mrtcat

Hey all, I play in and run Crude Measure, a rock covers band based in Oxfordshire. We're about a year in now and we're getting pretty busy and we seem to be generating plenty of demand. We've never played a gig where we've not been rebooked by the venue and we now regularly have to turn gigs down. www.crudemeasure.co.uk

If it were me I'd want to detune permanently or not at all. No way I'd want to be messing about chopping and changing mid set.

IME to get a good reaction you have to sell your soul a bit and play well known stuff. Have a wide variety too as pigeon holing yourself as a 90's indie band will simply limit your appeal. Look at a site like lemonrock or something then look at the busiest bands. I'm afraid they all do pretty much the same stuff and it's purely because thats what punters want. Bookings will go hand in hand with crowd satisfaction as a happy crowd is a thirsty crowd and that's what the covers game is really all about. I would recommend some modern hits, some classic stuff and something funky and plenty of them so at any point you can pull a run of crowd pleasers out of the bag and whip a drunken audience into a frenzy.

[quote name='Pentode' post='1126849' date='Feb 14 2011, 11:36 AM']I can highly recommend Bills' designs and plans - [url="http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/"]http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/[/url] The 'Jack' series are fairly straightforward builds and sound great. [/quote] [quote name='BigRedX' post='1126854' date='Feb 14 2011, 11:38 AM']If you've got the woodworking skills, tools and the time and somewhere to build it, I'd make a BFM cab. Otherwise just buy the Hartke![/quote] [quote name='JTUK' post='1127202' date='Feb 14 2011, 03:57 PM']I agree. Some of the efforts on here from the pics I've seen can put some cab makers to shame,[/quote] [quote name='TPJ' post='1127248' date='Feb 14 2011, 04:28 PM']+1 to Bill's plans. Look at the [url="http://greenboy.us/fEARful/"]Fearful[/url] on Talkbass as well.[/quote] +1000 to all of these. Bill's designs are fantastic and it's really satisfying. I think Discreet has a brilliant build thread that ended with one of the best looking cabs I've ever seen.

Got a Classic last year as I wanted a simple amp that sounded good, inspired confidence and was compact. Wouldn't swap it for the world now as I set it at the start of a gig and forget about it. Sounds killer, is very loud and I would only end up obsessing about tweaks if I had all the other functions. Plus the price difference is ludicrous in my eyes.

When I was 22 me and my then band (4piece rock covers - v cheesy but v fun - had only played pubs to that point) set off in a van to Austria where we spent the winter doing a about 10-12 gigs a week in ski resorts. We had no real plan other than we all saved for about a yr first then simply drove over, found a cramped cheap apartment in a small town near a big resort and blew most of our saved cash on paying for it for 5 months upfront. We got there before the start of the season and first thing we did was spend two weeks playing try out gigs for free until we had agreed a weekly schedule of places within a 30 mile radius (can take several hours to do 30 miles in snowy mountains). We'd play some bars from 3-6pm when folk we're coming down from a days skiing then pack up and move to another and play 10pm - 1am somewhere else. Most days we played twice some days just once but it was f***ing exhausting. Worst problem was constant packing down and setting up of gear. We survived the season, drank a lot, snowboarded a lot and had lots of sex (not with each other). At the end of the season we each had about £500 left to show for it which was enough to convince us to drive to Greece for the summer and try do the same again. Sadly that was a nightmare and we could only find gigs for 4-5 times a week so we all ended up doing bar work to try keep afloat. We did it for two years tho and apart from the odd squabble we got along well but it meant we all had to really work together. I was really lucky that the guys I went with were all committed and really solid guys who got along really well. I still play with two of them. the big thing about trying to make a living out of covers is that you have to take EVERY gig and you have to be able to rely on the whole band to play whenever, wherever without question. I WOULD NOT ATTEMPT THIS IN THE UK as there's simply hundreds of great bands in most towns so we would have never got this many gigs.

