cheddatom

Honestly I think the rest of the band need to get on board with the wild trousers, it could be your thing

We played Wigan Diggers festival on Saturday. Shame I missed you @jimmyb625 I had no idea another basschatter was on! I don't tend to read up on gigs, just get picked up in the van, go and play. That can sometimes have some unforeseen consequences, such as not realising I won't get to bed until 4AM, or not realising we're staying over at the other end of the country when I've booked a recording session for the next morning. Anyway, Wigan Diggers is a great festival. We've done it quite a few times in the past and it's always such a lovely atmosphere. The extremely warm weather can only have helped. The crowd looked huge to me, and everyone looked to be enjoying themselves. The only downer was some idiot causing trouble down at the front half way through. A giant fan of ours managed to gently escort him off but it always puts a damper on the atmosphere. The other negative was that I'd forgotten my hi-hat stand. There was a house kit, but set as high as I could get it, it was still 10 inches lower than I'd have liked. My fault, and pretty amusing Finally, a decent shot of my ridiculous kit made of 26" x 9" marching bass drum, and a couple of almost matching toms. The photo is by a lady called Kate who goes by "Late Developer" on facebook and she's very talented. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091871011827 Sunday night at Feral Fest in Herefordshire. It was a pleasure to see @Leonard Smalls band Choked. When I saw them at Rebellion Festival the sound wasn't great but last night in this barn was brilliant. Two very distinctive bass sounds and styles, tight drummer, female Zach De-La Rocha at the front, and an absolute wah-wizard on lead guitar. There wasn't a massive crowd but everyone seemed to be in to it. The highlight was our man's glitter trousers and I wish I'd have taken a photo but I guess we've all see them in this thread by now Our set was just after and there were even fewer in the barn for us at first. It seemed to turn around after a couple of songs, no idea why, but people started to appear from somewhere and in the end it was a great gig. No photos as I forgot Now I'm trying to work my day job on 3 hours sleep

Off The Tracks Festival on Saturday night. We were on at 7:15 and the tent looked pretty packed to me. I'm loving my ridiculous drum kit but need to get a Headsticks head for the bass drum. Loads of compliments after the set and apparently we sold plenty of merch. Ace gig! I personally feel the addition of the cowbell for a tasteful 23 hits during the hour long set is a game-changer. I asked everyone who came up to tell me how great the set was if they liked the cowbell, but not a single person had noticed.

All part of the game when playing originals!

Hah! It's such a subjective thing. I like a tight punchy bass drum, especially live, and especially for fast music like punk. This guy didn't like it that tight, he wanted more bottom end (even though there was a huge PA with subs!) so he tuned the bass drum down. It sounded alright for their set TBF but it kind of messed up mine a bit. I'm sure no-one in the audience cared and it was good for us in terms of reaching a new crowd. I'm getting quite adept at "sucking it up"

Once upon a time we supported a big punk band at a venue local to us. They'd asked in advance (via promoter) to use my drum shells. I always think it's a bit much asking the support bands to supply kit but it was a good gig so I agreed. Their drummer turned up in a 2 seater convertible with a cymbal bag and a snare drum. TBF he thanked me for the shells, but then asked for a drum key because he wasn't happy with how I'd tuned them

Hi Paul, no, he swapped the guitar in the end. Maybe there are some sort of ICs on these pre-amps that need a reboot every so often, like a computer, but I doubt it as no-one mentioned it on this thread The guitar he swapped to is another Yamaha, a very similar model, and he's never had an issue with it once!

I'm sure it will be, looking forward to it!

