Leaderboard

Anyway, last night’s gig. Small pub gig that usually has a good crowd that are up for any sort of music. Sadly tonight it was quite quiet. We are still a guitarist down but not and issue. Squeezed int a smaller space than usual which worked ok. Guitarist had issues with his radio at the start of the second set and went to a lead. I had forgotten to charge the xVive IEM’s so ran hard wired with the Behringer P1 - fine with limited space. Second night with the new Allen&Heath desk / stage box which is is a great improvement on the XR16 I’m out of the plaster cast now and into an air cast boot which makes life easier to get around but I’m still not very mobile and probably shouldn’t have been stood all night. Generally we played well and the sound was good, though I was told in the the break my sound needed more top - it sounded fine in my IEM’s but I re eq’d slightly. Having had a few gigs recently I felt happier with my BV’s and range had opened up. Crowd singing and dancing most of the night, just would’ve been nice if there had been more.

Did a gig with the covers band, at a fairly newly opened bistro, yesterday evening. I had my doubts about this before because, however low we turn down, a four piece (keys player not able to make it) is still going to make it hard for the diners to hold a conversation. However, it went well and people enjoyed it. We did the more mellow part of our repertoire, with a load of originals written by our lead guitarist. This was split over a couple of one hour sets and got a local solo singer songwriter to do a half hour set in between. There could have been more folks there and I was disappointed that a few friends, who had said they would come along, didn’t show up. A few of the other guys had the same. Why do people do this? Raise expectations and not deliver. I wouldn’t be bothered if people just said nothing, rather than promise to be there and not show up. Now I’m a bit miffed at them. Despite not getting as many diners as they would have liked, the owners were very pleased with the evening and said they were going to have us back. I guess it takes time to build these things and live music can be a draw. The pay was OK for Norfolk as well. Gear wise, I used a Guild Starfire 1 with rounds for most of the numbers (tuned down half a step) and a Nordstrand Aacinonyx with flats for the numbers we do in standard tuning. This went into a Flyrig v2 -> Harley Benton GPA100 power amp -> LFSys Monza sitting on an Auralex isolator. It was the first outing for the GPA100, which had arrived the day before, so it was a bit of a risk but I had my Warwick Gnome iPro as standby. I was happy the way the GPA100 worked for this low volume scenario. The Gnome really doesn’t like going that low but with the GPA100 volume at 12 o’clock it was comfortable without working too hard. What surprised me was just how different the rig sounded in the bistro (basically a converted barn), compared to my studio. I am going to have to work on the EQ and drive settings a bit more. I was getting a touch of break up on my clean channel. About half way through the first set I noticed that the peak light was flashing on the Flyrig, so I was obviously digging in a lot more than I do in rehearsal. Dropping the drive setting a bit and turning up the volume on the GPA100 cured it. More work needed.

New mini board created! Need to reprogramme the h9 and work out of the tuner will be ok for me as a standalone solution.....then I'll probably rotate drives for the next 3 years....as usual

Been through them all, but remember the old Bedford van we used on occasion. Driver and one in the front, one on the engine cover, and on the way home from a Christmas gig with the club band. Three of us in late teems and the bandleader driving who was in his 30’s. Stopped by the law driving round in a car park trying to find the exit and with the drummer in the back divvying up the spoils rescued from the buffet. Copper opens the sliding side door to the van: “Blimey there’s more of them!” Drummer: “Sausage roll officer?” 🤣

Weeds tripping the light fantastic...

I quite liked music lessons at school, especially GCSE/A-levels - lots of young ladies whose parents wouldn't let them go to gigs or busking (which we did most weekends & holidays) unless I went with them... this one time, at band camp... 🙂

My new 30.5” ACG fretless has arrived this week. It’s amazing!

