mrtcat

Hi all, I'm currently building a pair of BFM DR280 pa cabs. I'm getting along nicely but cannot for the life of me find any 4 ohm 10-20watt resistors for the high & low pass filters. I've trawled the net and drawn a blank. Can anyone help? Woodworking skills are fine but I'm a bit green with the electrical side. I can locate 3.9 ohm 10w resistors but you'll probably tell me that to substitute these will result in a full meltdown of life itself. Pls advise

The reason you can sometimes find a cheap deal at crackconvertors is because they pay well under the odds for the stuff they buy in. Selling to them should never be an option for anyone IMO unless you're desperate for a quick sale.

Real happy with my rig and my usa vintage 75 jazz. just want something with 5 strings such as a sandberg jazz v. Once thats sorted i'll be happy and not want anything ever again.................................................HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

I love watching other bands. I love checking out their gear, hearing a different take on certain songs and generally enjoy myself. The music scene in our area is pretty poor so I'll offer any encouragement I can. I'll even collar the landlord if he looks unimpressed and say something like "wow these guys are great". As long as it helps encourage the bands or the venues I'm all for it. We are all at different stages of learning and unless I can offer subtle advice that will actually benefit the musicians or band then I don't do anything other than complement them. When I'm playing I take nicely put constructive advice well but I can't tolerate people who are smug / unpleasantly critical. It takes a lot of effort and guts to put a band together and get out in front of people to try and make them happy. The least we can do is enjoy it or at least pretend. If the support band walks out mid set or makes a big display of packing down whilst we're playing we'll not work with them again. We're well booked these days and never short of offers for support bands so it's their loss. If they're a good bunch and stick around I'll buy them a beer afterwards. When we were starting out we used to "pay our dues" and stick around to watch the main act and it helped us a lot with re-bookings etc. We still give heaps of support to bands that support us by cheering / shouting / clapping / dancing and it helps lift the other punters which in turn is good for us when we go on. There's more respect than attitude out there but there are still a few people who think they're above the rest in my view and it's ridiculous as there's no need. If you're so insecure with your own playing that you need to slate other bands then it's all a bit pathetic.

I'm really happy with the advice and service I've received from Mark. He is passionate about his gear and if he does try to push you towards something it's purely because he knows it'll give you what you're after. 95% of the time this will be fine but sometimes you may find it's frustrating to be ushered away from the kit you have in mind as what you really want. I'm sure his intention is all good though. I've had Mesa gear before and it was great. I now use Berg stuff and IMO it's considerably "greater". Don't forget he is trying to offer a much better range of gear than the usual music shop that makes most of it's money selling cheap guitars, amps, recorders, music stands etc etc. If he was selling all the same stuff regular shops were he would probably shift enough gear to be able to employ a bunch of spotty teenagers to serve you. That however is not the case. He's focusing on the kit that gives us the best sound and reliability which is a bit more specialist.....and at a very competetive price. In order to do this I'm sure certain compromises need to be made to make it a viable business. Therefore he may need to deal with phone customers for mail order sales at the same time as leaving you to noodle on a bass by yourself. The location is handy for the M40 but not as handy as being on your local high st. Again this will be a move to lower overheads. I personally would rather travel a bit and noodle a while than have to pay more for the kit in order for Mark to be able to afford another employee and a high st store. If his business is to expand (which I hope it does) he will need to become very stretched before moving to the next stage. That's just the way life is in a small business. Just my opinion tho. I don't know the ins and outs of the OP's phone call so can't comment. I just appreciate what Mark is trying to do and will certainly buy from him in future

Awesome vid in the OP love it and thoroughly inspiring. That guy not only defeats a disability that would see most of us give up playing for good he also plays really really well and the conveys heaps of feeling. The other vid is the exact same bland 80's style slap fest you would expect from MK. Technically amazing I'm sure but totally self indulgent and aimed at providing festive "w@nkfodder" for his fan club more than anything else. I'm sure he's a great guy tho

Thanks so much guys this is all really helpful. I think delay and chorus will be a good start. I personally love wah but I'll let him make that call. His amp has a good reverb build in and a footswitchable boost but a volume pedal could be handy as we like to vary the dynamic a bit and it's often tricky to get the volume right down for him. Much appreciated chaps

Sorry this isn't a bass fx issue but wonder if anyone can help? Our guitarist is really solid and a great rock player. As a band we used to do just classic rock stuff and he didn't seem to need pedals he simply used to adjust the drive on the amp and use different channels. Problem is we're now venturing into a far more varied field of party rock covers (queen - darkness - arctic monkeys etc etc) and he agrees he's going to need some effects to help him vary his tone. As he's not used them before we wondered if anyone can help suggest what he might need? What are the effects you'd expect to find at the core of a guitarists rig. Does anyone else do this type of music and know what their guitarist uses? Thanks

Don't use anything at all and can't see me needing them in the future.

Big difference between quitting altogether and taking a break. If you start to sell stuff make sure you keep enough so that when the urge takes you to come back (which I'm sure it will) you've got enough to play with others again. We're all learning, we're all just at different stages so don't beat yourself up I'm sure there's heaps of people out there that'd love to have you in their band (quite possibly the rest of my band for a start).

Very nice! I'm listening on crappy pc speakers but it's clear there's plenty of talent up there. Very tidy drummer and +1 about the sax lady!

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='1001431' date='Oct 26 2010, 04:39 PM']Reminds me of this site: [url="http://www.rude-world.co.uk/gallery.asp"]http://www.rude-world.co.uk/gallery.asp[/url] Beaverlick, Kentucky indeed![/quote] Used to teach snowboarding in a place called Beaver Creek in Colorado. This was my local off licence [attachment=66557:Beav.jpg]

Could this be a sneak preview of the opening ceremony to World Cup 2018?

