Leaderboard

Second ever gig for the rock covers band I joined in March last night. At the Hive Nightclub in Edinburgh. Had an absolute blast, great wee venue, crowd got right into it pretty much from the start, plenty of signing, dancing and a bit of headbanging. Rig for those interested : Squier 40th Anniversary Precision (I love this thing, can't stop playing it, use it over my more expensive basses now) into Warwick Gnome I Pro 600 (via Helix HX Stomp) and Markbass New York 121 cab. Was DI'd from the amp and used IEMs to ensure I heard myself...it's loud up there. Has to be said, a good gig is great for the old mental health.

Played on a small stage at Kingston market last night. "Rig": Yamaha bass --> Zoom B1-4 --> (venue supplied:) Behringer XAir desk -> Alto TX210s Super simple / cheap as chips set-up but did the job! (I used the Zoom B1-4 as tuner, clean patch with "Presence" to aid cutting through, and Xotic BB drive patch). Had a complete blast playing with the band!

I get round playing covers I don't like by being in an originals band... That way we get to play songs wot we wrote ourselves and like a lot, but nobody else likes 'em. Luckily, we don't like crowded places.

Does the audience like what you are playing? In a cover band that is the only objective. There aren't many songs I dislike or wouldn't play, but I've refused to play songs that other members of the band couldn't play properly. IMO if you only dislike one song you're doing well. In our Top 40 covers band any song would be dumped, no matter how much we liked it, if it didn't get an enthusiastic response from the audience. If the audience liked it then my opinion didn't matter. I focussed on the mechanics of the song, playing it to the best of my ability and making it work. Hearing an audience shouting and clapping at the end of a song I didn't like made everything better again.

Could be worse. You could have to play Sex On Fire & Mr Brightside....

Are you getting paid? If so, consider that playing the song is a much better way to get money than digging coal out of a mine or working in a call centre, no? Take the money, do your easy work and, next time you play the song, think how great it is to get money for playing music.

Reminds me of this. My church musician experience has been that often the most naturally gifted are the laziest and believe fanning the flame of their gift involves totally ignoring any semblance of work. Doesn't help that they are often lauded by the congregation as gifted or “anointed’ thus reinforcing the negligence. If anyone said that to me I’d always reply “the more I practice and more attentive I am to my responsibilities with my “gift”, the more gifted I seem to be” 😂😂 funny that.

I just do not see the point of conceding. This song wouldn’t even be in the top ten to hear at an Alice in Chains gig.

I've played plenty of songs I actively hate playing as that's just an unavoidable part of being in a covers band, as long as they audience are having a good time then I'm not bothered really as that's the most important thing and it's only a few minutes of my time. Tbh I'd rather play songs I dislike and have gig photos with full dancefloors than the other way around. The only time I get really annoyed is when band members pick self indulgent songs and insist on keeping them in the set even when they empty a dancefloor every gig, especially if it's at the expense of songs which get people up and dancing. I've had to argue to keep Dancing Queen and Young Hearts Run Free in the set when the guitarist wants to play some crusty old dad rock in place of it. If someone tries to make me play Pat Benetar again I'll probably just set fire to them.

Interesting, I recently picked up a Gibson Studio which I'm not allowed to play until Christmas. I have tested it though and I think it may be broken as it plays and sounds great, the bridge seems solid, it doesn't have neck dive or any flaws other than the usual signs of a used bass. Note: According to the internet they all have those faults but it seems to me that the "Studio" solved a lot of those. Just as well I don't believe everything I read! My colour too!

Yes a great day. Thanks to everyone involved in arranging it and making it a fun day. I thought I’d share this, not because it’s me playing Betsy, but because of what she did to my bass face: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Czk-VZiBxAQ/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== I’ve been trying to smile for years whilst playing bass. Job done.

Put together a new grab and go board for gigs and public transportation... It's one of those Harley Benton Power Spaceship boards with the power supply built in. I have to say, I'm very impressed with it.