My 2c is that it makes little to no difference which wood. I think how it’s constructed and how well seasoned the wood is that makes more difference

2 Great tunes from @Wolframand @Jean-Luc Pickguard ('Lean-Luc' to his friends ) secured a joint victory for September. By virtue of no more than a lightning response to acknowledge his share of the victory, Wolfram got the honour of choosing our October picture, and now is the time to listen through the tunes that were inspired by it. He offered the thought ... "The temptation of the serpent and the forbidden fruit. Or an exquisite dessert at Amazónico, Monte-Carlo. Take your pick for this month's inspiration!" So, that is a lush serving and you can have 3 helpings of vote choices , pick your favourite 3 tracks 1 @AndyTravis Im In after missing last month... And…I’ve embedded it…so NER 2 @Jean-Luc Pickguard My song, "Take A Bite" is told from the perspective of Satan, who has taken the form of a snake. This character from a popular work of fiction represents free thinking and rebellion against those who try to keep people blissfully ignorant and obedient, and wrongly label him as evil due to his defiance. In the song, the snake speaks to someone content in ignorance, encouraging them to embrace enlightenment, knowledge, and self-awareness. 3 @Dad3353 It's tempting, to tuck in, taste the Turkish Tavuk göğsü, try the Tulumba, but... What's that, lurking in the shadows..? 4 @xgsjx It's a parody on a popular type of music, about my own personal experience & how things have changed for me. 5 @Leonard Smalls You know when you're all savoury-ed out? And all you want is cake? Or treacle tart with clotted cream? Or vanilla pannacotta? Or Or pineapple Upside Down pud with custard? Well then you got The Puddin' Blues! 6 @upside downer After a scrumptious dinner everyone orders the Serpent's Kiss for dessert. Sure, it's delicious, and a little venomous, too. Their stomachs will be rumbling ominously for the rest of the evening...oooh, blimey! Has anyone got any Buscopan? 7 Lurksalot I tried to get an upmarket posh lounge sleaze , but it didn't really work , so this is how it came out. 8 @Wolfram An ethereal soundtrack-style musing on the serpent, the fruit and temptation. That's your lot ... and what a bunch they are, Holy Schmoley You WILL enjoy a listen through these Choose your favourite 3 tracks Voting will end at midnight on 31st October so Dive in

I recently bought an Eich 112pro combo from @Wan on the forum. Wayne met me half way (in fact I think he travelled much further than I did) and we had a great chat during the familiar car park handover. Lovely guy, with a lot of fantastic experiences and gigs. As described, the combo is in brand new condition and complete with the padded cover and shipping box. Wayne sold it as his gigs now require in-ears, and in some respects, my band is moving in that direction hence the need for something which is step towards that. I’ve had lots of big amps, tube amps and solid state, and I’ve always quite liked combos for some reason. My Blackstar U500/250ACT stack being my most recent rig. However I have found that the gigs we play tend to be in dedicated music venues with decent PA and I only need a monitor. I don’t always get one however as we’re a 7 piece band and there aren’t usually enough. The idea of a kickback came from a recent gig where we played a big-ish stage and I used a house 2x10 Laney combo kickback. It sounded great, as in I could hear myself better than ever. But it was very heavy. I did play the previous version of this Eich combo, by Tecamp, some time ago. I like that it’s still a box shape as opposed to a wedge, and I find the tilt back mechanism, by way of a little metal rod that slots in at the back, elegantly simple and effective. I got it home and set everything flat. I haven’t used many cutting edge new breed cabs so I wasn’t really prepared for the sound of this thing. It sounds and feels absolutely huge, thick and syrupy without any ‘boxy’ vibes that I normally associate with a small combo. It’s really quite incredible. The treble is so smooth and sweet maybe due to there being a separate cone as opposed to a horn for the top end. I didn’t need to change a thing from dead flat for the perfect sound (at home) whikst the simple ‘taste’ control will no doubt be useful in live settings, helping either bring out the clank and mids or warmth and pillowy feel with one twist. It’s also dead silent and pretty light, but reassuringly solid. I have yet to try the DI but will do this weekend. Some pics in ‘lean back’ mode. Not sure how I’ll position it on stage, wonder what others do - maybe to my side so I’m in between it and the drummer. I may get the extension, I very much doubt I’ll ‘need’ it, but in case they stop making them in black it may be nice to have 🤔 Question - if I wanted for some mad reason to use this AND my Blackstar rig, could I use something like a Lehle P Split II after my pedalboard and run a cable into each amp and control them separately? My bass is passive and I’m not sure if my pedalboard buffers the signal or not, certainly the main pedals on the top don’t but there’s a TC Soectracomp underneath, always on?

Jazz typically teaches you more about harmony than other genres, because standards are typically repetitive in form but not in the notes that are played. To play jazz you need to fully understand the notes available, how they make up the chords, how you can manipulate the sound, and how you can solo through changes. This is not necessarily the case across all genres but learn these key fundamentals and you should be able to navigate a tune in any other genre.

