radiophonic

As Phil says above, but also (depending on construction method and materials) surrounds can rot, large cones (especially) can sag, glue can give way and crossover components can drift out of tolerance. That said, I have studio monitors built in the 1960s which work perfectly and sound tremendous. I wouldn't worry.

Most of my band is acoustic or primarily reliant on monitors for stage volume. Both myself and our guitarist actively try and keep the stage volume down. Hartke LH500, typically around 9 - 10 o'clock in to 1 or 2 x 2 x 10 cabs (depending on stage size). I wouldn't want to be louder than this on stage. FOH is usually through a PA anyway. The cabs are a bit underpowered though, so it's partly defensive - I don't want to fry the voice coils. It's worth remembering that not all volume controls are created equally too - some amps give nothing much extra past about 12 o'clock anyway, so >10 o'clock might be effectively wide open.

This is all part of a wider pattern that I file under 'some people are just dicks'. Giving the support band a raw deal doesn't help you - the audience will be far more up for it if all the bands are worth listening to. It doesn't help the venue either. Happy punters will consume more beer surely? Even if you piss the venue's sound-guy off, deliberately sabotaging your sound is completely unprofessional. You are both trying to work and if you have poor monitor sound it is his job to fix that problem. We all have to deal with frayed tempers at work and 'prima donna guitarist' is hardly front page news. See also: charging bands to use the house PA but not letting them bring their own (superior) one; telling out of town bands there are cabs at the venue they can use and then relying on other bands on the bill to provide them; refusing to DI the bass even though there are enough channels on the desk (because there are several bands and you can't be bothered) or telling the band in advance that a suitable desk is available and then just shrugging when there aren't enough channels (even though we offered to bring our own). We use our own sound guy whenever possible.

It's sometimes just fun to drop something in or to hear a hint of something inappropriate and see what happens when you push it a bit further. I'm playing Hungarian folk music at the moment and a bass part carried a hint of Steve Harris in the galloping triplets, so I deliberately went at it in an Iron Maiden style. The drummer and the guitarist spotted it immediately, but it works so it's staying.

I'm currently torn between the MXR and the TC spectracomp. The latter being the simplest control panel evah. The guy who runs the ovnilab site doesn't like TC though (so doesn't really review the pedals) and I've been told that the way the switch is mounted to the circuit board makes them non-repairable (this was in relation to the Flashback Delay that I have). My needs are a bit different from the OP though.

I went through all of this and it does seem to be a rock guitar player thing. Very annoying. I don't miss those days at all. The only upside is that at least it prepares you for the reality of small gigs where you need to be able to deliver the set without being able to hear a single note you are playing. My advice is to use the power of No. Just tell them you aren't having it. Then just don't show up if they still insist on being dicks about it. I used to practice with a 12 piece band with 4 horns and 3 singers, in my office at work (at a University, you can get away with it)! I used a 1 x 15 combo, the guitarist used a Fender Champ and everything was clean and clear. 4 horns are pretty loud - but the guitar player knew enough to not try and drown them out and even with a small combo could cut through. Once the volume goes too high, the reflections in the room just turn everything to mooosh anyway. Pointless.

I need a compressor and it must be foot-switchable. It's for boosting / sustaining harmonics largely, so I need to switch it in and out during specific passages. I have an old BOSS CS 2 that in theory does everything I need, except for the fact that it badly thins out the sound even when in bypass mode. Does anyone have experience of other compact pedal type compressors that offer a cleaner bypass? I have some more modern Boss pedals and these seem OK in that respect and I definitely recall bypass issues with an old CE2 I had as well, so maybe this is something that has been addressed since the 90s. Maybe the CS 3? Any recommendations that won't break the bank?

[quote name='rhcp128' timestamp='1480975752' post='3188720'] They were 1399 on the Fender website, but pretty much everybody had them around 1299-1329. Pre-brexit they were in the 1200 range. It's more than a 25% increase. That's quite a lot for 6 months and at the 1500 range I could argue there are more impressive options out there. Just my two cents... [/quote] I picked up a fretless USA Std Jazz for 1250 post-brexit. There didn't seem to be many left in the UK and I assumed they were selling them out to clear the way for a new line. I was told by a sales guy in a major store that Fender built in a price hike on the assumption that the £ would take a hit and that they were expecting prices to remain stable post-brexit. What are the US prices on these? Are they a hike on the USA Std book prices?

I often get approached by other bass players at gigs. Usually the opening line is something like 'the venue said there was a cab I could borrow, so I didn't bring one...' . Other than that, [i]some [/i]bands have this real insider vibe, where they view others on the bill as competition, in a way that the audience clearly don't. Bass players and drummers seem to be the least susceptible to that kind of delusion IME, possibly because they are the most likely to be sharing gear on split bills. I never think of asking about BC for some reason - normally there's too much practical stuff to deal with. Someone from here got in touch last week though and I think he's coming down to a little town centre freebee were doing at the weekend, with a view to doing some split gigs in the future. That kind of mutually benificial networking is always welcome.

