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Great gig at Black Deer Festival yesterday. We may have been on one of the smaller stages (Caffe Nero tent) but the vibe of the place was great and we had a laugh. We had a special guest with us playing second acoustic guitar and - more importantly perhaps - lap steel, which added a whole new layer to the live sound. (There’s a thread on here investigating the use of the original album instrumentation tracks in the future but having Cris on stage with us was so cool). Muddy as hell, all my cases, cables, pedalboard and cab need a damn good clean today, as does my car which almost got stuck in the car park when I was leaving after the mighty Sheryl Crow and her band had played a cracking set on the main stage. Oh, and there was a wicked drone show at the end. I need to go re learn 1 song which I kept getting in the wrong order in my head, and learn how to live with a big hat, a mic stand and no space to move around 🤣 But other than that, awesome 🤠

TONIGHT! The Cantina Band at the wedding of Lewis (?) and Gemma (?) at a posh hotel somewhere near Nuneaton. The happy couple had seen our subtle blend of extremely loud rock covers and slapdash half-arsedery at a gig a few months ago and liked the cut of our jib for some reason, so they booked us to play their wedding. We mainly play Motorhead, AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Clash, Ramones, Sabbath type stuff, so obviously they thought "This is the perfect band to make our special day truly memorable". Arrival at 5:30, load in to a tiny marquee filled with very well turned out wedding guests, elderly relatives and infants sliding across the small dancefloor. This... could be a weird gig, lads. Quick setup, soundcheck resulted in lots of bemused/disgusted looks before a quick pint and band conflab (many variations on "We're going to go down like a broken escalator/turd in a lift/Pork pie at Passover") and then we were on. Three songs into the first set, half the people had left. I can't say I blame them. One table seemed to be quite enjoying it (including Uncle Knobhead (there's one at every wedding)) so that was something. A few hardy souls braved the dancefloor for a couple of the less overtly offensive numbers, and at the groom's request we'd learned a McFly song (!) for the bride (Five colours in her hair (that's the name of the song, not... the bride only had one colour in her hair. Two, max) which is good fun to play and more complicated than you'd think) so we got her to join in with the singing on that, which went down well (especially with Uncle Knobhead, he loved it) and dispelled some of the air of "WTF?" . First set done, we stepped out for a vape while they cut the cake and had their first dance (not counting five colours in her hair (the song)). Second set kicked off with Highway to Hell, and suddenly they were all loving it. Packed dancefloor, everyone singing along and having a whale of a time! The second set has a few more well known/not as deliberately obtuse rock numbers in, so it went down really well. I took to the dancefloor for Sex on Fire, and had a boogie with Uncle Knobhead and the mother of the bride, which was an absolute hoot. The singer was recovering from a chest infection, so he was really struggling by this point... I helped him out on Jonny B Goode, then attempted to give him a hand on Proud Mary, before realising I don't actually know any of the words (apart from "Left a good job in the city" and "rolling") so it became a comedy number. Played the Sterling ->small board -> sansamp -> MB 121. All done, loads of people said they'd really enjoyed it (some of them even aked for our card(!)), couple of onion bhajis from the buffet, photo of the bride on the drums and the groom on Bass, pack down while the DJ played the sort of music you'd actually *want* to hear at a wedding, well paid, home about 11:15 for last nights chicken curry & dahl and a pint of old father StingRayBoy's homebrew cider (ABV unknown). Actually a pretty good gig, considering how bad we thought it was going to be.

Last dep gig for a while with Stevie Daniels. British Legion in Upwell in the fens. Smallish room and only 3 people in the place while setting up, counting the great bloke with a food trailer out front.I was thinking “paid rehearsal. Things got considerably better. Got a cracking bacon roll from the food guy, and the venue was filling up by start time. Lots of singing along, head nodding, and kids on the dance floor. Then the proper party people showed up and we ended up having a blast! Lots of compliments on the band and my playing, I decided to try my fretless Spectracore which sounded great. Lots less muddy under the guitars. A few weeks off now.

Just discovered an old secondary school buddy was right at the front the whole show yesterday, and I completely didn’t see him 😂 He took a cool pic though, so I stole it.