Best lesson ever? Seeing a video of myself gigging fretless. On stage I assumed I looked/sounded like a cross between Jaco and Jamerson. I was very wrong. Just as Richie Benaud used to say ‘There’s only three things wrong with the England Cricket Team - they can’t bat, they can’t bowl, and they can’t field….’, there were only three things wrong with my playing; tuning, timing, and tone 🤫

I think that you need to clarify whether you were a fellow student or the teacher!

It’s called the Glaven Bistro at Glandford, near Holt (and Blakeney). I think they spent a packet doing the place up, so it’s not the cheapest around but the grub looked pretty good to me. Wine is a tadge expensive because it’s all English, in fact all from Norfolk I think, as is the beer.

Had to play with making my own pickguard this morning. Mixed results. I printed out a template to use a Dremel table router. Pretty normal stuff and I thought that this would be ideal (famous last words). I even marked it to make sure what was top and bottom never underestimate my ability to cock things up. I then put masking tape on both sides of my pick guard material to protect it and drew around my template to get a rough idea to cut out something bigger which I could then route down. The masking tape was useful as it allowed me to mark the outline. Put it on the Dremel table router and then created a massive mess. A Dremel on this particular material creates tiny particles that are nightmare to get off your clothes. This was a rough cut to give me a piece of material for routing around. The pickguard material was around 400mm wide and too unwieldy to handle. Once it was cut down, I used two sided tape to hold the template down and then used the template to route around. Simple idea BUT the top of the router bit was rotating so fast it was melting into the PETG template and so it was difficult to get a straight edge. What would have been better would have been a bearing on the top so that router bit rotated but the template didn't melt. A 3d printed template is easy but not the right solution. I don't know what the right solution is at the moment.... Anyway, I took a file to the pickguard to level it out and get it looking better. Not that happy with it, Its better than the previous orange pickguard but its not at the quality I would like. Also its rather square so might put some significant radii on the corners. The other option is to get a black pearl pickguard. Suggestions welcome as to what to do. I put the new pickguard on the guitar as it was better than that what I had, so its temporary until I work it out. I also took the opportunity to put the strap buttons on, take the ferrules off the back to clean that up, replace the solver screws with black ones to hide them. I then plugged it into an amp and had a play. Its not been set up properly, but it sounds pretty good. A lot warmer than my Telecaster, but put some significant gain on it and it breaks up nicely.

What, and spoil a great weekend by giving myself a an even bigger inferiority complex? 😉

The Spacewasters are at this years Psychobilly Freakout at The New Cross Inn, SE London. We’re on 6pm-ish on Sun 3rd Nov.

Did a bit of research and reviews on this model. All had good right ups. That Dimarzio with the switching seems to be the star billing. But I always thought that the Longhorn design is cool as flock but I don’t get on with short scale necks. I’m a bit worried about the strap pin placement as I tend to like the horn strap pin on the 12th fret, like Ps and J style. But I’ll get over it, coz I’m shallow. 🤣 I’ll do a review.

I bought this used Musicman StingRay Special from Ikebe Music via Reverb. Excellent service and the bass was as new, not a fingerprint in sight. Price including taxes/duty was pretty much what it would've been in UK.

Hey all! So, I’ve been pretty inactive on here for QUITE some while. Figured it’d make sense to reintroduce myself. I’m Danny, from Stoke. Mostly playing bass with various pop artists & depping on covers gigs, since I’ve yet to find my “forever covers band” tried rock covers, which I found pretty dull, did some metal covers for afew years with decent returns. Had a pretty great festival & wedding season this year, not as good as I’m assuming a lot of people have had… it’s getting my foot in the door! Ashdown artist, 5 string & pedal enthusiast!

Snatched a few minutes to finish the cab build from the bass bash. A few minor faults caused by rushing things as I was talking but nothing a bit of filler won't sort . Hopefully it can be filled and painted this weekend.

A bit late, but here are some photos from our gig supporting Byronic Sex & Exile 2 weeks ago: BTW our next gig supporting Aurelio Voltaire on November 5th is now sold out, so if you haven't bought a ticket you won't get in.

Busy Bandeoke in Bristol last night.

