BigRedX

This, or the Bas Extravaganza Punk Bass would be the instrument I would want to bring to any gig where I was told to use a Precision.

Well I'm 9 minutes closer to achieving my goal for 2026. Our synth player has just sent the latest mixes of two of the songs we've been working on and AFAIAC there are no further changes to be made. There's one more song that is in the process of being mixed and then we'll have to decide which other two songs to record vocals for so we'll have enough to complete our first album. I'm trying to keep the running time just under 40 minutes so we can consider doing a limited run on vinyl as well as CD. That will probably mean that the two formats have different running orders as the track we are likely to want at the end of the CD won't go well in that location from a technical PoV on vinyl.

Great, but's very much the impression I got from some of the posts in this thread. I suppose another advantage of doing originals charity gigs is that they are nearly always at established venues with in-house PA and lighting rigs so all the bands need to do is to turn up and play.

I think it's different for originals bands. All the charity gigs I have done with various originals bands over the years have been multi-band affairs that put us in front of a receptive audience, many of whom may not have seen us before. Often the charity aspect of these events takes a bit of back seat, the bands get paid expenses and it is first and foremost about the music, then about raising awareness about the cause(s) being supported. The fact that there will be money going to the Charity afterwards is a well-appreciated bonus. It appears to be a completely different world to churning out a couple of covers sets to a potentially uninterested group of people.

Unfortunately I have been too busy working on mixes for existing songs and finishing off the arrangements on new songs started last year to have spent any serious time with it yet. The only thing I have worked out so far is that the synth part will be of very limited use to me since my Bass VI playing is far too polyphonic.

Over the last 3 years my band have done 4 charity gigs. They are all local, either at established venues or somewhere where to PA will be provided by the organisers. Therefore the amount of effort required on our part other than playing is minimal. We have also been able to sell some band merch which normally goes to offset any travelling expenses we might have incurred. We've played Oxjam Beeston three times now and the first two times we were definitely playing to an audience that had mostly never seen us before, and several of those have come to see us play at subsequent gigs. Having said that, the last time we played there was a good chance that the number of people in the audience who had specifically come to see us outnumbered those that just happened to be at the venue already. At Oxjam we get given wristbands that gets into all the other gigs for free, and overall the organisation is excellent so it's a joy to be able to take part. The other charity gig we have done recently was probably one of the best paying gigs we did that year. Again excellent organisation at an impressive venue where we were fed and watered and had proper back-stage facilities including a kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. Apparently these were for all the performers but we appeared to be the only band that wanted to make use of them. So long as we are doing gigs of this caliber we will be happy to play Charity events. Just remembered that Leeds Goth City Festival is technically also a charity event, but again it's well organised and all the bands are paid an amount that at minimum covers their expenses, and the organisers still manage to raise a significant amount of money for the charities they support.

I know it's probably not a popular opinion, but IME talent is probably the least import thing. So long as you don't mess up too obviously too often you'll be fine, and besides until you are totally without ability, you'll make less mistakes as you get more experienced. The other things are much harder to improve should they be lacking. I've managed to be a lot less obnoxious as a band member than I was in the 80s and 90s but it has taken 25 years of concentrated effort to achieve a more "chill" persona and being being in bands where I haven't been responsible for almost every aspect of the organisation has most definitely helped.

I don't think I've seen any political extremism in posts on here. However I don't spend a lot of time in Off Topic. There have been opinions that don't always align with mine, but nothing that I would class as extremism.

In the studio stitch together my guitar, bass and keyboard parts all the time. Live it doesn't matter if I play some bum notes or the timing and/or pitch of a few notes is too loose, it's all over in the next instant, never to be heard again, and besides the energy of the gig normally overshadows any errors. If it's being recorded for people to listen to over and over again I want it to be without mistakes. That doesn't mean quantised and autotuned to "perfection". I simply want what is committed to tape or DAW to match what I hear in my head when I'm playing it so that I, and other people, can enjoy listening to the song without noticing any errors. If that means dropping in to correct dodgy phrases or individual notes so be it. I recently discovered when recording an 8 bar riff for a song that my timing was a lot better for the last 2 to 3 bars of the riff than it was for the first few. Therefore I played each bar 16 times in succession and used the best 3-4 bars from each take, usually from the second half) to assemble enough instances of the riff to use throughout the song, so that each time to riff come in it has the correct feel but each instance is subtly different. For me it's all about getting the right sounding end result. Getting there in a single take is not even remotely important to me.

IIRC this part of the Helix Stadium is still to be implemented, and the initial units have been released without this functionality.

I was thinking in the way that every TV or computer monitor now comes with mounting points for a VESA adaptor as standard, all desktop high tech music devices should have similar points to allow the attachment of a standard microphone or cymbal stand adaptor. I've got around the flimsy cable and connector problem by fitting all our high-tech devices permanently in a rack case with a removable top and then using XLR and PowerCon connectors to join them to the outside world. It has the added advantage that our computerised backing playback can be set up and wired into the PA in couple of minutes. Most of the other bands we share the stage with who have similar based systems are still looking for suitable tables at the venue to put all their gear on and the right cables in their bag of leads. The disadvantage is that the rack case at least doubles the weight and size of the devices.

Unfortunately all these new products I have seen seem to be aimed at studio users, and if they are expected to be used as part of a live rig they have been designed by people who have obviously never been to multi-band gig at a small venue in their life. Too many mini-jacks, consumer-grade computer connectors, and external PSUs with weedy cables and non-locking plugs the low voltage side. Whenever a band we are sharing the stage with has technical problems at a gig, it can be tracked down to one of these "features". Also IMO anything not designed to be used on the floor needs to have mounting points for a microphone or cymbal stand adaptor on its base.

I've now found that simplest and most cost effective way to sort out these Canva files is to rasterise them at 1200DPI into Photoshop and then use the AI generative tools to add the missing bleed. Drop the resulting PSD into InDesign to add whatever printers marks that are needed and make a new PDF.

But that doesn't take the way your brain processes audio in an acoustic space into account. They would only be the same if you and your speakers were in an extremely dead acoustic space. In the real world the way your brain uses your ears and eyes, being 3.4m away from your cab in a typical room is not the same is having the sound piped directly into your ears with a 10ms delay.

I know you want real-world experience which I don't have, but AFAICS to me it looks like a marketing gimmick. Firstly based on those brands that actually show the tension figures, "balanced" tension IS NOT equal tension (it's not even close), and anyway IMO what feels "balanced" is entirely subjective. The only way I think that balanced tension could be made to work is if they also take compliance into account so all the strings feel about equally "stiff". However compliance depends on the construction and stringing method of the instrument as much as it does on the construction of the string itself. That means while the strings may feel balanced on one type of bass they won't necessarily feel balanced on others. I suspect that if you have a Fender style, 4-string, 34" scale bass, without using through-body stringing and favour standard string gauges, a balanced tension set may feel more "even" compared with a standard set, but even then it's going to be subjective, and after years of playing using sets where the A and E strings are noticeably lower in tension than the D do you really want strings that feel closer to the same stiffness? You are also limited to a few string brands that offer balanced tension, mainly D'Addario, so you may not like the choices available. It's one of the reasons I haven't tried them myself because whilst all my guitars are strung with D'Addario strings I haven't liked the sound or feel of any of their bass strings that I have used.