I did two big print runs today, basically both Prusa's flat out whilst I actually did real work. Every so often the printers would beep for attention. Managed to get to this stage. I think there's something missing but I can't quite put my finger on it. Any ideas? I screwed it together but with only half the screws as I would need to take the plywood backbone off to screw all the bits together. I played it as an air guitar and it felt pretty good. The body is quite light and very rigid. It's missing the top middle, thats nine hours of printing, but I don't actually think thats needed for the next bit of testing. The next bits to do are: 1. Fit the nut. I have one and it's supposed to be theright one but it's a bit wide and I've no idea what to do with it. 2. Design a small pickguard to hold the neck pickup. I've designed it but not worked out the dimensions of the neck pickup. 3. Find a wiring diagram for this control panel and pickups and output. 4. Put strings on. 5. Connect it up. 6. Learn to play 7. Play Lessons learnt from two big print runs today. 1. Even after a Prusa MK3S+ has gone into Thermal Shutdown because I couldn't get to it after a @pause to insert nuts, you can recover it but manually setting the correct nozzle and bed tmperature. Thermal Shutdown is when the nozzle temperature is too high and you aren't printing. You may need to be running Octoprint for the recovery to work. I had to go and pick daughter up whilst printing but there was a major acident on theA65 and a 15min pickup turned into an hour. The printer paused and then shutdown for safety reasons. I was 7.5 hours into a 9 hour print and was a little annoyed to say the least. Set the temperatures in octoprint, waited til they got the right ones and simply hit resume. DSave 7/5 hours of printing. That was the highlight. 2. I forgot to measure the output jack inside hole measurements. I measure the plate holes and they look, but forgot to put the correct diameter in. It should be 20mm and I left it at 10mm. This means even though I save the print, it was still wrong and would need to be done again. 3. The access holes below are too difficult to use. I did test this but trying to screw it together this evening has taken 20 mins+ per hole. Solution, longer 30mm bolts from eBay. 4. The Telecaster control panel attachment holes were out by 1.2mm. Bad measurement from me. 5. The bolts that tighten the bits together work really well. The structure is very rigid. I thought there might be too many, but I'm not so sure now. I do like the rigidity. 6. The frame needs to be printed top down for the best quality. Mind you printing at 0.3mm is pretty good. I can of course take my time and print as I need over a few weeks. 7. Add parameters in so that any nuts printed are all at the same level. At the moment, nuts vary in height by a mm or so and this means the printers need constant attention. Probably lots more to think about and learn from. Rob

I think that if you learn it and play it at a few gigs, and it clears the dance floor then hopefully the rest of the band would notice, and look to drop it from the set

Invest in a looper pedal; play a couple of bars, switch to 'loop' then go lie down until it's over. With such a bass sound, you might even get away with no pedal, if you can capture some 50Hz buzz instead. Darned awful sludge, for my old ears. I'll not be listening to it twice.

Wee Vid appeared from our last BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers gig last Fri night. This was the 3rd song of the night. Not the best sound quality from a mobile but you get the drift. 🤩 http://www.facebook.com/dickie.decibel/videos/905130571115381?idorvanity=1017907961725565

I was just about to pull the trigger on this but the fact the strings were an 'unknown brand' stopped me. Oh well, I'll keep looking 😊

In my covers band we operate a veto system for choosing songs. If any one of us really hates a particular song, we don't play it. This means that over the years several of my suggestions have been voted down, but I don't mind because at least I know that I'll always like (or not mind) everything that we play. Now tell us what the song is and we'll tell you if it contravenes the Geneva Convention or not! 😉

New firmware Helix/HX 3.70 Release Notes - HELIX/HX - Line 6 Community 2 new bass amps, and the Noble preamp! https://line6.com/support/page/kb/effects-controllers/helix/helixhx-370-release-notes-r1052/

Goodbye Two Loos ～ The Stranglers

I've been making up some shorter power cables for one pedalboard. Because of the relative positions of power supply and pedals, I needed some right-angle to right-angle and others straight to right-angle, so I cut a few of the leads supplied with the power supply to length and soldered the appropriate half to one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261536704983?var=560412003886 which is a lot easier than splicing wires together. Just don't forget to put the O-ring that holds the plug together onto the lead before soldering the plug on.

I think there will always be the people who won't want to learn a new interface though, no matter how simple it might be. They're happy twiddling knobs and that's that. Plus the people who want to create their own pedals and sounds - with the exeption of the MOD Dwarf, you can't code your own effect modules for your multi. I've made one or two pedals from a schematic. It can be equal measures fun and frustrating, and relatively inexpensive. And the people who want to buy hand made things. There's also people who convince themselve that because they just use the one patch, they need to sell it, saying they only use "10% of it's potential" (or similar) as if it's wasted on them. I feel that if it does what you need at a price you find acceptable and in a form factor that suits your use, it's a perfectly valid choice. I'll never forget the guitarist I used to play with who turned up with a Helix one day, saying he was tired of patch cables breaking and just wanted something where that wouldn't happen. A few months later, he got rid saying he wasn't using it to it's fullest potential. First practice with the new traditional board and he spent 30-40 minutes of practice trying to get the damn thing to work because of a dodgy patch lead. Maybe there'd be a digital pedal revolution where everyone starts using them? But then give it a few years and there'd be a resurgence of musicians being cool and "discovering" pedals again. What I think I'm trying to get at, is that I don't think that traditional pedals are going anywhere anytime soon.

