BigRedX

Our new single will be available to buy on CD only at gigs: It won't be available to download and stream until the official release date next month, so if you want a sneak preview you'll need to come and see us play live!

I have a bass where the strings are probably 5 or 6 years old, but that's because it's been unused and in storage for the last 5 years. The basses I play regularly all have their strings changed every 3-4 months.

I often forget that on here I am in a minority as someone who is first and foremost a composer and not a bassist. For me being able to play instruments is a means to an end (making it easier to compose) and not the end in itself. I'm only a bassist insomuch as it is my preferred instrument when playing live with other musicians. For me technique is irrelevant unless a lack of it gets in the way of being able to perform the songs live. If I come up with something that I don't have the ability to play consistently well there are a number of options available to me that don't involve having to spend hundreds of hours working on my playing technique. If necessary in the studio I can build up my "performance" out of shorter easy to manage/play chunks, or even note by note if that's what is required to get the result I want for the song. For live I use a non-standard tuning on one of my basses because it makes several of our songs much, much easier to play. In a way that's what bothers me about Mr Berthoud because IMO he has made things deliberately difficult for himself, starting with the choice of instrument on which to perform his "feats". It makes for engaging viewing, but without the visual component would it be as impressive? Most of the artists I like are probably fairly average as musicians, but the magic happens when they play together and compose, not showy technical dexterity, and for me the important thing is how memorable I find the song, not how accomplished as musicians the people playing it are.

Power rating should be in Watts. The lead (and fuse in the plug) will be rated in amps. Watts / Volts = Amps

So long as the combined INPUT power rating of the amp and power cab doesn't exceed the rating of the cable you'll be fine.

If hitting the "Submit Reply" button doesn't appear to have done anything, don't hit it again. Select and copy the contents of your post - although you shouldn't even need to do this as the forum software should have automatically saved your post as you type it - and then select "Go to topic listing". Nearly every time you'll see that your post has been added to the end of the thread, and on the rare occasion that it hasn't, if on trying to reply again doesn't bring up the contents of your post you'll be able to paste it back in from your copy.

Are you hoping to record enough songs for a whole album? How much time have you booked? Last time I was in the studio to record a whole album's worth of songs in a single session it took 3 full days. Two days recording the full band playing live, and the third day for overdubs (mostly vocals and Theremin), and then the best part of a week to do the mixes. And this was for simple Psychobilly/rock 'n' roll being performed by an extremely well-rehearsed band.

I've started typing this post several times over the past couple of weeks and if I decide to hit the "Submit Reply" button this time, I think I have managed to articulate what I want the say properly... For me I just don't find any of the music he plays in the videos posted in this thread interesting enough to to be enjoyable for more than about 30 seconds. In that time I can appreciate the technique and skill required, but as a composer and arranger, from my PoV the music itself is the important thing not how you play it. I acknowledge that this is simply a difference of taste between myself and Mr Berthoud, and if he is able to make a living out of doing this then good on him. However a couple of things struck me. Would he seem as impressive without the video? Take away the visual aspects that show the technique and all you are left with is the music and does it stand up on its own to be worthy of our attention? I'm not sure it does. And that leads on to my second point. In many ways the technique is only impressive because his choice of instrument adds and extra level of difficulty to the playing (and Mr Berthoud is not alone in this). Would we be as impressed on GuitarChat or KeyboardChat if he was playing those same pieces on guitar or keyboard. Again I think not. I spent a lot of time in the 80s and 90s trying to play things on particular instruments that would be not only better suited to other instruments, but would be a lot easier to do too! And guess what? The typical audience member at my gigs really wasn't that impressed by what my band(s) were trying to do. All they cared about was, did the songs sound any good, and with the benefit of hindsight, they would almost definitely have sounded better played on more appropriate instruments. Mr Berthoud's playing technique is remarkable, but for the most part it is technique for its own sake, and from my PoV there is very little big or clever about deliberately making life harder for yourself...

35 years? More like 48. The original Stingray came out in 1976.