Another batch of weddings to report on, after all it is the season. Friday, Glewstone Court, just outside of Ross-on-Wye. Only 90 minutes wait for food and speeches to be over, then set up the area in turbo time, carting gear in the pouring rain. Nice couple though and well received, small room (2 plugs) Venue very keen to have us back, especially as we had to shorten the sets and we hit their strict 11pm curfew with 30 secs to spare. I love having the countdown of each track in main stage. Tonight was a funny one. We had originally been booked up in Birmingham but the event got cancelled. Tuesday night I got a call from a local sound engineer saying a band had had to pull out of a wedding due to personal circumstances and could we do it. Unfortunately the male singer and keyboard player had both managed to find something else to do, so we decided my wife could manage the vocals by herself. There was a lot of desperate ringing round to find a dep keys, Friday afternoon we found an ex cruise ship player, so I sent him the parts and we were off to the races. When we turned up we found it was a large do, say 400 people, and the DJ was a proper purveyor of the boom and tizz boxes. Our FBT rig has got sufficient clout to play loud, live music in such a space but we weren’t going to able to compete, and had people asking us to turn up. Anyway, my wife got over her nerves, unusual for her, and won them round. They were a young farmers-esque crowd, the most notable moment being when a bloke fell of the shoulders, head first onto the stage into a load of glasses left on it. Fortunately no harm done but it could have been very different! Dep keyboard player remarked it was all rather different to his usual Warner hotel gig and we live to fight another day.

Good pub gig list night. Lots of people dancing and singing along to our Ska versions, it seems to work well - not just playing bog standard ska tunes or pub pop/rock covers, putting a different spin adds a bit of originality/interest while also being familiar enough for diverse pub crowd to get into. My feedback to the band will be that DJs (or at least good ones) read the crowd and play music to keep the dancefloor busy. Likewise, some flexibility in the band setlist would be good.

Wedding in Taunton. Largely unremarkable with the exception of meeting one of my heroes. This guy literally changed my life a few years ago and was an absolute gent last night. Spent a good 15 mins chatting and he even added footage of us playing to his insta.

Played a birthday party tonight. The birthday girl saw us at our first Newport gig and liked us so much, she asked us to play. Quite flattering really! So, we were back in Newport, playing at The Cab this time. Seems to be a former 80s (?) shop converted into a venue. Decent stage, basic PA, but they do have cabs to use. I was going through a Marshall 810, which was supplying my bass sound to the whole venue. I'm pretty sure that's what an 810 is for! It was a fun gig. Felt like less pressure, and I could hear myself much more clearly than the previous gig. The only unfortunate thing was that we had to go on first. One of our guitarists probably shouldn't have OK'd a gig on the same weekend as his girlfriend's birthday, so we went on first and then he drove back to his house, and then on to Cornwall. It felt like a long night after that. Signal chain was: Combustion GX-100 Mojo Mojo Bass Big Muff ABM-600 810 And we are Hora: https://linktr.ee/horadoom Next gig is Swindon on the 13th of July, unless we get added to a bill at Moor Brewery.

Saturday night to Trowbridge Steam Fair - usual set up, gennys rattling away, traction engines puffing about, beer tent with pallets for our stage, soggy field after epic rainstorms during the day. It was a closed event for the exhibitors who had clearly decided to have a good time and get into the cider and ale for a serious session. Our dep gitrist from Weymouth (even further to drive than my 65 miles) fitted in well, just lost it a couple of times in my sax set (he did OK considering how few covers bands in the area suddenly launch into sax-led numbers like One Step Beyond, Midnight Hour and Geno after the standard guitry crowd pleasers) Long day, got home at 01:05. Cat was not pleased at the lack of pandering since 5.30pm previous afternoon! Pic below is of me being a poseur (aka knob) on sax during 'Geno'

Just found this, thought some may be interested.

Car Show gig was ok. 11-2. Certainly nothing to write home about. Daryl

Afternoon gig for Trentfest at Thoresby Park. It had been hosing down all day but, undaunted, the crowd were sticking it out and enjoying the bands. It's a closed event for Caravan Club members and they had provided a decent stage, PA and sound guy. We did an hour's set and it went down really well, particularly when the sun came out half way through. My usual gigrig of Mike Lull P4 through my Handbox R400 with matching cab. Some 'just before we started' pics

Sterling effort with the Andy Wales Blues Band at the Diggle Band Club as part of the Diggle Blues Festival last night. A home town gig for the band leader who is from the neighbouring village. I don’t think we strictly met the criteria of “blues,” but it was entertaining and went down well to a good sized audience. Even managed to get to the local pub afterwards for last orders. We had to travel light to fit the PA, bass gear and guitar gear and two people all in my car, so ended up using my Markbass traveller rig and Yamaha BB604. I’d swapped one of the Yamaha’s to flats, but the one with rounds sounded way better (suited the natural sound of that bass more) so the flats are coming off as soon as I get a chance.

