ/Drive/DI so I don't really need those things as a pedal, would be nice to stomp on some distortion though so perhaps an ODB-3 or a BB-1X at some point.

I don't believe the cost of a band setting up or 'increased competition' has anything to do with it. If anything, there used to be MORE live bands on the circuit. The difference is the perceived value of music to venues.... and punters. Not so many people go to pubs for live music anymore, indeed not so many people go to pubs full stop. Supermarkets do the drinks cheaper and people have so many more choices of entertainment (games consoles, netflix, social media, etc etc). As a result, pubs don't consider live music to be such a drawer and certainly aren't willing to pay the sort of money we'd all like to see, allowing for inflation...

So, I bought this, for not much money as my next project. I’m told it’s around 1970, but could be a year either way, no idea of the model, as there were so many. Badly re sprayed over Sunburst I would guess. I could strip it, but it’s plywood (I expect) and I can’t be bothered. I think the red looks ok from a distance. The pickups work, and the replacement string retainer on the headstock, that I ordered in advance, fits perfectly as you can see. I have the bushes for the tuners too. Some clown has battered the fretboard with varnish, so stripping that out is the first job. This could take a while. Any input from Teisco experts welcomed.

A close run challenge for October, but rising to the top in the final throws came @SH73 with a great entry. As is his privilege, nay, honour, he has offered up the following for your inspiration. "Something futuristic....." Simple rules ✔️ Entries must be <5 minutes and recorded between now and the deadline. ✖️ No illegal samples, copyright infringements or other snide goings-on ✖️ No Bagpipes/panpipes , everyone had the chance last month , so there! ✖️ No voting for your own entry. We'll know. And we'll shame you.. Deadline wise , we will go for Midnight on the 23rd as I will be away for the weekend and leaving it till the 26th only leaves 4 voting days. A line or two of blurb as usual for the vote thread will be lovely. Have fun

Are you ready ........

To save my sanity, I've decided to work to rule and only do exactly what I'm asked to do and nothing more. If there's a gap that needs filling...not my problem. If someone forgets their music...not my problem. If someone forgets their instrument...not my problem. If someone can't make rehearsal...not my problem. It's not for me to wipe the behinds of others, I'm going to sit back and watch the chaos unfold.

Yep, there’s a new (old) two saddle bridge on the way. Which hopefully will fit, although it’s had a couple of bridges on it by the looks of things. It’s also had a bridge cover at one point, and, yes, I can see the covered holes where the upper horn guard used to be. Yep, the pickups work, which is a bonus. Its meant to be a fun thing, not a full restoration back to its original state. It’ll probably end up with flats or tapes on it, for a full on old school vibe.

Please put me down as coming. I will be bringing a double bass and my GSS 06b400mkd 6.5" combo.

The Importance of Boeing Idle - Oasis

I liked this from the off - it's energetic, the sound is complex but well balanced (imho) so you can hear everything that's going on, and there's variety from track to track. The bass is rewarding to listen to and the perc is fun (I do like a bit of conga, me). If I had an alt-rock band I think I'd be pretty happy if it sounded like these guys. If I had an alt-rock band that sounded a bit boring I'd definitely look at this album for a few ideas to change things up. I guess about half way through it started to run out of anything new to do for me, but that's not a bad result for a genre I'm not usually all that drawn in to. This is a brilliant idea - thanks for starting it and I look forward to the next one!

Open the windows and plug in...bass playing paradise.

4 piece covers band doing a varied selection of songs our way. We have a fairly good reputation in the area (same as the OP by the look of it). Pubs typically £320-£360 (though we do a favour for our favourite regular at £300) Social clubs typically £400 and weddings and parties £400 - £600. NYE this year £1000, though I think it should be more. Bands not wanting to do NYE? It's down to one or two of them "wanting" (having) to do stuff with the family.. 😉 A local pub I know will pay a max of £400, we are in at £360 but getting a gig there is a nightmare, they are swamped with requests for gigs. We are flexible with in reason depending on the venue etc. We enjoy doing it and the money is a damn handy benefit from it. Oh and it's a fair share out at the end of the night. The only thing we divvy in for is PL insurance. Gear is your own responsibility. (Our drummer has a thing about lights.. we just let him get on with it 😂)