[quote name='Marillionred' timestamp='1480703372' post='3186632'] Had a fairly similar experience a few years ago on a Glastonbudget audition gig there. Freezing cold Sunday night, three Leicester acts with their own audience, us from Nottingham could only muster up a few hardy souls to travel. Local bands fans left after mates had played leaving us with the soundman and doorman to play to, pretty much. At least we got a few useable videos for YouTube out of it but it was a tad soul destroying. And no we didn't get the Glastonbudget slot - how good you were considered was based on how many fans you brought, it seems. [/quote] Yes - the 'never mind the quality, feel the width' approach. Always a great experience! There was a small silver lining. Although the gig was a bust, the guitarist / leader of the opening act (Monk, from Derby) has declared himself our biggest fan, which is surprising given how we have absolutely nothing common with his band musically at all. Also, at least we didn't travel all the way from London for this - unlike the other band on the bill (Heel). They had a considerably worse night than us, I'm sure. Fingers crossed for Coventry tomorrow night.

Triainwreck of a gig at the Shed in Leicester. Good venue, decent PA, amiable sound guy, what could go wrong? The two local headliners pulled out on the day, taking any likely midweek audience with them, leaving the three out of town acts to play to each other. As the highest billed of the original 5, we were forced to headline and yet again somebody needed a bass amp. No parking outside the venue so had to resort to NCP and the headline slot pushed me into the 4+ hours bracket leaving me stung for 15 quid at the end of the night. Icing on the cake. Why am I doing this to myself? I can now say I headlined The Shed, I suppose.

I have a '90 or '91 - one of the earliest 6 bolt jobs anyway, with a serial number that overlaps with the earlier model. Trans Teal, gloss neck, string dampers, metal battery cover, 2 band EQ. I've played it in every band I've been in since then and tried many more recent ones (later 90s, 00s) in shops, but none have a neck as nice as mine or are as nicely balanced.

Like anyone who has been playing for 30+ years, I've had my fair share of empty rooms, dodgy electrics and alcoholically incapacitated guitar players, but the one that really sticks in my mind is when I band I played for in the late 80s was invited back to a pub venue after a successful first gig. In the interim between the booking and the show, we discovered that a) The pub was the preferred local haunt of a particular motorcycle gang (definitely a gang rather than a club) b ) A popular member of said gang had met his end in a bike crash c) His wake would be held during our gig d) His favourite song was Freebird, so learn it. We had a few days but couldn't find a practice room at short notice so we booked the back of a pub for an afternoon. Half way through there was almighty crash and the window of the practice space shattered... To reveal someone (whose favorite song clearly wasn't Freebird) standing on the balcony of the tower block opposite, brandishing a rifle. He'd just shot the window out. I'm not sure how we got through it on the night, but we took the hint.

Just to follow up on this. I've settled on an LH500 and 2 x 2 x 10 XL cabs. Single cab for practice sessions / smaller gigs and both cabs when needed. Fairly portable - although the amp is a bit of a brute - and the whole lot fits in a mini provided I only take one bass out. I used the single cab at a Rough Trade in-store and it just about coped when the idiot sound guy refused to DI me. That was just about the limit of what it could do though. Adding a second cab adds a whole lot more low end and I've had to dial back the volume knob considerably. It's hard to imagine a situation where this rig won't cope (idiot sound guys notwithstanding). I'd certainly recommend Hartke gear based on the handful of gigs I've put it through so far, especially for the price. I'd have preferred the HyDrive cabs, but I couldn't afford 2 of them.

Saturday night saw us opening for Hunderground - a classic rock band with a difference.The difference being that the songs are only classics IF you grew up in Hungary in the 1980s. Basically the entire Hungarian population of Nottingham were in the house. Some set adjustments were required - we ditched the Indian, English and Jewish derived material and stuck to the Hungarian tunes (know your audience). This necessitated some bass-free acoustic material sandwiched between the noisier songs that I've already learned and that did take some of the momentum away from my point of view. The rest of the band were therefore more warmed up than me as we entered the home straight and (lets say) I now know what my upper speed limit for playing Steve Harris style galloping triplets is. Great atmosphere though, a good reception and we got served Goulash before we went on. I call that a good gig.

[quote name='bazztard' timestamp='1479788691' post='3179265'] yes get another xl210 and stack them vertically this is mine [/quote] How stable is that? My head is a lot heavier than yours so I think I'd be risking braining the drummer! I see you're in Adelaide - where do you play out? My Wife's from Glen Osmond and we always struggle to find anything to do music-wise when we visit family.

