BigRedX

Yes they are in NYC, but its Brooklyn rather than Manhattan and in the old docks area. It's a bit like saying your basses are made in London and then finding out the workshop is actually on an industrial estate in Croydon.

When I had my Gus G1 guitar made, the finished instrument was delivered to my work. One of the designers thought it was the the most amazing thing he had ever seen and if I ever wanted to sell it he'd buy off me no problem. This was over 20 years ago and back then he had never played the guitar and had zero interest in learning. I saw him last year and he asked me if I still had the guitar and when I told him I did he reminded me that he would still be interested in buying it. He still hasn't learnt how to play and likes it simply because he thinks it is a gorgeous artefact. I think the only reason he hasn't ordered an identical one from Gus for himself, is because he's too embarrassed to buy something from the maker when he can't actually play it.

I don't think any of the people on here with expensive instruments have them simply because they want to show off. I would be overjoyed if I could find cheap musical equipment that does what I want in terms of how it looks, how it plays and how it sounds, but the fact of the matter is that to have all 3, to what even a mediocre player like myself considers to be an acceptable, standard costs money. Luckily for me because I like playing and writing music and I have at various times had sufficient disposable income, I have the gear that does what I need and I haven't had to make compromises. There are other (more mainstream) consumer items that I just "don't get" and therefore I have spent as little as possible on them.

IME most people over-think what they want when it come to spec'ing up a custom instrument. Every time I've had a custom bass or guitar made (I've had four) I've outlined when I wanted in the broadest of terms (mostly with regards to looks playability and sounds) and let the luthier(s) in question fill in the details. I don't care what woods have been used and what hardware and electronics has been fitted so long as they look good (to me) and function in the manner, and produce the sounds that I expect. For that reason I still own 3 of these instruments and the one I did sell was because I no longer had a specific musical need for it (and couldn't see myself having one in the foreseeable future) and decided that it would be better off with someone who would use it rather than sitting in a case under my bed. I didn't get back what I paid for it, but that is irrelevant to me because the way I look at is that any loss was far less then what it would cost me to hire an instrument of that quality for the time when I was using it.

I have owned many expensive high quality basses (and guitars) over the past 30 years and currently own 2 basses that are close to being up there in Fodera price range. Do I have the technical ability to match those basses? That's irrelevant. The only things that matter is 1. I enjoy playing them and 2. I cannot blame any short-comings in my bass playing on the instruments.

Of course they do. I started off as a guitarist and for the longest time I had far more guitars then I had basses. I've also owned more synths at the same time than basses too. Right now I have more basses than either guitars or synths but that's only because I play bass in two different bands that require very different bass guitars (and a back-up for each) and play guitar just for writing/enjoyment and use the (plug-in) synths that came bundled with my DAW.

For a Fender-style instrument there absolutely no reason these days why one factory can't churn out instruments of exactly the same standard over and over again and to exactly the same standard as any other factory in the world. After all the wooden parts are all done by CNC machines, the design of the hardware has barely changed over the past 70 years, and the assembly is only marginally more complicated than fitting together a typical bit of flat-pack furniture. The price differentiation is done to the quality of the raw materials and the standard of QC control that is applied to those processes that require the hand assembly and finishing. That's set by what the client who's brand name appears on the headstock wants to pay per unit. That's why the factory producing these instruments is irrelevant. You'll find that to only people who want you to care about the factory itself are those selling instruments at the budget end of the range who want you to associate them with the kudos that goes with the instruments from the premium range from the same factory.

The thing is that all these factories that build guitars for multiple "brands" will build to the price set by the customer, and will differ in the quality of materials used and the amount of time a QC spent on any of the hand assembly and finishing tasks. That means, two extremely similar looking instruments from the same factory, but made for different customers may well have nothing in common other than the basic instrument shape and the fact that they were made under the same roof. Ultimately knowing which factory an instrument comes from is a complete red herring.

If it was either absolutely and utterly perfect in every other way, or I was intending to mod the flip out of it, then I would sort it out myself. Otherwise I'd be asking to send it back hoping that the retailer would give me a discount. If they didn't I'd send it back for a refund.

It's already been posted (twice) in one of the recent tone wood threads...