Knocking On Heaven's Door saps my will to live...

At that price, does anyone care about a new set of strings? You are not paying £27k to take it down to your gig at the Dog & Duck on Friday night - either it will go to a tech of your choice for a complete examination / set-up or into a locked display cabinet.

It doesn't look that bad to me, at least on the front. However, I also enjoy looking at highly expensive Gibson Les Paul guitars where the job of selecting matching maple caps to avoid obvious joins appears to have been assigned to a two year old.

There's nothing wrong with that, if you stay in the rehearsal room. As soon as you go out and gig, different rules apply.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/nov/16/rush-geddy-lee-reader-interview

Learning that song will be a complete waste of time. No one will have heard it and you could put 2 much better songs in the set. You'll be standing there for 6 very uncomfortable minutes while the crowd stare at you thinking wtf?

Dirt is one of my favourite albums of all time. Love that song, too. It's all groove, but in 6, and the impact is brought about by varying the intensity of different sections instead of a collection of riffs. The power of that song is all in how it's played. Chic operate in the same way for much of their stuff, same riff for 10 minutes but you bring it up, you bring it down and that's how it effects people. Amazing how differently we hear things.

Here's my angle - hope it's useful...You're in a band, playing the instrument you love. You've had a great time, by the sound of it, over the last year playing you music you largely enjoy. Savour it and try not to let the imperfections sour the scene. Right, I'm off to sit on a a lotus leaf for a bit

The punters love those. And Mustang Sally. Do you want to get booked again or not? Mind you - it's that time of year again so I've got a shitload of Mariah Carey and Mickey Bubbles tunes to learn...

I've just listened to the song for the first time. If I was watching your band, this song would be the time to go to the bar/toilet. I get why the guitarists like it. Lots of Floyd Rose nonsense and riding the wah the whole song. Takes 1:30 to get to any lyrics... Not exactly a banger to my mind! I've just checked Wikipedia, and it wasn't a single from the album either, so the band never thought it was the most popular song. At least If You Tolerate This was also a UK no.1, so lots of people know it. Just be frank with them. If you dislike it to the point of not being able to focus at learning it, that should earn it a veto.

There's two problems in this thread. Firstly "helpful" comments by people who have very obviously never played in a band that uses backing tracks in their life. I'm sorry but you really have nothing to add that will help the OP, all you are doing is showing off your ignorance. If you want to start another thread moaning about bands that use programmed or recorded backing as part of their live performance by all means knock yourselves out, but please don't clog up this thread with your prejudices. Secondly we are getting drip-fed morsels of information by the OP which mean the goalposts change with each new posts and assumptions that have had to be made to help find a solution to the OPs problem are rendered irrelevant by the next reply. So lets try and break down the problem piece by piece and try and find a solution that works for the OP. 1. How are your backing tracks created? Your first post suggested that you were producing them from scratch yourself, but subsequent posts seem to contradict this. 2. You mentioned that this cross-talk problem has only started to occur since moving to Logic. What were you using before? And why have you stopped using it? 3. What application are you using on your iPhone to play back the backing? And what file format is your backing track in? (If you are using MP3s I would try keeping it as a WAV or AIFF and see if that cures the problem). 4. Can you please post links to the cable or device you are using to split the stereo signal from the iPhone into two mono signals? The reason I suggested mixing down the backing separately to the click and then doing another bounce to combine them into a stereo file, is that is should completely eliminate any hidden routing issues that are causing the crosstalk problem. Especially if you do the final bounce within a brand new project file with no pre-configured routing. I've just done a trial bounce on one of my band's backing files within my copy of Logic panning the music hard left and the click hard right and I have total separation between the two which can both be heard in the headphones where there is no audible trace of the click on the music channel, and seen by looking at the waveform editor display where there is no visible sign of the music on the click side. Therefore AFAIAC the problem is not inherent in Logic itself, but is either user error when doing the stereo bounce, or occurring somewhere else in the process.

