Nicko

Over the years I've found myself playing more and more with fingers and using a pick for specific songs . I play covers nd quite a lot of the songs are originlly played with a pick. At rehearsal last night I mistakenly picked up my, erm, pick and played a song that I've always played with fingers. This is despite having trouble in parts of the song which are quite fast and at the limit of my finger technique, but I'd always though most of the song was easier and would sound better with fingers. The pick was a revelation. The song sounded great (we happened to be videoing that particular song). That is all. Scoff if you like.

I started playing guitar many years ago and converted to bass around 12 years ago. I still play 6 string for pleasure. I can't sight read for either. I would support the above that its more difficut to read a cluster of dots than a typical one dot after the other sequence that bass would play. I would flip this round and ask why you don't annotate the score with the chord name, or why you feel the need to produce score for a song thats well known. There doesn't appear to be a 5th in the chord if I read the dots correctly btw.

Can't comment on the GSR200 or Affinity series directly, but cost isn't the issue in whether you like a bass or not. I had a Peavey Cirrus active which IMO was far superior in terms of build quality and electronics to the Squier CV Precision* play now, but I ended up hating the sound of the (active) pickus and as my technique improved I found the neck was too narrow and the fretboard radius was too small. If you don't like the sound and the feel I wouldn't personally waste money having a pro set up. If its just the fret buzz then the set up would be worth a try. * I never really wanted a P Bass, but borrowed one once and it just worked for me. That said I tried pretty much every one in the shop in my price range to find "the" one. I also have a US made Fender Precision which doesn't sound as good as my Chinese made Squier, so I play the Squier.

Outer London is £250 to £350 for standard pub gigs. Theres some specialist music pub venues that pay £400 but difficult to get in without a free try out and they really want tributes or themed bands rather than mixed covers.

Yep, the message has come through loud and clear from the responses.

Shown as no longer availabe 😞but I suspect outside our budget anyway.

Well, we did know that when we took her on (I voiced my concern at the time). To be fair she lives on a boat and theres no parking anywhere near the boat. I don't feel I have much choice on the transport front. I think it would be possibe for the others to cope with a mixer and the stands. The guitarist has offered to store but that would mean a 20 mile round trip to collect the speakers.

Yep

Buying a complete system is sightly cheaper and his looks like its designed for easy storage as the mixer stores in the speaker cab. As a newbie to PAs I dont have to worry about compatability of components, but I'm open to suggestions on benefits of powered mixers vs powered speakers. We are looking at pub gigs. I've gigged the same circuit with a 250 watt bass amp and a 2 x 10 and have never struggled for volume. Mostly levels are set by the volume of the drummer, and IME most venues these days have noise meters and we strugge to keep inside the limit. We definitey need 2 vox, and poss the bass drum but thats all unless we want to monitor other instruments though this - and as I say this doesn't look like it can monitor instruments unless they are going through he speakers. Due to the space and transport problems I'm expecting whoever wants mnitoring to sort out some IEM.

90s/00s rock covers. That was my worry

Its about time we looked at getting our own PA for gigging. It looks like muggins will end up transporting it as the drummers car is full of drums, the guitarist has a huge cabinet and a small car and the vocalist has no transport. I've got a fairly large car, but limited space in the house for storage and a limited budget so looking for compact solutions and I've seen this Stagepass 400BT Is 400W enough? Pub gigs. Is an 8" speaker big enough (I don't DI, the drummer might want to mic the bass drum)? Doesn't look like theres any way to use this for instrument monitoring without sending the instrument to the speakers (no aux send control) One of the competitors offers a "700 watt" system in similar design, but the max SPL is quoted as 114dBA, compared to this 400 Watt system at 125 dBA. Surley the 400 watts is louder then? Should I simply be looking for the dBA ratings? ABS speaker cabinets - good or bad?

Absolutely. Thats the point I'm making - the LL needs to get people in, not complain people are going out less and that his margins are squeezed.

This is the reason pubs are shutting at an alarming rate. The whole point is that the beer should be incidental to the pub experience. The LL has to provide something that brings the punters in to drink and keep them there rather than sitting at home with a 4 pack - whether that be a group of social regulars, food or live music. IMHO the purpose of a band starting at 9 and finishing at 11.30 is to keep the punters that wander in at 7.30 there til closing. The longer they stay the higher the profit because he's already paid for the staff and his overheads for that day.

Maybe, but the venue should also be promoting the live music. How often do i go into a venue and see "Live music every Friday" but no mntion of the band, the genre or even whether this means a geezer with an acoustic or a full on soul band with a horn section? At the end of the day its the LLs job to fill the pub, not the bands. Pizza Epress doesn't expect the bloke cooking the pizzas to bring in people to eat.

Average fee is around £250 to £350 for a pub gig around London outskirts. Even at this money divide it by 4 and you're getting around £65 to £80. By the time you have loaded up the car, travelled, set up, played two 1 hour sets with a break, stripped down, travelled home and unloaded, you're lucky if you haaven't done 5 or 6 hours graft. I only gig about once a month and rehearse evey week. My time and cost breakdown is Travel to/from rehearsal, 1 hour, £2 in fuel per week, 4 hours/£8 per gig Rehearsal 3 hours per week £10 for the room, 12 hours/£40 per gig Learning new songs/practice: 1 hour a week, 4 hours per gig Travel to gig, play gig, 5 hours, fuel, a drink or two £5 So the total time is 25 hours and £53 per gig. I'm just about covering m costs, not geting paid for my time. The last gig I played Mrs Nicko couldn't come along with me when I set up and had to leave early so she got a cab which was £20 each way. It was a dep gig and I spent maybe 20 hours learning the songs.

No I'm jsut siht ta ytping. Actually bad at typing and too lazy to get my reading glasses.

(Covers band) Yesterday was the first rehearsal since 06 Juy. It all started so well, with a new song, pretty much nailed after two play throughs. As agreed we then started to play through the whoe of the current set list. We were on form, and it sounded great - clearly everyone had put the effort in. We took a short beark after the first set. Had a chat outside and were all in good spirits.* Then it went all Pete Tong. People forgetting parts/lyrics, structure, timing was off, tuning was off. Jjust about anything we cold get wrong we did get wrong. Oh well, onwards and upwards. * No booze or illicit substances consumed.

Simon Le Bon's brother drinks in my local pub, and Simon has been known to come in for a drink with him occasionally. Never while I've been there of course.

I'll own up to never having adjusted a truss rod in 30 odd years of playing guitar and bass. I'll do intonation and action from the bridge but thats about the limit.

I enjoy the bit from the soundcheck to the encore. The getting there, setting up, waiting around and stripping down puts a serious damper on the whole thing.

No. A copyright is something normally attached to creative work not an object and grants the rights over reproduction of the work. A trademark is supposed to be a specific logo or design which identifies a product's manufacturer. Frets are ubiquitous and can't be registered. A patent is what you want - this registers a design or part of a design which is unique and capable of industrial or commercial application and makes the design feature public. However you can only apply for a patent before the product/design is in the public domain. Paperclips have never been patented and it wouldn't be possible to patent them now.

I have a Roland DR-5 drum machibe which I bought in 1983 when they were first released. I still haven't figured out how to program it properly.😒

Well, that will interest the Federal Trade Commission. Suspicioulsy like anticompetitive action.

Roksak. I have a BG20 which coped well with a couple of long haul flights (in the cabin) weekly practices and gigs. Over 10 years old and looking a bit tatty now. They also do a BG30 which is thicker padding.£35 and £50 respectively.

Woud be cheaper to hand deliver it. I've not been to the town they are in but the area itself is quite pleasant.