Stylon Pilson

My experience is that all of the drummers I've played with have been perfectly sane individuals. Obviously there's been a fair range of ability, but they've all been perfectly pleasant human beings. S.P.

Hi Mark, the first paragraph of Day 168 seems to be duplicated. S.P.

Haven't looked at other peoples' feedback, because that way you can be sure that my opinions are my own! Firstly, that font is an abomination. Maybe it's just rendering weird on my machine, but it's not enjoyable to read. The thick diagonals on the lowercase 'a' and 's' leave it feeling really unbalanced. Apart from the front page and the gallery, there's apparently no images on any of the pages. You need something, even if it's just a band logo. Also, the image on the front page looks like it's poor resolution and has been scaled up. Try to get something a bit crisper. You could use typography to liven things up a bit - for example, on your "About" page, put your band name in bold. On the "songs" page, put the band names in italics. "Contact us" page is just a bunch of links. Again, spruce it up with icons and such like. When I shrunk my window so that the popup menu appeared, it didn't work properly. When I click on it, I can see that something appears, but only the top half of "HOME" is visible. S.P.

Another option would be to have an ABC switch on your pedalboard so that each instrument is permanently connected up, and you can select one at a time. You could then buy a couple of volume pedals and put them before the switch on two of the channels. This would allow you to normalise the volumes. S.P.

Featured blog! Nice! Congratulations, Mark! S.P.

I am seriously enjoying day 109! The Jimi Hendrix guitar line - brilliant! Really excited to find out how things go with Julia too - you've really built the tension quite masterfully throughout these last two entries. S.P.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1462538007' post='3043865'] That is a brilliant idea... how much are those? [/quote] Looks like a pack of 25 costs about £100 (from [url=http://www.packability.co.uk/Shockwatch-Impact-Indicators-Labels]here[/url]). S.P.

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1462125184' post='3040475'] I've tried a TON of filters and MXR is by far the best I've found for slap. What are you using at the moment? [/quote] Currently using a Mooer Bass Sweeper. It's an inexpensive pedal, just really intended as an experiment to test the waters. S.P.

I need to figure out a way of taming slap. My current approach is a bit slapdash and causing me problems. Here's what I do: I have a PJ bass. Most of the time I run it with the P pickup on full and the J on about 4/10. Then, when I want to slap, I just turn the P pickup all the way down. This compensates for the increased volume. I also have an envelope filter which adds a nice squelch, but seems to suck a lot of the low end out. The end result is that when I'm slapping, I'm finding that I don't really have an acceptable amount of control over either volume or EQ. I've got a few possible approaches rattling around in my head: 1. A simple compressor would obviously tame my volume issues in a trice, and likewise an EQ pedal would allow me to restore balance. But then, I'd rather prevent the low end getting lost in the first place, than try to restore it later. 2. A variant on this approach would be to get a compressor to control volume, and then shop around for a replacement envelope filter that gives me the frequency response that sounds more pleasing. 3. Alternatively, I'm thinking that the Dunlop MXR Bass Envelope Filter pedal might be a one-pedal solution to the problem. It would replace my current envelope filter, and having the independent dry and wet level controls would basically allow me to satisfy my three requirements of (a) enough wet signal to sound suitably funky, ( enough dry signal to sound suitably bassy, and (c) enough overall volume to match my volume when not slapping. The downside to this is that there's no compression so the slap volume is still going to be a little inconsistent. My dream solution to this would be a single pedal that's primarily an envelope filter with the capability to blend dry signal back in, and an integrated compressor that follows it up. Then I just have a one-button "slap mode" pedal solution. My questions are: 1. Does such an integrated pedal exist? If not, 2. What do you think of the idea of getting the Dunlop MXR Bass Envelope Filter and placing a compressor after it? It's not a one-button solution, which is the drawback as I see it. 3. What do YOU do to solve this problem? Thanks. S.P.

I'd also vote for going there. One of the friendliest music shops I've ever been in. S.P.

I can confirm that it's in Eb. And also sounds great on a fretless. S.P.

Surely this is an argument for the sender to have with the courier? Why are you getting involved? For all you know, the cab was damaged before it even set off. S.P.

