thebrig

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1509537084' post='3399669'] My first guitar was a horrible 1960s catalogue bought steel-strung acoustic that my parents got for reasons only best known to themselves. It had the typically high action of cheap guitars of the time, and even after I had found out enough to know to shave about half an inch off the bottom of the bridge to make it playable, I discovered that it sounded terrible. After pestering my parents for the whole of the summer, they relented and bought me a Kimbara acoustic guitar for my 14th birthday (the only real concession they ever made to my musical aspirations) I still own this guitar although these days it rarely gets played: As you can see it has undergone some modifications from it's original condition. The year after I got it, I sold all my model railway stuff and with the proceeds took a trip to Leicester where I was able to buy a second hand Carlsbro Wasp 10 Watt amp and a piezo pickup for my guitar. Unfortunately my £35 wouldn't stretch as far as a used "Woolies Special" electric guitar as well as the amp so I had to settle for the pickup stuck to the bridge of the Kimbara. However I now had amplification, and it was bigger and louder than the amps my school friends had - which just goes to show what terrible amps were around at the time for those of us on a very limited budget. Unfortunately a piezo pickup on an acoustic guitar didn't really make it sound like the guitars on the records I was buying, so after lots of trawling around the local music shops I added a cheap Schaller magnetic pickup. This was supposed to be fitted to the end of the fingerboard, but I didn't like how it sounded in that position, so I glued it to the soundboard next to the bridge and drilled a hole in the top to take the cable. At the same time I moved the piezo pickup to the inside of the body under the bridge and connected both pickups to a stereo jack. The output connected to a box with 2 foot switches in it, one which allowed me select the pickup and other which chose whether I was connected to the bright or normal input of my amp. However I still wasn't able to make it sound much like Slade or The Sweet, until I discovered distortion. After trying out a pedal that a school friend had made I saved up for the bits and added my own (Practical Electronics) fuzz box between the pickup selector and the amp and I was finally able to get something similar to the sounds on the records I was listening to. And that set up was what I used until I built my own solid electric guitar in the woodwork shop during my last year at school at the end of the 70s. I didn't own a bass until 1981, when as a student, I finally had some disposable income of my own and was able to buy a second hand Burns Sonic Bass complete with the original hard case for £60 (with a Fender-branded strap thrown in the seal the deal!) [/quote]A Burns Sonic bass was my first real instrument, it cost me £15 which I borrowed from my sister and paid her back a £1 a week for fifteen weeks.

[color=#000000][font=Helvetica][size=3][size=4]Just been reading The Dood’s thread asking: [b][i]Is there any really bad new gear out there[/i][/b]? and chris b posted, [i]“[b]When I started I played bass lines on a Spanish guitar, and an amp was out of the question. A friend used his parents radiogram instead of an amp.[/b][/i][i][b]Today's rubbish gear is sheer luxury compared to the gear we started on back then[/b]”.[/i][/size][/size][/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Helvetica][size=3][size=4]And this prompted me to start this thread, I know there have been a few threads discussing our first basses, but I thought it might be interesting to find out what other bits and pieces we used all those years ago to make music when we were starting out.[/size][/size][/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Helvetica][size=3][size=4]I for one started off in the mid-sixties playing bass on an acoustic guitar strung with mono filament wound strings to make it sound a bit “bassier”, I put the cheap plastic mic that came with my Dad’s Philips Cossar tape recorder inside the soundhole, then plugged it into the mic-in socket on the tape recorder and away I went, it was only a little bit louder than playing acoustically, but being just a kid of about ten or eleven, the extra volume made me feel like a rock god! mind you, after a few months the tiny speaker was totally knackered.[/size][/size][/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Helvetica]The lad next door also played guitar through his parent's tape recorder, and we got together with another mate who played along with us on a kids snare drum which had Ringo’s head on the skin, and a tiny little cymbal that came with it.[/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Helvetica][size=3][size=4]These days a Squier starter bass and amp would probably cost less in real terms than what my acoustic guitar and tape recorder did back then, and definitely would have sounded better![/size][/size][/font][/color] Edit: Thought I would add a pic of the tape recorder I used at the time.

What is the better option, powered mixer/passive speakers, or the other way round?

Thanks for all the comments so far, it looks like we need to do some serious research before making a decision

[quote name='itsmedunc' timestamp='1509127729' post='3396907'] I'd go secondhand active cabs. The JBL G1's and G2's 15" can go for as little as £100 now. G1 are 175w but go really loud. G2 400w and loud loud again. I saw a band recently with a pair of G1's in a large pub. The vocals were deafening. They had a bit of kick going through too. All depends what is going through them as well though. There's quite a few threads on here about good value budget PA cabs too... [/quote]Mainly vocals and maybe the kick drum

We are a five piece band playing a mix of AC/DC, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy, The Who etc.. We have been using an old second-hand system which the vocalist purchased cheaply, and quite frankly, it is rubbish!!! So we have decided to look for a better PA, we play pubs and social clubs so it would need to reasonably powered, but we could do with something that isn't too bulky because some of the pubs we play are tight for space. We are looking at spending about £500/£600 which might not seem much, but we only gig once a month on average, and although we do get paid, it's not a great amount. Should we go second-hand or new? None of us have much knowledge of PA systems, so any advice and recommendations would be very welcome. Thanks in advance.

[quote name='Drax' timestamp='1504715557' post='3366859'] Great quote from the man himself > 'The bass player is like the king in chess. He doesn't move much, but when he does he changes everything' [/quote]So true, I remembered seeing them on the Old Grey Whistle Test many moons ago when I was just a sprog, and their music went a little bit over my head at the time (probably due to the fact that I used to watch it after coming home from the pub, but then I came across "Little Star Of Bethlehem" on YouTube a couple of year's ago and I was hooked on there music, yes, the bass line is quite repetitive, but when it changes it certainly does change everything! [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--0kT_v13xs"]https://www.youtube....h?v=--0kT_v13xs[/url]

In my home town of Bridgnorth there are no buses after 6pm and none at all on Sundays, so a car is essential for me.

[quote name='Gottastopbuyinggear' timestamp='1504352715' post='3364305'] We've bought PLI through AMPband at a cost of about £80 for the year. My reasoning is that if a drunken punter knocks over a PA speaker on themself or someone else then I don't want to risk being in a situation where someone's coming after me personally for compensation. It works out at a few quid each between the six of us so it seems like a no brainier to me. [/quote]I totally agree, and I actually suggested that apart from the five members of our band, we include our partners as band members/roadies etc, because they often help with carrying things in and out, then the band policy would cover any accidental injuries/damage should they happen. To cover up to ten people with AMPband, it's just £79 per year, and split five ways, that's just £15.80 each per year for £10m Public Liability Insurance Cover and £250,000 Legal Cover.

[color=#282828][font=Helvetica] I suggested getting PLI cover for our band, but one of our members is against it because he says we are "[i]acknowledging and creating a legal entity that has legal obligations[/i]".[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=Helvetica] I'm not sure what he means by this, but is it something to be taken into consideration?[/font][/color]