Greg Edwards69

The speed and rate of these updates is overwhelming, I'm struggling to keep up - I still haven't done the previous update yet. It's a good job I didn't redo all my presets with the Swirl or Tiny Lark, I may have had to do it agin with the TDS!

The new blocks might please some users who were unhappy that the other amp blocks couldn’t be pushed into distortion.

The best purchase was my Darkglass Anagram. I've only had it a few months, and it's getting rapidly getting better and better with DG's speedy updates. They're so quick, I'm struggling to keep up! Worst was some IMA Helix presets. There's nothing wrong with them - they sound great. But redundant now I've moved over to the Anagram. Honourable mention goes to my GR Bass 1x12 active cab. It's fantastic and logic-defyingly light. But it only gets used for rehearsals. That said, this and the Anagram have made loading in/out of rehearsal and gigs much more enjoyable.

Looks like a useful practice and gigable backup tool, especially with the built-in battery.

How was my gig last night? I have no idea, I wasn’t there. It was the first one I’ve ever missed since this band started around 20 years ago. A dep was in my place even though I was fit and able. Keen readers my remember I mentioned I had a colonoscopy a few weeks ago and the results weren’t what I hoped for. I’ve since found out it’s not good news at all. There’s no easy way to say it, but it’s proving cathartic to share, so here goes. It’s cancer, of the rectal variety. I told my band mates at the time of the first investigation before knowing it was cancer that it will likely mean surgery and treatment very quickly, possibly before Xmas, so they had to organise cover in case I was out of action. The chap they got for a couple of gigs said he had other offers for the same dates, so he had to commit, meaning I couldn’t do them, whether I was able or not (unless we paid him off). It was probably for the best, though; my head has been all over the place the last few weeks dealing with this. So anyway, it looks like a rough few months ahead. Radio and chemotherapy followed by surgery, and possibly more chemo after that. Oh and a bag atttached, either temporary or permanent. Sorry to bring the mood down, but this is the thread I interact with the most with people I know. Besides, I’m still hoping to continue to contribute to the thread with any gigs I am able to do over the next few months, and long after once I’m cured, and normality is resumed.

I’ve just seen this case on Thomann. Thought it could be useful to a few of us who don’t use the supplied PSU. https://www.thomann.co.uk/thomann_bag_darkglass_anagram.htm

Popped into Lidl on the way home from work and they had two left. I've been after these for ages, so I bought both of them!

My SM58 went missing* a few years ago, so I replaced it with an XM8500 when I found out how much SM58s are these days compared to when I originally bought mine. * I last remember using it at a band rehearsal before Covid happened. Many months and lockdowns later, we had another rehearsal to dust off the cobwebs, and my mic was missing from my gear bag. I had the leather case, but no mic in it. I reckon I left it on the mic stand, and either the following band or the staff pilfered it.

Just a short one as I have 'things' going on.* A halloween party gig at The Cricketers in Westcliff on Friday. Decent turnout with a lot of people making the effort to dress up. We were a guitarist down and used yet another female dep singer who we didn'tt have much to to prep with. She did a decent job, but a couple of songs clearly weren't in her comfort zone, so we should have addressed that sooner. I felt quite liberated being able to fill some of the physical and musical space left by the absent guitarist, throwing in extra licks and fills here and there, juicing up my usual tone with a little more overdrive, and I had prepared a couple of special presets on my Anagram to simulate powerchords blended with my bass tone for several songs. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, dancing for most of the evening, and gained some new followers. So a decent result. *lets just say I had a colonoscopy the day before and the results are not what I had hoped for. Still yet to have more scans before knowing conclusively and what impact it will have.

Do you mean the EBS UniChorus? I can't reference to an EBS Multi Chorus. If so, the manual says it has an internal mix trim pot. This might help reduce the volume jump, but it will obviously also make the chorus effect less obvious. If you like the sound of this pedal then the only workable solution I can think of is to put it in the loop of a Boss LS-2 (or something similar). This way, you can leave the chorus permanently engaged and use the LS-2 to enable it and control its volume. If you're not married to it, then yes, a different chorus pedal may be required.

Fingers crossed, there might be one added next week.

We had a very enjoyable night at the Cow & Telescope on Friday. Due to temporary management shenanigans we haven’t got a gig booked there next year, so we felt we had a point to prove to the new management team, who were very impressed with us. So fingers crossed well be a go to reserve next year if they get any cancellations. I was still on holiday in Majorca with the wife in the morning with the wife and got home around 3pm. So had a couple of hours or so for a quick practice of several songs I hadn’t played for a while, and nap. The nap didn’t help much, I was knackered all evening and flagging towards the end, but adrenaline got me through. We were joined by the lovely Hazel, dipping for Jenny again who wasn’t available. Hence the handful of songs I hadn’t played for ages (and one, we’d never even played as a band before), but it kept us on our toes and gave the set list a good shake up. We had great comments from regulars and people who hadn’t seen us before, including a couple of people asking about merchandise. We have a fairly strong brand identity, so it’s something worth considering. I’ve been thinking about setting up an amazon print on demand store for a while. Next one, Halloween at The Cricketers in Westcliff, with another dep singer. Clip of ‘What’s up’ that we’d never played or even rehearsed before, let alone with a dep. Judging by the crowd reaction, it’s a keeper. IIRC, this is the only song I pulled and IEM out to hear the crowd signing along to. https://fb.watch/CQZJVVKUbR/?

I was using exactly the same one until my brother kindly 3D printed the 'unofficial' bespoke stand for me. The laptop one works well though, and has a handy place to hang your headphones!

Drawing up a stage plot diagram with notes can be useful in these situations. IIRC there’s specialised online tools to help do this.

I finally got around to sorting midi control out via the BandHelper app and used it at the weekend's gig. I didn't enjoy double footswitch pressing to change presets on its previous outing. Using Bandhelper to automatically choose the correct preset worked very well. Using CC's to select modes, stomps and scenes, however, is less reliable, and I had to resend the midi data manually a few times But I think this is because I'm sending PC and CC messages at the same time. If I understand Bandhelper's help page correctly, I should be able to resolve this issue by adding a small delay between each one. One rather annoying thing I discovered is that my Kindle Fire doesn't support MIDI over USB. Amazon, in their wisdom, decided not to include this in their fork of Android. I bought this device a few years ago, specifically for gigs, so that I don't risk getting my more expensive iPad Pro broken or stolen. So I'm looking into getting a similarly sized and cheap 'proper' Android tablet to replace it.