This is all very interesting. So far I've been the one creating logos and posters for the bands, so I don't think we'd need that service from AI. In other words: NO I WILL NOT BE REPLACED BY A FRIGGIN' ROBOT!! 🤣🤣🤣 Seriously though, ad-hoc images where the band can be added in. @Happy Jack, are you thinking of a more sophisticated version of this image we created years ago? The Junkyard Dogs (4-piece version with @MacDaddy on lead geetar) playing Addicted To Love - almost. Date 11/08/2015.

@Happy Jack as young Francis says, I've been dabbling with AI for band posters for a while now. The main thing I'd highly recommend is spending some doing a bit of homework first. Identify which AI system you want to use and then sink some time in learning what's called prompt engineering, which is essentially telling the AI what you want and to get it to create what you have in mind. Different AI bots react differently to different prompts so it might be worth selecting one AI system and then spending some trying to figure out what prompts work best for your needs with that variant. For example, my current preference is for Microsoft Copilot which, for me at least, consistently generates better results than something like Adobe Firefly even though the former is a general AI bot and the latter is a dedicated image generator. But a couple of pointers, IME, are to; Sink some time into learning how to use it as the more refined the prompt the more impressive the result will be. Can't stress this enough. But it's not that difficult if you're even a little bit tech savvy. In the case of Copilot at least, treat it like you're talking to a toddler, use clear and concise language. Often, specifying what you don't want is as important as specifying what you do want. Generating photo quality images is tricky but can be done once you know how what prompts the bot needs to work with. But getting images that look like you or the other band members, for example, is much trickier and beyond my current level of understanding, so if you want people and faces, odds are you'll end up with a generic AI generated face rather than a mirror image of whoever. Getting it to generate band logos is a bit more tricky and most of my efforts have resulted in typos despite telling it what text I want. Here's a couple of examples of images I've created, The above image was generated in Copilot and the logo and text overlaid in PowerPoint. The photo below was created in honour of @Raymondo who frequents an ale house called The Burnt Pig. It took me a while to get the prompt right for this but it shows you can get something close to photo quality with a bit of trial and error.

Although it's not finished, I've strung this one up to see whether the top was going to implode. It's been a couple of days, so I'm definitely pretty relieved. There's still quite a bit to do - the bridge is a temporary one, the nut is just a piece of scrap, the heel cap needs to be glued on, everything needs to be sanded properly, and of course it needs some finish applied. There's still set up and fret leveling and installing the pickup etc etc. However, I know you lot haven't been sleeping with the anticipation of it all, so here's a sneak low-res preview.

The Earl Haig with Bluesfire today, a short-notice gig to fill in for a very good local band. Good numbers, maybe 100 at the start, quite a few more by the end. Setting up, a dodgy di lead on my amp was freaking when the spots turned on. Took a while to track down. But we had the full light show, there will be photos. First half it seemed ok to us, but apparently sound was very harsh. Our sound guy unfamiliar with house pa. Second half sounded better apparently. Audience randomly joined in the vocals for sharp dressed man, quite a lot of dancing and upriarious applause. Although some of the time we couldn't see the audience for smoke. Lots of happy, enthusiastic punters and great feedback. Alex got a few sets of applause for his solos, was like a jazz gig! Apparently the bit where we co-ordinate and Alex does trills and I do finger tapping was 'epic' - we think it's silly but fun 😁 Lost track of time so started to finish early but ended up doing three encores. Were taken aback to get applause just for starting Purple Rain. Final song was let's stick together which gets manic and my fingers started behaving oddly and then virtually cramped up... just made it to then end.

Why choose? You could hate them both!