I’ve just ordered a set of D’Addario EXL170S short scale stings on Amazon, for the bargain price of £12.95. From the D’Addario store on Amazon so should be kosher. Get in quick if you’re interested , 49% off their usual price and looks like 10 sets left. 😊

The pub we played at tonight, we were supposed to play at last night, but they asked us to move because of the football match (Leicester lost badly to Nottingham Forest). I'm not sure if we've done a Saturday there before, so whether it's the switch or if it's normally quiet on a Saturday - there were not many people there when we started. The load in is a park up with hazards on, on double yellow lines, on a hump-backed bridge and a quick chuck-in to the tiny playing area before moving the cars. All didn't bode well, especially at it is not even a cash pickup at the end of the night either - invoice and wait! However it was the first opportunity to try out my Sterling Sub5 since I fitted the new Retrovibe Stinger preamp. Wow - it's absolutely transformed the bass! What was a muddy and indistinct bass now has bite, growl, thump and (dare I say it) heft. I had a whale of a time playing it. The B string is lovely. It also is about 2/3 the weight of my usual Sire P7-5. Guess which bass I'll be playing at the Donkey tomorrow... The only slight downside is that my Boss GT-6B seemed to have difficulty tracking the note when it was quite twangy - the octaver and synth patches I use in some songs both had a bit of a funny turn until I plucked a bit nearer the neck to reduce the overtones. I'll just have to remember to do that next time. Anyway the night did seem to pick up a bit as more came in, and we kept them in the pub which is the main thing. It's not a good situation though. The pub music scene seems as fragile as I've ever known it in 40 years of playing. Anyway, obligatory rig shots... And to think I had it up for sale recently. £75 spent on a better preamp has transformed it, and it paid for itself tonight - it owes me nothing now.

I loved the neck on a late 80s Squier. Bought a lovely Daphne Blue body from Warmouth. Babicz bridge and 18v EMGs. Worth doing. It is an excellent gigging bass.

The real rehearsal was yesterday at 4:00 in the afternoon when three of our five piece bluegrass band met to go over some of our material and try a few new songs for festivals we are booked at next summer. With mandolin, guitar and me on DB we worked out some good arrangements of some traditional bluegrass songs and a few bluegrass arrangements of some non bluegrass ones as well, lots of fun and some nice three part vocals. The day started with a jazz jam at 10:00 in the morning with a guitar player and drummer that I have played with in several bands over the years. We are old guys (I'm 78) and the only one still gigging in the bluegrass band and a 7 piece swing/jazz band so we just call out a song and find a chart and have some fun. The guitarist has made some backing tracks with chords so we can jam along with that or just play without the tracks...great fun and always something to learn and work on with no pressure and no egos, we have no plans to play anywhere except in the drummer's basement. In between these two sessions I had my weekly hour long DB lesson and after two years my bowing is getting a lot better. I work on all sorts of music from Bach to jazz and my teacher is more than happy to help me figure out the best ways to play some of the jazz charts for the seven piece band and also work on some Simandl. This week he asked me to help out the bass section of his youth orchestra for their Christmas concert and gave me the music. Most of the 30+ students in the orchestra are too small to play cello and bass so he adds a few adults to fill out the sections, this will be the fourth concert I have played with them and it is fun and challenging for me, really looking forward to the orchestra rehearsals. It's an hour drive to the city where all this takes place and it was a long day but very satisfying and I always come home pumped and ready to start practicing. Next rehearsal is Monday night with the swing band, we have a gig next Friday. I consider myself very lucky to have so much music in my life. 😊

Yup I dropped music lessons at school at the first chance because I hated them - unengaging, badly taught and with no element of performance at all. It was some bloke rambling on about classical composers which meant nothing to a bunch of 1980s teenagers. Sad really as I’ve spent my whole life playing and relying on my own devices. Seems to have worked out ok.

Everything bar the Tuner, Ocabvre and C4 are recent new or new to me acquisitions in a bid to find my IEM + FOH sound... but the HX one was purchased new today out of the need for an occasional bit of reverb and delay. What a great pedal! I didn't see the point on release and was torn between this and the zoom ms60b+ today, but the designated tap tempo won me over. I love the idea of having future requirements met, and having the option paralysis of the hx stomp taken away - just one pedal, no routing or amp and cab options to worry about. You can even limit how many "presets" you're able to scroll through with the footpedals which is great! For £200 this just seems a well thought out and well built pedal!

G&L MFD

My bag was £1.50 from Tesco Inside are: Clipboard with set lists/notes Cables inc spares Zoom h2n recorder + spare batteries Hand sanitizer Earplugs Spare strings Setup tools