I'm late on this due to a mad week in the studio. We (Headsticks) played Gig In A Field at Wroot near Doncaster last Saturday 5th. The ground was saturated and I turned up in converse pumps with no spares. I kept getting stuck in the field and sliding around on stage. The audience didn't care at all. We went down really well and sold a huge amount of merch We went back to Rebellion festival on the Sunday to play the Pavillion stage. This was the biggest gig of ours for 2023 so obviously some nerves etc. but it went really well. The room was rammed. This is a photo from a minute after the end of our set - I'd just started packing away when I remembered to snap one! This weekend we did Down On The Farm festival in Herefordshire. It's a giant barn and honestly I didn't think the crowd would like us. I assumed most of them were there for the tributes and covers, but we got a great reception! It was the first time trying my new (old) drum kit. The bass drum is an old 26" x 9" marching bass drum and I thought everyone was going to hate it but they loved it. Insignificant in the grand scheme I'm sure but we all like to f*ck about with gear don't we Unfortunately the main reason for the kit is the look of the thing, and this is the only photo I can find with a hit of drum kit on it.

A pleasure to meet @Leonard Smalls yesterday. His band are great but there were definitely issues with the sound. After the first 4 songs myself and guitarist (from Headsticks) got sick of the droning feedback from the bass drum and went to leave. Walking to the top of the stairs to a small balcony made all the difference, suddenly we could hear the band clearly, both basses were cutting through, the drums sounded great... we stopped to watch some more, and then a security guard moved us on. You're not allowed to stand where it sounds good apparently! The Almost Acoustic stage for us in the afternoon and it was awesome. Plenty of people in at the start and they kept coming. It's a big room with a load of reverb and bright lights. Last year there were lots of tables and chairs so people sat down and it felt pretty empty and echoey. This year, no tables or chairs, just loads and loads of bodies to soak it all up. Great gig. Here's a terrible photo from the stage halfway through the set

You're right, I was being far too simplistic!

wouldn't it be very easy to just switch the wires on the output jack of any such problem pedal, rather than buy another pedal to invert the phase?

If only we had one to hand! Or a normal small bass drum would have been fine too

great video!

The Pit in Newstead on Thursday. This was a practise run for our "almost acoustic" set at Rebellion Festival on Thursday. It's a long story but I have to use this "tupperware bass drum" contraption I made a few years ago. Unfortunately the PA at The Pit wasn't really up to the job, so although it apparently sounded fine out front, we were really struggling on stage. Anyway, usual positive reaction from a crowd that seemed impervious to our decidedly average performance. Star and Garter in Manchester on Sunday. There were two great bands on before us - Iconoclasts and Instant Agony. Classic punk stuff really, loud, noisy, and a lot of fun. We were headlining but I don't really have a drum kit I can share with support bands at the moment (another long story), so opted for the house kit which is always great here. Unfortunately, although everything was expertly tuned as usual, I could not get my kick pedal to clamp to the bass drum properly. That combined with agony in my wrist lead to a few errors on my part. Nothing disastrous though, and again, the audience had no idea. I had 2 different people tell me that's the best they'd seen me play! 🤣

Although those two statements are probably true, that's not quite what your post implied. IMO your post implied that female applicants were incapable of reading your advert and poor at communication in general, the implication being that male applicants would not have the same issues. Sorry if I've misinterpreted your point

Surely these issues are not gender specific?

Hah, I genuinely had a group of fans hold up a digital display asking me to take my top off. It turned into a chant when I refused. I will never get my moobs out on stage

Honestly it was beyond comical. He had me play just ghost notes on the snare for a few minutes, then asked me to play the snare normally for a few minutes. Has anyone ever seen that before? He EQ'd each close mic for ages, then asked me to play with plenty of cymbals. No overheads or hi-hat mic, no vocal mics plugged in, and he's already EQ'd the close mics without hearing cymbals. And as for EQ'ing the bass at the amp, after he'd spent ages EQing it at the desk (with a mic on the cab and post EQ DI), I've never seen anything so ridiculous. Just undoing all that work at the desk. The FOH subs were so loud, I thought he'd put the tom mics in the stage monitors. He said "no, that's just the acoustic volume of the drums, you are playing very hard, maybe you could play a bit gentler?". I tapped the floor tom and it was on the edge of feeding back. I told him but I can only assume he thought it was my first gig as he just shrugged it off.

