NancyJohnson

[quote name='Geek99' timestamp='1476030113' post='3150597'] I have children and a disabled partner, it's not easy to achieve gigging. I can manage OM nights sometimes. I do find the tone of the question a little unthoughtful to be honest [/quote] I've read through this thread a couple of times now and I keep coming back to this reply. Don't really see anything wrong with the topic subject or the way the original posr is/was phrased; I just don't get how the post was unthoughtful. I wholly understand how difficult life can be to accommodate the whims if the gigging musician; our ex-guitarist has a daughter that requires 24 hour care, but I doubt he would have said the post was in any way unthoughtful. Are we heading towards a situation here where we're unable to ask relatively straightforward questions on a forum for fear of upsetting anyone? #confused

[quote name='PlungerModerno' timestamp='1476131943' post='3151686'] +1 They should embrace their innovative products of yesteryear, and reissue small numbers of faithful recreations, with larger volume cheaper, modern, less accurate versions. E.g. a Gibson Triumph or a Gibson RD Artist with all original style electronics - then a cheaper version with similar asthetic but much more generic electrics. [/quote] I'd really like to see a 20/20 reissue.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1476080189' post='3150966'] We have different walk on music for every gig we play. It all depends on what the landlord is playing when we shout "could you turn the house music down now, please!". [/quote] Bwahaha

I remember these. Quite stunning design. Looks like something that Jet Screamer would use.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1475963511' post='3150179'] That's a different discussion and I don't necessarily disagree with your point. Here's my point; What works for famous acts playing large venues doesn't work for local unknowns playing small clubs. Here's an example,many famous big name acts use video and walk on music. IMO, if a local unknown band uses walk on music in a small pub it's would come off as weird and pretentious. Blue [/quote] It's weird that the conversation has moved from opening number choices to walk on music. How did that happen? To move with your point, intro music would be seen as a little pretentious in a little club, yes. Assume Green Day play a big arena, I'd assume they would use something to walk on to. [Edit: I suspect intro music transcends musical gentres.] I'd assume if they fired up the Foxboro Hot Tubs thing and play somewhere small, the intro music doesn't work. I dont know where the crowd size cutoff is.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1475946837' post='3150016'] What works for famous pro bands usually does not work for local unknown bands playing small clubs and pubs. Blue [/quote] Ack, you have it all wrong. It's the [i]attitude [/i]of these famous pro-bands that you need to adopt. I don't give a toot for celebrity or fame (I have neither, go figure) and we're all just flesh and blood after all; it's just that some people get popular, the majority of the rest don't. We generally pull in 30-40 people, sure these people don't necessarily want to see us, but they do want to see, listen, embrace and support live music. They clap and pogo. The rest of the population stay home and watch TV. Their loss. The main thing is that it shouldn't matter if you're playing to ten or a thousand, you get up and you play your guts out. Simple.

In with a bang. Start the second song off the last note of the first one so they know they're listening to a different song. I remember seeing some video of Green Day backstage and they had a little jam area set up for warming up. Getting loose and up to speed is an essential.

I'm surprised there's little love for the Jaguar...I'm not really a Fender fan, but the US models (P/J pickups, block neck) are the nicest basses from the company that I've seen in some time.

Could I suggest Warman pickups? I've absolutely no idea where they're manufactured, but they're sold by Josi Warman on eBay (he also builds). I put a pair of P94 pickups into an Epiphone (a P94 is a humbucker sized P90) and it came alive. Lovely lovely. I'd also concur that Wilkinson stuff is affordable and nice too.

As a Thunderbird aficionado, first impressions are that it's ugly as sin and the more I look at it, the worse it actually gets. Visually, the bridge looks wrong, the pickup looks wrong, finish looks nasty. (I doubt spraying it green or any other [i]surf [/i]colour will up the ante)...it just looks very home made. Just watched the videos on the website and it doesn't sound very nice either (it always makes me chuckle when people give a URL as W-W-dot too), so there's nothing redeeming in it's tone either. Horrible! P Add: Neeph hit on the subject of a full reverse-reverse - Fernandes did one which was based on one of Nikki Sixx's Spector models: Here's the photo off the JOW website if anyone needs it:

[quote name='ratman' timestamp='1475682768' post='3147941'] I used 360 Mastering in Hastings last year. They were great. [/quote] I was in a punk band with Dick Beetham and Dave Turner when I was in college. Dick was a phenomenal drummer, Dave was a great guitarist too. (Incidentally, the other guitarist forged a career in studio work elsewhere. I just went to work in finance.) I'm not entirely certain about how 360 came about; Dick engineered some well known albums and one thing clearly led to another!

