jimmyb625

One word of caution though, don't get too reliant on a stereo mix. It's great if you're taking your own desk, but at all of the festivals or gigs we've done (without our own desk) they haven't been able to provide stereo feeds.

An afternoon well spent at the Cropredy Fringe Festival. It was hot, so hot that the majority of the audience didn't venture out from the safety of the shelter onto the grassed area in front of the stage. It was a little off-putting at first, but we could just about hear the applause and the feedback we got after we played was all positive. On reflection, the decision to wear a hat wasn't one of the best I've ever made, but hey, we suffer for our art!!

We've got a few on the way: Cropredy Fringe - 11th August Wigan Digger's Festival - 10th September Telford's Warehouse, Chester - 30th September Barnoldswick Arts Centre - 11th December Plus, we're supporting Kiefer Sutherland on his UK tour (I may have mentioned this before 🤣)

Here's my 2 (taken at the super-secret underground bunker, my house isn't quite this messy). The short-scale is really nice, very light and plays really well straight out of the box. The fretless appears to be made from depleted uranium, as it's ridiculously heavy. Despite the weight, it plays really well and I used it on one song for our last album. I bought the short-scale on a whim, one of the downsides of looking on this forum after a drink or two 🤣. I might give it a run out on a gig next week, as we may have limited cargo space in the car, but we'll see.

A question about short-scales, specifically the Harley Benton p-bass version. Are the pickups full-size, or are they scaled down as well? Asking for a friend, who definitely didn't just order one, despite having not the slightest need for it...

The power button?

I'm not sure if this counts, as you can pretty much only see the back of my head... My production values are re-assuringly pants!

It's actually the Warwick Rockbass version of the Sklar model: https://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_artist_line_sklarbass_i_vsth.htm I really like it, it's been my main bass for the 2 years I've had it and I've not even been tempted to use anything else. I'd really like the team or masterbuilt version, but they are spendy, especially the masterbuilt one. I keep trying to tell Warwick that they need to lend me one, for when we tour with Kiefer Sutherland later in the year, but they seem to have my emails marked as "spam"... 🤣

A fun day yesterday at CarFest North, after 2 years of cancellations. We played on the Wigwam stage, which was fortunate, as that one was built, unlike the main stage, where they had a few issues, meaning they ran very late and Richard Ashcroft ended up not playing.

How kind of them! 🤬

Hmmm

We had one, a birthday party at the start of the year. Birthday bloke is a really big fan and loved it, but 60% or so of the rest weren't really interested and spent the time chatting loudly, whilst standing in front of us. Still, free beer and close enough to walk home from!

Not sure I agree with your statement. Sure, he won't have to deal with thinking about paying the mortgage, but he has an amount of public scrutiny applied to his life that I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with.

That's awful, but what's even more awful is that I actually laughed. I'm sorry, I'm a terrible person. Hopefully it will be something you can laugh about in the future.

Can you try out his first, to see if you like it? Not at a gig, as that might be a little tricky though!!

The band I tech for supported Turin Breaks there. According to one of the engineers who provided the main rig, there's about 2 seconds of natural reverb decay in there! I was just glad we didn't try to run additional stage monitors for our bit, but even then I've never run a mix so dry.

I don't envy the challenge for that room one bit. I imagine you'd play a note, wait for a second and then hear it coming back to you. They should definitely poke their heads out to listen to what is going on. The problem is, just as with musicians, there are many different levels of competency. I'm not involved in the pro sound industry, but from working with the folks who are, it's easy to see that training and education in the subject area is often lacking. I'm not saying that is the be-all and end-all to make a good engineer, but having an understanding of the underlying physics of sound is never a hindrance imho.

