BigRedX

When you can find it! I've played their twice with other bands and both times it took us ages to work out exactly where it was -even with the benefits of sat-nav. However the last time was less than 12 months ago so I think I may remember now!

Just to give you an idea of how small the stage is...

First gig of the year for Hurtsfall supporting The DSM IV at a new venue in Nottingham - The Grove in Sneinton Market. This may now have the record for being the smallest venue in the city as it appears to be even tinier than The Jam Café. There's an upstairs with a balcony but that's reserved for the bands and last night also for the person running the psychedelic light show projectors. Small stage meant that the headliners had to completely remove all their gear after sound-checking in order for us to have any chance of fitting on. Luckily there was an acoustic duo and a solo guitarist on before us so we were able to keep most of our stuff set up. Small but excellent sounding PA and a great sound engineer meant we were set up and sound checked in well under 30 minutes. By the time we went on the venue was completely packed (which was very gratifying as Heartworms were also playing Nottingham that night, a gig I would have been attending had we not be playing), and although it looked like quite a different audience to our usual local Goth crowd there were people dancing from the start and the end of each song received plenty of cheering and applause. Managed to catch my finger on a protruding bridge screw during the second song and was dripping blood all over my bass and stage for the rest of the set. I've done this before so I realised what was going on and the fact that there was little point in worrying about it until the end of the set. It does mean I'll be cleaning the strings before Tuesday's practice it not actually change them. Really enjoyed all the other bands, especially The DSM IV who were much more aggressive live that their recording suggested, and which made for a great evening. The promoter was also impressed with our performance and has offered us a potentially great gig later in the year which I can't share until it's confirmed. From what was being said when we were arranging the gig, I got the feeling that they thought we were a relatively new project that had been formed after the dissolution of my other band, and we were quite happy to let them carry on believing this until we played. There were several photographers with serious cameras in attendance, but nothing has surfaced on Social Media yet. No doubt I'll be posting something later this weekend. Next gig is Friday 7th March at The Arches in Coventry.

Because something else in your playing style or signal chain is over-riding the possible effects of changing the action.

But so long as the nut and bridge have been adjusted to allow the best possible tuning across all the strings and frets, and bearing in mind that tuning on all fretted instruments is a compromise, everything else about a "set-up" is subjective.

Everything from how you play and what you choose to play right up to the space in which you play it will have an effect on your tone. Some things will be very important other will be completely overshadowed those very important things. What is important and what is not, will be different for every player.

They are just called LaBella Steels now. Because LaBella round wounds aren't as popular as their flat wound strings they tend to be quite difficult to get hold of in the UK and, when can find them, they are eye-waveringly expensive. IME most people who like LaBella Steels would be just as well off with Warwick Red Label stings which are about a quarter of the price.

EQ is only a partial solution to room acoustics as the sound of a room is both frequency and time domain based and EQ is a frequency domain only solution. What normally happens with EQ is that you can correct for one area of the room but you are just shifting the problem to somewhere else. You have to move cabs quite a way from walls, floors and ceilings before you break the proximity effect they cause. However moving your cabs will cause the position of the room nodes to shift which may help with the sound of the room (changing the time domain parameters). Decoupling solutions rarely work at gig volumes. I stopped using my Gramma Pad because it did little to improve the sound but did make my rig wobble alarmingly on some stages

Most AI can't even see lines properly as my building brickwork example proved.

No problem. Perusing Thomann's selection of cases did point me in the direction of what could have been a suitable alternative. Unfortunately on checking the measurements it's much too big.

AI appears to very stupid when it comes to many things that human beings can see and easily understand. I was recently asked to use several tiny photographs of buildings in a publication that needed to appear at full page width which involved enlarging them by over 400%. I have several AI-based tools for image enlargement that were initially bought to use with headshots for contributors (for another publication) that had been taken from their organisation's website or their LinkedIn profile. For this task it is very good indeed. Unfortunately in the case of the photographs of the buildings it rendered all the regular brickwork as something between avant-garde architecture and dry stone walling. As a human being I can instantly look at the photographs and recognise that those buildings are made of bricks that need to be arranged in straight rows. AI has yet to be able make that deduction.

