thepurpleblob

I haven't read right through this but just in case somebody else hasn't said it... if you don't do anything then you run the risk of being assessed. If you only play for 100 quid between 5 every couple of months then I doubt the tax people are going to care about you. If you keep appearing in venue accounts and it turns out you play five times a week then you'd better be keeping proper accounts. Even if you make a thumping great loss, if you can't PROVE that then they will just send you a bill and there's bugger all you will be able to do about it.

I get by at the little niche that I play in... and that's about it. That's after playing bass for 10 years and some sort of musical instrument for 40 years.

The only time I was in that position the whole band payed. To be exact, the guitarist bought it on "buy now, pay in12 months" and all the gig money went into the bank until there was enough to pay it. We agreed that it was the band's PA. If anybody left then it was tough. If the band folded we would work out some equitable deal. As it happened I left and no sour-grapes as we had made an agreement. Because we bought it on credit it possibly didn't seem so bad as I had never actually dipped into my pocket. Bit risky though.

I think you'd be better off with a random Lakland than a random Fender.... maybe....

Does festival X charge admission? If the answer is "yes" then f**k o** is the appropriate answer.

Interesting - thanks for the info. I'll go and do some measuring

You don't understand... such proposals are an excuse to spend millions (billions?) of pounds, build shiny new offices, employ hundreds of people and put the minister's best mate in charge with a 7-figure salary. I'm sure you'll agree that's an all-round success. Anyway, don't worry. I drive a V8 BMW.... between road tax and fuel taxes I pay for all the roads myself

[quote name='Dudgeman' timestamp='1336520500' post='1647080'] my rack is slowly filling up..2 x DBS 7400 heads, 1 no abm 300 evo 2, behringer tuner with downlight, sennheiser iem set up, filter pro coming this week and searching for a tc electronics g major or a good delay rackmount...1 2u drawer unit houses mics and iem receivers. [/quote] Is that the non-rack ABM300 in a rack? I ask because I thought the rack version is chrome not blue. If so, how did you do it?

The songs that kill me are those that are in a style that I'm not comfortable with. Obviously, that will vary for different players. For example I've been playing a few Primal Scream songs and I just don't get the "swagger" for want of a better word. So I would almost say... - properly nail something Motown - properly nail some of that Stax / soul stuff - properly nail something prog-ish from the 70s - .... funk - .... 80s - .... 90s Manchester you see where I'm going

Well.... I have a garage/workshop behind my house full of all sorts of tools. I'm the sort of guy who (tries to) keep them in the right place and always cleans them before they go back. It's expensive stuff and I like it to work properly and to last. Musical equipment - same. I'm not especially precious but I don't want it knackered.

Well... I think I get the basics but probably not the finer points. The book is just full of exercises with no explanation or context which is a bit of a disappointment. I think, across the board, books like that are pretty useless. Maybe I'm overthinking it , but I don't like just doing exercises without grasping the underlying theory. It was actually strongly recommended by some players in this forum. There should be one of those stickers for music books - "warning, this book contains Jazz concepts"

Yes it is, but why? Well, why does the book throw in an augmented 11th (an altered chord??) on page 1, lesson 1 with no explanation. I take it I am meant to know

...however, if you don't know ask. I bought this Berklee book and I'm confused on page one. The chord structure introduced for C major goes like this... 1 - C 3 - E 5 - G Maj7 - B 9 - D #11 - F# 13 - A ....what I can't figure out is why the 11 is sharp. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious C major doesn't have an sharps in it. Even the Wikipedia article on extended chords claims that an extended I chord has no sharps (I think). Can anybody explain before the book goes on eBay

The circuit diagram I have for the GP12 doesn't show a standby switch but there do seem to be a bunch of different takes on that amp. If it sounds like a "motor boat" then, yes, I would peer suspiciously at the big smoothing caps in the power supply. However, we are both guilty of forum-based guess work. It's probably easiest to take it down to an amp tech and get it sorted. It's unlikely to get better and will most likely get worse.

Just the stuff you buy out of Maplin (for both the wire and the cap) or look up "equipment wire" on evilBay. None of it is critical. As you say, the important thing about the cap is that it is more or less the right value. The modern 'metal film' or polycarbonate (iirc) ones are probably the most stable but there's a load of nonsense talked about caps in guitars - and pots too for that matter.

I know I'm opening a can of worms but why did you use wire and a capacitor that wouldn't look out of place in a museum? Nobody sees it and you're just creating hassle for yourself (as you found).

I own a Bongo, a Stingray and a Lakland but I always take my Yamaha TRB to gigs these days - it cost next to nothing compared to the others. That would probably be the one I'd be most upset about if something nasty happened to it. Having said that I left it at a gig on Sunday and our (extremely drunk by then) guitarist phoned me to tell me he was taking it home. So... I hope I still have it

I've been to see all of them at one time or another with a variety of back and neck problems. I've found any kind of treatment to be effective to be honest. I suspect that with problems that have a muscular basis any kind of stretching an manipulation is effective or, at worst, a lot better than sitting around in pain. I think personally I prefer the physio's "do the exercises I tell you to every day and you'll be fine" approach but that's just me.

A real man can strip *any* wire with a pair of decent side cutters

Just a thought - perhaps it failed because it was too short and under stress. Consider replacing with a longer bit?

What's the best audio format for what? FLAC is lossless, so to compare it to MP3 (or Vorbis for that matter) is not really comparing like with like. Any lossless format should, by definition, sound pretty much like the original and it then comes down to which has the best compression (a bit of an oversimplification, however....) Any lossy format, like MP3 is a tradeoff of quality v. space. Of course, with plummeting storage prices it all becomes much less of an issue. As has been identified, the support for FLAC is a bit hit and miss at the moment.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1335865735' post='1637036'] I thought that you shouldn't really get latency unless you're doing something to the audio input - adding an effect or amp sim or something? I never used to get latency when simply monitoring my line-in. I did get latency when I started using VSTs (without my nice interface) [/quote] Something (bit of software) needs to read the microphone (or usb or whatever) input from the A/D in your computer and then re-play it through the speaker D/A circuit. Although it doesn't sound much, to do that with no latency is actually not a trivial matter.

FWIW, I use an old, dusty Line 6 bass pod. The included drivers have no noticable latency. On my Mac I use a little programme called "line in" which plays the bass through the computer speakers (some Tannoys) along with the output from the inevitable slowing-down software.

The other side of the coin (and I've been there too) is that they say "here's our set list, pick three or four, your choice" then when you get to the rehearsal "oooh... those. Hmmm... we should have taken them off the list, we haven't played them in years". Moral of the story - it's always best to come to a friendly agreement about what you are going to do before hand. If you can do more stuff then all the better.

Marylin Manson pulled Dita Von Teese and he sang it so I don't know what you are worried about......... Ha ha ha ha ha ha....