Dan Dare

I like Chromes on my fretless. They're a little brighter than many flats, but still smooth. I tend to put them on the fretless new and then switch them to a fretted when they've lost some brightness and acquired more of a traditional flats sound. I like the fact that they don't wear grooves in the board the way rounds do.

If you go this route, get the most powerful amp you can (within reason of course). You'll get a cleaner sound with a lot more headroom. You won't blow your cabs up unless you do something really silly. Most speakers will tolerate short bursts of up to twice their rated power provided you're not putting large amounts of LF into them. Speaking of which, if they're for vocals mainly, use a high pass filter at 80-100hz between mixer and power amp to lose the mud and increase power handling and efficiency. You won't notice the difference and you will make better use of amplifier power if it doesn't have to push a lot of low end.

RCF is a standard recommendation for reasonably priced PA speakers. You can't go far wrong with them. If you go for larger ones - 12s or 15s, don't cheap out on stands. Avoid lightweight aluminium and go for K&M or similar. Look for something with long legs that opens out to give a wide base. You don't want them falling over when some drunk punter who's dancing a bit too enthusiastically crashes into them. The power stage in a well designed active cab will have been specified to drive the speakers optimally. Modern power modules don't add much weight to a cab. Power amp plus passives often works out cheaper, but that's about the only benefit.

I wouldn't defend Pay to Play, but I can see how it's come about. There are a lot more aspiring bands than there are music venues. Some venues try to cover themselves by asking unknown/untried bands (especially those playing originals) for some sort of fee in case nobody turns up to see them. They don't do it every night of the week or for all bands/musicians - the ones they want to book get paid. Back in the day, I played a few places that operated like that. The first time we played a venue, we paid, but subsequently and once they'd seen we went down OK and didn't empty the place, we got paid when/if we were booked back. Not a lot, maybe, but something at least. In our case, we didn't pay the venue, but the PA operator. It may be different now, but many venues didn't own the PA, lights, etc. They got someone in to take care of that and we paid him. Given that we didn't have to carry, set up and tear down our own PA, etc and that the amount we were asked for wasn't astronomical, it seemed fair enough at the time. He was doing a night's work and wasn't a charity.

This, I'm afraid. Those without issues/baggage (also applies to the male of the species) are even rarer, ime. Memories are short. People may say "She's not as good as your previous singer" a couple of times, but that will soon end. The sensible answer, of course, is "She's finding her feet. Rome wasn't built in a day", etc. You are unlikely to find someone who can spring, fully formed, into the job immediately, unless yours is a pro' band that can offer all the perks. In your shoes, I'd look to find someone with the right attributes - voice quality, appearance, attitude, etc - and work with them to grow into the role. It's either that or re-invent the band, which would probably involve just as much work.

Not up to me. Funerals are for the living. Whatever they want to hear.

Sensible.

Broken Row, OK? No doubt one of those towns where a virgin is a girl who can run faster than her brothers and cousins.

The only time I've noticed this was in a rehearsal room in West London, which was adjacent to the District and Piccadilly lines. The back wall of the studios was right next to the tracks and pretty much at the same level (you could hear the trains rumble past). As power to the underground is at track level, the live rails were probably only a few feet from where we were. There was a definite buzz through the equipment. Never noticed it at the rooms under the arches on the Holloway Road, but the line there is overhead powered. The line above the old Allan Gordon rooms in Leyton wasn't electrified at the time I used it. It's now overhead power, too.

When I have to learn new stuff, I make charts - chords and structure, plus notation for any essential lines/parts. Then I have it playing in the house and car on repeat until I'm sick of it. Works for me.

You could say that about many boutique products. Some such are no longer really boutique and have become mainstream to an extent. Given that the industry standard for class D heads seems to be an ICEpower module with a preamp in front of it in a fetching looking metal box, the cost of manufacture probably isn't great, so markup is likely to be enormous.

Yep. I replaced the brake lines on one of my cars with Kunifer 10. Good stuff. Easy to work and bend neatly. Just googled it and it's still available.

With the price difference between real Speakons and knockoffs being so small, it isn't worth saving a few pennies on knockoffs.

Agreed. Unless a desk has extensive eq or you are using an active bass with plenty, it's probably best to use some form of preamp/eq. I find bass straight into the desk can be a bit vanilla otherwise. Fine for recording where you can eq the bass at mixing/mastering stage, but maybe not for live work.

Oh and yes, bass - lead - amp for me, too.

A PA can be handy for originals bands. Established OBs with reputations may indeed "play venues with in-house PAs and engineers", but the key question is how often? Many OBs struggle to get more than a handful of gigs a year. Having a PA can be handy if it means you can play in places other than established gig venues. In the past, I've put on gigs in local pubs with OBs I've played in. To do that, we needed our own PA. It wasn't worth hiring in a rig, engineer, etc. We often made little to no money, but the idea was to build a bit of a following, get ourselves noticed and get match fit (which playing in rehearsal rooms doesn't do). Maybe it's different these days. Being an old git who no longer has aspirations to conquer the world, I haven't played in an OB for ages. I would if something musically interesting came along and they didn't mind the fact that I'm ancient, but I guess that's unlikely.

This. A mic' into your backline, combined with a naturally resonant instrument like an acoustic bass guitar or double bass, is almost inevitably going to suffer feedback and require some sort of notch filtering at anything other than low volume. Pickup into backline and mic to FOH is usually the best compromise. It means you won't hear exactly the sound you like from your backline, but it's workable practically. Driver size is not relevant. I use several C4s and/or 4Bs for electric bass and they have plenty of bottom end and are not "dry" unless I eq the amp to be so.

Yep. Everyone is review crazy these days. The minute you buy anything online, you are bombarded with requests to "rate us on Trustpilot", etc.

Do you find the rollers "creep" over time? I found I needed to use Threadlock on the one I had. Nicely made bridge, though.

I assume you've tried the serial lookup facility on the Fender website. The original pro Junior was introduced around 1994, so it's not going to be from 1991. The 3 was introduced around 2010. Although it's stated that it was produced until 2016, it's perfectly possible that end of production may have crept into 2017 (if Fender had parts and there was still demand, why wouldn't they?). Have you been able to confirm that it only needs re-valving? As that's such a simple job, I'd imagine the seller would do that, rather than let it go for nowt. Caveat emptor and all that.

When none of them played in the original?

A fool and their money and all that. Anyone who forks over 150 bucks for the "privilege" of hearing her tripe deserves to be robbed. I'd expect to pay less, not more, if I had to watch her too 😁

Every cloud has a silver lining

This is a fascinating subject. Google something like "psychological effect of keys in music" and you'll find plenty of really interesting stuff around on the topic of how keys and musical structures affect mood and emotion. Even Bach was aware of it.

You really need to lighten up. I appreciate that Scandinavian winters are long and dark, which tends to engender a gloomy disposition among those who live there, but it's summer at the moment, so why the long face? Yes, insults can be light hearted, although rarely, sadly, to those whose default position is taking offence. Still, I guess it shows how up to date you are. Accomplished players are just as capable of indulgence as bad ones. You like something. I don't care for it. Why not accept the fact and stop digging a deeper hole for yourself?