It's coming along; the finish isn't as great as it could be but it's pretty good, and the electrics are complete now too. Once the shielding paint is dry I'll align and fit the bridge, fit the pickups and get all the rest of the gubbins fitted. Everything's just mocked-up here, and nothing is permanently attached, but it's starting to look like a bass at last. Cheers, JRK

Well - went for the Sire! Pros The neck is great - in terms of being able to navigate it, despite the extra frets, it works really well. The body cut out also works very well in terms of points of reference and easy access.. - very nice feel and profile, not sticky, sits really well in the hand and is very comfortable and "fast". - sounds powerful with lots of bottom end - it'll take me a while to get the EQ predictably right, but it's a lot more powerful than other (PJ) basses I have. It's also quite different - more so than I imagined vs a PJ. - gets noticed! (my other basses are all black). This could be good .... or bad! It's VERY good for a budget bass - to the extent that I'm glad I didn't go for a Fender at a similar price (or similar spec at twice the price). Cons - some of these are not Sire related - just the difference between J Bass/P Bass Arrived with a "scuffed" Headstock - just cosmetic but am having a conversation with Thomann. The set-up is OK - action a little high, and there's variation in String volume/feel so maybe need to get the string heights sorted +/- pickup heights - otherwise good. The body really is noticeably different to the P Bass styles I've always played - bit clumsy in comparison and BIG - and of course it doesn't really want to stand up straight in a stand. It's little bit heavier than I'm used to, but OK (used it last night for the first time in a 2.5hour gig and no problems.). More neck dive than I'm used too - so maybe lightweight tuners called for? The Headstock isn't better in real life! (Predictably) - Insertion loss on Pup Controls (very noticeable live and difficult to predictably change the sound on the hoof). So, it's very good and a great introduction to a J Bass, albeit with 24 frets and a bigger cutaway (which work very well). It doesn't feel cheap, but it certainly doesn't feel "high end". It's probably a keeper in which case it'll probably get a few mods which will bring it up to a great gigging bass!

You could order one from Chienmortbb of this parish.

Joe Wicks I believe!

Got a few last things to do. 1. Sort out pickguard mounting holes. Not quite as simple as it sounds. The new design makes it difficult but I have some thoughts. The original design was clunky and required you to take strings off or really loosen them to remove it. Bad design. 2. Work out the height of the bridge and top of neck. This is getting it right by about 0.5 or so mm. It makes setting up easier. 3. Work out how to put strap mounting on. The thinner design makes it a little tricky. Again, have thoughts, but need to test (again). 4. Print drill guides and make notes as to what happens where. There's a lot of tapped pickup mounting holes at M2.5 and a lot of untapped M3 holes. Some are holes to allow longer screws to fit. I have to get every single one right 😩 5. Work out what pickups to use and what electrics to use. The current headless has Wilkinson pickups and Amazon's cheapest control panel as it was Weds before the NW Bass bash and I ran out of time. I love the idea of variety in the sound but is it really going to be much different, I note that @ossyrocks uses a single pickup precision and it seems to work well enough. Mmmm.... And other stuff I haven't thought of. Rob

My band 'Shreds.' are at Nottingham's Ye Olde Salutation Inn this afternoon / early evening for a matinee gig. We were added to this lineup with less than 24 hours notice... just agreed to help out due to a last-minute cancellation. Originally we had a rehearsal in the calendar for today, to try and work on some new stuff. This gig suits me just fine, since I hadn't learned the basslines for the new tracks yet anyway, and was facing a very panicky Sunday morning dedicated to quickly working out those new riffs in advance of rehearsal. 😂 If your around Nottingham please do drop by to say "hello".

In and of themselves cone sizes don't make a difference in low frequency output, that's determined by the cone displacement, Thiele/Small parameter Vd. There are twelves that have displacement equal to or better than some fifteens or even some eighteens. But as I noted those are premium twelves, which are only found in premium priced subs. They also require a lot of power to make use of that Vd, which also means higher cost. In the price ranges that most bands can afford, especially those who play pub gigs, fifteens and eighteens will have higher Vd than twelves. They also have larger cabinets, which also contributes to lower response and higher low frequency output. So as is always the case you can't consider just one factor, in this case the cone size. You have to consider all of the factors which when combined give the final result.

A few of the cable companies on eBay are cheaper than designacable for the same thing, I've used these before: https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/ultimateproaudioltd For instance a lead I need (50cm Van Damme, Neutrik Jack M to Locking Neutrik F) is £31 delivered at designacable and £23 with that seller so not much more than buying the parts and making the cable myself. Exacltly the same components and colour options, shoot them a message if you want something specific. Cable builders make most of their money by bulk purchase on components, Designacable just whack a massive premium on top of that.

If we're doing flashbacks. Yamaha BBG5S, through a 2x15 & 4x12 bi-amped rig. Sometimes added a guitar amp as well using an Akai Unibass. When bigger was better 😂😂.