At the moment Logic. One band has the whole set as a single (very long) Logic arrangement with gaps between songs and uses Section Markers to define each song and Meta Events to automatically stop playback between songs where we know the singer will want to do some talking. We've been using this method long enough to know how long each inter-song gap needs to be, and one the whole it works very well. The only downside is that changing the set order on the fly is a bit cumbersome. The other band just has each song as a separate Logic file and I load each new one while the singer (who is much more verbose) talks to the audience. I've looked at MainStage, but because it won't directly import what I have already done in Logic, it seems a bit pointless that I have to recreate the whole song again in a different format, and it doesn't appear to have the most important functions IMO for live work which is on coming to the end of one song, either automatically start the next, or stop with the next one cue'd up ready. Because of this I've been looking at swapping over to Presonus Studio One which has a dedicated "show" page which integrates perfectly with the main arrangements done in the DAW and has all the stop/start/pause functions that seem to be missing from MainStage.

One of my bands played our last ever gig on the same evening as the finale of the very first Big Brother series. I think we played to the support act, the bar staff and a handful of punters. The lack of audience that night was not the only thing that killed the band off.

Fair enough. However I think in this case then the great sound with the Thunderbird is a bit of a red herring, and you should forget about it and concentrate on getting the sounds you want out of the Stingray. What you are going to need is an overdrive/fuzz pedal specifically designed to work with an active bass, as the active electronics present a different impedance to the input of the pedals compared with a passive one and this is very noticeable when trying to get dirty overdriven sounds. Other than that, I'm afraid I can't help you as I ditched pedals over 30 years ago in favour of good quality multiple-effects units that don't suffer from these problems.

Another one for my dance/rock band a couple of weeks after the London disaster. Our drummer who worked at Coventry University (and would drive to Nottingham twice a week for rehearsals and writing sessions) got us a gig at the Student Christmas Party in their shiny new Student Union building. On the way to the gig and just leaving Nottingham, I have a nagging feeling that we haven't packed all the gear. A check of the van reveals that, the case that holds all the bits and pieces including the optical drives and disks for loading data into the samplers and the floppy disk that actually holds the MIDI sequencer information that runs our backing is missing. Back at mine I retrieve the missing case and luckily happen to also notice that both copies of MIDI disk (normally one goes in the case and other with my bass just in case there is a problem with one) are still sat next to my computer! Arrive rather flustered and later than arranged at the venue, but luckily for us, the headlining band (a well-regarded up and coming band of a similar music style to us who had been picking up a fair bit of Radio 1 airplay for their debut single) are still sound checking. However the sound levels FoH are absolutely punishing! We carry our gear to the front of the stage and retreat to somewhere where we can actually hear ourselves think until its our turn to set up. Sound check goes OK, the position of the stage in relation to the PA means that we are entirely reliant on the foldback which is a bit on the quiet side. It's all a bit weird as our singer nips out the front during an instrument section and tells us the mix is good but painfully loud (although not as bad as the headliner's sound check). The Christmas party was split over 3 floors of the building with DJs on each floor and live music just on one. Before we play a check of the room reveals it's full of enthusiastic people dancing. As soon as we come on and start playing everyone stops, and we can see them visibly moving back away from the stage and then leaving the room. By the time we finish our set it's is almost empty, although as soon as the DJ set starts people drift back in. All in all not a happy experience. We decide to pack all the gear straight into the van and head back to Nottingham. I take a quick into the room to see the headlining band also playing at ear bleeding volume to almost no-one, so don't feel too bad about our performance. It has become obvious that the students simply want to dance to stuff that they know whilst trying to get off with a suitable partner, and live music at any volume was an unwelcome interlude to their evening's activities. Also in our hurry to get away we forget to pack the backdrop (which we hadn't been able to use) and which our drummer had to go back to pick up the next day. At the next rehearsal I mention that it was a pity our last two gigs weren't as good as we'd hoped and let's hope that the new year would bring us some better ones. Our drummer who was responsible for getting us both these gigs takes this completely the wrong way, as if my comment was aimed at his (lack of) organisational skills and that his drumming was rubbish to boot, and quits on the spot. (Actually he was a really good drummer although he could be a bit temperamental if he couldn't get on with the other band members - he'd already quit the band once because he hated our original singer and then had begged us let him back in when she left and we got someone even better in to replace her). With the drummer gone our guitarist announces that he's leaving as well as he thinks we're unlikely to find a suitable replacement any time soon, and doesn't want to go back to using sequenced samples and loops. It actually turns out that we found an even better drummer within a month, although it takes quite a bit longer to replace the guitarist...

So why do you want to use the Stingray when you already have a great sound with the Thunderbird?

