BigRedX

16 hours ago, neepheid said:

I disagree with the "stay in your genre" bit - we do guitar based songs with no guitars and drag them kicking and screaming into our world. Goes down well, familiar but different. Variants of "you guys do a kickass version of X" have been said to us.

You are right. What I should have said is that the cover should be either in your genre or arranged/reworked to be in your genre.

24 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Ya I've been gigging for a few decades now, I know how XLR cables work! A long cable run is still a long cable run regardless of how many cables are involved, 40m made up of multiple leads still means you're coiling 40m of cables at the end of the day. Was hoping there would be a cheap wireless solution so will give the incoming Lekato a try.

I think the point being made is that most of the time the two devices will be less than 40m apart. However if you've only got a 40m leads you'll always be coiling up 40m of cables. If instead you have a selection of 10m and 5m leads you only need to use enough to get from A to B and the rest can stay coiled up in your lead bag, and you'll only need to coil 40m of cable when you actually need 40m of cable.

I makes sense to me.

14 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

Agree but the cheap 5.8ghz don't seem to suffer.

For the moment. However as 5.8GHz devices become more widespread I suspect it will eventually be as flakey as 2.4GHz systems. Enjoy it while you can.

12 hours ago, Franticsmurf said:

I've just seen the Facebook post. It doesn't help that they don't have a drum kit or PA either. 😀

IME, unless you are out in the sticks playing church halls only, as an originals band you don't need a PA. Almost everywhere I've played for the last 30 years has had an in-house PA system, and those few venues that didn't were places that didn't normally put on live music and we would hire a PA specifically for the gig. The only originals bands I've been in that owned any sort of "PA" were those that also had permanent rehearsal spaces and it was strictly for use in there.

On the other hand the lack of a drum kit is probably more of an obstacle. I assume their drummer has at least "breakables"?

With this design of bridge the screws on the individual saddles are there just to allow you match the the radius of the fretboard. The overall string height should be adjusted using the thumb wheels under the bridge.

I'd set all the saddles to the same height so that the strings just clear the lip at the front of the bridge. Then raise the whole bridge using the thumbwheels until the action of the G and E string is correct and finally use the saddle screws on the D and A strings to raise them up to compensate for the fingerboard radius.

I think you'll find that I didn't say that.

The revealed wood just looks too new. With that much relic'ing the wood should be stained a much darker colour from all the sweat, nicotine and generally grubbiness.

49 minutes ago, itu said:

Classix Nouveax?

I can't remember the bassist's name (without looking it up which is cheating) but I do remember being very impressed with his fretless playing when I saw them at a tiny venue here in Nottingham in 1980. I believe he also made the bass guitar he was using as well as Sal Solo's mirror guitar.

47 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A local band of youngsters has posted on Facebook, wondering why they are struggling to get any gigs:

"we have a 35 minute set ready to go at a moments notice mostly original with a couple covers thrown in"

 

OK guys, even if you are only looking for support slots, I think you could perhaps put in the effort to learn a few more songs...

On the originals circuit 35 minutes is more than enough for a support slot. Most support gigs are 30 minutes maximum. However, in a 30 minute originals set you should only be doing one cover at the very most which should be under 4 minutes and well known for your band's genre. I haven't seen the post but I suspect the problem may well lie elsewhere other than the set length.

My experience is that all the cheap wireless systems are fine until you start using them in a band with a few other cheap wireless systems or in a location with lots of WiFi traffic.

I like it, although it has the wrong neck width and scale length for a six string bass for me.

If anyone is prepared to do some deep diving on the ESP Japan web site, the bass will probably turn out to be derived from a Visual Kei band member's signature instrument.

Helix.

Seriously though I don't think I have used 9 blocks in a signal path on the Helix yet. 

My current default patch is a compressor, distortion/EQ, chorus, and delay (plus volume pedal and tuner) and that does nearly everything I need.

2 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

I think the microtilt wasn't a bad idea in itself, i think it was just that at the time they did it, they also made neck pockets with enough play to allow small children to sneak past the gaps, so microtilt got the blame for it.

It was that coupled with the fact that Fender seemed incapable of fitting the Micro-Tilt striking plate flat, so the adjustment screw would tend to push sideways as well as up causing the neck to skew in the oversized pocket.

16 minutes ago, TimR said:

What headphones are they? Not Bluetooth? 

Looks like https://www.boss.info/uk/products/waza-air/

2 hours ago, asingardenof said:

You can, but for physical items I think you need a US address - I've bought from them before and had it delivered to my MIL's house when my wife was visiting last year. For digital items I don't think the address thing matters. 

Since software shouldn't require a shipping address there ought not be a problem. And if it complains about your browser location you could always try a VPN with a US IP address.

Moody shot from Monday's Hurtsfall gig:

59 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

If I look at Spotify on my phone, all I really want is a big old button that points to my search options and the playlists I've set up.  I know what I want to listen to, I have a vast musical library on Spotify (and on a NAS, which because of the failure of the Sonos app I'm unable to access across my network at the moment).  I've got panels for 'Recently Announced', 'Picked for you', 'New releases for you', 'Recently Played', 'Fresh New Music', 'Recommended for Today', 'Your Favourite Artists', 'Huge Playlists', 'Audiobooks For You', 'Jump Back In', 'Episodes For You', something called 'Our Generation', 'Alternative 70s', 'Alternate 60s', 'The Indie List', 'misfits 2.0', 'Made In Scotland', 'Massive Dance Hits', 'Made In Liverpool', 'Altar', Rap UK#, 'Powerpop'...there's about 20 more.  I don't need any of this at all.  I am no more going to click on some acne-faced indie group from Liverpool any more than I've going to go out and find something praising he merits of Allah.

