Silvia Bluejay

We ask the manager/landlord what kind of performance they need from us, to keep an ear on levels during the gig (which they usually do, walking around the audience), and to tell me whether they need to go up or down. If they don't say anything during the first set, I will go to them and ask if everything's fine, which in the case of our bands it usually is. (I keep the volume under tight control at all times, social distancing or not.)

Exactly. As far as I'm concerned, I'm as (un)likely to be able to attend a gig in Aberdeen as one in Milwaukee, so I'm just interested in seeing what others are doing.

More pics, as promised. The whole album is HERE.

@paul_c2, @peteb, politics... please.

Full photoshoot to follow, obvs...

There was a long discussion in this thread recently.

Incidentally - and this is my last post on this particular bass! - the 5-string version for sale at Thomann has the colour fading at the back - clearly an intentional cosmetic choice, whether we like it or not - and does NOT have the just-a-nut! I do think we need to wait to see where exactly these guys end up... Sadowsky Metroline 21 At Thomann

It may be a drive towards sustainability - a perfectly fine bass except for a small cosmetic flaw doesn't deserve being stripped and burnt/sent to landfill (thereby not just writing off its building costs but also adding stripping costs). I can't comment on how big the discount on it should be, but if it doesn't seem appropriate, the bass won't sell and they'll reduce the price. None of you guys are obliged to buy it if you believe it's not worth it... My impression from NAMM was that a. Roger is very relaxed about handing over to Warwick (except his Custom NYC line etc.), because he trusts the company; and b. the 'many' who are eager to cast stones appear to be mostly - or only - on this forum, IME. I would suggest we leave Roger and the Sadowsky Warwicks alone for a while and allow things to settle down.

Damo And The Dynamites shared a private event with four burlesque ladies. They had their own background music, so the band was off stage when the girls were performing; however, @Happy Jack and I didn't take a break, because we were manning the PA to play the correct piece of music at the correct time, muting and unmuting the microphones via the tablet, etc. Despite it being a bikers' do, with me and the strippers the only female attendees, it was all extremely civilised, everybody was lovely, and there was no sleaze. Go figure...

SOME Greene King pubs are. Many more aren't. And I - and several GK landlords we've spoken to - do believe that those which do are in breach of the rules.

@ped, when it's time to publicise the straplocks going on sale normally, we'll mention it on Facebook and Twitter - just let us know.

We're hoping to get another couple of outdoors gigs, but the weather for them is rapidly disappearing.

Forget the violin, did you notice the hat, ear-warmers and gloves? 😮

For us it was on Bank Holiday Sunday, two days ago, with Damo And The Dynamites. Great setting, excellent, appreciative audience, decent sound, but cold, very cold!

TBH I don't think it's worth investing in the Zoom at all (unless the 4k model is a lot better in general) for anything professional, video or audio. It's a cheap device that has a lot of practical advantages, especially to film live in awkward places, or where there's little space between the camera and the band, etc. I wouldn't want to record a proper promo video with it.

Yes it is. I even returned the first Q2n I bought, and the second did/does the same. It's clearly a software glitch. As I mentioned above, I am talking about the older, non-4K model. When powered via a power pack into its micro-USB port, the Q2n works regardless of whether it contains batteries or not. (No surprise there.) We soon decided that it was easier to always keep batteries in it, as I quickly got fed up with re-setting the date and time whenever I used it. To keep the date/time stored, you don't need fresh batteries, even old ones will do, as long as they're not totally dead. So far so good. You power it up via the pack, set it running at the start of the gig, and it will record video of the whole gig in a series of chunks of around 20 minutes which you then stitch together as needed. Periodically I did replace the batteries, when they died completely. We spent a couple of months deliberately using the Q2n for every gig or event of any kind, to test it properly. And... it worked either absolutely flawlessly for hours on end; or, on certain days, it didn't. You set it running, and it would stop recording after a random number of minutes. Could be 5, 30, 50... it stopped recording and just sat there, turned on but idle. Nothing that we did would cure that: we turned it off then on repeatedly, updated the firmware, bought new, faster, better microSD cards, connected it to a different power pack, you name it. I even had an email exchange with a Zoom engineer who was very apologetic, but had no idea how to help me. Then, one day, it hit me: thinking back, I realised that the problem happened every time I put new batteries in the Q2n but still powered it via the power pack as usual. As soon as the batteries were no longer brand new, usually the following time we'd use the Q2n - again with the power pack - the problem did not appear. No idea why. I emailed the engineer, who was completely uninterested in and/or unconvinced by my discovery. The problem hasn't reappeared since then, because I make sure to never have new batteries in the Q2n when I need it to record video for more than a few minutes. Of course, the Q2n works fine every time it's powered by the internal batteries as opposed to the power pack, but it usually doesn't last an entire gig (or, depending on temperature or other environmental factors, even an entire set). It turns itself off and displays a battery empty message, which is a different behaviour from the problem I describe above. Go figure...

