mrtcat

[quote name='The Badderer' timestamp='1435512556' post='2809555'] However, there are also times where some sound engineers are so focused on what comes out to the FOH that the band are left unable to hear themselves. I'd say a fair bit of this lies in inexperienced bands or sound engineers not knowing enough about what goes on to get their sound check sorted properly. [/quote] This is a very valid point. Engineers that can put a band in their comfort zone by giving them a nice on stage mix can expect to get a better sound out front as people aren't playing harder or turning up in order to hear themselves. If we go back to the op's initial post though there was no sound engineer. Should you offer advice? Well it's tough as clearly some people here wouldn't want it and others would. You would never know until it was too late if they didn't want your advice. If a band was clearly struggling and I could offer some information that would actually help them then yes I'd probably tentatively approach and start with "please feel free to tell me to mind my own business but...". If I had no pertinent advice that would help and was just thinking "oh my days this sounds crap" i'd keep it to myself as we all know it can be tough to play somewhere with bad acoustics and spend a whole night fighting with the desk only to have your band mates and punters complaining to you about the sound. I think with these guys I would have offered a little advice if they wanted it.

Really enjoyed her playing (and the rest of the band) and thought paloma faith was great too. Proper talent in every department.

[quote name='mike257' timestamp='1435495170' post='2809302'] The amount of sound engineer bashing I see on this and other forums these days, and the general attitude that we are all clueless pricks out to sabotage your gigs or massage our own egos is just ridiculous. I don't know a single fellow engineer that doesn't take pride in their work and try and make every gig sound the best they can with the tools available to them. [/quote] I agree. Although maybe in a slightly more reserved way. I do sound a lot and have studied hard to give myself as much knowledge and experience. I think I'm half decent now and can help bands to sound their best. I was once inexperienced and had limited knowledge but at that time I charged accordingly. I have accepted lots of advice along the way and have also come across some really arrogant musicians. Luckily these have been in the minority and I've worked with some lovely people. The real pros have generally all been really helpful, supportive and appreciated. It's the amateurs that think they should be pros that are usually hardest to deal with as they're usually much more precious about "their sound" which is often not a sound that works well for the overall mix. The best guys I ever worked with were Gregg and Matt Bisonette who were just the nicest guys ever. The worst was a bass player in a wedding band from East Grinstead. Complained about everything and couldn't get a decent sound from an Aguila DB750 into DB212 and a Stage one streamer.

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1435486745' post='2809154'] +1. Of course you won't like it if it's hip hop. I have never had a conversation with a middle aged white bloke about Kanye... or even classic hip hop (DMC/PE etc.) [/quote] Pretty poorly thought out comment there considering the type of forum this is. Also a little unnecessarily insulting to many of the people on here. I'm late 30s and white and love decent hip hop having listened extensively to the likes of Ice Cube, Dr dre, snoop etc etc when younger and still really enjoy more recent artists like Jay-Z, Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross etc. Kanye simply doesn't do it for me. So bland and clearly a total plonker.

I always play it on a 5er tuned BEADG. I'm working on it on drums at the moment and it's epic.

That's excellent. We all know how rewarding it is to create music and it should be available to absolutely everyone.

I have had experience with other online retailers before where you order a new bass and what arrives has clearly been out on the shop floor somewhere or has been returned by a customer. Dawsons did the same to me last yr with a squier jazz. You have to go in and select basses in person wherever possible. Regarding the finance, you have a right to cancel within a set time frame so make sure you contact the finance company too. I feel for you Thunderbird, that's really poor service.

I like the way they play stuff like RHCP on a stingray, Jamiroquai on a Streamer etc. Think that's a cool touch.

Always take my own amp. Busses pass through our village twice a week so that's not an option and with just 1 BFM 1 x 12 and a genz stm900 i can usually toast far bigger rigs and carry the whole lot including a bass in a 1er from the car.

I change bass during a set if we play something in drop tunings. Keys player prefers everything in standard tuning but vocalist can struggle on a couple of numbers if we don't knock it down a semitone. If the song has lots of open e string then i just use a different bass. Takes seconds to change with a A/B pedal as long as 2nd bass is tuned and ready with its own strap.

Thanks lowdown, it's not an issue with windows 8 and firewire for me. I am using the firewire port successfully with other hardware it's just the mixer that's causing a problem. The chap in the link almost certainly has the revised mixer which works with windows 8. As I have one of the original ones it only works with windows 7. I had a response from Mackie tech support saying I should try running the desk with a free driver called ASIO4ALL but I still can't get it working :-(

Haha, I'm no spring chicken myself but I have a three yr old daughter to point me in the right direction with the tech. Thanks for your help tho, it's great to know this new fangled stuff is good.