I own two boxed set re-issues with "bonus" tracks. The first is The Pretty Things "complete" boxed set, although it doesn't include the last two albums as they were released after this came out. The Pretty Things released a lot of music that never made it onto any of their albums, so for the most parts the bonus tracks are a neat way of collecting together all the recordings from a a particular era around the album into one place. Unfortunately there has also been some mission creep and there are some live recordings and alternative mixes of a few tracks. None of these add anything to my listening enjoyment, and one set in particular turned out to be very disappointing. When the band recorded their third album "Emotions" the record label insisted on adding various horn and string parts to the songs in order make them sound more "contemporary". The band always said they hated these, and therefore the re-issue includes mixes of the songs with out the additions, which I suspect most fans were looking forward to hearing. Unfortunately IMO the difference is less pronounced than I was expecting and the overall effect is that I'm listening to demos rather than the finished article. Maybe it's because I've spent 25-30 years listening to the versions with the additions, that for the most part without them they sound "wrong". The other is "Electrogenesis" by Vice-Versa (who went on to become ABC). This is a four disc (on vinyl only) boxed set collecting together all the recordings they made from 1978 to 1980. While it collects together all thirteen songs that were officially released including those on the almost impossible to get "Aspects" cassette album (which is the main reason why I bought this), the rest of the collection is multiple alternative recordings of these songs with only 3 songs that were never released before in any form and none of which are particularly good, and once again I find that the versions I like the most are those I have spent 40+ years becoming familiar with.

Lots of good advice above, but I'm going throw in some contradictions... Remember that you are the customer/client, so make sure that you and the rest of the band know what you are paying for. So what is it? A potential "hit" recording that together with a viral video is going to net you one million plus streams a couple of weeks after it's been uploaded, or do you simply want something that you and the rest of your band think sounds great which you'll be selling from your Bandcamp page? If it's the first then you and the rest of the band do exactly what the producer wants. Don't be surprised if everyone other than the singer and maybe the guitarist is told to go home. Trust that your producer knows how to make your song sound brilliant and leave it all up to them. If it's the second then remember that you are the ones paying and that the engineer and the studio is there to do what you want. I'm a great believer that for the most part a good performance from the band trumps technical recording perfection. So unless you know in advance that you are all going to be recorded separately and have spent the last few weeks practicing the songs like that, insist on performing as a band all in the same room. If the studio can't accommodate your wishes then you have probably picked the wrong studio. Don't spend ages listening to your performance solo'd and picking it apart. The only mistakes that need to be fixed are those that are still obvious (to you) when the whole mix is being played. Don't be tempted to use fancy gear being offered in the studio unless you know you'll be comfortable with it within a couple of minutes. You should know your own instrument and amplification inside out and know how to get the sound(s) you want out of it, so make sure it's all working properly before you go into the studio and you'll be fine.

A couple of photos of the Oxjam gig:

Next Hurtsfall gig is in Nottingham on Thursday 10th October at The Chapel above The Angel Microbrewery supporting Byronic Sex & Exile. Also playing will be Jan Doyle Band in full goth mode.

My two, both of which should have been brilliant but ended up being boring: 1. Propaganda at Rock City. A Secret Wish was probably my favourite album of the moment, but what was being performed at the gig was barely recognisable as the same songs. The vocals were most inaudible apart from the shouty bits on Jewel/Duel, and every song was ruined by inappropriate and unnecessary guitar solos from an inappropriate and unnecessary guitarist. Horrible from start to finish. 2. Fleet Foxes at Nottingham Trent University. When they were actually playing it was brilliant, but a significant portion of the gig was taken up with endless tuning and re-tuning of instruments, off-mic inter-song banter between members of the band, and between the band and the front two rows of the audience. I'm sure it was all interesting if you could hear what was going on (apart from all the tuning), and would have been entertaining in a small intimate club setting, but half-way down the hall I had no idea what was going on most of the time. I would have left after about 3 songs if I hadn't been with friends who appeared to be a lot more tolerant of the whole proceedings. Probably the most boring gig I have ever been to where I actually liked the music.

Hurtsfall also played Oxjam Beeston yesterday. Our synth-driven post-punk/goth was sandwiched between a band doing covers of songs like "Fat-Bottomed Girls" in an Americana style and a sensitive acoustic folk duo. We were playing out doors so it was just as well that the forecast had changed from 40% chance of rain to sunny and some clouds. Compared with our recent gigs the sound on stage was a bit weedy, but at least we could hear the drums from the backing. There was a decent crowd watching and although we couldn't persuade them the come any nearer to the front of the stage, they did appear to be enjoying us. The cover of "Enola Gay" went down well and caught the attention of a number of people walking past who then stayed to watch the rest of the set, and the timing of the set was just right so it started to get properly dark during our last two songs which added to the atmosphere. Even sold some of our new T-shirt designs - this was the first gig that we had them - which is a rarity for Oxjam where the focus is on donating to the charity rather buying band merch, and would have probably sold CD copies of our next single too, except despite being promised them for Friday, they still haven't been delivered. There were a couple of professional-looking photographers in attendance, so hopefully some decent photos will show up on social media in the next couple of days. We're back in more conventional (for us) surroundings on Thursday when we play at The Chapel in Nottingham supporting Byronic Sex & Exile.

