mrtcat

Many congratulations! Lovely pics too.

It's a lovely bass part. Did some work with a BB tribute act a few years back and she caught the Katy and who's making love were the two standout songs for me although there's not really a bad song in a BB set.

I always want to know the following: What's in your set? Who's responsible for what? What is your marketing strategy? What's in the diary already? What is the availability of other members like? How often do you rehearse? How often do you gig / want to gig? How much per gig? What type of venue do you play? Any band that rehearses more often than it gigs is a no go. Bands that do social clubs week in week out are binned. The other points are all considered in context with the overall feeling and picture. I've done full time gigging for a living but am now self employed as gigging doesn't give enough mental stimulation for it to be my only work.

I was kitesurfing in Greece last summer and there was a greek guy who was clearly a really talented rider. One of the days was really light wind and I was about the only guy to be able to ride because a had a second kite with me that was 17m2. The Greek guy asked if he could borrow it for half an hour to teach his friend to ride. I was happy to let him as it was an old kite and I was done for the day. Unfortunately his mate crashed the kite onto the beach and tore a huge hole in it. They were really upset that they'd damaged my kite but I was easy as I was already looking for new kites in end of season sales. He asked my name and where I was staying but I thought nothing more of it. Next morning there was a big box in hotel reception for me and inside were three brand new kites (3 sizes) from a Greek company called core. Turns out the guy was top pro and core were his sponsors. He'd left them for me before heading back to Athens that day. I am now friends with him on fb and will be hooking up with him in September in kos for a few days. Total rrp of the three kites was just over £3K.

I have walked away from bands that insist on rehearsing at full volume. It's what kids would do.

Haha yes by all means. I'm not the best at describing. You really don't need to do it in such a complex way but it is worth finding a way to make sure all the tracks are of a similar volume. Some are much louder than others and all I'm really doing is trying to make them consistent

Not my cup of tea either. Chops yes, fun to listen to nope.

[quote name='steantval' timestamp='1497114287' post='3315977'] If you are playing a load of covers in your set that prominently feature a horn section, get a horn section, I know keyboards can try and emulate this but they never sound right to me. [/quote] What if you're not playing a load of covers that require horns but you have a small number of songs that do? You're right, keyboards struggle to emulate horns hence the use of tracks. We're booked solid and all of our clients appreciate that they aren't paying the extra £600 a night for us to include three horn players. Luckily, you're opinion is just that and isn't shared by the people booking us.

I picked up a cheap ukulele bass in a funny little shop in Totnes last October. It's at the top of the high St on the left. Sells lots of folky type stuff.

We use about 4-5 tracks in a 32 song set. I do it a slightly longwinded way but otherwise works well. First I'll buy the track in www.karaoke-version.co.uk and then download each of the instruments we want to have on the backing track and the click separately. This allows me to use them in a DAW (in my case reaper) by importing each instrument separately. I can now mix my own tracks and adjust levels of each part and add eq / compression etc where needed to individual parts. Once mixed I pan the click left and everything else right. I then put a limiter / clipper on the click and the same on the instrument parts and some compression so all of my track have consistent levels of both click and track (you'll be amazed how much volume varies from track to track and it can blow the mix if you don't have an engineer on the desk all night). Doing it this way also allows me to edit structure and create tracks for medleys. We do a ten minute Earth Wind and Fire medley that I created a track for this way. Once completed I export them as mp3s which I play on an android tablet using a free app called Songer which is especially for backing track live playback. Using a splitter cable the track goes to the desk and the click to a little mixer that the drummer uses for his in ears. I send him an in ear mix back to this little mixer from the desk where he can mix it with the click. It means he can easily adjust click volume in his ears on the fly. We all use in ears and would struggle without them. Hope that helps - clear as mud lol.

Great vibe to the whole event. Robbie Williams had a bit of a shocker but everyone else has been great. Band defo top drawer. I really love watching live pop these days as the band's are usually really talented and groove so well.

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' timestamp='1496584635' post='3312451'] All requests must be written on a £50 note We don't do that one, but we will play one later which contains some of the same notes [/quote] This is the right approach imo. Humorous without being aggressive but enough to let them know that you have enough wit and experience to make them look a bit of a tit in front of the crowd if they persist.

Sold a Berg cab to Bazza today. Excellent coms, super swift payment and a really nice chap to boot. Buy or sell with Bazza with confidence!

I just bought a lovely Yamaha bass from Mark. Absolutely faultless service and a really easy chap to buy from. Thanks Mark!

Yep and have the video to prove it. Busted on video starting an age old classic in the wrong key at a school fete last year. Probably because we were all hung over and looking to get through as quickly as possible so we could go set up for a wedding. That's my excuse anyway. https://youtu.be/kfu7yEAovTs

[quote name='Handwired' timestamp='1496167524' post='3309311'] My Barefaced Retro SIX10 beats every other 6x10 I've played/owned, including Bergs. It's 'unfartable'. [/quote] Interesting, I had a retro Six10 and went back to the berg because to my ears it just had more punch. That said I'm selling the berg as it's overkill for what I need now lol.

[quote name='Thunderbird' timestamp='1495652832' post='3305670'] wasn't the Billy by any chance [/quote] Played there a bunch of times but I try to avoid rock bands these days so not likely to be there again. We once had to endure the landlady's sister doing a burlesque routine with a couple of her mates at half time. Was utterly disturbing but at least I had a clean bit of floor to stand on afterwards as her nipple tassels had swept it clear.

Hey all, after some advice. The hard drive on my dell pc has failed. It's toast basically and, as the machine is out of warranty, Dell want an arm and a leg to send a new one. Everything was backed up so there's no problem with lost work but as someone who likes to look on tye bright side I see this as a chance to up the performance of the pc a bit. I use it for some light work stuff but also use it to run reaper and Lightworks. Can anyone recommend tye best upgrade to get the most out of it. Currently has 16gb ram and an Intel core i7 processor. Am considering getting a 7200 rpm hdd and a ssd to run music stuff. All suggestions gratefully received.

I went fully self employed three years ago so that I never had to turn down gigs. I was sick of waking up not knowing where I'd be working or what time I'd finish. I wish I'd done it years ago. My type of work is pretty flexible so I can usually take whatever time I want when I want and I love being my own boss.

I've gone bass - tuner - synth pedal - xr18 on a gig using in ears. Was absolutely fine and was able to get a really good foh sound and a lovely sound in my ears. Didn't have to work the eq too hard and just added the preset bass compression. I've got a beautiful aguilar DB750 and am this close to selling it and replacing with something cheap and cheerful for the odd occasions I want an amp for stage monitoring or dep gigs.