BigRedX

As a musician: It's not for me. I'd been in one "proper" covers band, and I've got any need to be in a similar band completely and utterly out of my system. In my personal opinion playing in a covers band (compared with the sorts of originals bands I've been in over the last 30 years), for too much effort for too little financial gain and almost no artistic satisfaction. I went in to playing covers having seen the band I ended up joining because one of their guitarists was a very good friend of mine, because I thought it would be great playing songs that I had enjoyed when I was getting into music in the 70s. The reality was that I ended up hating several of the songs we played and quite honestly I would never want to hear them again under any circumstances. I always felt that our audience would have been just as happy and probably better served by an appropriately stocked video jukebox. As an audience member: Not at all for me. In the past the only covers bands I have gone knowingly to see are ones where I knew at least one of the musicians. They tend to play in the sorts of establishments I wouldn't normally frequent, that appear to be mostly filled with the sorts of people I would want to avoid. To me it always seemed as though the music at these gigs was little more that aural wallpaper, or to behave badly under the influence of too much alcohol using the excuse that they were "getting into the music"to justify their actions. I'm probably out of the ordinary as a musician in that I don't see anything special about "live music" per se. So to me most covers bands come across as a random set of musicians playing a random selection of songs to a random audience. I think most of the time the typical covers band could be replaced with a well-chosen playlist and no-one who had come out for the evening would really complain. As a composer: Bring it on! Every time someone covers one of my songs it's going to be money in the bank. So far it has only happened once, and the earnings were meagre, but that doesn't rule out something better in the future. Of course I'd rather it was my version that was successful, but I'll take someone else's version of one of my songs being successful as a very good second best.

I'll just leave this here:

Go on then...

To me it ultimately looks as though the OP simply wants to justify a bout of GAS, masquerading as changing from a 5-string bass to a 4-string one, and possibly some additional GAS in the form of adding a de-tuner to the 4-string when it comes. Nothing wrong with that, we all indulge in a bit of GAS from time to time, that's mostly what Basschat is for. However don't ask us all to endorse your GAS. That's not what Basschat is for. If you want to change your bass, then just change your bass. Start a for sale thread for the old 5-string bass, move it on and be done with it. [/thread]

What does the software do? Is it an editor or a plug-in version of the hardware?

Personally I wouldn't be a band with anyone who thinks football is more important than music. I can understand paying work and family needing to take precedence, but watching or playing football is just another hobby (unless you are getting paid to play football) and when it comes to "hobbies" IMO being in a band comes first.

In recent years the band with the best sound it terms of being able to hear everything was the rockabilly band I supported who would start with the vocals and then build the rest of the band sound around that, drums being done last and only put through the PA if they weren't sufficiently loud enough acoustically. The results were astounding, and they seemed to take a lot less time to set up and sound check, maybe because they didn't spend ages sorting out a drum sound that ultimately might not be needed or would have to be modified once the whole band were playing. This method does require all the instruments especially the drums to be perfectly set up/tuned/damped and with instrument amplifier EQs already sorted for the band mix rather than sounding good at home, but if you can persuade your band members to do this you'll shave at least 1/3 of sound checking time and more if you are using your own PA.

Next for Hurtsfall is HRH Goth at the O2 Academy in Sheffield: Were playing on Friday 29th September on the main stage at 9.15 Full line up for the weekend is: Friday: Fleisch 22:30 Hurtsfall 21:15 Elkapath 20:10 Play/Dead 19:05 Saturday: Auger 22:40 Ashbury Heights 21:10 Vlad In Tears 19:50 The Arch 18:30 The Membranes 17:10 Alien Vampires 16:00 Gothzilla 14:50 Novus 13:45 Imogen Evans 13:00 The HRH Punk festival is on at the same time and I believe that some tickets will get you access to both events.

A typical bass rig doesn't reproduce the fundamental at anything like "full volume" for notes below the open A string. It doesn't need to as it's all harmonics and your brain fills in the gaps. Keyboards have the ability to go much lower than low B on a bass and despite the fact that the average keyboard amp is even less suited to reproducing very low frequencies they seem to manage well enough. Besides for me the PA does all the heavy lifting, and in the days when I did use a traditional bass rig most of the time it was at best a personal monitor and at worst a very large, heavy, and expensive stage prop. I've never had a problem with different numbers of strings. However from the outset I played lots of different instruments with varying numbers of strings and tunings. Perhaps if I had only ever played the bass guitar I might have for stuck with just four strings, but I don't have those blinkers.