The Line 6 comment was a bit harsh! I've got a Spider IV 75w...while I honestly couldn't care less about the bulk of the presets (which I guess is what it's sold for), it is pretty simple to dial up a decent tone. OK yeah, for sure I'll admit it's probably not the hardy amp you'd want to take out on a mahoosive tour, but for general use, recording and so forth, it's tiptop. I've used it on everything I've recorded in the last three or four years. New these are currently less than 200 notes, second-hand half that. What's to complain about?

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1475569912' post='3146912'] A few custom colour limited runs on Thunderbirds (whilst returning to 1990 or so model specs) would have done nicely. Stripey, or sparkly red or something. Gibson need to rediscover their wacky bass attitude. [/quote] I tried, I really did. Had lengthy negotiations with Thomann about custom colours, a Thomann special edition, if you will. Gibson did a Sapphire Blue 'Yamano 2000' edition for a dealer in Japan about 15 years ago, but that seems to be it. (There's an image up on Talkbass, but I can't link to it for some reason.) Gibson said they needed a minimum order of 200 basses in one colour before they'd consider it, so it's really not going to happen. I put this out on a couple of bass groups, one of which was very Gibson-centric and I had a couple of interested parties. The thing I just don't get is while I appreciate there's huge interest in guitars, Gibson seem to be able to just spew forth Les Pauls and SGs in a myriad of colours, whereas Thunderbirds just seem to be sunburst, black or ivory/white. Would it really be so much hassle to slip a few basses through when they have some solid colours in production? Probably not, because they're f***ing asshats, that's why.

Reading through the threads here reminded me that (music press aside), back in the mid-70s the best it got for instrument exposure were the catalogues published by Bell Music. These were passed around like pornography magazines.

Fast. Rattly. Distorted. Over loud.

The beauty of MAH is that while we were in from the outset, there have been a ton of events on up and down the country and (based on our experiences) the revenues should be huge and swell the Crisis coffers for the year ahead. Roll on 2017.

I'm going to blow my own trumpet here. My band were the third artist to get picked up for this cause. We put on two gigs (Basingstoke/Guildford) and our vocalist did one with his other band in Landaan. We raised just under £800.00 in total. All bands gave their time for nothing, venues and engineers cut their fees, a couple of bands who hated each other set aside differences and now get on like a house on fire. Well chuffed.

Back to Le Studio, I recall seeing video of one of Rush walking around the place as it is now, all the while flashbacks to whatever video it was they shot there. Sorry about being vague...

Just going to bump this to the top. Playing the Star Inn, Guildford tonight (1/10/16), doors 7.00pm.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1475235635' post='3144255'] IME all basses sound essentially the same in a given style of music once they have been tweaked to sit properly in the mix. [/quote] Pretty succinct. To add; we all kind of know what we want to sound like and we'll do whatever is necessary to achieve that. Price point has little to do with it.

You could take the Presidents of the United States of America route. Chris Ballew converts Epiphone guitars into two string basses ('Bassitar') tuned to C#.

I'm fairly certain that none of Henry's people read these pages, but that bass is pretty horrific (although they're guaranteed a couple of sales in Germany, at least). Just find it a little sad really; Gibson may argue they're being innovative, but no, not really. They either have no ideas or a design team that it constantly told 'no'. If there's one positive, it's actually that the 2017 EB makes the EB from a couple of years back nice looking by comparison.

It's highly unlikely they'll disappear. All things said and done, the issue with all the big name manufacturers is (in no particular order), market saturation, lack of innovation, far-eastern manufacturing plants, lack of quality control and business practice. Gibson and Fender are guilty as feck for their reliance on products, the designs of which are close to 50-60 years old. They're bullish in the way they allow retailers to sell on their gear (was it GAK that quoted the pressure to stock guitars or lose their official dealer status?). Gibson are guilty of inflexibility, putting out stuff people are tired of and holding back of the models people do. Why the hell don't they issue a doublecut Les Paul Junior? Basses in different colours? Because they operate an inferior custom shop model where they can triple the price of street models. Ack. Good riddance.

Travis Bean 2000. I read a review in Beat Instrumental, late 70s which was accompanied by a single black and white photo. I landed one in 1980 for under 400 notes from a dealer in Lewisham #222. I wish I'd left it under the bed!