BigRedX

In the days when I did play in a noisy band with boisterous audiences I spent most of the time trying to tune them out (especially when they all decided to bounce up and down out of time with the drums). IEMs would have been more useful than ever back then. It has always been my rather harsh opinion that if you need "trouser flapping" sound levels or audience feedback to get the appropriate level of "excitement" as a musician, then the songs you are play probably aren't good enough.

What do you want the drum machine for? Stand alone units are mostly for performing live when you don't want to take computer on stage, although all modern drum machines are essentially computers anyway and so are no more or less reliable. Alternatively they are for people who want to tweak the sounds and play the pads over the top, while a basic pattern is playing. For almost everyone else, using a DAW with full MIDI capabilities it far more flexible and versatile. In this case Logic can't be beaten for built-in features. For sounds you have Drum Kit Designer and Drum Machine Designer; then there is Drummer (which will create a drum part based on the rhythm of the instruments already recorded), as well as full MIDI manipulation of the note data for the drum parts. To get the best out of your DAW drum programming you do need to be using one that has its roots in MIDI sequencing, such as Logic, Cubase or Performer, rather than one which is basically a multi-track recorder with some MIDI functions bolted on (Reaper, Pro-Tools). One of the most useful tools I've found for replicating the feel of a real drummer is to sample a drum part that has the right "groove" and using a beater detector (I use Recycle! because it's what I'm most familiar with but most good DAWs now have similar functions built in) which turns the timing information in to a MIDI pattern which can then be used to quantise the feel into your existing drum parts (and other other MIDI instruments you are using).

One of the bands I play with made the decision to completely ditch the backline last year. Since the lineup is just Synth, Bass VI and Vocals with the drums and second synth player being performed by computer it was a fairly easy decision to make. It also looks as though we'll be on IEMs before the end of this year.

Unless we are playing music that absolutely requires a particular specialised bass guitar we could all make do with a modern budget precision bass and anything else is simply vanity or pretension. Also half the punters at a typical covers band pub gig wouldn't notice if you turned up and mimed with a tennis racket.

For one band we have ditched the backline completely and just use the PA foldback for on stage and FoH for the audience. It has resulted in a much better overall sound both for the band and the audience. Having had a discussion with the synth player about it, we'll probably be on IEMs before the end of the year. For the other band I play in I have an RCF745 powered cab which I use for rehearsals and for the occasional gig where the quality of the foldback is unknown or where we have been asked to supply backline for the other bands (I have a couple of generic bass amp patches on my Helix for them to use). However most of the time we are playing reasonably big venues with excellent FoH and foldback systems, so I rarely have to take the RCF to gigs.

And the plastic bits and the carbon fibre bits and all the other non wood or metal bits...

Like this? Made by Sandberg. Fantastic finish IMO. Pity it's been applied to such an otherwise boring looking instrument.

It's still a visual copy of someone else's design. My method of deciding who is going to build a custom instrument for me (I've had two guitars and two basses) is not to seemingly pick a luthier at random and persuade them to buy into my vision, but to go to someone who is already producing something very close to what I want and just add little tweaks to their basic design. These days there are so many luthiers all building unique instruments that there will already be someone somewhere producing something that is 90% of the way there. You'll always get a better instrument if yours has had the required number of prototypes made first rather than going for something never made before and trusting to luck. AFAICS all the other features have been done elsewhere and before. The hidden fret ends is nothing new, it's always been possible if the manufacturers were prepared to take the time and effort to do it. However mass-produced instruments are built to a price point and hiding the fret ends is simply not economic if you are churning out 100s of instruments a day on a production line.

But Roger Sadowsky's USP is that his basses are essentially sup'ed-up Fenders. He's said as much in interviews. There's nothing wrong with Fender copies if that's what you want (I don't). But I aways wonder just how many versions of basically the same thing with slight variations the market can stand and how you decide on one luthier's Fender copy over another.

If you are not already a member you need to join the "It's Goth Up North" Facebook page which cover most of the gigs in and around Sheffield/Leeds/York.

Like that a lot! Any plans to play in Nottingham?

There used to be a synth called the Moog Rouge. I was under the impression that both words rhymed if Moog was pronounced correctly.