Does this device come with a manual? I'm wondering if the power handling of the crossover is "peak" rather than RMS, or if it's presenting a load lower than 8Ω to the amp, both of which would probably mean that your mixer amp is overpowering the crossover.

If you prefer the 4-string then go for it. Personally I've never got on with down-tuning strings. They always feel too floppy (I'm the person who has a guitar with an extra heavy bottom string permanently set up just for drop D tuning). And I don't think I could go back, I'd been playing 4-string bass for less than ten years before I got my first 5-string and that is almost 35 years ago now. But I'm not you so do what you think is best.

It very much depends on what you play. I play 5-string in one band where I go all the way down to low B on a couple of songs and makes a handful of others easier to play. In the other band I play Bass VI (6-string tuned an octave down from the guitar) where I alternate bass and melody parts with the synth player. For me the extra strings very much earn their keep at the moment. On the other hand I've played in several bands where I could have done everything on a 2-string bass tuned E and A. I actually took my 1-string fretless bass to a rehearsal for the Dad Rock covers band once and found that the fact it was fretless was a bigger stumbling block to playing the bass lines than the fact it only had a single string. If you are comfortable playing the 5-string why change?

For all of these types of instruments, Cheesy Guitars is an invaluable source of information. Here's the page for the Kermona "Gibson" Bass.

I used to try a keep everything, posters, flyers, stage passes, reviews etc. but every time I moved or had a bit of clear out some of it would get inadvertently lost or chucked. I have managed to keep copies of all the physical releases for all my bands over the past 45 years. That's 13 compact cassettes, two 7" singles, one album on 12" vinyl, and 17 CDs. The best archive I have is for my 80s synth pop/rock band where we kept a scrap book, although it's at least one third record company rejection letters. Some of them are quite amusing like the cassette cover sent to ZTT returned with a "message" from FGTH scrawled on to it and an apologetic note from the label! Also we recorded nearly all our gigs, plus we had a friend who was a professional photographer who would shoot a roll of film (remember actual film?) each time we played. It still have a box full of contact sheets and negatives that I need to digitise. Unfortunately the best gig we played - on the main stage at Rock City - where he shot a whole roll of colour transparency film has disappeared. Even digital media has its disadvantages. I never bothered keeping physical copies of any of the posters and flyers I produced in the 90s because I had the original Quark XPress files for them. Of course I haven't used XPress for over 15 years now and can no longer access any of these. On the other hand thanks to Facebook and other social media I have almost 100GB saved of photos, radio broadcasts and on-line reviews for The Terrortones.

I did this in the mid 90s. Our singer quit the band the week before we were due to send the master tapes and artwork off to have our debut single pressed, as the band all had jobs with a decent amount of disposable income we decided we'd advertise for a replacement in NME and Melody Maker with a one-column display ad. Now if you think that there's some weirdos on JMB, that's nothing compared with the ones hoping for fame and fortune in a band that was obviously ambitious enough to advertise in the weekly "inkys"! I wish I'd kept all the letters/photos/tapes that we received as some of them were absolutely hilarious. On the other hand we did nearly end up with the daughter of a very famous rock musician as our singer (unfortunately despite the fact that she was great, she wasn't impressed with our music as she had been with the ad to want to join). In the end our replacement singer came from an ad placed in the local record shop...

Saturday with Hurtsfall at the Victoria Biker's Pub in Coalville. Second day of a two day Goth festival. Things were a bit chaotic when we arrived, two bands had dropped out - one cancelling with Covid, the other simply hadn't turned up and hadn't been in touch to say they were going to be late. For a moment it looked as though we were going to bumped to the less impressive looking outdoor stage, but in the end we played inside. After seeing the opening band have a really weedy sound that was all live instruments and almost no audible backing, I told the sound engineer that out backing should be treated like a real drummer and not a rhythm box and they didn't disappoint! Plenty of people dancing from the off and we made a load of new fans and sold CDs and T-shirts. Enjoyed all the bands especially Glass House Museum, She Made Me Do It with ex-Rachel Stamp guitarist Will Crewdson, and finally the mighty Auger. The night ended with a complete power failure on stage - sound and lights - during Auger's final song. Luckily it was "Oxygen" which most of us knew so we did a band and audience A cappella (with drums) version to the end. Obligatory photo of the gig: Next gig is in two week's time at the O2 Academy in Sheffield as part of the HRH Goth weekend.