It’s the best headless solution in my opinion. I’m using the system on a current build, and I’ll be using on a 10 string fretless upcoming build.

The band I am in is The Desert Penguins. I used some free app to create the first attached image. I specifically asked for a black scratch plate on the Strat.... I then tried to get some images just for me. AI does not yet fully understand the concept of left handedness, and when it does it doesn't get 1957 black P bass, with black scratch plate and chrome pickup cover.

Earl Flute & Horace Andy - Satan Side

SA Atlas looks like a great bit of kit for the connoisseur! I'm going to lower the tone now with a King Rat by Mosky... My first venture into the sewer and I'm liking it.

I currently own a Warwick Metroline MJ5 and a Warwick MetroExpress 5, so I feel qualified to answer this. Before I get into the difference let me answer your question this way. Which bass to purchase depends on your position in the music world to me. If you are gigging regularly then I say get the Metroline because you should make the money difference up in a few months. Now this is where it gets interesting, if you just play with a few friends, do garage stuff, etc...then it depends on your money. The Metroline is a better bass, it's chambered ( 7.76 lbs is mine ), the neck is 1.75, versus the MetroExpress at 1.875. the fret work is impeccible on the Metroline, it's very good to very good on my MetroExpress. The VTC is the sauce, the pickups are different as well. So to not ramble let me just say the Metroline is 2000$ better, but if you add the VTC and especially the Sadowsky Humcancelling pick ups ( which I would replace the pickups before the preamp ) then you basically have a slightly heavier Metroline, with a slightly wider neck. Which the MetroExpress is still very comfortable to play. The MetroExpress is the best under 2000$ bass I have ever played. The Metroline is the best bass I have ever played, it's a difference. The Metroline is worth the price. My Metroline costed 3650$, My MetroExpress cost 1140$. In closing I have owned two MetroExpress ( new models ), the first one I had shipped with the VTC and Sadowsky humcancelling pups. I installed them myself and I was so intrigued I had to get the Metroline, The MetroExpress I have now I just replaced the pickups, because with my Metroline being my workhorse it is no need for the VTC in the MetroExpress, so there is no wrong answer, but yes no matter what you add to a MetroExpress, a Metroline is 2000$ better.

I was messing for band T-shirt ideas… I loved this - as a T-shirt rear… with a more serious pocked patch of the actual band logo…

The below is from one of the free text to image AI's. I went through the options and asked it to create a logo for my band who are named 'Electric Soup'. My band are now called 'Electrik Soup' 😆

Maybe a left over from Eddie Van Halen's work interesting pickup though, looks to be about the spot of a normal P bass

Really interesting video that.

A lot of plastic died for this project...

We had some nice weather this weekend so I had a few basses in the garden. L-R 1980 Ibanez MC924, 1980 Ibanez MC980, 1980 Guild B402-A, 1979 Guild B302, 1979 Yamaha BB2000

Circa 83/84 WAL custom lined fretless £740 with one of THE best bass heads ever produced and a custom 12" + 15" bass cab fitted with Peavey Black Widows. Both amp channels on with the top passive channel doing most of the low end and the bottom para EQ channel doing the mids. It was a very nice bass tone. With BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam band approx 2yrs ago i think. BLOCKBUSTARZ unmasked earlier this year 2024 at a photo shoot. We took this one for posterity. Back RHS being happy. With Emergency Exit Punk covers band 2023. Not the sharpest of pics i'm afraid.

It will be distracting. Remember than your bass cab drives the stage, the PA drives the room, so to do that the sub would have to be considerably louder than your bass cab. That's OK when it's few meters off to the side, but not right behind you. As for a 12" sub, there are some loaded with premium drivers that are up to the task, but by and large you're better off with a 15 or 18. The very term 'compact subwoofer' is an oxymoron.

I am sure someone will love this. But not me https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/nash-guitars-pb-55-2-tone-sunburst-extra-heavy-aged/

1972 & age 72!!!!!

Dep went ok and I remembered most of it. A couple of moments where I was looking at the set list wondering how a song went and caught up after a bar, but survived. Not a huge crowd and it was a bit of a Wild West town but still fun playing different songs. Didn’t set up the IEM’s and probably should have done as I was right on top of the amp so everything was going past my knees. Had some nice compliments in one of the breaks so I must’ve been doing something right 🙂

He’s got loads of similar ones that he rotates on a strict rota - they’re his Synchronici-tees