If you've already got a sound that works well with your rig with one bass, I'd stop using the bass that it doesn't work on in this particular band. If you need a second bass as a backup or for alternate tunings get another one of the kind that does work.

My bands use a Mac PowerBook into a Focusrite Scarlet 18i20 interface. Backing tracks on outputs 1&2 and Click on 3. Audio-wise it's complete overkill for what we need, but for us an essential requirement was that everything fitted into a 3U flight case, and at the time the Focusrite interface was the cheapest decent one that was properly rack mounting. Our previous half width interface could only be properly rack mounted if it took up 2U of space and none of the bodges I did to try and make it work in 1U lasted long enough to be reliable. One thing I have discovered with the Focusrite interfaces is that all the outputs need to be balanced line otherwise there can still be cross-talk between channels. Our backing goes into an ART DTI box which completely isolates the audio interface from the PA and protects it against any phantom power the PA may inadvertently supply. We also have a Behringer headphone amp which accepts balanced line inputs for the drummer's click. Apart from the headphone amp everything else is contained in a single 3U flight case. Anything that could possibly move is cable-tied and/or hot glued into place inside the case, and the laptop as attached to a rack shelf using effects pedal velcro. IME consumer-grade computer connectors have no place on stage at a gig, so any that cannot be replaced with professional grade locking ones are fitted in such a way that once everything is in place and plugged in nothing can move. All audio connections to the outside world are made from a XLR patch panel mounted on the front of the rack. It looks a bit more messy this way, but its loads easier and quicker to set up on cramped and dark stages.

Just remembered that while the first gig described here went really well, getting back for me was a complete nightmare. I don't recall the exact circumstances, but instead of travelling back with the rest of the band and gear, I went with our sound engineer who had borrowed a friend's "people carrier" so that some of our Nottingham fans could see us play in London. On the way back we needed to fill up with petrol, and I told him, I'd pay and to fill the tank and we'd sort out the money with the owner once we got back home. Just as we took our exit off the M1 the vehicle started to make strange noises and we coasted to a halt just by the Ratcliffe Power Station. We'd run out of fuel. I was seething as I had been completely prepared to shell out for a full tank, but our sound engineer thought he was trying to do me favour and miscalculated how much we actually need to get all the way back. There was nothing we could do but leave the vehicle and our fans and head off towards Clifton about 6 miles away where the nearest petrol station was. This was at about 4.00 in the morning, so we were extremely lucky to get picked up by the only other car on the road within 5 minutes of setting off, and they not only took us to the petrol station where we were able to purchase a fuel can and fill it up, but brought us back to our vehicle as well! Just as well really, because If we'd ended up walking all the way, I think I would have probably left him there to get back to the vehicle on his own and got a bus into Nottingham, as the early ones would have been running by that time.

Another one, but not of my band's making... In the mid 90s my dance/rock band was starting to get a bit of interest both from (non pay to play) London promotors and indie record labels. We had just done one gig at a new venue in Camden where we had saved the night from being a write-off mostly because our excellent sound engineer had managed to get a decent mix for all the bands on the bill despite the terrible PA system that had been hired in (it was mostly ancient HH gear and would have been seriously out of date 15 years previously). The promotor was most impressed and wanted to give us a better gig at a different venue. This coincided with Jive Records wanting to see us play. The subsequent gig was at a more impressive venue with a proper PA system and in-house engineers. We were down as headliners (and in this instance it was supposed to be headlining and just "playing last"). Great sound check and the venue was filling up with a good sized audience, and everything was going well until the band immediately before us hit the stage. "We're ****" they announced (TBH I can't remember what they were called) "and this afternoon we just signed with **** (very minor indie label) records, so flip you all!" and then proceeded to play a "set" that consisted of 30 minutes of massively loud atonal noise and feedback. Within 5 minutes they had all but emptied the venue. Afterwards we went on hoping that maybe people would drift back in now that there was a band playing some proper tunes, but as far at the audience were concerned the evening was over and they had probably gone to somewhere less offensively noisy or home. I think we played to a couple of friends of the singer who lived in London and hadn't seen us before. The A&R person from Jive never showed up, or if they did, had left with everyone else before we played. By the time we'd finished playing the other band had also disappeared, and it's probably just as well that they had otherwise there might have been a serious incident. On the way back to Nottingham, our normally very reliable roadie/driver nearly fell asleep at the wheel on the M1 and caught us just in time before we drifted into the path of a large lorry. It took several cups of black coffee at the next services before he felt up to continuing our journey. We got back to Nottingham with just enough time to unload the van before those who had work that day had to leave to be there on time.

