mrtcat

I like the sound from Hartke stuff. The Kilo I used to have sounded ace. It's just a pity the thing spent more time on the repair bench than on top of my cab. It was a piece of junk in terms of reliability and although I initially had decent service from Hartke this quickly descended into a total farce and ended up with their engineer damaging the front so badly I decided to cut my losses and sell it off at a silly low price. Such a shame as it sounded great.

I know you say you don't have lots of money but I bought a brand new Sony 5.1 av receiver from richer sounds for £89 last yr. If you go into a branch and speak to them they often have a managers special at silly prices. They will often sell you a unit that has been loaned to another customer whilst their machine was being repaired. My mate picked one of those up for £70 and it still had full warranty.

Won't play without them. I have some nice custom molds from acs but my amp bag, guitar cases and car have multiple pairs of cheap disposable ones stashed in in case I forget or misplace my good ones.

Two 1x12s is a great choice. I love mine.

Having built lots and lots of BFM projects I can't stress enough that the plans are great but YOU MUST FOLLOW THEM TO THE LETTER. Read them through several times and if you don't think you have / can afford the right tools / wood then think carefully about whether you should proceed. DIY cabs may be less expensive than much branded gear but when you price all the components they still add up to a pretty penny. Why risk wasting money by "freestyling" or by letting someone at a timber yard rush the cuts when a bit of self discipline and a few carefully selected tools will see you through multiple builds. For me a circular saw would be minimum requirement and a router, although not essential will save lots of time and give a uniform finish.

Love gigging but having recently become a dad I miss my wife and baby girl when I have a gig that requires me to leave home before baby bed time. That said I still really enjoy the bigger gigs and look forward to hanging out with my bandmates when we play.

My guilty pleasure. I love it when we do this one. All about the feeling in the opening bass riff and keeping the energy/drive going. Never really thought of it as a difficult song but our drummer is a bona fide rock pro.

Firstly I'm sorry to hear about your family issues. Having been through similar I know it's a tough time. The band sound a bit nuts. Yes it's very frustrating when someone in your band has limited availability but if their reasons are genuine then you just have to suck it up. Going out without bass is just stupid. A dep whilst you had a sustained period of unavailability would have been sensible. That said, if your ongoing availability is going to be limited then you should leave. They clearly want to gig lots and it sounds like you have other commitments that will continue to cause problems. I don't know which projects you were involved with 1st but we recently sacked a drummer that joined another band and it started to impact on how often we could play. best of luck

Two. Requires total focus on diary balancing. One is definitely my main priority band and the other is lots of fun with great people but as I made my position clear when they asked me to join they are very understanding about where my priority is.

+1 for John Carruthers' tutorials on YouTube. All the simple tools, gauges and measuring rules will cost you far less than a pro setup. Buy them once, learn how to do it and save yourself money from here on in.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1410440709' post='2549462'] Confused... how do they determine £35...? is that £35 per man... per how many in the band.? That is £140 for a 4 piece...? Yep..best local. I have to travel to Oxford this weekend and am NOT looking forward to the gig. Enstone... wherever that is..?? [/quote] Where are you playing in Enstone? It's well outside of Oxford but a nice albeit small place. Heythrop Park? That's a decent venue.

That's a long way for a band to travel for a covers gig that looks like fairly low pay. If they have to cancel the gig I could get a local band together for it.

[quote name='Mr Fretbuzz' timestamp='1410421345' post='2549182'] Don't forget to mention to kick the guitarist in the nuts as well Kurt :-) [/quote] Most don't have them. That's why they try to compensate with extreme volume and long solos.

Following on from an interesting thread over last week or so about putting everything through the Pa, can any of the guys who put bass through at small to medium sized gigs offer any eq advice. I saw bill fitzmaurice mention in another thread that he uses a high pass filter at 160hz. This is interesting as I always find bass really gets wallowy in the PA mix and so I'll definitely give his approach a go. Any other suggestions?

Just fitted luminlay markers to my workhorse. Easy fit and looks perfect. They are plenty bright for an hour before needing a recharge with the little torch. Total spend £22

Is the comparison Yamaha DXR's or DSR's.I found the DXR12's pretty poor but the DSR112's excellent. I'd understand if you found them better than the DXR's.

Good luck Baxter,depping can be hugely rewarding and it's a great way to put yourself outside of your comfort zone. Enjoy.

Totally my favourite band for years. I got into the Brixton Academy gig aged just 12 thanks to my sister's then boyfriend and his mates. I've seen them loads including in the states. For me "the real thing" was their best but loved older stuff with chuck mosely and thought "angel dust" was a great album too. Thought they were way better whenever Jim Martin was involved.

JTUK can you explain "bleed"? (purely my ignorance). We work in a similar way in that we use tops and subs (all good quality) and I put keys, kick, guitar and 5x vox through. Our drummer is loud and usually gets louder during gig. Bass only ever goes in PA with an engineer. Any band with keys really needs subs IMO and if you're putting kick through at least one sub is essential as a minimum. My biggest issue is the drummer. He's so loud that a quiet stage is like a mystical paradise we can only dream of.

How often, how structured and how do you go about adding new songs? We have two pros in the band (we do weddings / general functions) and three non pros (including me). The pro guys prefer not to get together to rehearse too often and prefer to run new stuff in sound check and talk through structures. The other two non pros would rather rehearse week in week out and polish everything to perfection before playing it at gigs. I sit very much in the middle and can happily run simpler new stuff at sound check but rely on rehearsal sessions for more tricky stuff. I'm interested to know how others work.

Rehearsal? What's that? 28 songs added to our repertoire this year and every one learnt in sound check or half time interval. Stressful way of doing it :-(

Jazz does a pretty good Precision sound with neck pickup solo'd but the Precision can't do a Jazz sound. That said both are industry standards for a good reason as they both can sound incredible in the right hands. I love my Jazzes but have a hankering for a precision too cos they look and sound cool.

£1500 would get you something epic in the 2nd hand section. Personally I'd go for a new Gallien Krueger MB500 Fusion and a decent used 2x12 (berg / barefaced / aguilar etc etc). I personally have had hideous problems with Hartke gear and wouldn't wish their products on my worst enemy.

I don't have any issues with venues having a limiter system but I have a major problem with venues that have a stupidly sensitive limiter bit still sell their venue to brides and grooms when they know they want a live band. These places then blame the band when the limiter trips. If you want to do function work then limiters are something you either deal with or don't do the gig. The first conversation we have with perspective customers involves a chat about whether there's a limiter and if so how sensitive it is. If we think we can't put on a decent show within the limits then we decline the work. Most times it can be done but it's rarely as much fun but that's why weddings etc pay reasonably well.