molan

[quote name='OldGit' post='483099' date='May 8 2009, 04:49 PM']A pub gig, £250 AND a free beer? That's outstanding.[/quote] Actually I think it might have been £300 as some cash was kept back towards rehearsal costs, lol. The staff were super friendly and said we were much better than their usual bands, they said they'd tell the manager to book us again Not sure how happy our male lead singer was as he plays at the same place with a different outfit

[quote name='OldGit' post='482763' date='May 8 2009, 10:26 AM']Ha ha there speaks a man used to playing functions.... £250 is great money for a pub band ....[/quote] Too true, lol. Actually I really enjoy playing in pubs. We tipped up last night about 7:15 and all set up by 8:00. First beer on the house from the management & on stage by 9:00. First set about 45 mins, 15 min break & back for about an hour. Then packed up & out the door before 12:00. Last wedding I played payed out 4 times as much but we had to be there by 12 lunchtime and couldn't even start packing until gone midnight.

Great news. You'll have to keep us posted when the gigs start

Played a fun gig this evening for which we were paid the princely sum of £250. This was shared between 8 of us (7 in the band plus the ever attentive sound man) and we held some back towards the rehearsal kitty. I bought a, small, round for a couple of the band plus an after gig beer for myself & worked out I had the net figure of about a fiver for the night. I have to say that this doesn't really bother me a bit, it really was a fun evening and I can't imagine a better way to spend a dull Thursday than with some really good friends playing music for an appreciative audience

Bought an EBS pedal from Lee - super easy to deal with and a really nice chap Pedal looks like new

I was once asked at an audition if I had something that just looked like a Precision (they didn't care what it sounded like!) Mind you - they even compromised by asking for something that simply looked like a bass - my Zon VB4 didn't appear to qualify on this level

Forgot to say - from a purely personal perspective - I think there's a lot of 'tosh' said about keeping your pre-gain input as high as possible & setting it just below clipping level. In a real world gigging situation you'll have plenty of gain on most pre's at around a half way setting & can simply use the master gain for overall volume (unless you have a very low output passive bass).

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='466840' date='Apr 19 2009, 05:37 PM']Noooo! You can't sell the MTD. That's the Barrie-Bass, that is! - Well, only to me [/quote] I do really like the MTD, it would be the last one to go if I do hit the sales trail. I really need to get the Ampeg & Eden heads serviced as they will cover the cost of the latest Spector

[quote name='Shockwave' post='466837' date='Apr 19 2009, 05:32 PM']So you wouldnt want my status then [/quote] You never know, lol. I've just been playing my Sei for half an hour or so & thinking how nice it is as well.

[quote name='Old Horse Murphy' post='466824' date='Apr 19 2009, 05:16 PM']Does that mean I get to hang on to the Overwater a bit longer then Barrie? I'm really pleased for you. I had one of those Epiphany (maybe that should be Epifani?) moments last night too. Playing my Fender P bass through the Shuttle 6 and UL212 with a powered foldback monitor running off the amp. Wow!! Makes me wonder what the Hell I've been wasting my time with over the last few years. The sound was the sound I've been looking for all this time and probably had, but just not been able to hear it myself. We've got a new drummer who is amazing and I think that makes a huge difference as well.[/quote] Absolutely, lol. Great news on the drummer Nick. I usually have a little bass in the monitors but not a great deal. One of the nice things about the twin Bergs is that when they are stacked the upper cab is pretty high, about hip level I guess, so it works well as a monitor (especially if you dial the tweeter in).

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='466817' date='Apr 19 2009, 05:02 PM']Congrats Barrie, glad you're all sorted now So all those Overwaters and Zon basses will be for sale soon, then? Good feeling, ain't it mate? Rich.[/quote] It's very difficult but it does rather look like they should go as they aren't going to get played very much Maybe the MTD too It is great that I've settled on something though - really pleased with the sound last night, best I've ever had & gave me so much more confidence - hooray!!

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='466786' date='Apr 19 2009, 03:44 PM']Am really interested in one of those Auralex Gramma jobbies. How much difference do they make? Also what sort of money did you pay? I've seen em for around £50 inc. shipping Ta Steve[/quote] I must admit I was pretty sceptical but the venue I played last night does a rep for boomy bass sound & it has a wooden floor (albeit a pretty solid one) and I had no problems at all. I think the key benefit is that you should have a better chance of just hearing your speakers as opposed to a clutch of low end vibrations rumbling throught he floor. Mine was £45 from Dolphin but I can't remember how shipping worked as I bought it along with some other bits & bobs.

[quote name='acidbass' post='466740' date='Apr 19 2009, 02:25 PM']Sounds like you have attained a state of Gear Nirvana! Actually I'm planning on buying one of those short Comfort Strapps too - how do you rate them in terms of comfort/adjustability/reliability? I've been wearing my basses up quite high recently too and some of my straps just aren't short enough![/quote] If you can I'd try to check each of the lengths with your own bass strapped on. There isn't a huge amount of adjustability on each one. I always tended to use either a short one on it's longest possible length or a medium on a short length (if that makes any sort of sense!). With my Spector I need a short one on a mid-length but that's partly because the strap button on the rear of the body is set quite high.

