peteb

I am starting to seriously consider a R400. I’ve seen various clips and heard people who seem to know their stuff rave about them, so I am interested. I recently bought a Mesa D800, which sounds great for a Class D amp but has two issues – it struggles for volume a bit on certain stages (despite being rated @ 800w) and I find it sometimes difficult to tweak the EQ in difficult rooms. It’s ridiculously light, but as long as it’s a one hand lift, I’m not too bothered about that. The two things I wonder about the Handbox is: 1) is it loud enough to have the headroom needed when onstage with a reasonably loud rock band, and 2) how usable is the three knob EQ (especially when you are trying to cut through with a distorted guitar and lots of keys)??

Have Handbox stopped making the R400 head??

What I would like to know is in what circumstances would somebody claim on the band's PLI, rather than that you would expect the promoter / venue to have?? Perhaps if you have pyro as part of your show, but apart from that...

Not been to Yeadon for a while (despite it being about a 15 minute drive from my gaff) but I would imagine that you will be alright on that score!

I would say that the 5 string seems to be very much like the 4, but I can’t say with too much certainty as I haven’t really played the 5 string version for any length of time. I’m afraid that I can’t give you any advice beyond that, but I would say that the 4 string is probably the best jazz bass I have played. From what I can gather, the XJ 1T5 string appears to be just as impressive.

Hey, your new drummer is a proper football fan (none of that American nonsense) - that's promising!

I've never seen VR, but I saw Magnum a couple of nights ago and they weren't particularly loud at all, either onstage or in the auditorium (using onstage amps & monitors). More to the point when discussing Joe Bonamassa, I saw Walter Trout about a year ago in a large club and he just wasn't loud enough. I know that Walter prefers a quiet stage these days (but doesn't use IMEs) but even FOH was way too quiet.

It’s very rare these days that an onstage or FOH sound at a big concert is anywhere near loud enough to leave anyone’s ears bleeding. I’m kinda with JB on this issue, but it obviously depends on the situation. I saw a YouTube clip of Guthrie Govan where he was going through his live rig, where he said that he considered that IEMs took all the fun out of playing in a live band but sometimes they are a necessary evil! I saw a well known band last night where they had front of stage monitors and onstage amps (not massively loud), but the drummer was using IEMs as they were running backing tracks. Mr Bonamassa doesn’t use backing tracks and is obviously an old school type of player, so it’s not surprising he’s going to prefer a more traditional approach. I don’t understand why some of the people favouring IEMs / ampless stages here are being so vitriolic. Joe has his own views and if you disagree you still have to recognise that he is massively successful, so whatever he is doing is obviously working. Given the choice I’m always going to be in his camp, but if you can make another way of doing things work then that’s fine by me…

To be honest, the trouble with most jams I've done is that there tends to be loads of guitarists & drummers, but usually not many bass players so you can't get off the bandstand to get a beer...

Can anyone recommend a good pair of robust headphones with a good bass response for practising / listening to YouTube clips, etc. I have just had my second pair of Phil Jones Bass H-850 headphones fall apart on me (each pair seems to last about a year), so I’m looking for something that delivers a similar performance for a similar price but will last a bit longer. Cheers, Pete

Spoken like a true consultant...! From experience I think that I can hazard an opinion, which is that is that you may well be on to something there...

But Daryl, personally I don’t think that is the right attitude. If a punter has come to a show and liked it enough that they are prepared to shell out another ten quid for a CD, then I’m always happy to sign it for them if they ask. Deep down they know that you’re not Keef Richards, but for that moment you are something vaguely close and if they are putting money in your pocket by buying a CD and you signing it helps to personalise it in any way then that’s great as far as I’m concerned. They’re the ones who will be back for the next gig you play in their town. I’ve signed CDs, gawd knows how many cassette tapes (back in the day) and countless setlists. I always joke that people come across them when they’re clearing out shoe boxes when they move house years later and wonder who the hell peteb was and why on earth they asked him to sign something 30 years ago! But who knows, it might spark a memory of a good night from their youth and as a musician, you can’t really ask for anything more than that…