[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1058367' date='Dec 14 2010, 11:38 AM']The only signature bass I've ever owned is my knackered looking Marcus Miller Jazz, but the more I look at it the more I hate the way the larger control plate looks. With the stock Fender preamp sounding so average I've taken the battery out and I run it through a Sadowsky outboard preamp instead so I'm tempted to find a suitable offcut of ash and fill in the giant hole in the body and put a standard bell shaped Jazz control panel on instead. So it'll be a de-Marcussed MM Signature bass. [/quote] +1 I had a MM Jazz too and never ever found the preamp useable. I really liked the passive sound and used it for gigs and recording but ultimately the pure ugliness of the control plate forced me to sell it cos I just couldn't love it. Does that make me a bad person?

lol

Our singer did a gig last month after having a colonoscopy 2hrs before going on stage. He couldn't stand upright so we propped him on a stool with a cushion and he had to wear a grown up nappy to catch leakages.

I'm really encouraged by the responses here. I'm happy to be helpful with any venue but it's reassuring that the common philosophy is that the venue needs to let people know what they're offering. I guess it'd be like putting on a free buffet but not advertising it - you'll please the people who would have been there anyway but it won't bring you any extra trade as nobody will know there's anything worth coming for.

I'm 34 yrs old and still keep our band's entire PA system, lighting rig and my bass cab in my parents garage which has been part converted so is warm, dry and secure. I get the feeling I'm pushing it a bit tho as they've recently started talking about moving away from the area.

Please tell me if I'm wrong about this. We're a rock covers band and play probs 30 - 50 gigs a year and have a good following of people who come to see us when we're in their local pub. We charge a very reasonable price to the venue for a night of playing and without meaning to sound cocky everyone who sees us really seems to enjoy it and we always get really good feedback. As a result we are selling cd's and T-Shirts which are selling far better than we ever thought they would. We provide all lighting, pa etc and are insured to the max Some venues are great and advertise well but others seem to think promotion is entirely down to the band and if the turn out is low they look to us for an explanation. Now we advertise all our gigs on Lemonrock, Myspace, Twitter and Facebook. For many places this helps bring back the people that have seen us before and are now following us online but if we play a place where we've not picked up "cyber fans" before then this has a limited effect. It still amazes me the number of places that will fork out for a band but do absolutely nothing other than write on a chalk board a day or so before and then expect a full pub. We also get regularly asked to provide posters etc, which we do and send them to the venue weeks in advance. They then put one poster in the gents loo, one behind the bar and the rest they lose and blame the band if they don't take £1,000,000 over the bar. We have even been told before "we only book bands if they put adverts in the local papers and charge less than £100" (we don't do either of these). I must admit I feel that the real responsibility for promoting a night of live music should lie with the venue. As long as the band advertise on their sites then the rest is up to the person booking. I'd be intrigued to know what other players feel about this?

I still enjoy gigging a lot but in recent years a lot of the excitement has been worn away a bit by miserable landlords/ladies, low numbers of punters and our whinging drummer. We have a good few regular haunts where people come out to see us which are always fun. More and more we get booked by new venues, some of which are an hour+ away and when we get there they want to know where all the "followers" are like they expect us to bring a bus with us or something. I find it hard to comprehend them booking a band and then not advertising. We always advertise our gigs on our various sites but can't expect our regular punters (who come and see us when we play their local) to follow us across the counties. Our drummer is very negative tho. He's got a wife and nipper so I totally understand that he's got pressures on his time but we always feel like we have to keep him happy or he just won't turn up. On a couple of occasions he's actually emailed us to say he's cancelled a gig with the venue as he can't make it. When we do gig he's always grumbling about "it's a crap venue", "I don't like the landlord's attitude", "the money's not good enough" etc etc. It's almost like he thinks we should be treated like royalty cos "we're the band". Now he's a great drummer and he can be great fun too. He almost left once in the past so we auditioned heaps of new guys but none of them were even close to being good enough to gig pubs with let alone play functions etc. I guess almost every band will have someone a bit like this tho.

Wow love it. True feeling in every note from the whole band and very cool styling in the videos. Something to aspire to methinks.

I've got a lot of respect for those who sing and play and even more for those who front a band. I do simple backing vox on half a dozen songs in out set and am told I have a good singing voice. Anything more complicated than that is a real struggle for me as the first thing to fall apart is my playing. I know our band would benefit if I could do more. If anyone has any tips I'd love to hear them.

[quote name='J.R.Bass' post='1050454' date='Dec 7 2010, 01:00 PM']There is no way Nathan East is sterile.[/quote] Apologies, I really shouldn't have referred to the players as sterile more the gig's they seem to get. I am aware that Nathan East (like all the names mentioned here) is an incredibly talented player who could shine in any band and by all accounts he's a really nice guy. It's more the music that I find really bland thus to me it wouldn't be a satisfying job. Age old case of differing taste.

They sound pretty poor. Not really impressed with most insurers as the limitations of cover with most seem ridiculous. I had a car stolen two years ago from outside the venue we were playing and even though there was glass everywhere from the window they smashed AND my car insurance paid out for the vehicle the company insuring the guitar inside the car said that without the car I couldn't prove entry had been forced so they didn't pay.

Paul Turner has it for me. Very funky and upbeat gig. Don't desperately like JK but at least the music has drive. I'm sorry but I find all the Nathan East / Will Lee etc etc sterilized slap playing session players absolutely mind numbingly dull particularly as 99% of the time they're playing to 40 something yanks in comfy pullovers. I'm sure they're incredibly talented but it all just sounds like bad elevator music to me.