For the bands I like, IMO there is a reason why most of the out-takes and other unreleased tracks were unreleased at the time, and that's because they weren't very good! I think it's fine if the bonus tracks on an album are non-album singles, B-sides and 12" mixes from the same era, in fact that's exactly what I want. What I don't want is half-baked demos, badly performed and recorded "live" tracks, or songs that at the time weren't considered good enough to even be included on the middle of side two of the album. I can't think of any previously unreleased track by any of my favourite bands that have given me sufficient listening pleasure to warrant their inclusion on a re-issue version of the album. I also can't see the point of new mixes that supposedly take advantage of new listening set-ups, with maybe the exception of the handful of albums from the 70s that were mixed for quadrophonic. Almost everything else was recorded with the intention of being mixed in stereo at best, and for many albums recorded in the 60s the mono mix was the the main one that had time and effort taken on it, whilst the stereo version was dashed off in a couple of hours afterwards. Most domestic listening environments are barely good enough to do justice to a stereo mix let alone anything with more channels.

Current forecast is for no rain and maybe even some sun, which is a relief for a band with more than a bit of technology involved in our performance!

I have a Canon ink tank printer. TBH I'm not particularly impressed with it and wouldn't have another for an number of reasons reasons: 1. While the ink is a lot cheaper than buying cartridges, the ink flow mechanism has a tendency to empty back into the tanks which means that suddenly your prints will be missing one or more colours. The method used to get the ink flow going again uses a significant amount of all the inks not just the ones that have stopped flowing, and while after about 4 years of usage I'm only just on my second set of refills I would estimate that half my ink usage has been fixing problems with the printer rather than actually producing prints. 2. The quality of the prints for anything important is nowhere near as good as my previous cartridge-based printer. It's fine for simple text documents, but for photographic prints and anything requiring colour accuracy, it's pretty poor, and that's after using my colour calibration meter to create a custom colour profile for it. 3. They are a lot more money than a cartridge-based printer, and to date my total usage cost (vs cheaper printer but more expensive cartridges) is about the same for the amount of usable prints I have got out of it. So if you are doing lots of prints, using it almost every day and don't need to have good colour accuracy or excellent quality photographic prints, they will work out cheaper in the long run. For everyone else probably not. I'll probably get rid of mine next time I run out of ink and buy a laser printer instead.

We're an originals band so a single set of between 25 and 50 minutes length depending on the gig, where we are on the bill and how many other bands are also playing. Our next two gigs are 40 minute sets (which actually works out as 35 minutes of songs, 2 minutes of intro music and 3 minutes of between songs talking by our singer), which IMO is about right for an originals band with a couple of reasonably well-known songs (within the genre) but no album out yet.

A reminder for anyone on here in the Nottingham/Beeston area that Hurtsfall will be playing Oxjam Beeston on Saturday. More than 100 acts spread out over 17 venues from midday to midnight all for £10 (and it's free to get into any of the venues before 6) all proceeds going to a good cause. We will be performing at The White Lion at 6.00. Apparently the gig is in an outdoors space but under cover for both the band and the audience, which is just as well as there is still a 40% chance of rain. We will also have shiny new merch on sale in the form of two new T-shirt designs and a limited edition CD of our forthcoming single, including an exclusive new version of "Calling Out" which will only be available at gigs.

While they were differences, I'd have been hard pressed to say which, if any, sounded better, particularly once the bass is in the mix with the rest of the instruments and EQ'd to find it's correct place. Based on personal experience I'd rather have a well-engineered hi-mass bridge simply because it's less likely to shed screws and other parts through the act of playing.

IME most digital devices will burn through batteries at a rate that makes using them without a mains PSU unfeasible.

I could never buy tickets for a band more than a month or two in advance, as I would rather be playing myself. So apart from the bands that I'll be supporting over the next three months, I'll be going to see: IST IST on 17th October at The Rescue Rooms Machiner and Westenra on 2nd November at Whitby Brewery Some other bands at WGW although I haven't decided which other gigs I fancy going to yet. Vision Video on 2nd December at The Bodega

The website says that both the headphones and line out sockets have speaker have cab sims applied to them, but doesn't say what kind of a cab, or mention if there is any way of turning this off. The manual doesn't mention cab-sims on these outputs at all.

Weird how some "mojo" is acceptable and some isn't 😉