I think a lot of the problem isn't completely down to the app but the fact that you are trying to get too much out of the tiny phone screen.

Accessing any of these services on a proper computer with a decent sized screen is far easier. I think that app developers (certainly for things like streaming services) need to understand that on mobile devices with limited screen real-estate need to allow the "home screen" to be customisable so that each individual user can have exactly what they want on there and hide all the other options. 

I've side-stepped the issue by doing all my "power-user" stuff on a computer with a big screen, and then when I need to access the app (Apple Music in my case) on a mobile device I'm just accessing a handful of previously selected playlists, and my user interactivity is simply picking which playlist I want and whether it's going to be random order or not.

While there might not be any photos of last night's gig some excellent live videos of Saturday have appeared.

Here's a minute or so of "Revelator"

Hurtsfall were supporting US band Spotlights at The Bodega in Nottingham on Monday.

It's been quite a while since I last did a Monday night gig, and now I remember why. Despite not having to go on ridiculously early there were still only about 30 people there when we went on. However apart from two, none of them had seen us play before and quite a few people of them came up afterwards to say how much they had enjoyed us, despite the fact that musically we don't have a lot in common with the headlining band. We even sold some T-shirts and CDs which was definitely a bonus.

It's a small stage at The Bodega and it doesn't get any bigger after the main band have filled it up with their drum kit and backline, so we had to be creative with the set-up and limited on-stage movements. However for a change we had plenty of time to soundcheck as Spotlights had already finished theirs when we arrived at 5.45, so it was an unexpected pleasure to be able to take our time and get a good balance both on-stage and FoH.

Spotlights were interesting. Musically it's not really the sort of thing I'm into but the performance was great and their bassist produced a couple of notes that made whole venue vibrate, something I've never experienced before and which got the PA engineer frantically trying to locate the rogue frequency, after which sound wasn't quite as dense but at least there was no danger of structural damage!

10.00pm live music curfew meant I was back home before 11.00 which makes a change.

There probably won't be any photos of this one, but if any do emerge on Facebook I'll post them up later.

Hurtsfall are @hurtsfalluk

Yes.

Has the advantage that you can add any tracks that are in your iTunes library but not normally available on Apple Music for streaming on all your associated Apple devices. This is absolutely essential for me as about a third of my record/CD collection is not on Spotify.

On 08/06/2024 at 15:54, Beedster said:

Large cabs are getting like pianos which you petty much can't give them away. Audio technology has moved on a hell of a lot and most gigging bassists without roadies just don't need the hassle of large cabs. Good time to buy one

And for gigging bassists with roadies they are most likely just stage props.

I have an RCF745 for rehearsals and on-stage monitoring at smaller gigs with one of the bands I play with. For the bigger gigs I rely on the in-house PA at whatever venue we're playing for on-stage monitoring. TBH it's vastly over-specified both in terms of output level and range for my needs most of the time, and based on this experience if I ever have to replace it I would go for something smaller, lighter and cheaper as that would be more than adequate. 

I've needed to use it twice as a bass amp with no PA support at small-ish venues (<200) and it has performed perfectly both times. In fact due to the improved dispersion characteristics compared with a traditional bass rig I've been able to have it at only slightly louder than I would use for monitoring which certainly was an improvement on the past where at times I have need to be so loud on stage in order to fill the venue with bass sound that I could barely hear the rest of the band.

Hurtsfall opened the second day of the BlaqkhOlesun Festival at the Alhabra in Morecambe on Saturday.

Nice big venue with a massive backstage area complete with a maze of Spinal Tap-esque passageways leading between the dressing rooms and the stage.

Luckily we managed to avoid the Hairy Bikers procession on the way there and arrived with plenty of time to soundcheck. Method Cell who are also from Nottingham set off slightly later than us, got caught up in it all and arrived just minutes before the doors opened.

Great PA and foldback system so there was no problem going straight from my Helix into the PA and we had an excellent on-stage sound (and according to everyone we spoke to sounded great FoH too). In fact not a single band used any backline, and it was definitely noticeable in terms of getting good balanced FoH mixes for all the bands. Also used my Nux Wireless system for the first time at a gig and it seemed to perform flawlessly. 

Only downside with playing first is that we were on-stage at 4.20 when the venue wasn't as full then as it was later in the day. However most of those who had managed to get there early were down the front dancing and several people mentioned to us afterwards that they were glad they had made the effort to be there from the beginning and had caught our set because they really liked us. The new intro music worked well although we were on stage too soon IMO. More practice needed there. There were people singing along with the songs. The current set has both our slow numbers in it which is something that always worries me as it has the potential to ruin the flow, but both were especially well received. Sold a decent amount of merch and made a lot of new fans.

I have to say that I enjoyed the whole afternoon/evening, with all the bands being excellent, something that rarely happens at these sorts of gigs. Discovered two new to me bands that I'll want to see again, and Novus who I'd seen before and wasn't that impressed with, have undergone a line up change and presented a new and (IMO) improved more electronic sound. Auger, who headlined were as usual absolutely brilliant. 

Completely shattered at the end of the day so it was a good thing that we;'d booked a Hotel to stay over and took a leisurely drive back on the Sunday.

And we're doing it all again tonight, only this time it's a local gig at The Bodega in Nottingham supporting US band Spotlights.

Obligatory band photos:

58 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Well you're a bundle of fun aren't you. Make sure you let the sell out audience at both shows know how wrong they are to encourage this travesty.

If you want to go, then go. I don't think anyone is stopping you.

Me, I'd rather go and see some new bands.