Norris

No. The occasional charity gig, yes. The Dog and Duck? Never. Besides, the guitarist is pro Heck, if nothing else it's self-esteem to be worth paying after the decades of practice and experience

Coming back to the OP, I don't think a metal band is quite the genre for making heavy use of a backing track. However the Pink Floyd tribute I played with for a while couldn't possibly have done without one (we were aiming for sounding just like PF recordings)

I'm generally not a fan, but can understand that situations and budget can dictate their use in some circumstances. We've certainly never considered it in our trio. I'm also not really a fan of the incognito sidemen. To show the way to do that, I saw The Darkness the other night. The shadowy guitarist/mandolinist was dragged into the spotlight several times, hugged, embraced and name-checked. The drummer came out front to sing lead on a song and the drum & bass tech stood in on drums, again with huge acknowledgement. (It was a great gig, and what a great self-effacing frontman Justin is!)

Fabulous gig. Ash were pretty good in support

The prices were a bit "gougey". We had one pint. We didn't go back for a second

Tenor sax and guitarist were with them. You should have gone

Sungazer at the Islington Assembly Rooms If you've never heard of them before (and I was one of those people) then check them out. They are awesome, playing proggy jazz-fusion. The bass playing was sublime. So glad my son got those tickets

I have an ancient SM57 and a fairly old SM58, but an AKG D5 suits my manky bass player voice better (and is cheaper than a SM58)

Sure you want to leave? Your last few posts sound like you're having a whale of a time

Grade 5 or higher earn additional UKAS points (iirc ?) I also seem to recall grade 8 counted towards my music A level mark. Are 5 and above considered performance grades?

I didn't know that was a thing. How do you do the aural part of the exam?

You're paying for the lessons, it's up to you how fast you want to take it. He who pays the piper and all that... One exam per year might be a comfortable rate perhaps (it's been a while since I got grade 6 in my youth)

I'm seeing them down in that London on Thursday. I can't say I've really heard of them before but my eldest lad wanted a gig buddy. Friday night is The Darkness back in Leicester. Edit: got my days wrong! 😂 Sungazer were awesome last night. The Darkness is tonight (Thursday)

Blimey it's not looking like a good weekend from the reports so far. I'll add to the woes... We were supposed to have a cricket club presentation evening tonight, but it was called off because so many of the members called off ill. Oh well, tomorrow's gig... nope, the guitarist is now ill, plus he's the main singer so that's called off too. Our next gig is not until May because of his ongoing tour! At this rate I might need to do some practice at home to keep my hand in 😮

There are cheaper and simpler systems than the one I'm using. The main thing for me is that I'm playing bass, so need something that runs itself while I'm doing so. Also I'm a computer programmer by trade so am not phased by some technical details, and I wanted something that could control any light I throw at it. It's a solution that suits me but may not suit everyone Edit: Dad3353's suggestion of a more simple foot controller might be more suited to your needs. Have a read up of what they can do

It's been a few years since I bought my kit so there will probably be stuff that is much easier to set up now. I went over to DMX mainly to keep the lights synchronised. The controller is not the cheapest either as I wanted something that was versatile and would last a while. In fact I've replaced the first set of lights I had with much better ones but am still using the same controller, which will handle most lights. https://www.thomann.co.uk/stairville_dmxmaster_i.htm The thing is that it will take time to set things up. You'll need the manuals that came with your lights because you'll not only need to put them into DMX mode, but also set a base address for each one. This will be via pressing buttons on more modern lights, or setting tiny little DIP switches on older ones. For each light you'll need to set the colour's red, green and blue (and perhaps white) levels - for every step in the sequence. A notepad will be handy. Once you've set it all up though it's very easy to operate. The controller has buttons to select the colour sequence, whether it's time or music switched, and a couple of sliders to control the speed and cross-fade duration. And of course a blackout button. The one thing it lacks is the ability to dim the lights - the brightness is set to how you programmed the colours. In our setup I have a pair of 4-way RGBA lights, so that's 8 lights to set up per sequence step. I've set up 3 or 4 sequences, one of which is a dim single colour wash to light the stage between sets. I also have a couple of "derby" lights that are not DMX controlled, they just do their own thing. It's also worth investing in some decent DMX leads (they are different spec to instrument cables, even though they use the same plugs!) and a terminator plug. Hope that helps. It will be an investment in both time and money to set up, but easy to use.

Kudos for the Ric, but a serious no on the tuner wart And a definite no on the switch in the background (Extreme closeup to protect the innocent)

I don't know exactly which Sterling model you have, but my Sterling Sub5 sounded very "meh". It was just about ok at home, but was quite indistinct and really didn't cut through in a band situation, even in our guitar/bass/drums trio. I then bought an active Sire PJ that sounded so much better, so put the Sterling up for sale on here. After a few weeks of bumping I eventually withdrew it. I was considering changing the pickup, but after doing a bit of reading found several people who said that the preamp was the weak link. So I bought a Stinger '77 preamp from Retrovibe. Oh my goodness - there was the missing Stingray tone! It transformed the bass into something usable. It wasn't that expensive and I considered it paid for itself in one gig. I've gigged it a few times now and it makes a nice contrast to the Sire. You never know, if you fancy a bit of tinkering, you might get a little bit closer to that sound that the bassist you love has https://retrovibe.co.uk/product/retrovibe-stinger-77-classic-mm-stingray-bass-eq-pre-amp-2-band-pre-eb-circuit/

The pickup will be connected via a coaxial cable tucked away somewhere. The outer sleeve of the coax will be connected to earth in the control cavity. You could take earth from the other end of the cable for shielding the pickup carrier Edit: Ah - I just noticed that the jack socket is in the movable pickup carrier. Oops

Interesting bridge - looks like a DB or cello bridge

This. Commonly known as "drop tuning", just tune the whole thing down a semitone. You really won't notice the difference when you are playing unless someone tries to play along with you while still tuned to concert pitch. Our band has done it for years because it makes it easier on the aging vocal chords. One day we must tell the drummer...

All instrument wood must be seasoned to make it stable enough to use. Otherwise it would be likely to warp over time. If wood were damp it's unlikely even a poly coating would stay on it for long. Some chunks of wood are simply more dense than others, even from the same species. Different growing conditions will affect the wood quite significantly - for instance swamp ash is quite slow growing, so is likely to be more dense, more stable and more resonant (although I don't really subscribe to the idea of tone woods). Also rock maple - a very stable wood suitable for making necks. I made a guitar body from a big chunk of African khaya - similar to mahogany. It was almost like balsa (which is actually a hardwood btw) in weight. It made a fantastic guitar (according to my guitarist) that was really light but sounded good. However another chunk of khaya is unlikely to have the same weight as the one I used though. In other words (and the tl;dr version), some guitars are just heavier than others 😂

Great photo. What bass is that?

I had to give mine a little dab of vaseline the other week to lubricate them. They started to produce a bit of black dust as I was prancing about and I could feel it tight and binding on the button as I played. The tiny dab of vaseline was ideal and will hopefully stop them wearing out

That's not good. There's no excuse for not advertising an event, as it costs nothing apart from time and effort