This really depends upon how it's going to fit into your room. You can get double guitar stands where they are back to back, which might not work if you wanted to put it in a corner. You can also get double guitar stands where one is in front of the other, and depending upon where you place it, that make it hard to get the back one out. Then there are the guitar stands where they all go in a line, which are very space-efficient, but they tend to be for 5 or more. S.P.

I bet I know what happened here. [quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1460370381' post='3024977'] I did a gig Sat night , & the the sound out front was great apparently after being told to turn up by several people at the sound check.[/quote] When people say you need to turn up, you need to ask yourself whether it would be better to turn something else down. It sounds like you had originally set the volume to be harmonious with the drum kit, and ended up turning it up higher to combat... what exactly? Guitarist, perhaps? You see where I'm going with this? S.P.

Reading all these stories about various hand-related injuries is making me fidget like nobody's business. S.P.

A good starting point is to use something like speedtest.net to test your download and upload speeds - you can check this against your internet package, see if you're getting what you're paying for. S.P.

"Up here the bass is so big and boomy that I can’t quite differentiate between C and B or C# and D." Oh heck I broke out in a cold sweat just reading that. Been there too many times. S.P.

(goes back underground for another 8 hours) S.P.

Personally, I advocate getting onto separate amp+cabs as soon as possible, because then you start opening up new avenues in terms of modularity and flexibility. That said, it really demands a budget of more than £300, unless you're going for the second-hand market. The current line of Fender Rumble combos are also fairly well-received, and might be worth considering. S.P.

I have an Aria Sinsonido and it's pretty cool, so that would get my recommendation. S.P.

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1459268615' post='3014951'] Seems to have been 'edited' a week ago........ - I wonder why? [/quote] You can see from the page history that it was just a template change. It hasn't had any significant content updates for the last two years. That might change today though. Huehuehuehueh. S.P.

I used to have an Electric Blue - the 1x12" version. Nice tone, but it just didn't have enough volume for me. An extension cab would have been an option, but to be honest I was already starting to think about a lightweight rig. The EB weighed about 26kg, I believe, with only a single handle on top, and I was starting to get annoyed with how cumbersome it was to carry over more than a few metres. I am not a strong man, as you can probably tell. S.P.

Assuming that this is a covers band we're talking about, then step one is definitely to see if you can find a dep who can do those 5 gigs, with the promise of potentially more in the future. This will make it clear to the guitarist that the band is not going to tolerate dead weight, and if he can't keep up, then the band will move on without him. For originals bands who are gigging "for the exposure", the situation is slightly more complex. Finding a dep isn't so straightforward. In this scenario, it might be worth considering changing the band lineup in a way that means that the band can still gig in some capacity if the guitarist can't make it - maybe adding a second guitarist or a keyboard player. S.P.

[quote name='lowhand_mike' timestamp='1458656080' post='3009475'] cant say much about the wireless but batteries do tend to suffer from "memory". You should try not to recherge before the battery reaches flat as over time if you, for example, kept recharging when the battery reached 30% eventually the device would switch off when the battery reached 30%, also having batteries connected to a charger for too long (smart phones suffer from this as alot of people leave them plugged in all day at work). Basically batteries should be cycled, full charge then full discharge, this isnt always possible but try and do it regularly. [/quote] This advice is correct for NiCd and NiMH batteries, but not for LiON. For LiON batteries, it's bad for the battery to be fully discharged. Leaving a smartphone on trickle charge all day is actually better for it than running it down to 0% before plugging it in. I should also add that there is a solution to the "memory" effect - if you have an old battery that is suffering from reduced capacity, and you repeatedly full-discharge/full-charge it, then its capacity will increase until it gets back to its original level. My battery charger (a Technoline i-Charger) has a mode that can do this - basically discharge and charge until its capacity stabilises. S.P.

Age in itself doesn't mean anything - it's a proxy for various things like image, commitment, ambitions, influences. If people are turned off based on your age, it means that they're making assumptions about those factors, which in turn means that you haven't been clear about them in the first place. Provide them with the facts, and then they don't have to draw their own conclusions. S.P.