I sound very much the same from a tone PoV whether I use pick or fingers, but that might be because I've pretty much worn my fingerprints off my right hand from 30 years of playing and when I use a pick it's a heavy but flexible nylon Herco Flex75. What is different though is the feel especially on eighth note passages where using fingers will make the bass line swing far more than if I play with a pick which is different again depending on whether it's all down strokes, all up strokes or alternating up and down strokes. So for me the difference between pick and fingers is mostly how I want the timing feel rather than the sound.

You know this site counts as social media don't you?

I never take my phone to gigs where I'm in the audience. I'd be worried that it would get lost/stolen/broken and therefore it just gets in the way of me having a good time. For gigs where I'm playing it spends most of it's time in my bag in the dressing room buried under a pile of equipment cases. I keep meaning to take some photos of the stage setup for the more impressive gigs but most of the time I'm too caught up in the moment of the gig to remember.

One band I'm in tend to be very selective about what they post while the other is putting stuff up on Facebook almost every day. Some of it isn't as "professional" as I would like (that's the graphic designer in me coming out) but as a result of all this posting my "newer" band are getting lots of great gigs and increased interest in our current single, so it must be working. My personal Facebook page is a mixture of publicity for my bands' gigs and recordings, mixed in with random stuff my girlfriend tags me in. I rarely post anything personal, and if I do it is almost all music orientated. As a result (mostly after I'd posted up a pretty professional looking music video for one of my bands) I have had a few people from my past ask me if I'm now a full time musician! It was a little disappointing to have to tell them otherwise.

As others have said the more prep work you can do yourself, the more "cost effective" it will be. If you're hoping to give someone a body with the existing finish still on (I assume it's just the body otherwise it's going to get very expensive) and get it back with a new colour then you are looking at something that will be fairly time consuming and therefore costly. Removing the old finish especially a poly one is hard work and you'll be charged accordingly.

Excellent stuff! I see from Bandcamp there's going to be a limited edition CD. Do you have a release date yet?

It's rather good isn't it?

Hurtsfall are playing Saturday 16th September at the Gothic Gathering at The Victoria Biker's Pub in Coalville. The stage times have changed slightly since the final line-up was announced. The new Saturday schedule is: DJ - 1:30 ish 11.00 finish - AUGER - 9:55 -10:35 - SHE MADE ME DO IT 9:10 -9:55 - CHAOS BLEAK 8:20 9.05 - THE GLASS HOUSE MUSEUM 8:00 - 8:20 stage break 7:20 - 8:00 - HURTSFALL 6:30 - 7:15 - SIOUXIE SUICIDE 5:50 - 6:25 - MARYS HIDDEN LIGHT 5:00 - 5:45 - WEST WICKHAMS 4:00 - 5:00 a very Gothic Burlesque party DJ 3:00 - 4:00

Just a quick reminder that Hurtsfall are playing tomorrow at the Gothic Gathering at The Victoria Biker's Pub in Coalville. The stage times have changed slightly since the final line-up was announced. The new Saturday schedule is: DJ - 1:30 ish 11.00 finish - AUGER - 9:55 -10:35 - SHE MADE ME DO IT 9:10 -9:55 - CHAOS BLEAK 8:20 9.05 - THE GLASS HOUSE MUSEUM 8:00 - 8:20 stage break 7:20 - 8:00 - HURTSFALL 6:30 - 7:15 - SIOUXIE SUICIDE 5:50 - 6:25 - MARYS HIDDEN LIGHT 5:00 - 5:45 - WEST WICKHAMS 4:00 - 5:00 a very Gothic Burlesque party DJ 3:00 - 4:00