There's a lot of wisdom on this site and I agree with all so far. I don't like the clangy sound but have to agree that it's a very useable tone in a live set up. If you're not going thru a PA then you'll defo need to get the guitard to roll back the bass on his sound to give you room for your bass. I usually start with eq flat then walk out to where the audience will be and listen. 9 times in 10 I lower the bass a bit and boost low mid sometimes even high mid a bit. That usually gets me close and from there its just fine tuning. I never set eq based on what I hear on stage as this is generally nothing like the audience hears. Some bass players scoop the mids but I only really find I can do that when going through PA where a sound engineer can adjust guitars etc around it. As for the volume across the strings in my experience two identical guitars can be very different and a good set up may help. I would defo raise the pickup under the D & G a little and as mentioned before concentrate more on boosting high mids than treble. Don't stress you'll find it - it just takes a bit of patience working out what works best for your kit.

[quote name='janmaat' post='1125194' date='Feb 12 2011, 05:47 PM']Fact is far too little singers care for their sound both on the side of vocal chords and gear. this is a fab thing that I believe every live singer should have [url="http://www.tc-helicon.com/products/voicetone-create-xt/"]http://www.tc-helicon.com/products/voicetone-create-xt/[/url] seriously, it blew me away. there is really a lot of gear for vocalists coming out recently (boss has done something similar), so hopefully they will start bothering for their own sound at least (get their own microphone and wedge monitor at least, i am bored by singers who don't have any gear and rely on other band members for anything)[/quote] +1 If you play / sing in a band you have a responsibility for your own kit / sound. I really hate that the guitarist and singer in my band have little interest in investing in solid kit or pedals even though we are a busy band playing week in week out. I own our PA system and regularly upgrade it to help our overall sound. I firmly believe that if I didn't sort the PA we wouldn't be gigging as none of these guys would bother investing. I also have invested in a nice solid, reliable (not fancy but not cheap) bass rig so I can reproduce "my sound" at a decent level. Our singer uses a fake Sure mic that sounds sh1t and gets moody when I say he could really do with using the money he earns from the band to buy a real one. Our guitarist (who is really good) won't buy ANY pedals as he can't be bothered and still uses a small combo (I have to really work hard with the PA to get him sounding right). I agree that "your sound" comes from your playing but in a live situation there's a difference between "your sound" and "sound quality". A decent engineer will really help to accurately reproduce "your sound" at a higher level and tweak it to sit well in the mix. A really good engineer will even be able to overcome shortfallings in your kit to a certain extent by taking a DI (ie pretty much completely bypassing your kit) and sorting it out at his end. Many of us however rarely get to work with a really good sound engineer and therefore if our amps / cabs / basses etc don't cut it then the overall sound won't be great. If you're serious about playing in a band then out of respect for the rest of the guys and the audience then at least make sure your kit is up to the job.

At the risk of dragging this off topic I feel I must state that I have never heard a credible argument against earplugs. If you're not wearing them cos you're worried what others think then your not only totally stupid you're also going to suffer badly for your pig headed vanity. My father played in a band in the 70's for just 7months and in that time they played just 11 gigs. Ever since then (for the last 35yrs!!!!) he has suffered with the most mind bendingly bad tinitus. He can't bear to be in a quiet room as the high pitch whine drives him mad, he can't sleep properly and he has had to wear a hearing aid since the age of 27. He's seen umpteen specialists who unanimously attribute his problems to noise damage caused by playing live. He is now totally unable to play his guitars as he's so distraught that playing them has done so much damage to his life. He'd tell anyone who won't wear them through vanity or peer pressure that you need to grow up and accept that not taking proper care of your ears will end in misery. Sorry to rant and sorry to have hi-jacked the thread a bit but I wouldn't wish for anyone to go through the same as my dad.

