Al Krow

Very impressive that you can play the bass line to Rhythm Stick! Definitely one of the more challenging ones to master out there and not one I've got under my belt, by any means!

Singer (one of our regular lead vox crew) arrived 15 mins before we were due to start due to public transport issues, and was obviously stressed, bless her. I'd managed to lose my IEM headphones at a rehearsal (for our NYE gig earlier in the week) but didn't spot the loss till the gig, so I made do with standing next to the PA speaker for monitoring. Dep drummer was playing with us for the first time and we'd not rehearsed with him, and the venue, one of our pub residences, was rammed with Christmas party revellers and perhaps busier than it's ever been. So what could possibly go wrong?! 😅 There were unsurprisingly a few loose ends! But we managed to get by with eye contact and put on a decent show which seemed to go down well, and overall it was a fun gig. A large receptive audience can clearly make up for a multitude of sins it seems! A little clip of the gig and venue. Happy Christmas all!

Back to KZ ZARs - still loving mine. However... I bought a set with the built-in mic in the earphone cable and found I was only getting output through one ear piece. Replacement cable ordered for £9 inc P&P and IEMs working perfectly again.

You mention that the pack allows us to dig deeper. Do you provide details of the actual patches and settings in the pack? Appreciate if the answer is "no" to protect your IP (although I guess anyone buying the patch will be able to see what the settings are from their Helix?) However if is yes, then there are probably several of us who don't own a Full Helix who might be interested in finding out what patches and settings you have used to try to recreate it on other pedals and multifx (I have a GT1000 core) and be happy to pay you an appropriate fee for just details the patches and settings in each of the 4 pathways and potentially be another income stream for you. Just a thought!

Great job!

But that's the point...yes he gets the best tax advice, but he's not breaking any laws by setting up structures that minimise Amazon's tax by doing so. On the other hand loads of us break laws every time we go over the speed limit in our cars, take drugs or don't declare all our income from gigs if, legally, we should do. If you don't like what Amazon does, then boycott tax havens who give him and other multinationals the opportunity to avoid tax in the first place (or do you agree with Bono who says it's fine for Ireland to allow multinationals to avoid tax?)

Haha, stone throwing in glass houses? I wonder how many musicians pay the tax due on all their income? At least Bezos pays what he legally owes, even if he/Amazon are aided by certain countries (eg Ireland/Luxembourg) offering very low tax regimes.

Haha, no worries order placed! I've actually been thinking about upgrading my old/very budget Creative T40s for a long while, and a recommendation from you is always a positive. I went for the bundle with the stands, but had a £25 Andertons credit from the mixer you mentioned! Re. the mixer...a mate who is also a bass player and does the sound in his band popped round last week, and at the end said that the A&H CQ desk does literally everything he would like from his (eg individual HPF per channel, feedback assistant), so you're not alone in thinking it's been a good investment! Apologies to everyone else for the thread hijack (albeit very useful, thanks Phil!)

Yeah, I think the stereo mixing is going to be the clincher here. Ah well looks like I'm in for a pair then!

Cheers Phil. Would one suffice for home studio mixing/monitoring and solo home practice purposes?

That sounds like a really good deal Phil, thanks for the heads up! In terms of rehearsing with yours what other instruments / vox were in the studio set up and were they being separately amplified / monitored? Were you just using one of these or a pair when you rehearsed?

Third Xmas back to back Xmas party over a week - it's been great, but has involved quite a lot of travel: last night's was a two hour trek across town to Twickenham for me, and setting up before party guests arrived with a relatively short 1 hour slot before the DJ came on, following dinner, two hours after setting up. Not unusual for a function gigs though. Normally I might find such a balance between travel, loading and setting up and then doing everything in reverse on the way back, a little disheartening when combined with a relatively short set - I'd much prefer to do two hours playing than one given that playing is where the fun is for me, and I suspect for most of us! However last night Harlequins RFC was a great venue, with a really fun receptive audience and clicked well as a band and seemed to be very well received. We even managed to get Xmas dinner at the end of the night, so the stars were obviously aligned! A little clip of the gig with one of our regular dep singers fronting us.

Thanks. I was actually getting a bit of distortion on my Xvive U4s for the first time on the vocals. Interestingly we had pushed the gain on the fem vox up quite a bit - guess need to bring her down and simply cut the rest, and then raise the master vol.

Some of the online reviews aren't looking too promising re the Nux: complaints about distortion in particular. I guess sometimes you can pay too little for something!

Just spotted these: B-7PSM Wireless Monitoring Bug Transmitter & Receiver System, 5.8GHz - Nux | CPC No idea if they are any good, but I'm a fan of the Nux 5.8 GHz wireless for bass. Attractions: - very compact - 5.8 GHz not 2.4 GHz - good price compared to most wireless IEM set ups I guess slight concern that having 5.8 GHz on both bass and IEM wireless with no channel selection options may give rise to crosstalk/interference between the two units?

Very helpful indeed, thanks Mike!

Yeah there's a creator pack bundle for an extra £100 or so, in which they include a WiFi mic.

Oh I thought you had written that deliberately and very poetically! Btw please don't mention "tax" - return season is fast approaching! 😅

@dave_bass5 - starting to get seriously tempted by the DJI Osmo 3. The ability to set it up and leave to track the singer as they move around seems great! I appreciate you're recording stuff directly from the desk Dave, but I wonder if I could ask a favour - would you mind recording an upcoming gig and strapping the second mic to one of the speaker poles, maybe pointed across stage to the other speaker(?) and see how good the quality of the sound is? I'm thinking that could be a nice compromise for situations where not everything is mic'd up and going through the desk?

I love that phrase "a birth of volume" - brilliant!!

@mike257 et al, I've got the hpf on our A&H desk currently set to kick in as follows: kick drum - 30Hz (eliminate low end crud / subsonic frequencies) bass - 50Hz (to stay clear of the kick drum sonic space) male vox - 80Hz female vox & guitar - 100Hz drums other (single mic) - 100Hz Is that broadly sensible? Would you set differently?

Loved this Andy! Great lyrics - excuse my ignorance is "We're connected" an original track?

That's exactly it, Mike. Phil's recommendation of the D5 was what got me looking at AKG mics initially and, as you say, the D7 seems to be a step up from the D5 with a bit of a price hike to match (but as it was going to be a Xmas pressie 😊) Fwiw I've actually gone for the D7S, as I quite like the ability to switch my mic off for when it's not needed. PS I see Phil's vocal mic thread has just been revived - which is great; it's an excellent thread and well worth checking out!

The AKG D7's seem to be well regarded. I've just ordered one as my Xmas prezzie from the missus, which was based on recommendations from @Phil Starr and others on a separate thread, I think, which he can hopefully point you you in the right direction on!

Interestingly a lot of drummers used to go for SM57s rather than 58s. Do you know what mic your drummer upgraded to?