I'm toying with the idea of biting the bullet and just getting a new interface. I'm trying to compact down our live setup anyway and fancy a tablet controlled setup. Tempted to look at the Behringer X32 or even an X air 18 which can be controlled by iPad for live work and the unit can be used in the studio as an interface. I can use the Mackie in the rehearsal room I have but it just seems a little overkill for that.

I had no choice about changing the pc as my old one was damaged in a house move last year. We got compensated by the removals company and were happy at the time as my last PC was really old and slow. I now have a Dell with 16gb RAM and an i7 processor. Dell state that none of their Windows 8 hardware has been tested with Windows 7 software so they don't accept liability for problems encountered. I'm pretty sure it would work fine with Windows 7 but if anything goes wrong with the PC and Dell (not known for being the most helpful at the best of times) refuse to help because of me going against their advice I'll be up the creek somewhat.

If that's you murdering a song then I quit now.

Thanks guys. The drivers are refusing to install having tried all the above. It seems mackie released a slightly upgraded version of the desk with new drivers which work with windows 8 but plan no driver changes for the original desk. I can't downgrade to windows 7 as my machine is an 8 machine and manufacturers warranty is voided if i run it on windows 7. There's quite a lot of discussion about this on the soundonsound forum and none of it puts Mackie in a good light. I just feel really cheated that they are making expensive desks like this with the intention of letting them become obsolete when operating systems evolve. It's like they just expect you to go "ah well time to splash £1500 n a new desk I guess".

Very grumpy. Just splashed out on new PC for the studio only to find my Mackie 1640i isn't compatible with windows 8. It has a serial number starting 003 and according to the Mackie site the only driver software for that serial run is up to windows 7 only. Further research leads me to find that Mackie aren't going to provide any driver upgrades so there's nothing I can do. SO ANNOYING as it basically means my desk is gonna have to go and it's been a brilliant bit of kit. Humph

I often dep in a steel panther tribute act. Playing brown sugar wouldn't be the worst thing I ever played.

I'm not sure I understand why you lose growl when turning down? Neither of your amps are valve amps so you're not going to get that kind of break up by driving them harder. I had a RH750 and one of it's good points was that it could do all it's tricks at all of its volume levels. I'd imagine it's more the perception you have of the sound at a different volume. If it were me I'd think about a nice pedal like a sansamp or darkglass microtubes to give the gritty / growly sound and use the TC heads as a power amp.

And if you'd rather have streamliner than shuttle go and buy fretmeister's shuttle and while you're down this way I'll trade you my STM900 for it :-)

Sometimes I practice without drummer, guitarist, keys player or singer. Still worthwhile. Its totally up to the rest of you in the band tho. Id normally suggest that working on new stuff with someone missing is worse as it means you then all have to go over it again when they're back. If its covers though I don't see why it can do harm to rehearse without drums. You can often hear things better without drummer and could even realise something is wrong with how you do stuff e.g you and guitarist haven't been playing same thing in some places. I generally find the necessity to rehearse different with different bands. A pub band I used to be in insisted on rehearsing endlessly and they were still terrible for making mistakes at gigs. Other bands I've been in hardly ever rehearse and rarely made any mistakes. My current band still regularly learns a new tune at soundcheck and then gigs it that gig.

This is all very encouraging. I just bought a early 90s Japanese TRB5 from ebay for £460. It [b]appears[/b] to be in really good nick but won't get my hands on it until it arrives in next few days. If it's anything like as good as other Yamaha's I've owned then I'm sure I'm going to love it.

[quote name='BILL POSTERS' timestamp='1433097713' post='2787837'] Its not just weddings though surely. apparently Light My Fire, and Arthur Browns Fire are popular at Cremations. Not many funerals have bands though. Anybody played a funeral ? [/quote] Never played at one but my dad went to a work colleagues funeral years ago where it had been arranged that the crematorium would play the guy's favorite elvis song as the curtains drew across and the coffin disappears. Instead of "Love Me Tender" they accidentally played "Return To Sender". When I was younger my band was asked to play at my best mate's girlfriend's 18th party. We opened with "Get A Job" by The Offspring. The look on her dad's face was priceless as our singer belted out the opening lines.

[color=#333333]We need a funky pop / soul / disco guitarist for established function band. Good groove and a pro attitude. BV's desirable. Gear and transport essential. We're a friendly bunch but are serious about making good music and entertaining people. We have pro gear including PA and lighting.[/color]