cheddatom

In a pub, it doesn't bother me, except for the front person/lead singer. I'm sure they could have the words discretely hidden away - taped to the back of a PA speaker for example. No problem with that, but standing at the front with words right in front just doesn't look cool If it's a session/function/background thing then it really doesn't matter at all.

There are some great sound guys around, but it seems to me, it's one job where you don't HAVE to be good, especially if you stick to smaller/local gigs. There's a local guy who gets loads of work round here and he just doesn't know what he's doing. He's really bad, but I've come across plenty of sub-par sound men too. The impression I get is that they've been running their gigs way too loud for years, which has f***ed their hearing, which leads to bad mixes. I'm not making any generalisations about sound men, and I wouldn't claim to know that X% are good and Y% are crap, but, bad sound men do seem pretty common, at least around here.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1417650652' post='2622803'] ...As far as how creative is playing covers? My response, fact, I never play any cover song the same way twice... [/quote] That's weird. I only play original music, and I strive to get it the same every time. I love a good jam, and don't mind jamming a song at a gig if it's under rehearsed or a last minute thing, but I'd much prefer to know the part in and out, and to be able to perform it consistently.

I think your reasoning is fair. A lot of small practice amps for bass are sold, therefore there's a market for them. I think the problem is going to be down to price. Clearly they can't build a valve one at the right price point/margin. Although I disagree with icastle (I think there is a market) he is right in that if the opportunity was there, it would have been taken by now. Incidentally, if you plug one of these small all valve guitar heads into a bass cab and play bass through it, how does it sound?

Interesting, I've never played with the internal pots on mine. I've never had your problem either though

I see dirt as essential, but obviously some amps can do this. Octave I don't find essential. If I don't have room or time to grab my octave, I just play the octaves. It doesn't sound as synthy but who cares? So if I had an amp that could go dirty, I'd take a fuzz pedal and a delay pedal.

I always wear earplugs as I find any mix fatiguing at gig volume

A kick drum can be well "defined" in the low mids, in fact it normally is, despite the problems regarding reverberation in the lower frequencies. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you cut these frequencies from the kick drum, and leave them on bass guitar, you'll be able to hear the bass guitar more clearly. That's my POV anyway. At the local gigs I go to, the soundman has a big boost on the kick at 10KHz and no cuts, then turns up the kick so loud that almost everything else is inaudible. It's much easier to get that "click" by cutting the low mids on the kick

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1417611367' post='2622186'] All the bass being lost in an overly predominant kick drum is the bane of many gigs. I once posted a complaint about this on the Thunder website (Chris Childs is one of my fave players) they were not receptive to my gripe and got very defensive. [/quote] I've got no problem with a loud kick drum, it's just that if you have it that loud, you can cut everything out of the kick between 100Hz and 1Khz, and this will free up loads of space for the bass

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1417610757' post='2622177'] Please explain further. IIRC distortion devices work by boosting the signal in one part of the device so that they get clipped further down the signal path. Surely this is just the same? [/quote] Yes, I often overdrive the pre-amps on my desk to get a bit of distortion. I wouldn't advise it in a live situation as it'd cut down on your headroom before feedback, but I don't see why it would damage anything I guess if you distorted a signal so much that it was practically a square wave it might blow an under powered power amp?

There are a few small venues around me and they seem to echo some of what's being said here. Extremely loud bass drum, guitars quiet unless you're hearing them from the stage, and vocals that are just muddy. I'm not sure engineers are cutting the mids from the bass, I think the problem might be that they're NOT cutting the mids from the kick drum, and turning it up so loud that it masks the definition of the bass. The last gig I did (on drums, 200 capacity venue, big modern PA), all I could hear was bass drum, some subs from the bass guitar, and some muffled vocals. On stage they had the floor tom mic so loud it was resonating so there was a constant low end rumble throughout. I asked them to take all drums out of the monitors, but he said there wasn't any. Apparently it was that loud FOH! When I used to gig on bass, I would give a DI feed, and ask for a mic as well, and for the mic to be high passed. Most engineers were fine with this.

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1417564322' post='2621912'] Does sound like a line level v mic level kind of thing.Try it in a full chanell strip a opposed to the aux in... [/quote] See post #6!!!!!

If the output of the phone isn't loud enough, plug it into some channels instead, where you can add extra gain

It's widely accepted that the appearance of a plate of food influences how we perceive it's taste, so it stands to reason that the appearance of a band on stage will influence how we perceive the music.

are you certain? Try it with your amp very loud. It's just that the compressor (depending on settings) will raise the noise floor, making any existing noise more noticeable The fact that touching the knobs and strings on your bass affects it, means that it's probably nothing to do with the pedal, but the pedal is making an existing problem worse

does it go when you turn the pedal off? Or just lessen? If it's the latter, then yeh, grounding in your bass I think

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1416838980' post='2614080'] I never watch TV ads, I record everything then skip through them, I'd like to thank everybody that does though, they help provide my programmes for nothing (apart from the Beeb ones obviously) [/quote] Actually I wonder how many people [i]really[/i] watch ads. There's no way of knowing how many people are actually watching an ad. Companies just take a calculated guess that an ad at X time on X channel will get X views. They don't know how this is converted into revenue. I'd like to thank the sales people at channel 4 for keeping the channel alive, and all the people in marketing departments that keep buying the ads. They help provide my programmes for nothing

I don't care about my appearance, but I do wear T-shirts that fit With my folk band, 3 of the other members feel that image is very important, and we've gone with the very creative style of "all black". I wear a black t-shirt and sometimes will bother with black trousers. All my jeans are blue and I've not been able to find a pair of black jeans for less than £20.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1416855586' post='2614362'] how the transformer transmits the sound through. [/quote] Can you expand on that at all? After reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_%28magnetic%29 I'm going to guess it's effectively a form of compression

I actually find playing gently with (wooden) hot rods is louder than playing gently with sticks Being able to drum quietly is very, very difficult to learn IME. I was at an acceptable and gigging standard of drumming for years - no complaints at all! But only since I learned to play quietly have I starting to think I'm getting good.

What is low frequency magnetic saturation?

Getting rid of a TV won't get rid of adverts. You'd have to stop watching anything online by channel 4, plus youtube and the rest. You might enjoy the self satisfaction you get from telling others you have no TV though

I would go with the sound from the interface, but as always, check it on as many systems as you can. What do you normally listen to music on? Compare your mixes on that set-up vs something you like the sound of

If you've never done originals before I'd definitely go for that. Then, decide what you want on the side. A bit of fun while you wait around for the right singer? Or a bunch of gigs that probably pay