BigRedX

After a week stuck in the UK, my parcel is now in Belgium. However it still has to pass through customs there...

To all those bass players who are using two (or more) different cabs in your rig and are relying on this system to project the bass sound into the audience, without any PA support, have you used a wireless system and gone out into the audience area whilst sound checking and listened to how the bas part of the mix changes in both tone and volume in different parts of the venue? I suspect not. Just because these rigs sound good when you are stood next to them doesn't mean that every audience member is getting the same good sound.

Again, it only matters your rig is supplying the FoH bass sound. Having the drivers next to each other rather than directly above each other will lead to dispersion issues, where the audience will only get to hear what you are hearing if they are stood directly in front of the rig. Everywhere else it will be different in terms of tone and volume. Actually stacking the drivers vertically still leads to dispersion issues, but as they are all in the vertical plane it will only be noticeable if you are playing a venue with multiple levels at very different heights.

Hiscox.

To the OP. Is the bass also going through the PA when you gig? If so, it doesn't matter what you have on stage as it will just be for personal monitoring. However, if you rely on your rig to make the bass audible to the audience, mixing speaker types without using a crossover will result in an inconsistent sound in different parts of the venue.

But are they all written on the bass guitar? I think you'll find that song-writers who play bass as their primary instrument are competent on at least one other that normally lends itself better to songwriting. As a bass-playing song writer myself, most of my songs have the bulk of them written on guitar or keyboard rather than the bass, although I'll use any of them to generate the initial musical ideas.

They look brilliant!

Just had a look at these and apparently the long headstock is to allow you to stick it in the sand while you surf!

Depending on where your basses were made you might need Imperial and metric keys, which is why I recommended a set with both. As a general rule of thumb US-made instruments and anything from the UK up to the mid 70s will be Imperial. Everything else should be metric. Also check if 1.5mm is small enough for your needs.

I'd go for something like this.

But the you can get it refinished in a colour you like without feeling guilty.

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.