Thanks. Unfortunately the top doesn't come off as well as the ends, which is requirement for me. For clarity here's a shot which shows how I have the current rack case configured.

Any manufacturer who still can't make a good P or J copy shouldn't be in the business of producing bass guitars.

Unfortunately not. My interest in Rush lasted a little over 72 hours, from when as an impressionable 15 year old I saw the gear porn cover of "All the World's a Stage" on Saturday afternoon in my local record shop, until the Tuesday when I got back from school, roughly 5 minutes after I had dropped the needle on side one my borrowed copy of 2112. No matter how much I liked the music I couldn't get past the vocals. I listened all the way through both sides just in case there were songs with more "conventional" singing on them. It wasn't a pleasant experience. From time to time I go back and listen to the occasional track, but my opinion hasn't changed and I still can't get past the vocals. I don't get on with Muse for much the same reasons.

Bear in mind that a "good" tone is partially subjective and partially to do with how the other instruments sound and the arrangement of the music you are playing.

In 50 years of guitar and bass ownership, at all sorts of price points, I have only once had an instrument where the machine heads were actually problematic and that was a 1960s bass where 20 years of abuse meant the gears had worn to the point that they slipped when approaching proper tuning tension. The shop I bought it from had disguised this by tuning it down a tone to a point where they didn't slip and therefore I didn't notice it when trying it out. Everything else has had machine heads that functioned perfect well and so long as I cut my strings so that I wasn't winding unnecessary coils around the tuning posts they held their tuning perfectly well. IMO these days the only reason to change your machine heads is because you don't like the look of the existing ones.

But that only works if the rest of your band sound like Metallica or Iron Maiden. The sound of a band is the sound of all the instruments fitting together like a sonic jigsaw.

For me the two most important components to my sound are ME (including my choice of pick) and my Helix multi-effects pedal. The idea is to remove as many variable from the signal chain as possible. That's one of the reasons I no longer use an amp or cab(s) and go straight into the PA with an FRFR (very occasionally) for personal on-stage monitoring. I've found that beyond basic playability the bass itself makes almost no difference to my sound as I'll either change my playing technique or alter the settings on the Helix until I have the sound I want.

That looks very stylish. I like it!

Nice to see one of the basses I actually own used to illustrate Gus Guitars.

My otherwise trusty 3U EMS case which I have been using for about 30 years got damaged at the last gig and the plastic part of one of the end lids that the latch grips onto has broken off which means then end is no longer securely held in place during transit. I was going to enquire if it was possible to buy a replacement 3U lid, but I can't find any trace of the company on-line. So maybe no is the time to look for an alternative. Also I could do with one extra U for a future upgrade to our live playback system. Can someone recommend me a suitable 3U or 4U (ideally), no bigger as space is at a premium for transport, lightweight rack case with both removable ends and top. Must have rack mounting fixtures back and front and be between 40cm and 48cm between the back and front with the lids removed. I would prefer a heavy duty plastic case for reasons of weight. What do you recommend?

That's because the design originated in the late 70s.

You're still paying VAT and import duty though. It's just when buying from someone like Thomann you pay it at time of purchase and not at time of import.

What gauge strings does it have at the moment? Acoustic guitar string makers tend consider 11 for the top E as light gauge whereas electric guitars would be 9 or thinner. Try an acoustic guitar 10 set and see how you get on. Bear in mind that the heavier gauge strings are part of what gives an acoustic guitar it's projection and volume so lighter gauge strings whilst being easier to play may not sound as good.

Milli Vanilli is technically a solo act (Frank Farian). And that opens up a whole other can of worms, where there were plenty of "bands" in the 60s and 80s (and 80s) where the only band member who appeared on the recordings was the singer, or bands where the front man is essentially the band and as well as writing and singing all the songs they are also responsible for playing most of the instruments on the recordings and composing the parts for others to play if they don't have the technical skills to actually play those instruments. A what about "solo" artists who don't really exist without their team of co-writers and producers?