Having used synths without programmable memories back in the 80s when there were no affordable alternatives, I really couldn't recommend one for live use in this day and age. If you were to use a synth like the Model D live you have basically three options: 1. Stick with a single sound (or variations of that sound that can be achieved by tweaking just ONE or TWO controls) for all the songs you are going to use it on. 2. Memorise the locations of every single control for each different sound you are going need. This is just about do-able on a simple single oscillator and envelope generator synth like a Roland SH09/SH101; on something much more complicated like the Model D it's not anywhere like as easy. 3. Take printed patch sheets on stage with you showing to locations of the controls for each different sound that you need. I did this back in the early 80s and TBH it looked very amateurish although back then there was no alternative unless you had lots of money for synths with patch memories. Bear in mind that options 2 and 3 take time to implement in the middle of the set, and today's audiences may not be quite so forgiving of long inter-song pauses as they were 40 years ago. My band back then had 15-30 second intros to the start of EVERY song to allow us the set up the sound(s) while the song started, and even with the printed patch sheets, human error meant that there was no guarantee that when you pressed the key for the first note of your part you weren't going to be presented with either silence or worse still some massively loud atonal noise, instead of the sound you wanted.

When the finish starts lifting off like that it's normally because moisture has got in somewhere and the only effective way to fix it would be to strip off ALL the old lacquer and refinish. You can see from the "milky" appearance of some of the finish that is still in place that it is no longer properly bonded to the wood and any of the old finish that you leave in place is just going to be a starting point for new problems later on. If you take it someone who really knows what they are doing they may be able to save the area around the logo provided that the finish hasn't already started lifting elsewhere on the front of the headstock.

Looks like more Fender copies to me....

For Hurtsfall it's almost every single song, since most of them are built around the bass line which becomes the main riff and/or instrumental melody.

Unfortunately it can't. If you were able to do this it would have been so trivial for Behringer to add patch memories that they would have done so. For a MIDI controller to be able to do this you would also need to be able to read and write digital values for every knob and switch on the synth. Once you've done that you might as well add the memory to be able to store and recall these values to the synth itself as that is the easy and relatively cheap part compared with the former.

But no programmable memories for your sounds which pretty much rules it our for live use, unless you are going to stick with a single sound for all the songs.

What sort of band do you want to be in? If it's covers and there is a decent amount of local pubs still putting on covers bands then it will probably be OK. If it's originals then bear in mind that Exeter isn't particularly close to anywhere else and if your band outgrows the local circuit then you are going to be looking at long journey to play gigs in other towns and cities. It is always useful to see how many venues in Exeter are putting on out-of-town bands which will give you an idea how easy the place is to get to (and conversely to get out of). I discovered this problem when I spent a year in Swansea and discovered that all the well-known bands on tour didn't come any further west than Cardiff and that as a result the local music scene was over-saturated and stagnant.

The CryBaby mod will only work if the Donner pedal has a similar circuit.

Anything that doesn't involve tapping the speaker coil is going to be wildly inefficient and wasteful of energy.

As I said in another PMT thread (probably the one that Frank Blank has linked to), I went to the Nottingham branch last year to look at synths and MIDI controller keyboards. As the synth section was completely closed off I had a general look around while I was waiting for someone to come and let me in. The guitar and bass sections had a fraction of stock on display compared with the last time I'd been in (just before the first lockdown) and generally looked very run down (as did the whole store). After hanging around for 15 minutes with no-one forthcoming to accompany me around the close synth section, I left and subsequently bought a controller keyboard off Amazon.

This what I have been saying for years. EQ in the analog domain can cause changes in phase at certain frequencies. Something that is very detrimental to a good solid bass sound. It is always best to EQ in a single place in the signal chain. If you need to have two sets of EQ controls then you have the wrong equipment for your sound.

If you are playing to a fixed BPM you can work out the required delay time in milliseconds with a bit of simple maths.

If I was going to invest in hardware synthesis again, I'd probably get a second hand Nord Lead, which was the best synth I've ever owned. Unfortunately lots of other people seem to have discovered how good these are, as the second hand prices have increased considerably since I sold mine... I couldn't afford a Juno at the time, but several musicians I knew in the early 80s had them and I was always completely underwhelmed when I had a go on one. I seemed to be nothing more than a 6 voice SH09 which I did own and was used mostly for background sequencer parts and percussive noises controlled by an MC202. Since the Juno lacked CV and gate inputs it couldn't even be used like this. I won an Akai AX73 in an E&MM competition which had almost identical architecture to the Juno but had the additional disadvantages of an extra octave of keys making it huge and unwieldy (and more so in the flight case it came with) and parameter access programming. I think I stuck with it for a couple of months before I had saved up enough additional money to trade it in for a Casio CZ5000.