I used to be in a reasonably well known local band about 30 years ago, so sometimes people of a certain age (usually about 5 years younger than me) might vaguely recognise me or realise that they used to watch the band I was in once they start to get to talk to me for a while. More recently, I played at a blues festival in the Orkney Islands about 8 years ago, which involved us playing a tiny gig on one of the smaller islands and getting a ferry back to the ‘mainland’ (i.e. the biggest island) first thing in the morning. Half way through the crossing we could suddenly hear the band’s music blaring out on the ferry PA. It turns out that the guy sailing the ferry had been at the gig the night before and had looked up the website to find some of our music. We were invited up onto the bridge to watch him dock the ferry, which is not something you get every day.

Hey Daryl The economics of the pub trade in this country mean that even if you could pack the place out, the landlord would still lose money if he paid a band £500 for a pub gig. However, if he could charge on the door then that might be viable, but that is very unusual for most pubs (but not necessarily for clubs and big events, etc). The higher profile summer events that you are talking about are obviously a completely different type of gig. We already have some of these types of gigs for the Magnum tribute booked in for 2020. However, they are a long drive away (the first one is in Scotland), so I won’t end up making any more money than for a £300 pub gig! I’m still really looking forward to playing them…

I use iGig bags (usually a double) for virtually all the gigs I do. However, if the bass is going in the back of a van with a flightcased PA then I use Hiscox cases.

I don't know if you have talked to someone in the pub trade about the economics of putting on gigs in a pub, but I would have thought that the only way even a large pub would make £500 for a band work would be to charge admission on the door. IME of course, more affluent parts of the country may be different.

I don't know of any pubs paying anything like £500 on a regular basis. I suppose it should be noted that it also depends on what part of the country you are. Some top wedding bands may get the sort of money that you mention, but generally most will be getting about half that...

As ever, Rick Beato's take is always worth listening to

I'm a bit surprised about that - I thought that it was supposed to be in your blood if you came from NJ...!

There is also nothing wrong with joining a band that increases your profile and reputation as a player. That may well lead to offers from bands that make decent money...!

The trouble is why would such a band be looking for a bass player? And if they were, they would be ringing up someone they already know who they can get up to speed quickly, rather than auditioning and then rehearsing up someone they don’t know and risking having to cancel the next six months of gigs! The trick is to be the guy that they ring when they need a bass player. The only way you get to be that guy is by having lots of contacts and being known for having played with lots of different decent musicians. You can’t limit your opportunities by just waiting around for a chance to audition for your ‘perfect’ band that ticks every one of your boxes…

Don't get me wrong, I loved 1987 at the time (not so sure that it has aged that well) but the voice was never the same.

I try not to get too worked up about people that I don’t know passing away, even if I’ve been a fan of their musical / artistic endeavours. However, I can think of two musicians whose unfortunate demise did make me think. The first was Randy Rhodes, just because he was still pretty young and the way he died just seemed so random. The other one was Boz Burrell, the bass player for Bad Company. This was partly because he was an influence on me as a bass player, but mainly because he was the first of my heroes to die in early(ish) middle age from the lifestyle, despite never having been an addict but had always caned it a bit. This coincided with me having given up smoking and the occasional other indulgence, not to mention drastically cutting back on the booze. It was just one of those things that made you think of your own mortality. Unfortunately, he was the first of many…

I read in an interview somewhere that Blackmore wanted a more ‘masculine’ voice to balance out Hughes. They approached Paul Rodgers, who wasn’t interested and supposedly said something like “why would you need me if you already have Glenn Hughes”! Coverdale got the gig as he sounded a bit like Rodgers. While Hughes has always been awesome, latter day Purple / pre Whitesnake solo (Come Taste the Band / Northwinds) era Coverdale is one of my top three favourite singers. Fantastic voice, so it’s a shame that he then started singing in a higher register for the 1987 era onward. Never the same in my opinion…

6/8 is more of a half time shuffle - more a band playing a slow blues shuffle or an AOR ballad...