NancyJohnson

I left and he was. Another thing...we had a backdrop. Despite their insistence that we use it at every gig, no one could be assed in help put the thing up. Singer to busy standing on cables, drummer too busy being a drummer, guitarist getting temporary deafness whenever anyone asked him to do anything,

My big bugbears: Singer insisting on standing on stage while we're trying to set up. Not helping at all. Just standing there. In the way. Singer insisting on standing on cables all the time. Singer throwing his microphone stand down during piques of excitement, not worrying where it goes (shins, guitars, drums). Singer unplugging stuff from my rack so he can plug in a wireless unit. Singer leaving venue before we've broken down our gear. Singer singing the wrong song. This happened more than once. Guitarist playing the wrong song. I could go on and on and on.

I do love Doug, but a little bit of me died when he joined Living Colour.

And:

If you have a two-channel interface, you should be able to assign input #1 or #2 to each track. (Same goes for a larger channel interface.) Only arm the track you want to record and hit record. Boom.

It's very easy! I'll approach this from a PC-user perspective, but it's all fairly similar. For a small set up 1. You'll need Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software (as covered by rubis above), 2. You'll need an interface of some sort to get your instrumentation into your Mac (I use a two channel Pre-Sonus Audiobox USB; if I'm home-demoing, I can only play one instrument at a time) and the appropriate cables. 3. Unless your chosen DAW has some kind of built in drums, I'd investigate midi-drums or if you want to go the very easy route, check out real audio loops (I use Beta Monkey, Loopology or Future Loops, which are all live drums). 4. Consider purchasing some OK-quality headphones (I use some closed-ear Senneiser cans) 5. Consider purchasing some powered monitors, not whatever got bundled with your Mac. I have a pair of M-Audio BX5 speakers. They're perfectly adequate for a small/spare room setup. I made some desktop stands to bring them up to ear height by glueing/screwing lengths of 2x2" together and screwing in isolation feet. 6. If you're wanting to mic-up instrumentation, do your diligence and source a decent microphone for the job. I just use a Shure SM57 for any guitars, but I also record guitars direct. Bass I record direct. 7. If you're singing, purchase a phantom powered microphone for vocals. We just went with a Rode kit; it came with an isolation mount and a spit guard. Perfectly adequate for what we wanted. Just on the subject of DAWs, while there's a ton out there, whether you decide to go with a full-blown Pro-Tools package or something bundled with an interface, just remember that they all do pretty much the same thing. I use an age-old version of Adove Audition and for what it doesn't do, I've formulated workarounds. It's just a case of being of an enquiring mind.

I had two Laklands; a DJ5 and a whatever passed for the Jazz bass version back then (now it's a 55-60). I owned the DJ5 but the 55-60 was a loaner. They were both pretty stunning, but that said my Mike Lull beats these by a country mile.

Lovely! I used to have a real horn on for that whole colour combination.

I bought some DR Black Beauties at the London show. I'm assuming the coating is pretty much the same. They do feel a bit coarser than the Elixirs that I tend to favour. They have a nice burp to them; not a lot of new string zing going on. They've only been on a month and have had light use. Would I try them again? Possibly, but not in black. I didn't realise it would be so difficult to actually see them on a black bass with a black fingerboard...

G30 here. The sender case is a little flimsy, but stick it in Levys pouch and you're sound.

I think this hits the nail on the head. I've bought well, along with one purchase a while back that I still pinch myself about. I could do with getting rid of a couple, but I have space and there's no urgency to do so.

I bought a Squier Badtz Maru from these pages a few years ago. Long and the short of it is that it has a new Squier Mustang neck, a Mustang bridge and a Hotrail-esque pickup in it. I've thought about selling it, but it sounds so good for recording.

Holy mother of god. In their defence, Hamer did only make one and if you look at their old workshop blog, it seems more of a case of doing it because they can, rather than it ever becoming a production model. Horrific.

Don't lose sleep over it. I'd schlep across southern England with my old band playing to near empty rooms. You just can't rely on people making anywhere near the equivalent level of effort that we made in trying to do a 45 minute slot. Better off out of it now. More fun.

I didn't even know there was football on.

I recall seeing some V2s in Denmark Street early 80s...like the two on the extreme right in this photo. They were an abomination. A classic case of a company tweaking a design for 'betterment'. Nasty.

Drawn to remembering a guy called Eddie who was in a band at college. I just recall the first few lines he wrote for a song called Bollweevil: I am a Viking and I live in a village I love to rape and pillage.

I was out with Darren on Saturday night. It's very, very clear that the guy is very passionate about music (although we agree to disagree on when Rush's golden period was) and he metaphorically knows his poop, but t hat said, the station operates a playlist, so he is tied to what the station want played.

I'd need to spend a load more on liposuction and lycra.

It's a monstrosity. And I owned one.

You've said you've owned them for 15 years, so they were seven years old when you got them. How do you know what the previous owner did? Maybe they changed one of the pickups, maybe both, maybe neither. The things that jump out for me is the heat-shrink on the red bass (the '57) pickup; I wouldn't think that Fender would issue a bass with that flaw, unless it was part of the spec, but hey ho. Also the basses are effectively copies/reissues of two different periods, so perhaps the blue one (the '62) comes with the earthing/shielding plate and the red (the '57) doesn't.