I didn't get any photos this weekend, oops! Headsticks gig at Sidney & Matilda in Sheffield on Friday night. It's a cool hipster bar with a proper 'orrible basement venue underneath. It stank of BO down there and I didn't see any ventilation. Perfect Only about 50 or so people in but it's a small room so that was cool. Plenty of newcomers too which is always a good sign. Sound checking my snare, the engineer asks "Is there any chance you have a drum key with you?" and I laugh and say yeh. He says "Do you think it needs a little tune up? It's quite resonant!". I laugh and say no. Then he asked if I always rimshot or if I play a standard snare hit too. I say both. He wants to know what material my snare is made of and what model it is... He gets to bass guitar, our bassist plays for 2 seconds, the engineer shouts "woooah, can you notch out 400Hz on your amp please?". After 10 minutes of EQing the bass from his mixing desk, he tries guitar. He's forgotten to plug the guitar in. He walks on stage to plug it in, but instead walks up to the bass amp and starts messing with the controls and asking our bassist to play. I think he got the message after a minute of that. I thought a fight was about to break out! Anyway, the gig was cool, even if the sound was ridiculously loud and bassy. Supporting The Undertones on Sunday at the Tivoli in Buckley. I love this venue, it's so weird. The manager (I assume he owns it?) was talking quite proudly of all his renovations, which were great, but when I asked him if there was a toilet with a lock on the door he was stumped. It's a big room but there were 300 or so in which is plenty for a great night. There were a few of our fans there but we went down really well with the others too, sold a load of merch and signed setlists etc. I've never seen The Undertones before, and I only knew the one song, but I was blown away. So much energy for older guys, absolutely rock solid performance (well, the last minute dep drummer might have struggled a little but we'll forgive him that), great vocals... they're just cool AF on stage.

I'd want Steinberg's Quadrafuzz VST in a pedal format. There are 4 bands, and on each band you can choose from 4 different saturation types, gain, attack time, and clean blend, then you can set where the bands crossover... very useful for bass distortion IMO

The first time in Hull for us (Headsticks) at the New Adelphi Club. I've heard of this place and I gather a lot of big names have played there. Apparently the sound engineer has done every single gig there since it opened. He really knows the venue and it sounded fantastic. Not a massive crowd but it's a small place so felt good. Everyone wanted to chat before and after, which is always nice although I do get a bit bashful if I haven't had a pint. Another sweaty one! I changed after the set, put my stage shirt in the van, and chucked it over the line when I got home at 3AM. It was still soaked at 10AM! I might have to bin that one. I've nicked a photo from a fan on facebook.

Yeh I figure the excessive bass was the problem, he's using a 4 x 10 and 2 x 10 BareFaced stack, and it's loud as hell, but by the time bass had been sent to everyone's monitor, it sounded just as loud and just as bassy to me. I guess it gives the engineer the control once we get going - he could cut the low end out of the monitors but couldn't cut it out of the bass amp. It sounded great by all accounts anyway

No that's the Ferocious Dog rig, they were headlining 3 nights on the trot, so left all their gear set up. I'm on drums with Headsticks so was just showing off my fancy kit on the riser

Settle Down festival on Saturday. We were on first at 3pm and I didn't have high hopes for a crowd but they really packed in. My mate has loaned me a very nice drum kit to try and I always think you get a new source of inspiration when on a different instrument... either that or the fresh heads I'd just put on, but it sounded awesome. Our bassist was told to turn right down on stage, which he hates. The engineer did explain the issue to him but I wasn't paying attention. Anyway, I asked for bass in my monitor as I couldn't hear the bass amp, and he says "sure, you can have as much bass in the monitors as you like". What's the difference between loud bass on stage from an amp, or loud bass on stage from monitors? I must be missing something there Anyway, the crowd were on our side from the first note. It felt like the best gig for ages.