cheddatom

Indeed. There's a tech local to me who seems to set up all guitars with an action so low you can't play without fret buzz

I play with a pro bassist and he really is a brilliant player, but he won't do anything himself. I offer to do it for him but he always says he'd prefer to take it to a tech and pay. He bought a new bass the other day, brought it to rehearsal and the intonation was miles out, but he just kept playing it and looking a bit confused when some notes sounded way out of tune. I could have done it right then in 5 minutes! Weird

I haven't played a bad gig for ages. I only do original stuff, and my busiest band has a decent following that sings along etc A couple of the projects I do I'd happily just jam in the studio all day long, but I do love gigging too

We played The Sugarmill (Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent) on Friday. It's the big local venue and for the first time in the 20 years I've been going there, the place didn't stink of fosters. Maybe I've been whining within earshot of the right people? Maybe they've contracted new cleaners? Anyway, we were supporting The Membranes. They're really nice guys and I actually like their stuff, although I wish the drummer would replace his broken cymbals, I'm sure he's getting paid enough. We had a dep on bass, Pete the guitarist from Slice Of Life. He's done such a good job preparing for these couple of dep gigs, I'm sure he knows the songs better than us. It could be a nerve-wracking experience playing with a dep but this was super tight and loads of fun. Our gigs are a bit thin on the ground at the moment so it was brilliant to get back on stage and play the stinky poo out of my drums.

Yeh I agree

As someone who's struggling to make a living in music part time, it's quite frustrating to read ads like these, but obviously there's more than one way to look at things. If this was marketed as an "experience" for youths coming out of college/6th form, looking to start a career in music, I personally think it'd look great. I'd have persuaded my parents to buy me a train ticket to Edinburgh and give me a bit of spending money, and gone for a month of fun and experience (if I could sight read) EDIT: Anyway, ignore me, the POV of myself at 18 years old is irrelevant because I was stupid and naive and stoned back then

I guess if you're just starting out, 18 and about to go to uni or whatever, it'd be a great experience. It's just a shame it's made out to be aimed at pros but not offering any pay

Agreed!

This is the project of a friend of mine, Eden, who's done some orchestral arrangements for some weird pop and jazz tunes. They recorded the band stuff in my studio, then recorded all the orchestral instruments at other locations in Manchester and Liverpool. All the files came back to me for an absolute sh*t load of editing, mixing, and finally mastering. They filmed all of the sessions and some wiz has edited all that together. There are 6 track in total, no idea how long until they're all done but here's the first:

I've heard all of those examples before. I get that the style of the bass and drums is similar, but all of your examples seem to have a lot more going on in terms of instrumentation and sonic texture in general. Also they all have vocals. A lot of Vulfpeck is instrumental, and the instrumentation is very minimalist. I supposed I understand why people would class them as similar, but personally I think that Vulfpeck sound so unique I can't compare them. Maybe it's a "sound" thing rather than a "song" thing? I'm probably not making much sense.

Can you give some examples of 70s funk that sounds like Vulfpeck? I like Vulfpeck so I'd be interested to check it out If you want funk that's actually a bit original, check out Louis Cole and Knower, or Kneebody, or Nate Smith's latest solo album etc. etc

Agreed!

I don't think Vulfpeck are anything like any classic 70s funk I've heard.

We did two support slots. Friday at The Underground in Hanley which is very local for me. It could be such a great venue if only they'd clean it. Anyway, it went well and we won some new fans I think. Saturday was Albert's in Nottingham. This used to be a Spanky Van Dykes which I gather is some sort of student chain. I'd been in for a drink before but never been upstairs. The room up there is awesome! Great shape and brilliant sound. Unfortunately the venue had told the promoter that there was a 10pm curfew for a club night afterwards so everything was scheduled to be super early. It was only at 6:30 when he was asking about the load out that the venue staff told him the club night had been cancelled, and we could go as late as we liked. It was too late to change much by then, I'm sure more people would have come out if they'd known. To top that off, the venue didn't open the bar upstairs so people had to go down two flights of stairs to get a drink, and the service down there was the slowest I've ever seen. It took me 15 minutes to get a beer after we'd played. Another venue that could be awesome if they get their act together. Still it was a good night. Our bassist has been very complimentary of my playing the last few gigs. Either I've gotten better recently or he's been playing with a crap drummer in one of his other bands

Tina from Rock Shotz went a bit wild with the HDR effects on this one so I had to share...

I thought it was Jack Stratton's

To be fair this was probably recorded before the signature model came out

I'm not that familiar with the amp but if I was trying to get this tone I'd start by turning down the bass and treble knobs on the EQ, then see where to go from there. Probably a bit of drive and possibly boost the low mids a bit

It doesn't sound that dark to me. I'd have thought the P pickup would do it. What's your amp?

My band sells loads of merch at gigs all over. One day at my day job a customer walked into the showroom wearing one of my band's shirts so I (assuming she'd recognise me) said "Nice shirt!". She looked a bit freaked out and just said "thanks". I said "did you buy that at a gig?" and she said "Oh yeh we've seen them loads of times at festivals". I was going to explain that I play drums for them but figured it'd come across a bit needy We sign loads of CDs, vinyl, set lists etc. I did have someone climb up on stage after a gig once and demand some drum sticks. I'd actually broken one during the set so passed it to her but she said "No, I need a pair, I always get pairs". I explained that I don't have a lot of money and my sticks are expensive and she got really sh*tty with me, like I owed her a pair of sticks. I just packed them all away and ignored her until she walked off

I've been in bands where it didn't really matter if the stage sound was crap. We were so tight and well rehearsed we couldn't go wrong. My current main band likes to play loose with the arrangements somewhat, so it's really important that we can all hear each other.

Input gain turned down on the amp sorts it, so can't you adjust the output of the pedal to try and match the level with it off?

It sounds like at home you have a studio monitor type setup? Which will be very different from running into your two amp setup. You could try "ringing it out" with a parametric EQ but to be honest it sounds like there's just too much gain and/or volume. What does the feedback sound like? I quite like a bit of feedback but you do have to get used to controlling it. If it's a horrible squeal when you want silence then you could use a gate

hah, thanks, the Boss slicer is a techno night in itself!

I was just messing about the other day. I often keep my kit mic'd up so I sent all of the mics through to one of the auxiliary channels and on through some effects pedals. I put that in my headphones so I could play along, recorded the lot, and mixed it