The song in the OP sounds like someone found four random stems on their computer and stuck them into the DAW to see what they were.

It was essentially his band, and he owned not only the drum machine but also the synth that was most key to our sound (neither of which we could afford to replace should he leave).

A gig that features both a train wreck and drunken "mates". In the 80s there was a very attractive set of gigs at Nottingham University Halls and bars which were on the main campus a long way from the city centre and therefore had a decent sized captive audience. Not only did originals bands get handsomely paid, but you also got the opportunity to support well-known indie bands and up and coming chart acts. My friend's band who were well-established on the circuit did loads of these and got to support The Belle Stars the week they hit chart success for the first time and consequently played to a massive audience. At the beginning of 1984 we had finally convinced the committee responsible for booking the bands to consider our synth-pop group and we got a "try-out" gig at one of the smaller halls. It wasn't the gig we had hope for as there was no "proper" band headlining so it was going to be just us and the disco. Then we discovered that none of the university PA systems were available as there were several other gigs going on that weekend on campus. So we were asked to organise our own and we would be reimbursed as part of our fee. We duly contacted one of the local PA hire companies we had used before and booked a rig. Soundcheck was late afternoon, and we turned up to find the PA setting up but only a small rig rather than the full one we were expecting, and which we really needed as we had no drum kit or backline and the PA was responsible for the whole band sound. The PA engineer assured us that it would be fine and this was a new more compact design he was trying out. We were rather dismayed to find we were being treated a guinea pigs for what was for us an important gig, but there was nothing we could do about it now. The soundcheck went pretty well all things considered, although it was difficult to gauge the volume in an empty room. Having several hours to kill before we were due to play it was decided to go and get some food. However just as we were about to leave a couple of friends of one of the band showed up and he decided to stay with them rather than going with the rest of us. When we returned about an hour before we were supposed to play we discovered that they had got completely pïssed on cheap student beer. Our efforts to sober our band member up were completely futile, and so we went on as we were. To say it was a disaster would have been an understatement. Our drunk member could barely stand straight and spent the whole gig playing random notes on his synth and then wildely celebrating each time he thought he had one right. Halfway through our set he needed to go for a pïss which he announced to the audience (what little was left) and was most upset on his return to find that we had started the next song without him. There exists a single photo of the gig where the rest of us are all heads down concentrating on what we are doing (a probably hoping the earth would open up and swallow us) while he's leaping wildly into the air arms and legs akimbo. To make matters worse his friends spent the whole gig shouting for us to play our cover of "Summer Wine" (the Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood song) which we had only intended to play as an encore. They were getting quite aggressive about it and were at least as responsible as our poor performance for driving the audience away. In the end we relented and included it in the set in the hope that they would be happy and shut up. However they just wanted us to play it again! Finally when we thought it was all over and we could pack up and go home and forget about it, one of them fell over into the PA damaging one of the speakers. We got paid, but the promised money for the PA hire never materialised and the PA company wanted compensation for the damaged speaker, so I think we actually lost money on the gig. Also we found ourselves barred from playing at the University again.

Some "looks" in chronological order...

Depends entirely on the look of the band.

About a year after I quit my Dad Rock covers band I get a panicked phone call from one of the guitarists telling me that my replacement had injured himself and would be unable to play their next gig in a couple of weeks time and could I help them out? "No problem" I say, "so long as there's nothing new for me to learn". "No, it's all stuff you've played before" says the guitarist. "Great" I say "send me the set list so I can go over the songs and make sure I'm up to speed". A couple of days before the gig the set list arrives, and while they were all songs I had done before with the band there were loads that I hadn't played for years, and less than half of the songs were ones from my last gig with them. It turns out that not only was their bass player injured, but the vocalist had some problem with her voice and they had drafted in a previous singer (who had left just after I originally joined), who didn't have the vocal range to do most of the songs from the last time I played with them. I was not a happy bunny, especially as they could have sent this set list over at least a week earlier. Because I don't normally play covers, I tend not to remember songs that I don't play on a regular basis, so while knew I'd played all the songs before with the band, there were a significant number that I had not the slightest recollection of how the bass line went. I told them that anything that I couldn't re-learn in time would be busked as root notes only. In the end I think that they were happy that I actually showed up and played, and luckily most of the songs came back to me after a couple of run-throughs at home and I only had to wing it on one or two. However I won't do that again.