Since joining the forum here I've been swapping basses and gear in and out in a quest for the 'right' combination and tried out my latest stuff last night at a nice little pub gig. The set up was: Spector NS5XL Elixir super light strings - 40 60 75 95 125 Comfort Strapp - short Planet Waves foot tuner MXR Auto Q Epifani UL502 Bergantino AE112 x 2 Auralex Gramma isolation stand All set up pretty flat with just some mid cut at about 250hz on the Epi and the tweeters rolled off to about 50% on the Bergs. Everything just felt and sounded great, lovely deep punchy lows but without any nasty boominess & really crisp top end (especially on some of the funkier stuff using the Auto Q). The bass was super comfortable and I've finally got round to using a short strap and wearing it much higher than I ever used to. Longer scale now feeling very natural and the narrow string spacing and chunkier of the Spector works perfectly for me. The Auralex seemed to do a great job of killing the nasty boom that my sound man said he'd had from a band the previous week. He said there's often a problem with booming in the venue (and the Bergs can be prone to this if they are too close to a rear wall) but that he couldn't hear it all from me. Of course, the set up was easy and quick too with those lightweight Berg cabs & the Epi in a gig bag, everything fitting neatly in the boot of my car as well With everything working so well I stopped worrying about my 'sound' and spent the whole gig just concentrating on playing and, more importantly, enjoying myself Allowed me to add little fills on some songs that I've heard in my head but never been quite able to play. The slinky strings & super low action of the Spector meant I could play a lot more little sixteenth note runs just to add a bit of variation here & there too. I have tried so many different options of 4/5 & even 6 strings, wide & narrow spacing & necks, 34" & 35" scale length, nickel, steel & coated strings, about a zillion different strap lengths (lol) and a host of basses & amps/cabs. It's just brilliant for me that I seem to have whittled everything down to exactly what I wanted to hear & feel. The band all said how nice the bass sounded & even one of the punters mentioned how clear the bass lines were and that bass looked really nice - and expensive, lol. Only glitch was clipping the keyboard player's shoulder at one point & knocking my D string seriously out of tune on a song that required quite a lot of 'D' playing! To top it all off a second Spector NS5XL arrived chez Mole yesterday in a very fetching flamed maple as well so I've got options as a back up bass for live work & can afford to keep one at rehearsals & the other at home so I'll always be using the same instrument for serious practicing. All in all - a right result

I haven't listed to the Squire solo album for about 20 years (although I still have it of course, lol). I love his playing & can never understand how he plays some of that really syncopated rhythmic stuff whilst singing at the same time

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' post='466229' date='Apr 18 2009, 04:44 PM']The only problem here is that if you invite band members 2 and 3 to join, and they decline, and then band members 4 and 5 find out about it, they'll wonder why you didn't invite them. Might create tensions within the existing band. S.P.[/quote] I didn't invite anyone - just mentioned I was going to do something else & they invited themselves, lol. Mind you, the other members wouldn't have touched a funk band with a barge pole so I was on reasonably solid ground.

If you're an 'aggressive' slaper then your volume on peak slapped or popped notes is going to be louder than regular fingerstyle playing. A lot of people do use a compressor to tame this but the other thing to do would be to simply lower the volume on your bass a little on those songs that you slap on? Tougher if you're continually alternating between slap & finger style playing of course. If the Mark is definitely not clipping at all but is clipping the PA channel then he should absolutely be reducing the input on the desk. You should always set the level just below the loudest part of anything you're playing rather than at mid-level output. If you have an active sound guy then he could just lower the levels on the desk on the slapped parts but sounds like you have a 'set it & leave it' policy without anyone actually monitoring input live. To test if it's really clipping simply set everything up as normal & then stand in front of the desk and play at your loudest so you can watch the levels. If they are bouncing off the top of the dial then you definitely need to lower the desk input.

I've done something similar in the past when trying to get out of a pretty boring band to form a soul / funk outfit. All I did was to let a couple of the band know that I fancied putting a 2nd band together to play different material with a view to the odd gig outside of the main band. The singer & drummer were both really up for it & suggested we go for a beer to discuss. We agreed what we fancied doing, recruited a guitarist, had a single rehearsal & the three of us resigned from the other band leaving the irritating guitarist & his crap friend keyboard player to stew in the own 'middle of the road' juices

I auditioned with a drummer once & we got on really well. Unfortunately we both got bounced from the audition because we supported a different football team from the lead guitarist / vocalist - I kid you not! The audition went well, drummer & I clicked from the outset. We were both well prepared and knew the songs and the guitarist threw a couple of his own compositions at us that we handled pretty well without too much fuss. We seemed to get on well were nattering away as we packed up our gear & he asked for our numbers and said he'd phone us both the next day. As we were leaving I noticed he had a Spurs scarf in his car so I asked (in a very casual way) whether he was a big Spurs fan or not. Without hesitation he replied "why, don't tell me you're an Arsenal fan?". I said that I was actually a season ticket holder & he immediately turned on the drummer & said he supposed he must be a Chelsea fan then - to which the drummer replied that, as it happened, he was indeed a season ticket holder at Stamford Bridge. I should stress that all of this was done without any piss taking from me or the drummer or any comments about Spurs but the guy obviously took major offence at us. He gave us both a half-hearted reply & slammed his car door & zoomed off. Needless to say we never heard from him again. . .