Do you use your in-ears plugged directly into the ME-1, or do you out the output through a wireless transmitter? I'm really interested in trying one out, but although I'm not much of a mover on stage, I do in occassion have a bit of a wander (mainly if I'm getting bored 🤣)

There are some really relevant points in these posts. You can set up a system to sound really great, but once you fill the venue with big bags of warm water (we sometimes call them the audience) the mix is going to change, most notably with attenuation of the higher frequencies. Where you're situated in the room is also going to affect the sound you hear. Higher frequencies are more directional, so the further off-axis you go from the source, the more losses you get. Line-array systems tend (if they're well designed and set up) to be a lot better than traditional point-source systems, however the systems aren't always deployed correctly and some systems which are named as line arrays aren't really. Subwoofer placement can also have an effect, which us, as bass players, will probably have experience of. There's a really interesting Sound on Sound article which discusses this and argues against the commonly seen setup of subwoofers and mid-range/tweeters located together (at smaller venues typically with spacer poles). As bass frequencies are less directional, if there are multiple sources, there can be interference, which will, depending on the location in the room, enhance some frequencies, or attenuate others. Using an existing system in a theatre is, more often than not, a really good idea. If it's a pro-theatre, it's likely that the system will have been installed and set up by specialists, often with system manufacturer support. Additionally, the theatre technicians will have a lot of experience of working in the room, with a variety of different performances, so should be able to offer some really good advice. Moving around the venue whilst the band is playing is really helpful, if it's possible. With digital desks nowadays, it's a lot easier to grab a tablet and have a quick walk around. With the electronic band that I mix for, this is how I like to approach it, although it can get difficult if the venue is very busy. Edit, here's the link to the Sound on Sound article. Definitely worth a few minutes of your time if you're interested in this sort of thing. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/bass-place

I think there are a number of problems when it comes to live sound, which include: • Quality of engineers/operators • Familiarity with the music • Room construction • Subjective opinions on what "sounds right" I cut my teeth in live sound with theatre, covering both dramatic productions and musical theatre. I also took a brilliant Open University course, called "The Technology of Music". One of the biggest lessons I learnt, was how the room itself has a huge influence on the quality of sound you'll get from any system you use there. As an example, the local theatre where I volunteer has a large standing wave around 125Hz, which also affects the relative frequencies, so we tend to cut any mix quite a lot there. Similarly, another venue we use is a large rectangular sports hall, with a tin roof and a very reflective floor. There are curtains, covering some of the walls, but not fully. As a result of this we need to cut around 63Hz and also in the 2-400Hz range as it can get quite muddy and boomy. It can be problematic with acoustic drums and bass amps in this hall, purely because of the acoustic properties of the room. We try to set up each system to be as "flat" as possible and we'll spend quite a bit of time running reference sine waves and test tones as we eq the various system components (much to the dismay of other people trying to work in the area). Keeping this as flat as possible gives us the opportunity to set the channel eq's for the instruments in a way that isn't fighting with the room. For the musical theatre stuff, we'll commonly be mixing a band containing brass, woodwind, percussion, keys, bass and guitar, as well as the cast of singers and chorus. The orchestra tend to be located either at the rear of the stage, or in a separate room (which helps with isolation, although it makes monitoring more difficult) and we tend to group it as a stereo channel, so we can adjust the entirety, much as you would do with a backing track. With the musical theatre sound, the vocal's need to be clearly distinguishable above the music, but still balanced overall to provide the right "fit". Audiences can also be "interesting" to say the least, when it comes to providing their opinions. We've had more than one occassion on the same performance where different audience members have come to us saying how great the sound was, whilst others would say something wasn't right. We usually ask where they sit, to see if there's a trend, but there never seems to be. We've also had more than one instance where people have queried why we used a backing track, which was an unknowing compliment and we took great delight in showing them pictures of the backstage band pit. There does seem to be a trend nowadays of louder being perceived as "better", which I'm not sure I subscribe to. I'd much rather listen to a well mixed group at a slightly lower volume than a wall of "noise" where there's no clarity at all. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Ah, that's annoying!

It's a really good price, I think you're right.

Do it! If I hadn't pulled the trigger on one last month, I'd be grabbing that one without hesitation.

Ours was ok(ish). The sound left a bit to be desired and monitoring wasn't ace (I ended up without a monitor and given that I now run amp-less, it wasn't ideal). A couple of other band members decided they didn't like the sound from my preamp (despite it being the 4th outing with that setup) and also decided that the bass being too loud in their monitors was a result of my not having an amp. This, combined with a bout of sciatica and some not great family stuff, led to me being a bit grumpy and needing a bit of space before we played. Fortunately, we kissed and made up before we played and performed well, according to those who were watching.