I take all the usuall crap but have recently added superglue. I sliced my left hand index finger tip open just minutes before a gig a few months back right where it presses on the string. Landlord gave me some superglue and I glued it together. Worked a treat and although it was sore it lasted the whole gig without opening up. Apparently superglue was originally designed as a field dressing in the war. Works well for us muso's these days!

Butt cheeks well and truly bent on one of the cabs. Gigging meant less time to build than I'd hoped for but still some progress. Will hopefully get second cab up to speed tonight. [attachment=70497:IMG_1232.JPG] Bending the ply was relatively straightforward but an extra pair of hands was definitely needed. End result is very pleasing though and you can feel just how strong it's gonna be. Staring to get excited now as there's a distant light at the end of this tunnel!

Ok so a little more progress. Been slow the last couple of weeks as work is busy and have been helping friends out with a kitchen fitting on weekends. Should have more free time this next few weeks and really want to get these finished. Firstly i countersank most of the screws on the side wall of the horn. I then filled them with car body filler and sanded them back. This was messy but I think it'll be well worth it when they're done. They're going to be fairly unusual looking so may get people looking more closely at gigs so want to at least try to make them look presentable. Then I added the throat supports. These take a little trimming to get really tidy and level but should be well worth the effort when I get to adding the main box sides. [attachment=70259:021.JPG] [attachment=70260:022.JPG] Have now added the half round black 4inch tubing at the back. Found a 2m length in a skip so lobbed it into the volvo and it fitted perfectly. Makes a real mess when you cut it on the table saw though. Little black flecks of plastic EVERYWHERE! It's a super static to so sticks to everything. Not to worry looks good now tho. [attachment=70263:023.JPG] Hoping to get my butt cheeks bent this weekend.......................and do some ply bending too!

[quote name='Marvin' post='1093033' date='Jan 17 2011, 08:10 PM']It's looking a very neat and pro build[/quote] Low resolution pics are definitely the way forward

[quote name='gjones' post='1100227' date='Jan 23 2011, 10:20 PM']Life's too short for faffing about.[/quote] +1 There are some smashing guitar players out there. In fact there's a surplus of them and IME many of them are really decent people who will work hard with the rest of the band to get things moving. I don't tollerate people not pulling their weight in my band regardless of their instrument - least of all guitarists as there's plenty out there that would kill for a chance to play with a band. I don't care whethter they put the band together or are just auditioning. If you don't learn your stuff when everyone else does, you're letting everyone else down and wasting their time. I play cos I want to progress and will happily speak up if someone is being a plonker and holding the rest of the band up. Ditch him he sounds like a plonker. You'll find plenty of volunteers keen to audition and some of them will no doubt be more talented and more commited.

Bit of progress this weekend but not as much as I'd have liked. Got to bend some ply tho which is nice. Hoping it creeps and settles tho as initially it put strain on the front supports where the tweeters will go and they were bowing out a bit. I'll keep it strapped tight for a while tho and hopefully this will help. Also the supports will be in next and they should help nicely. [attachment=69081:build_009.JPG] [attachment=69082:build_011.JPG] Sorry for not doing more pics, I get really carried away and forget to take photos whilst I'm building. Unless you've built these before you can't even start to comprehend how many clamps I needed to get this far

Do it all the time as I'm really tight. Doesn't work for elixirs or any other coated strings and as mentioned can make silk wrapped ends look really tatty but defo works. Not tried the meths option but sounds good too!

Forest Gump at 6.04

Thanks chaps, Really enjoyed your thread Big Mick and would love to see a finished picture. Am really staring to appreciate the expansion of the adhesive as it really makes things airtight and also holds incredibly strong. A good sharp stanley knife removes the excess once dry to leave a nice clean join. Going to give the build some quality time this weekend although gigging tonight fri and sat. Will post progress over the weekend.

