Al Krow

I guess that is a key point ie if bands are being booked for an office "Christmas party", it seems to me the focus is actually on it being a "party" at Xmas, and much less on the "Christmas" aspect? I mean isn't the latter what carol services are for? And if you do Xmas songs, how many? Maybe a couple to show willing, but what's a reasonable number to be doing? They're generally not great ones to get folk up and dancing. Our singer is pushing for us to do eight.

Bit of a debate going on in my two covers bands - the singers are keen, with some of the rest of the band throwing up their hands in horror. Do you guys typically roll out Xmas songs in your Dec set lists and, if so, which ones / how many do you do?

I'm going to be a bit of a dissenting voice here - I found the AS core tones to be typically 3 to 4 out of 5 in terms of the original drives they were digitally emulating. So, all in all, it felt a bit meh to me and I didn't hold onto mine. Obviously others seem to love it, so YMMV etc.

Dave has just bought a pedal off me: fast payment and really good comms, a real pleasure to deal with. Hope you enjoy the pedal! Cheers, Bas

Had mine for 18 months and really happy with it - provides me with an excellent back up / alternative to my DG M900 AO which costs loads more - the Bugera really is incredible value for money! Why am I not surprised to find out that we've got this piece of kit in common, Phil? 🙂 You mention good EQ centre points - do you know what these actually are for the ultra-low, bass, treble, and ultra-high? The variable mids are obviously marked on the unit, but I couldn't see any mention of the rest in the manual?

Or pick up a pretty decent set of Harley Bentons or Warwick Red Labels for < £10, rather than paying the cost of a new Harley Benton bass each time (see related thread) 🙂

Harley Benton Valuestrings Bass 45-105 Actually under £5 for the strings themselves, but then need to add P&P on top. But still works at two sets costing < £20 or under a £tenner each. Anyone tried them and liked / disappointed?

Boss OC-5 is a good shout - have one on my board. I've tried a few others over the years and ones that do a decent job include the Digitech pedals - I have the Mosaic, which does a pretty good 8 string bass effect. Having said that, I think most pedals struggle with the octave-up in terms of producing something natural sounding and not tinny. Octave-down seems to be much easier to handle, particularly if you're not playing too low in the first place. So when I need to thicken the sound up, I've ended up playing up the octave and engaging the OC-5 on octave-down rather playing where I normally would and engaging octave-up. Much better result! Obviously on the OC-5 you can have octave-down and up simultaneously if you're feeling like straying into the full Royal Blood!

@pn_daythat's a beauty!

Two wonderfully talented musicians performing the same song. The first amazing original penned by a phenomenally talented musician; the second a cover - not better, but also beautiful. RIP both x

So you've not lost faith in the U4s then? Good to hear! U4 transmitter plus 2 receivers is actually one of the purchase options. Makes good sense if two band members are happy to have the same mix eg a full band mix.

Just putting this out there as a possibility, given I'm a bit of a fan of the Boss WL-20 wireless for bass these days (having previously been a Smooth-hound wireless fanboi). The Boss WL-30 and/or Xvive U3 - could these simply be used in reverse to provide the transmitter / receiver base for a wireless IEM set up? Would they be any good? Is that effectively all the Xvive U4 is doing?

Yeah agreed. I think the compact form & ease of use of the Xvive U4s has a lot to recommend and would be a great way for the band to dip their toes into a wireless IEM set up. If they like it and if we've managed to break into the higher end function-band work we're looking to target in 2023 then I'm sure it will be an easier conversation with them about upgrading our sound and light system in 12 months' time. Thanks, as ever, for all your help and support buddy and to the other contributors on this thread, much appreciated!

Thanks - that's the review I'd come across also, which had sparked my interest. I'll put it back on my radar then 😊 I was particularly liking the ability to send two separate (effectively mono) signals to two separate belt packs from one transmitter see 18.00+ - but I'm guessing that's not particularly unusual (and something we can also do on the LD MEI 1000 G2)? Not sure that is something the Xvive U4 is going to permit, but I'd need to check. The price ranges on these from Aliexpress is huge - the 830-866MHZ is on at £182 and the 626‑662MHz at just £94. But I think from what you're saying we'd need to go for the 830-866 Mhz option at which point there's not going to be too much in it between that and the LD MEI 1000 G2 set up - and would it be fair to assume the LD is the significantly better quality piece of kit?

@EBS_freak came across these: ANLEON WIRELESS S3 - Wireless In-Ear Monitor System Any good? Comparable on paper to the LD MEI 1000 G2 and potentially better than the Xvive U4? Seem to be available from Aliexpress from some sellers for < £100, which seems amazingly good value. Two frequency ranges seem to be available 518 to 554 Mhz and 626 to 662 Mhz - are either / both legal in the UK?

Haha, welcome to the club! It's a bit Hotel California-esque once you've checked in, though! When you say the J pup sounds "thin" is there a volume drop when you switch between the P and J pups? If so, I found that easily fixed by adjusting the pup heights, as you're prob already v familiar with. Totally agree about the P+J being a great combination working together. I actually went the whole hog for a few songs that needed a punchy deep low end from the low B string e.g. Uptown Funk - that's where I felt the solo J shone through in getting the bottom end to cut through and not get lost in the mix.

How does a stinker differ from a stonker? Is it anything to do with the i/o? Just asking for a friend.

Nah, rekindling a love of gigging (whilst continuing to use your Bugera Veyron amp) and developing a taste for Fender (style) basses is not the worst thing you could be doing by a long way, haha! Hmmm, what might "worse" really look like? Let's maybe start with deciding that you actually prefer playing a triangle, solo, on street corners, and have given up being in a band to do so...

Just picked up the cheaper, but still very lovely, of my two gigging basses which I thought I'd give a spin at tomorrow night's gig, after a few weeks not playing it. Funny how quickly you get used to an instrument you've been regularly playing and forget the quirks of any you've not...that also happen to any of you? In particular, what planet did Yamaha think it was a good idea to wire up the tone controls on this model: bass, treble, mids rather than treble, mids, bass like everyone else? I've put some stickers on to remind me 😁

Will it be obvious if they are fakes?

Thanks so much for this! Just put in my first AliExpress order - got a set of ZS10 Pro's for the band and total cost less than a single Shure SE 215. PS @Chienmortbb as an AliExpress newbie, grateful if you could confirm if I should be expecting to pay import handling and VAT on top or is the price I've just paid an all-in price?

As someone who's been following this thread since it started 3 1/2 years ago when you were in a covers band, I wonder if it's maybe time to update the title to - "I used to hate gigging...but I've seen the light and actually mostly enjoy gigging now, provided I don't have to do it too often." or, more simply, just: "I used to hate gigging." 😊

Sorry Peter, I've only just seen this. For some reason I don't seem to get notifications when I'm "paged". Would love to go another time.

This deserves a plug for being such a fun cover! I mean bass players do wear shades indoors, don't we?! And the vacant-stare heavy metal hairdo guitarist was just perfect.

Ooor... you could get a Nano+?