mrtcat

Excellent tip. I'll be pinching this.

The prices haven't risen dramatically from what I can see, maybe 10% over a few years. In my case I've still paid around £1400 for a very highly specced passive jazz (swamp ash body, carbon neck rods, mop block inlays, aguilar pups, matching headstock) built to order with equivalents from fender or musicman coming in a lot higher. I think it's the classic "rapidly growing business" issues I've encountered with waiting time that has increased considerably and basics being missed when reading the spec sheet. I've had no word on the neck yet and I'm guessing that to fit luminlays it's going to need refinishing so might be a while yet. I'm out of pocket for the £20 odd it cost me to send it back at the moment but will sort that with them. Adrian is going to send some new neck screws with it. Unless there's some gesture to apologise for the pink torpedo up then it's very unlikely I'll order from him again tho which is a shame as my Elwood L was beautiful and this one will be fine too but I just don't have that confidence anymore.

Hey, nobody dates my sister without asking me first!!!

Also why you don't let the bride or groom pick the set list. Let them identify a small handful of their favourites from you repertoire but even then tell them you'll only work them in if you can without losing the crowd. Usually not a problem but occasionally you'll get clients who'll try to tell you exactly what to play and when.

Pretty sure that @EBS_freak has experience of using a Kemper. Might be worth giving him a shout. I came close to getting one but opted for a helix instead and love it for live and rehearsal.

I picked up a yamaha gigmaster kit (their entry level kit but solidly put together) two years ago for £60. Changed the heads to some nice Evans ones and tuned it up so for £130 I had a solid sounding shell kit. Unfortunately to get the cymbals and hihats it cost another £400 but does sound great for what is essentially still a very cheap kit.

Thanks, it's taken from the mixer because we don't use backline. Makes small spaces so much easier to work in (both size and volume wise) and also helps make foh much cleaner.

Some crazy woman booked us (via an agent we have since parted company with) to play a 60th bday party. The address was something like "Fawson Hall". Turned out that was the name she called her 2 bed semi in milton Keynes. We arrived in pouring rain to be told we would be playing in the garden which was approx 5m x 8m. We were shoehorned in under a pergola but as there was no cover anywhere else in the garden all the guests (about 20 max) stayed in the dining room with the patio doors open. She paid over £800 for the privilege. Tried to book us again this year but luckily we're already booked on the date she wants. Video evidence :

Little live in session style video we did last week at The Silk Mill . We all look a bit knackered cos it was a silly early start to get there and we all have kids except the drummer who just doesn't do early starts. Apologies for the song selection lol.

+1 If weight isn't the issue then you're going to be spending a lot of money to find something smaller that outperforms what you already have.

This actually makes me feel a lot better. I can easily replace the ironmongery for minimal expense and as I said before it plays perfectly and sounds beautiful.

Get the hair clippers out and give it a number one all over ("number one" refers to length of cut - I don't mean pee on it).

If you help the guy load it in then you can chat and gauge whats acceptable. Just be generally respectful (it sounds like you naturally are anyway) and if you adjust anything change it back when you're done. Don't put a drink on top or lean anything against it. Say thanks and, regardless of how it sounds, compliment him on a nice rig. If possible hang around and watch their set.

Neck is off and on its way to mensinger workshop in Poland to have the luminlays fitted. I'll admit to being a bit underwhelmed overall. Yes the luminlays was disappointing but I'm not particularly impressed with some other parts. The most important positive is that the woodwork side is very good. The neck and fit is solid. That said, Many of the components are pretty average. In removing the neck (bear in mind I'm no luthier but I am an experienced professional cabinet maker with a good working knowledge of tools etc) two of the five neck screws rounded out. They're very cheap plated ones. The pick guard screws are also cheap and one or two arent perfectly straight. The bell plate doesn't look like a quality piece either so will be replaced. Finally I can still see hints of the grain through the paint on the body. Now these aren't deal breakers and guaranteed I probably wouldn't have noticed if there wasn't an issue that required removing the neck. I will be able to replace the parts I'm not happy with, with decent replacements at low cost but I definitely feel that the quality isn't as high as it was on my last Elwood L.

Neck is going back tomorrow to have Luminlays fitted. Adrian has been very apologetic and in the grand scheme of things it won't matter but is a bit sad having to take the neck off your brand new bass.

Arrived today. Worryingly it was left on my front doorstep by FedEx for approx 5 hours in plain sight. Bloody lucky it was still there when I got home. Plays lovely, sounds great (the aguilar pups are everything I'd hoped for) BUT!!!!! There's no luminlays. They're on my spec sheet and I paid 40 euros extra for them but they're not there. Gutted. Have emailed Adrian so will see what the response is. It may sound petty but I definitely want them fitted.

Been there and done it. In fairness tho I'd usually reluctantly agree and let the guy give me his amp di but it's rare that you can get away without doing a fair bit of work to get that sound to sit as well as a clean unaffected sound.

And the engineer says "you wanna play or not?"

You'll probably turn up and find that the engineer gives you a DI box and says something like "just plug your guitar in there and adjust the amp on stage to suit yourself".

Me and the drummer in my van. The others can sort themselves out. BTW any working musicians who want ridiculously good deals on van leasing, insurance and free tax advice, debt collection etc etc should seriously consider joining The Federation Of Small Businesses. Vanarama quoted me £260 a month for the van on a basic lease and FSB got me the exact same van on a fully maintained lease (servicing tyres etc) for £170 a month. Membership is £160 a year and the benefits are great. (I'm not affiliated in any way - just a happy customer).

Largely agree but it really does depend on having a good bunch of players around you who are focused and capable. I've been in some projects where writing was really easy as everyone worked well together, had great musical understanding and knuckled down to it. We were able to write several songs a month to a good standard and get them tracked and giggable. I've also been involved with bands that have taken weeks just to sort out a bridge because not everyone was focused and some people refused to listen to others ideas etc etc.

Unless your fan base is huge then it's really difficult to rely on your own promotional work no matter how hard you try. The problem is many of your followers will genuinely love the band, many will follow on social media because they are friends / family of the band and want to support their mates but many of these people may love lots of bands, may not actually be really into going to gigs, may not live locally, may have plans already and there's probably a fair few of your followers in their own bands so are out gigging already. You can't expect people to turn out week in week out just because they like your band, no matter how good you are. Maybe once a year or every 6 months. Being prepared to travel to venues that really work hard at being a successful venue and therefore draw a decent crowd of live music lovers can lead to far more satisfying gigs. HOWEVER these venues can pick the best bands out there usually and will do so in order to give their customers a great night week in week out and therefore protect their hard earned reputation. So use these bad nights as a chance to work on stage craft. Interact with the 10 people in the crowd, hone your banter and performance so that when you get into the better venues you go down a storm and they want you back.

I totally understand the need to be really easy to set up but I still think a modern digital desk coupled with a camera capable of good image quality is by far the easier option and it gives far far better results than any room mic only process. If you mic everything anyway then recording to a laptop is no more complicated than plugging the laptop into the mixer with a usb cable. If you don't mic everything, then it really isn't that time consuming to put a mic on a guitar cab and a couple of mics on the drums. Ok if you have 3 horns etc it becomes more laborious but even then a pair of condensers will do a great job.

That does play a huge part of it for sure.

In my experience it's not like elixirs to go dead overnight. How did they respond to being soaked in meths? Wouldn't that knacker the coating?