I don't mind that song but we all have those songs.. there are a couple of blues songs that the guitarist keeps trying to bring in which are.. well, blues songs so very dull to play. The worst for me was chumbawumba, tubthumping. Its a tricky one as I don't even know if I am playing it right as I can't listen to the whole song so I am just guessing, but noone really cares. I hate the song, the guitarist hate the song, but the audience love it so it gets trotted out. Some other things though you can have fun with, i mean, mustang sally has so many trills, fills and walking sections in it now that the original didn't have I really enjoy it!

I know that my musical tastes are no 'kitemark of quality' so I don't worry whether I like a song or not, its a band and compromises are made If I really don't like a song, I take the view that I'm being asked to play it for an audience. I will then attempt to play it as well as I can, even seeking out live versions and other covers of the song to really 'get under the bonnet of it'. When we play it at a gig I give it my all, if the audience like it, I grit my teeth and metaphorically lie back and think of the band I should be in. If the audience don't react to it, I point this out to the band member(s) who promoted it. I keep pointing this out until my whinging is too tedious for them to keep it in the set.

@Richard R The aim of this was to test a few ideas and see if they were feasible. This is a proof of concept, not even a prototype. It was to prove and test a number of things. 1. Could I use a decent (thin) neck off a guitar as the basis for PoC. At the moment, this is still to be determined. My thinking was that I could buy a decent neck and have the rest of the guitar setup just how I wanted. I know I can now mount the neck tightly, I had wondered if 3d printing wasn't robust enough. I also now have a repeatable method or process of going from the holes in the existing neck to getting the right holes in the 3d model, its normally a lot easier going from the model to then drilling holes in the neck. That wasn't an option. 2. As I don't have a printer that can print the whole body in one chunk, whats the method for securing bits together? Do I need M3, M4, M5 screws and how many per part? I think, but have not proven yet, that M3 screws are strong enough. That should be middle of next week when most of the parts are done. I don;t think I need M4 or M5 screws to hold things together. I hate glue, so that was always out. I think I have over engineered the number of screw/bolt fittings and so will not need as many, but we'll find out later. 3. Will the module that holds the bridge be strong enough? Don't know yet, but will find out next week. 4. Does the idea of a 15mm plywood backbone reduce the amount of printing by 2-3 days (thats 72 hours of solid printing). Yes it does. The modules I have bolted on are very robust. Also The plywood backbone means the infill doesn't have to be 60% or more. 5. This was intended to be modular so I could easily reconfigure it, perhaps a different bridge, or three pickups, or one pickup, or some weird combination. Does that work? Not sure yet. The neck module is easily changable, so that looks good. I still have to work out the pickups. I have a set of telecaster pickups and control panel, I also have a set of humbuckers off a Yamaha guitar that I neeed to look at. Thats past next week Is it 'easily reconfigurable'? Depends on your definition of 'easily'. So far I'd so 'no' as I need to basically dismantle the guitar to change the bridge or neck. Thats about (best guess) an hour to two hours to dismantle and reassemble. As the parts use embedded nuts, there's no worry about doing this many times as the plastic is not used for threads. 6. Is the design right? No, the overall design isn't quite right yet, it's too fiddly to print quickly, thats due to the quantity of the nuts to build it, also I didn't pay enough attention to the nut positioning and specifically the height of the nuts. This means that there is too much manual intervention when printing. As this is a PoC, this is acceptable, but the next version will be simpler. The only way to learn this is to do it, I have no background in 3d design or manufacturing, I work in IT, so the only way to learn this is to try it and do it. 7. Would these ides move over to printing a bass? I'm reasonably certain it will. The area that I'm worried about and that will need a PoC is the depth of the plywood backbone, the heel for the neck and the bridge. My thinking was (and still is), its easier to do a six string first and learn, and I have learnt a lot, mostly what not to do, than to jump straight in. Hope this helps. Rob

You have to find something interesting in it. Look at the technical aspects of the bass line. Note placement. Are they ahead of the beat, slightly behind? What about internal dynamics, which notes are louder, which notes are accented, legato, stoccatto? Is there anything you can add to the bassline, leave out, or subtly change to give the song some interest or a lift.

Cover bands play to the audience. So do original bands, but covers are more obviously audience focussed. If the audience like it, focus on the good vibes. If they don’t, dump it.

Holy grail? https://www.andybaxterbass.com/collections/bass-guitars/products/1960-fender-stack-knob-jazz-bass-sunburst

Of course there are other ways to soften the edge of the fingerboard This is how one amateur luthier does it especially for people with extra large hands...

No more long scales - last two now sold - quite a catharsis!

(feel eminently overqualified, but here goes...) Handbags and Grandads