BigRedX

Buy a good quality set of 10 metric and 10 imperial size allen keys and keep it in a safe place, always returning the keys to the case when you've used them. That way you will never be in need of one again.

Andy, how does this grain filling work where you have very different coloured woods next to each other, as on that stripy neck? Or in practice do you not notice the darker coloured sawdust filling the lighter coloured wood grain?

My parcel is still stuck at the "International Hub" where it has been since Monday Evening. The last entry says it has been exported from the UK which I am assuming means it has been cleared by UK customs. However since it is still at the International Hub, it is probably stuck in the backlog. I've just spent a frustrating 10 minutes on WebChat with Interparcel who can't tell me anything and whose end of the conversation mostly consisted of cut and paste excuses, blaming Covid and Brexit. My advice would be no to send anything bigger than a Large Letter to the EU at the moment.

There is TV footage of Freddie and the Dreamers with their bassist using a Thunderbird too.

Absolutely. The Terrortones made enough money from PRS royalties (live and radio play) to pay for the bulk of our recording costs for 3 EPs and an album.

I suggest that if you don't want to have to pay for a PRS licence then don't have any music on in the shop.

A band I was in previously had a drummer who only used one tom (on the bass drum, so no floor tom). Every time we did an equipment share gig where we were supplying the drums, we had explicitly say that our drummer only had one (small) tom on his kit and if they required a floor tom (or more) than would need to bring their own. We still found that on half of these gigs the support band's drummer would be heading back to the rehearsal studio or home to collect the missing drums, having mis-interpreted "1 tom" as being one rack tom (implying that there would be a floor tom supplied). The original drummer in The Terrortones had one of these mini kits. We once did a multi-band gig where we supplied the backline and kit at a venue with a very small stage area, so he decided to bring his small kit. It was amusing watching the metal band on before us try and fit the dual kick drum beaters to his "bass drum".

IIRC Many of the smaller radio stations are sampled on a periodic basis (one day a week or a month) rather than every single song that they play. Wanting the codes embedded is more for their convenience so they don't have to manually log the songs.

TBH £200 does seem a bit steep, but I suppose it reflects the number of people who would like to join, but in reality have very little prospect of generating enough performance royalties to make the administration of their membership cost effective. I was lucky enough to join some 40 years ago when it there was no joining fee, but you had to show that you had performance royalty generating works to register. My band had just had two tracks released on a compilation EP and had picked up airplay on Radio 1 so we qualified. Also back then in order to be able to register your works the main musical themes and lyrics had to be scored out on official PRS manuscript sheets. Not an easy task when your knowledge of written music was sketchy at best. IIRC it took me 2-3 days of work to score the important musical parts for each of the songs I wanted to register.

If you had the documents to print out you will have the track numbers and can check for yourself.

@Bassman Sam Have you checked the tracking? My parcel, sent on Monday, is still at the International Hub although it appears to have cleared customs, it hasn't left the UK yet (despite the fact that it was originally due to be delivered to Belgium today).

Only if the broadcasters in question are required to submit full playlists for every programme they broadcast. IME anything smaller than BBC Local Radio does not.

Regarding Sentric, as you pointed out they take 25% (IIRC) of everything regardless of whether they have generated the income or not. As a publisher they ought to be pushing to get the works you have registered with them out to people who might want to use them, but AFAICS they fit more the modern definition of a publisher in that they make your works available to any interested parties looking for a particular style of music but that is it. And what should it be any different when they can take their cut of the performance royalties for doing absolutely nothing. IME to make full use of Sentric's services you should create instrumental only mixes of all the works as well as the standard versions with vocals on them, because a lot of what they actually manage to place with TV and film producers is background music where those pesky vocals just get in the way.

Then do it yourself. It's quick and easy and there is no reason not to. If your compositions are any good their ability to generate performance royalties will well surpass the life of the band that originally recorded them. I still earn performance royalties on songs I recorded and released over 40 years ago. And as I write and record more music my back catalogue builds up, which is more potential royalty earning sources.

Split humbuckers on an instrument with an odd number of sting have always puzzled me. Hopefully someone with scientific knowledge of how coils and magnets work together will explain, but it my understanding that both coils of a humbucker need to equal in impedance but wound in opposite directions for them to be hum cancelling. Also that the ratio of coil numbers to the strength of the magnetic field is important. So when one part of the humbucker covers more area than the other how does that work? If both parts have the same number of coils then the two parts are not the same impedance and won't be fully hum cancelling. If both parts have the same impedance then the larger half will have less coils and therefore produce a weaker signal. Neither option sounds like an idea situation. Also on a standard side-by-side humbucker a single magnet is used arranged so that the N pole contacts with the pole pieces for one coil and the S pole the others. One a P-style split humbucker there are separate magnets for each coil. How do we know that the magnetic fields for each are equal?

For me the choice of strings is all about feel. It's personal to me and the same strings can feel different of different basses depending on what happens behind the bridge and the nut. Unfortunately none of that can be captured on video.

But with the right EQ and playing technique they all sound like bass guitars in the mix.

Unfortunately RM International Standard only appears to go up to 2kg (5kg for printed papers) and doesn't offer any insurance, so not much use in my case - 10kg of printed labels which would cost me £500 to have produced again if lost or damaged.

When the rest of your band are Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, and Keith Moon; standing completely motionless looking like a dork can be a useful strategy.

Have you sent anything since January 1st?

Newtone

My parcel to Belgium appears to be on a time machine: Screen shot taken at 09:21 on Wednesday 27th Jan...

That's because you are wearing it about two feet too high. Some designs are fine on a short strap. The Thunderbird isn't one of them

I would suspect that the fans of your band and the fans of The Terrortones were much the same in age and musical tastes. We made plenty of sales direct from our website, right up to the point when we created a Bandcamp page after which all the sales went via Bandcamp. If it hadn't been such a complete change I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

IME with a single saddle for each course from about the 3rd fret to the 6th fret you get increasing amounts of chorus-y sound which further up the neck gives way to a definite out-of-tuneness.