JapanAxe

I played my first ever full-on blues gig last night, standing in with a well-established local band. I took a prompt sheet with notes on the style of each song, plus the first couple of bars of some of them in music notation. I really enjoyed the freedom to improvise around the basic form of each song, and hearing the excellent solos from the guitarist and keyboard player - who brought a real Leslie speaker with him! I got compliments on my sound and playing from the band, and on my playing and the band overall from a couple of punters. Well chuffed, and a couple more dep gigs in the diary for August too

(1) Playing with an indie/rock/punk covers trio, got a request for the Spongebob Squarepants theme: 'He lives in a pineapple under the sea' etc. (2) With a 50s /R'n'R all-male 4-piece, at a social club in the Welsh valleys (quite literally in the shadow of a mahoosive spoil heap), a lady of a certain age totters up to the stage and intones in a banshee-like voice: 'Play Tina Turner!'

Good for you and welcome to the world of ensemble music-making, the most fun you can have with your clothes on!

'The price is low...' it says. O...K...

Andy bought some bits from me and kindly let me know when they'd arrived

[quote name='IanA' timestamp='1484351204' post='3214972'] Great comms and fast payment, many thanks Francis [/quote] I second that emotion!

[quote name='Rubbersoul' timestamp='1485530845' post='3224706'] If you're using the monkey do you plug into the instrument or line level input? [/quote] The inputs on my interface are combined XLR/jack sockets so I just take a short jack lead from the "MIXER' output of the Bad Monkey and set the input gain of the interface to suit.

When the slapping starts, I switch off. It tells me nothing about how a piece of kit will perform for me. YMMV etc.

This is tonight btw. Car loaded, both guitarists complaining of the Brad Pitts!

Having adopted Reaper as my recording vehicle, I have inevitably discovered plug-ins. So far I have tried free models such as those in Pod Farm and NI Guitar 5 Player, and I am in the process of offloading my hardware amp modelling kit. However, I didn't want to limit myself to 'in-the-box' solutions, so I have been trying a few other things. Obviously I can mic up a valve amp, and/or connect a speaker-simulator DI box to the speaker output, but even a 5W amp quickly becomes too loud for late evening recording. So I started trying drive pedals into a speaker simulator DI box, and then I remembered the Bad Monkey. Like the other Digitech pedals in that range (Hot Head, Screamin' Blues, Metal Master), the Bad Monkey has a speaker-simulated second output, marked 'MIXER'. I found that if I kept the drive low and the treble high, I could get a very usable almost-clean amp sound out of it, direct to recording interface. The output impedance is a very low 100ohm, so it will even work without engaging the Hi-Z switch on the interface. Anyone else using old-school analog amp sims - Sessionmaster? Sansamp? Tom Scholz Rockman?!

Debut outing for my latest project, EPIC - 'the biggest, brashest and boldest rock songs of all time, played by some of the UK's best tribute musicians' (ahem!) We're a six-piece plus 2 backing singers, and we'll be playing those big production numbers that you don't hear in pubs... Tickets £8 in advance, £10 on the door. Between, you and me, I'm bricking it!

Do you even really want a dirt pedal for your bass, or is it just something you think you ought to have?