In the process of building two DR280's for our band's PA system. Should be ready for gigs from start of Feb 2011. Check out our website to see where we're playing if you want to hear them. www.crudemeasure.co.uk Probs wise to PM me before travelling tho as we only use them if venue doesn't provide PA (99% of our venues don't provide to be fair). Failing that PM me if you want to pop round sometime and try them with a bass. I'm in Bicester, Oxfordshire (J9/10 M40) and happy to help out fellow bassists.

I'm going to go for a melded tweeter array. This basically means I'll be putting 22 piezo tweeters into each cab. My decision was largely influenced by the fact that a friend runs an electrical and plumbing trade store and they had 100 pulse tweeters buried in their store following an order cock up a few years back. He was glad to see the back of them as they were just gathering dust and let me have them for £20. I'm not convinced they'll be as good as CPC's own but for £20 i'll take the risk and if they turn out poo I'll fork out for the CPC ones at a later date. I'm also gonna build my own high pass and low pass filters. Started by building the tweeter jig from Bill's jig plans. ##Bill's jig plans are a must and at only $1.95 a bargain## Then cut as described and started glueing. [attachment=68471:024.JPG] It's important to get a good seal so i spot glued them with model aircraft cement then went totally bonkers with hot melt. [attachment=68472:031.JPG] [attachment=68473:030.JPG] I used the off cuts from trimming them to make supports that have really stiffened the array up. The final array is OK but bot amazing. Next time I will make sure my gluing jig is more perfect and have now seen many builders on the forum doing some gluing before making the 45degree cuts. This should improve things next time. Not to worry tho they are airtight and rigid and although not perfect it'll be hard to see unless you're right up close. I now realise that my big mistake was not leaving the edges on the end tweeters in each array. I'll rectify this later. [attachment=68474:026.JPG] Then it's time to wire them. The plans make this simple. Each array consists of two banks. Each bank is wired in parallel and the two banks are wired in series. [attachment=68475:032.JPG] [attachment=68476:035.JPG] All 44 tweeters on the jig - don't panic they're not all wired as one this is the two lots just sat next to each other! That's it so far. I'm hoping to be done in the next few weeks so will keep posting up my progress. Hope someone finds it useful but if not I'll not be surprised!

Next stage: More cutting out, used the router for the baffle and throat horn support slots. Driver spacers attached too. As per instructions I have now pre fitted speakers so I know they'll fit right when I come to put them in at the end of the build. I'm using tee nuts and M5 bolts to secure the speakers which is more than really necessary but I just feel more confident that way. [attachment=68464:005.JPG] [attachment=68467:006.JPG] Time to cut out my butt cheeks! I used my router with a self made jig, it worked really well and cost nothing. [attachment=68465:008.JPG] [attachment=68466:007.JPG] The plans show exactly how to mark up curves etc using a 26inch arc (length of thin batton with screw in 1 end and a pencil exactly 26inches away from the screw) and it worked well. This allows you to mark where the access panels need cutting out and where the inner horn curve will be. Now it starts to get interesting. You start to assemble the bits together and start measuring. What I love about the plans is that Bill accepts there will be some variation in cutting accuracy and explains how to trim / sand parts until you have the exact right width / angle between top and base. [attachment=68468:009.JPG] [attachment=68469:011.JPG] You may notice I jumped the gun a bit here and fitted the urethane semi circle bits that fill the cavity inside the speaker cone a bit. This became a slight issue later and re-itterated to me that following the plans to the letter was important. [attachment=68470:014.JPG] That's about as far as I am with the woodwork to date but spent some time over the weekend with the tweeters. See next installment!