Having said that, anything that only uses digital zoom will have to reduce the image quality in order to zoom in. It's only optical zoom that can keep the quality unchanged - up to the limit of the physical zoom lens itself. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong!

I have the non-4K, older version. I haven't tried the updated Q2n, so I can't comment on that.

Don't think it depends on the camera - the audio output from H1n + camera is of the same, low quality as the camera's own output. Whether it comes from the H1n (which we find to be excellent on its own) or from the camera, it's highly disappointing. The audio mixer output we get, still through the same H1n, is on another level entirely. That's despite us no longer using two separate mics connected to the audio mixer via XLRs (which we used to do, but it was a mega-faff, so we soon abandoned it). This article describes our experience quite accurately, at least as far as the devices we tried are concerned.

No, it doesn't work, the camera's sound card will override the H1n.

In reply to your second question, a DSLR will take very good video, but usually the on-board audio will not be good enough. When I say, in my post above, that the audio of the Zoom Q2n is not as good a most of our other devices, well, the only device that the audio from the Zoom comfortably beats is the DSLR. DSLR audio firmware and sound cards don't appear to be optimised for recording music, even when they have a stereo mic (which most do nowadays). One of our answers to that problem is an expensive solution: a Zoom H1n audio recorder in the flash shoe on top of the DSLR, and a mini audio mixer screwed in under the DSLR. We use THIS audio mixer - other makes and models work just as well. All devices properly connected to each other, and the result is sound and video of very high quality recorded on the DSLR's SD card. Bulky solution, and a bit fiddly, as well as way more expensive than the Zoom Q2n on its own. Another alternative we use is an old, no longer sold Canon Powershot, whose video output is by modern standards rather pitiful, but whose audio firmware/compression algorithm appears to be very, very good, and always makes the band videos sound as good as - and sometimes better than - being in the room during the gig. We choose the best solution according to the type and location of each gig. Our default choice, unless video quality is of paramount importance, is always the old Canon Powershot.

We've got one and don't tend to use it a lot for our gigs, for the following reasons: - If you're using batteries (it takes 2xAA), they don't last for the whole gig. Sometimes they don't last for an entire set either. Even with bona-fide 'good' batteries. - Audio recording isn't particularly good quality, compared to almost all of our other devices (some cheap, some expensive). However, video is excellent, so the mediocre audio isn't a deal breaker. - Its lens is very wide-angle. Excellent for shooting the entire band in a small, enclosed space like a rehearsal room, or a small studio. Useless if the stage is farther away, though, because its digital zoom function decreases the resolution and quality of the video. When we use it for an entire gig, we hook it up to a battery pack with its micro USB port. We've discovered, and overcome, a glitch I'll be happy to describe if you're interested. The device is apparently sensitive to the quality of the MicroSD card you use. The faster the card, the better. The higher its quality, the better.

We now use the Vocal compression on the Behringer XR18, which is A Good Thing, when used sparingly. It will stop excessive peaks, as well as increase audibility when the singer is off-axis or too far from the mic. I prefer it to using that on the Mic Mechanic, but just because I'm in control in case of feedback, not because there's anything wrong with it.