kev b

Saw Jools Hollands Big Band at Hull on Sunday, the most disappointing night in decades. The sound was abysmal, muddy and over loud, indistinct vocals, couldnt hear Mark Almond at all and even Ruby Turner was hardly audible. I know how good this band can be and I think they were probably superb as usual, just couldn't hear anything but a blast of noise. I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt re venue acoustics etc but have since spoken to people who were at the Skegness gig on Saturday who said it was the same there. Bitterly disappointed.

I thought lemon oil was for cleaning fretboards and dried them out? I use boiled linseed oil on rosewood fretboards.

I ended up in a band that needed the P Bass sound, awkward because the only bass I owned at the time was my 1978 Jazz. Anyhow after messing about with the sound at every gig and never being completely happy I found that setting the neck pickup at around 8 to 9 and about the same on the bridge gave me the best tone, opening the pickups fully did not work at all. If you experiment with the volumes you can plainly hear the difference around the 8/9 setting, changing the tone almost like a wah pedal, until you find the sweet spot. I realised that what I needed was a P bass with a J width neck but all I had was an Ibanez Blazer fretless with a narrow neck, took it to rehearsal and the tone was there straight away, no faffing around, little tone change when lowering volume, tone knob working from thud to biting. Conclusion, if you want to sound like a PBass player then you need a Pbass, you might have to find a narrow neck version a la Duck Dunn but its a Pbass you need, anything else is an approximation. I bought a Jazz back in 1978 and stuck with it because the wide Precision neck didnt suit me, tried a Precision recently, still doesnt, but for the music I play its a Precision I need. They are plug and play always sound at least ok and are easy to control.

I have posted before on this subject, the last two bands I played with paid attention to volume and we were often complimented on our sound, punters and landlords liked it, meaning repeat bookings on the spot. Bar staff appreciate taking drink orders without lip reading and punters are fine if they go home without ringing ears You really dont need to be ear burstingly loud but its a hard message to get across and dont get me started on rehearsing at 120dB. I have come close to quitting due to ridiculous volumes, I refuse to turn up over and over to be heard but the worst culprits dont even notice as they only listen to themselves.

Every so often a story like this hits the media, its been plumbers, market stallholders, part time car traders, ebay sellers and now the gig economy. HMRC gave up on extracting tax from weekend band members decades ago as so few actually made a profit after expenses, it wasnt worth their time chasing musos when there were other richer seams to be mined. Even when they did a big publicity effort to frighten black market tradesmen into declaring income they did not have the manpower to do the job properly instead hoping people would become spooked and register themselves. Lack of resources means that little effort is actually expended finding and investigating all the Dellboy types. I learned this from a friend who works for HMRC and a relative who is a chartered accountant.

Its not only class D amps that play up, my band plays a couple of venues where there is a issue with the power supply. The ancient keyboards (4) use 9volt phone charger type power supplies and I use my 1970s HH solid state head for bass. At various points during the set my bass will sound horribly distorted but one keyboard in particular will fail altogether, just producing a clicking noise. We put this down to a voltage drop caused by the long extension leads and demand from the fryers and other equipment in the venue, the cure is not easy to find. I dont look forward to playing one of these gigs as our sound is always compromised, the place was rewired last year but we use the same setup elsewhere and never have a problem.

I have one of these in for repair, its branded as a Behringer, made in China.

Bought my Antigua finish Jazz Bass new in 1978 from Carlsboro Music, paid £350.

I used to play in a few ballroom/dance halls with sprung floors, some had the bandstand built directly onto the sprung floor. When the crowd started to dance, the spring reverb unit in my amp would crash and clang like crazy!

Anything Motown or Billy Ocean will fill the floor immediately.

"I have not rehearsed the set list at all but we can play a completely different set of songs that I know" , in the wrong keys for our female vocalist as well! "I don't drive if it might be frosty" , well mate we are not making an 80 mile round trip to pick you up. Did you bring your Gretsch? (Early Sixties covers band) No, just the Les Paul and Marshall. "Oh I am going on a three month trip" starting the week after our first gig, with six months of gigs booked.

My amps are a Hiwatt from 1972 and an HH from 1974, I bought the HH in 1976 and the Hiwatt in 1998, used regularly now but both stood unused for over ten years when I had a break from performing. Neither have ever been opened up and they work perfectly despite the HH being rattled around the country during the seventies. On the other hand our 2013 Behringer mixer was faulty after a year.

double post

I've had this happen a number of times and usually just put up with it because I couldn't work out the cause, once or twice I've moved my cabinet onto a table/stand or tilted it back which helped. Having a proper sound check is invaluable, the same song each time so you can get an idea of the room acoustics, don't play too loud either, good luck with that though.

My result said Geddy Lee, I could not name any of his numbers let alone play one, the only similarity is we both use an old Jazz Bass. Despite that I sound nothing like Geddy Lee, I was hoping for Duck Dunn but half expecting Gene Simmons, rubbish quiz!