The band is starting to get busy and we decided that it's time to invest in some decent PA cabs to replace the god awful Peavey 2x15's we've been using. Problem is we're all way to tight to splash out on big brands so I'm building my own. I love the idea of having something a bit more special too. I've got plenty of woodworking experience as a cabinet maker. Speaker experience comes from having built a sub woofer boxes for my friends when I was a bit younger then progressing to bass cabs, and full range /monitors in recent years. This is my first ever BFM build and I thought I'd jump straight in at the deep end and go for a pair of Bill's DR280's. As these are a bit of an experimental test of my abilities and a chance to make a few mistakes I'm going to use some 12mm ply sheets given to me by a customer. If I surprise myself I will defo be hunting down some really nice baltic birch and building another pair for more long term use. If these are solid and I'm happy with them I may sell them off unloaded on here to fund the top notch materials. [attachment=68460:013.JPG] Ok so tools wise I'll use a reasonable range of kit including circular saws, jigsaw, table saw, router, 1,000,000 clamps etc Bills plans are great and very descriptive. I am rapidly learning that these are not to be used as a basis to "ad lib" a bit. Everything is done the way it is for a reason. If you're going to build your own BFM stuff follow Bill's advice to the letter and take your time. There's great support from the forum but as long as you read carefully and stick to the plans you'll be fine. They cost $15 a set and that's a bloody bargain if you ask me - Thanks Bill!!! Probably the most important thing to do is get the right adhesive. Wood glue will not work on Bill's designs. Bill recommends PL polyurethane construction adhesive which is very strong and has brilliant gap filling properties which is vital as you need everything airtight and this allows for small imperfections in your cutting. I struggled to find this in the UK tho so I did some testing of other PU stuff and found this to be the best: [url="http://www.thegluepeople.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6_10&products_id=33&zenid=00e669a4213085ba954ec380ad93803c"]http://www.thegluepeople.co.uk/index.php?m...54ec380ad93803c[/url] It's magic stuff as it expands loads and then sets rock solid and at only £4.26 a tube it's very well priced. Thus far I'm half way through the first tube. Be warned tho, if it gets on your fingers it takes weeks to come off. Right on with the build! First up is the horn baffles [attachment=68461:017.JPG] [attachment=68462:018.JPG] [attachment=68463:020.JPG] I'm doing two cabs at once to make life just a bit harder. Parts are not desperately easy to clamp but again the plans tell you how. You'll see I screwed them too but now see this is overkill. Next time I won't. I'll leave the screws in tho as they won't be seen at the end.

[quote name='stonecoldbass' post='1083898' date='Jan 10 2011, 08:26 AM']I think we're all missing the point here, which is that she looks suspiciously like Verdine White, just look at those trousers!! [/quote] Haha that made me laugh out loud! I think we sometimes miss the point by trying to over analyse. Yeah she showboats and possibly there's better singers but that's her act. Like it or leave it. Many of the most successful solo artists ever have relied on a mix of their showboating [b]and[/b] their talent. That's what makes them a front man / woman rather than just a musician in a band. Might not make the best show if she was just to stand at the back where bass players usually stand. It clearly appeals to some and not to others. I enjoyed it and can see her obvious talent as both a player and performer but probably wouldn't want to buy her albums or watch a full 2hr show. Thanks to the OP for posting tho as I wouldn't have seen her otherwise.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1083784' date='Jan 9 2011, 11:47 PM']That is a bit balatant, but stuff like this means quality has to speak for itself, rather than letting a brand label speak for it. Which is a win for the discerning consumer, issue being most consumers aren't discerning.[/quote] +1 IMO there's a few too many big names who's products vary hugely in quality of finish and components from one instrument to the next but command a very high price. I have no objection to paying the right price for quality but if small independents can produce instruments of seemingly equal, if not higher, quality for less and still turn a profit then there's something quite wrong. I think that this type of activity is the kick in the arse some of the big brands need. However I'm sure most will opt to spend their time and money chasing the counterfeiters rather than raising the bar a bit. I have a p-bass that is put together from odds and ends (squire body, unknown neck, fender neck plate, fake fender headstock transfer)) with some sd p'ups which has been dressed up to look like a vintage 70's original and following a thorough setup from a respected luthier it plays and sounds infinitely better than my brother in laws USA vintage 62 and only cost £200 all in. Why therefore do we pay so much for the real deal?? Of course it's because we trust the brand but should we really trust them when they rip us off?