BigRedX

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:

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.

I've never come across a noise gate that works properly for unwanted sounds produced by high gain devices, mostly because they can't tell the difference between when the noise is wanted and when it's not. IME a decent volume pedal placed at the end of the signal chain is far more effective.

If you think the cause is worth supporting then make a donation directly, but don't give any encouragement to this travesty masquerading as The Sex Pistols. IMO The Sex Pistols (like a lot of bands) were very much of their time. If I had been on the ball back in 1976 I would have probably gone to one of their gigs and enjoyed them a lot, but it's no longer 1976, and this is just some old blokes trying to relive their "glory days". Are there going to be playing any new songs? Otherwise I might as well stay at home and enjoy listening to the recordings.

While I wasn't specific in the same way as @jonno1981 I think my answer qialifies as correct too. Besides .65 is only ridiculous if you intend to use it as a G string. It will make a perfectly adequate slightly heavy D-string.

In that situation you are probably best off keeping the existing button if it's suitably low profile and using the Grolsch washer method.

As has been said most mixers with stereo inputs should be wired so that only using the left input sends the signals to both the left and right bus. If this is a digital mixer you may need to set this somewhere in the UI.

I'm in one of my bands as the result of a JMB ad. I was very specific about the kind of music I wanted play and what kind of commitment I was expecting from any band I wanted to join. It took almost a year before someone answered my ad, but the band were exactly what I was looking for.

If you are not signed to a record label and taking advantage of their publicity machine (and lets face it these days that's the main reason to be signed to a record label), then it's up to you to do you publicity, or pay some to do it.

Thanks. It looks as though we're the only support according to the poster, so we're on a t the reasonable sensible time of 7.45.

Hurtsfall have a very late notice gig on Monday 10th June supporting US band Spotlights at The Bodega in Nottingham.

At at very late notice Hurtsfall will be supporting US band Spotlights at The Bodega in Nottingham on Monday 10th June. Doors at 7.00. We're on stage at 7.45 playing for 30 minutes. Spotlights on at 8.45

That money doesn't come from the advertising revenue or premium subscribers. It comes from investors who are hoping that Spotify will eventually work out how to make their business model turn a profit without requiring investment support. If they want to waste their money on extravagant executive wages then more fool them. And judging by the ads I was getting this morning whilst checking out a playlist for new bands Spotify are in trouble. During a 3 hour listening period I had the same 4 ads repeated over and over and 2 of those were trying to persuade me to "upgrade" to a premium account.

That's mostly the record labels and it's the same situation as if you'd bought a record or CD. The streaming services themselves make very little money; most make a loss and are being propped up by the more profitable parts of their parent organisation), and none make anything like the kind of money that old fashioned record distributors made.

A single Rotosound string?

Yes, of the total amount paid by Spotify per stream it's approximately 75% mechanicals and 25% performance royalties. I suspect that all the other streaming services will be similar.

Actually if you are receiving songwriting royalties you get quite a lot (at least in the UK) for being on broadcast radio. Looking at my PRS statements a single play on 6 Music was worth approximately £13. You need to rack up an awful lot of streams even without a record label taking their excessive cut to match that.

Almost impossible to say, because it will depend on the details of the contract that the artist has signed with their record label as well as what percentage Amazon take from the sale. It has generally been known that the retailer gets the largest proportion of the purchase price whether they be an on-line giant like amazon or an actual "record shop". Even artists releasing their own records or CDs aren't making very much money as most of the purchase price has already been accounted for in the cost of recording and pressing. If you really want to support your favourite artists you should go and see them play live and buy an official T-Shirt after the gig.

I'd say it's partly a licensing and/or financial issue. Any popular modern artist either thinks they don't need the additional income or exposure from having their music used in adverts or the advertisers simply aren't offering enough to make it worthwhile. With older artists who are no longer as popular as they once were, almost anything that will boost their music's profile is more likely to be worth doing plus they are probably a lot more affordable.

If you are generally unfamiliar with current music then you probably won't spot it being used in a TV Ad.

Can anyone recommend a suitable strap-mounting pouch for the transmitter when used with adaptor lead for an active bass?

I don't miss having a bass rig behind me in the slightest. 1. I have never been in a band that needed to be so loud on stage that I could actually feel the air moving, and I've been in some loud bands in the past. I suspect if I had, I'd be even more deaf than I am. 2. On any decent sized stage the moment that I stepped away from standing directly in from of my rig I could no longer hear it and it turned into a big, heavy expensive stage prop. 3. At smaller gigs I was often asked by the sound engineer to turn down so much, so as not to affect the FoH mix, that I could hear myself better from the guitarist's wedge monitor on the other side of the stage than I could from my rig directly behind me. At some gigs we would deliberately aim the cabs sideways across the stage to minimise the FoH spill. 4. Most of the gigs I have done over the pst 45 years have had PA support for the whole band. On the few occasions that I have needed my bass rig to provide sound for the audience I have ended up needing to be so loud on stage that I could barely hear the rest of the band. It was not a pleasant experience. These days I have a Helix for my sound and an FRFR for rehearsals and personal monitoring for the smaller gigs where the foldback is strictly vocals only or unknown. For the bigger gigs I just use the in-house PA foldback. If I could organise the rest of either of my bands enough to go IEMs then I would. I do most of my composing using headphones and I always mange the get the songs sounding exciting enough at those kinds of levels so I wouldn't find it limiting or isolating in any way.

1. Was mostly a recording band so when the individual members moved to different parts of the country to go to university we managed to keep it going, getting together during the holidays to write and record, and even had our music played on John Peel's Radio 1 show. However the percussionist and myself who had both moved to Nottingham started a new, more gig-orientated band there which gradually became more important to us. 2. Singer left to get a job in London. The rest of the band decided to call it a day rather than look for a replacement. 3. Band ended after I quit as I wasn't happy with the musical direction the others wanted to go in. 4. Band ended after the singer and bassist (I was playing guitar in this band) who were in a relationship, split up. 5. Having managed to keep the band going for 13 years through numerous line-up changes everything finally came to a head when I had a blazing row with the singer (who was massively insecure and a complete diva at the same time) over musical direction. This is the only time I've been directly involved in an acrimonious band split. 6. Band ended after I quit because I got an offer to join another band that was more active. 7. Band ended after the singer and guitarist had a falling out. 8. Band ended after the singer became too unwell to gig.

Even if you never pay for the licence Reaper is only good VfM if you only stick with the supplied plug-ins or 3rd party free ones. Once you've added more than a couple of paid-for plug-ins you might as well have bought Logic which comes with all the plug-ins most people could ever need. Also if you do a lot of things requiring MIDI, the manipulation of the events in Logic is vastly superior to Reaper.