Hard to Handle - Otis Redding

We get a steady trickle of gigs from Lemonrock. I'm a big fan of the Lemonrock model. It was started by Mac who was/is a gigging musician and starting with local bands. Basically the model is that it is a gig guide for the public to find live gigs. No advertising or data mining it is paid for by bands and venues with gigs to plug and bookings sought and found. The thought was that if it achieved critical mass and most of the local live music gigs were on there then it would become the one stop shop for pub bands and local live gigs. Membership is £42 a year for bands, free for punters looking for gigs. For that you get a Web Page with mp3's videos pics and details of your band. If you fill in the calendar you turn up in searches when the venues look for bands and anyone can have a look at you and listen to what you do. Any local music fans get emails and texts etc about any gigs your do. If I'm bored on a Fri and Sat I can find a choice of about 20-50 local bands to go and see in this rural area. It's quite useful as a research tool as well, you can look for bands like yours and see where they are getting gigs and who is working hardest. Technical support is good too for what is essentially a cottage industry. It used to have a real community feel about it with a lively forum which probably rivalled the activity on BC a few years back. Unfortunately that was lost. it works well in areas where the majority or at least a sizeable minority of local bands have joined. It was growing steadily right up to the covid outbreak, gradually spreading across the country and building numbers. In areas like this chunk of the West Country or the area North East of London where it started it is pretty strong. There are enough bands on down here that many of the pubs only book through Lemonrock and a lot of others g straight there if they have a cancellation. I'd pick up about 6 bookings a year via LR when I did the bookings which if you turn them into repeat bookings is pretty much job done after a couple of years. I also turn down quite a few as they tend to be last minute . You get regular reports too on traffic this is this weeks report for my Duo Hits - all current gigs :0 Band page hits this week :71 Band page hits this month :204 Band page hits this year :9,835 Total Band page hits :12,194 We are a fairly new and I haven't a gig booked in the next couple of weeks. we've only done about half a dozen gigs this year and a couple last year so that's 1800 hits per gig which is extraordinary. With no gigs this week the 70 odd hits on the band page will be potential bookers . How effective Lemonrock is though depends upon presence, if every band in you area joined it would be perfect for you, all the punters would visit to find gigs and all the venues would look there for bands because all the bands would be there. It's a properly maintained site so the information is reliable and searchable unlike a lot of social media and as it is a subscription site it is all semi pro and pro bands. The down side is that if there are only a handful of bands and venues it misses most of the gigs so the punters don't look so it depends for growth on early adopters and a gradual spread out from the places it is strong. I think it made a mistake by ending the forum, it lost the community feel so there was no loyalty when covid struck and all the gigs were cancelled. £42 seemed like a lot of money and a lot of bands cancelled. I'd suggest anyone looking just searches for gigs near them this week, if it's only a handful then LR isn't strong near you, if there are enough to fill a couple of pages you are probably missing out on bookings.

Perhaps this once, it is not the many who are wrong.

Justify yourself? You said "I would simply add that these instruments are a pure lotery, most of them being total crap" which is itself utter crap.

Polypropylene caps tend to be closer tolerance - so closer to the stated value than polyester caps too, so I'd always opt for those wherever possible.

Very wise.

I was "that" guy for years, ie. generally sniffy about digital stuff. Then started experimenting with more recent digital gear (Meris stuff, Eventide H9, Source Audio's latest offerings etc) and my mind's been well and truly blown! Never actually tried a dedicated digital compressor, but I'm open minded.

Yes, for me it's the playing/singing that's the most impressive aspect of his playing. Something as complicated as To Be With You Again, and he sings over it AND makes it look easy. How? Great playing. At Bath his fretless work on Words was lovely, I really wish he'd been further up in the mix.

Donations from D'Addario:

I bought a couple of BBOT with 16.5mm spacing on Ali-Ex. That was just last month so still have the seller's details. Went for black and chrome at £9 each. @Rayman Just remembered, I've a single pickup version upstairs in need of a bridge. Will be ordering again from Ali-Ex soon, if you'd like one just let me know.

Smoke machine always on the floor when i use them. Usually i try to keep it out of sight. Find out where any draughts are coming from and position it to blow across the stage. With our Glam band wearing costumes and wigs we tend to have large fans at each end of the stage so a smoke machine just doesn't work very well. Dave

Turns out to be a thin Yamaha guitar neck.

Many years ago I had a water based smoke machine, but the guitarist still complained about it and said it affected his asthma. I called BS and said it might be something to do with all those cigarettes he was getting through!

Not my first exposure to that scenario. And the potential alienation that goes with it? Be very careful, the whole thing could sour your relationship with the church. You might find yourself on the end of some very unchristian behaviour - "They say that they care but, their actions say otherwise," the evidence is already there. Best of luck with what you decide.

Youtube compressor vids are pretty much useless in my experience. The YT algo does loads of compression anyway and the review NEVER sets it up for equal volume, so we have a natural tendency to think louder = better.

Agree that the Sub'n'up works great for this. Similar to @Baloney Balderdash I made a toneprint which I think is optimal for octave up. I did it on the full size unit with the lower two knobs mapped as "tone" and "drive" for the upper octave. somewhere on here there's a thread where I posted full details with screenshots of the toneprint editor etc

That sounds about just right for bar gigs in and around Central Scotland. Regular venues I've played aren't paying anymore than what they did pre-covid and mentioning an increase of even £20-30 quid doesn't go down well. I've heard that there is a better paying class of bar gig further up the East Coast so I may explore that. Travelling further does means more cost, and time to get there and back. Generally speaking, there seem to be less live venues to play post covid so there is less bookings available and bands are playing for less or the same as four or five years ago just to get a gig.

My budget number one is a Squier Mikey Way Mustang. I originally picked this up for its subdued colour scheme that fits right in with the glam band I’m currently in. Not many of these about and found it at a little online seller in Brum. I wasn’t especially looking for a short scale but quickly gained appreciation of its compact dimensions on some of the smaller stages we find ourselves at. It’s not without its limitations, the pickup while being a humbucker is a bit underwhelming compared to my other 2 shorties (fallout clf and a JMJ) but I can dial in a decent thump with my rig. I might get around to changing it for something a bit more punchy at some point. On the other hand it’s easy to play and has withstood the rigours of 300 gigs or so, so not bad for a budget job.

You don't need an XLR converter to go 'DI', just change the output of the HX Stomp to Line level, and if the desk you're going to is worth its salt, it will have a 1/4" Line input on each channel, boom, done. It has decent SVT/Sansamp models on it, as well as a bunch of other cool Bass stuff. Tuner is good too. Si

I’d never date one, they never split the bill or offer to buy a round