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1479731124' post='3178758'] If you like your sound and just want more of it - get another of the same. [/quote] Well partly it's a question of more displacement. Partly it's a question of a bigger low end - of whether another 2 x 10 ( 4 x 10 overall) will give me more low end overall then adding a 1 x 15 (2 x 10 + 1 x 15). A Stingray pumped through aluminium cones, with plenty of current gives me enough bite, but I really want to fatten up the lows a little when playing loud. TBH, having heard (on many occasions) Shellac's Bob Weston playing into his usual 2 x 400 Crown mono power amps > separate 15" Dietz cabs and again into an SVT 8 x 10, I'm not sure there's that much in it once you have surplus headroom and a big propagating surface. 2 x 2 x 10 would be easier to transport, that's for sure.

[quote name='barkin' timestamp='1479726639' post='3178708'] Yup, parallel. 2 x 8 Ohm = 4 Ohm. [/quote] Cheers. Now I just need to decide on the cab configuration... Another 2 x 10 probably.

I'm running one of these with a single 8 Ohm 2 x 10 XL cab. The amp is rated at 350 watts into 8 Ohms. My question is, if I add a second cab (another 8 Ohm XL - not sure what config yet) and connect it to the second speaker output, will the amp still be seeing 8 Ohms or is this now 4 Ohm (500 W)? IOW, are these wired in parallel. I'm assuming 'yes', but the manual is uninformative. The reason I ask is, that for reasons of portability and flexibility, I've become a fan of 2 x 10 cabs - so if I ever want to run extension cabs off each output (say 2 x 2 x 10 off each channel) and I'm right, I'd have 16 Ohm per channel but series + parallel would bring it back to 8 Ohm. Any info appreciated. == John

Now I'm back to gigging and the initial excitement has worn off, I'm re-experiencing all the irritation that I'd conveniently forgotten. Saturday night found us playing an exhibition opening in Rough Trade record store (Nottingham). So far so good. Decent sized crowd. Good stage. Very nice PA. Everything well designed for it's purpose. Unfortunately the sound guy (and I use the term loosely) appeared to be clueless. Neither myself nor our guitar player were put through the PA (no explanation) so in both cases we had to rely on excessive stage volume to project over mic'd/DI'd keys, violin, 2 vocalists and drums. Practical upshot - I couldn't hear [i]anything [/i]except for myself and the barest hint of vocal in the monitior. I watched the drummer's hands and counted bars all night. The rather cool audience seemed to get into it, but it was adverse conditions for me.

Great. Music is cheap to teach and 300 million will go a long way. In terms of education budget, it's a tiny outlay. I was at school in the 80s and we had nothing at all. The 'music department' at my comprehensive consisted of a piano and some bongos. Some posh kids whose parents could afford it got private lessons but although I'd have loved to have had some tuition at that age, I might as well have wished I could fly. Both me and my wife play and think music is important (and we have the money) so my kids will get tuition if they show any interest, but if it gives somebody the chance to play who wouldn't otherwise get it, then it's money well spent IMO.

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1478855488' post='3172096'] i only join bands with no identity or any apparently clue what is going on or what will go on... [/quote] I've joined several bands where that has[i] turned out [/i]to be the case, I don't think it was intentional though!

First gig with a new band last night - I only joined about a week ago and we'd played together twice. No pressure. They are breaking me in / testing me out gradually with some low profile gigs, before a whole slew in December. Short set in a quite groovy underground arts centre type set-up. Several bands, some solo guitar, some poets and guy playing Chapman Stick over loops. Lots of quick changeovers. Very small stage. The bass player in another band generously offered amp share, which helped out the sound guy, but ultimately not me! He being a dubby reggae player, a wholesale settings mismatch resulted. Basically I couldn't hear a note for the whole of the first song, just a fog of low end, exacerbated by some complicated acoustics in the room . Fortunately the rest of the band are very well rehearsed and the rest of the set went ok - once the the sound guy had found our levels (some unusual instrumentation to deal with) - and the audience were enthusiastic and surprisingly numerous for a Sunday night.

Well I've taken the plunge and gone for a Hartke LH500 and a 2 x 10 XL cab. That should get me through the weekend (2 days of recording*, one practice and a small gig). After that, I can look at getting a s/h 1 x 15 or a second 2 x 10. The amp head [i]is[/i] heavy, but even with a second cab, will easily fit in the back of my small car and, even at new price, came in at less than the lightweight 1 x 12 combo I was being punted. It's not compact, but it's compact enough. It's not like I've got an 8 x 10 + SVT blocking the front door. I also just remembered that there is a very nice studio quality 1U rack-mount compressor, lurking in my cellar, so the 500 might be getting some company to supersede the inbuilt limiter. [size=2]* 25 minutes of recording plus 16 hours of sitting around listening to guitarists argue about overdubs.[/size]

Sorry to be negative, but my experience was pretty frustrating. I rang them to ask bout a TC amp they were selling s/h and was told to come in and bring a bass - which I did, blowing out my lunch hour. Unfortunately, when I got there I wasn't allowed to try it out because I didn't want a head and enclosure, I really wanted a combo and an extension cab an the TC was too coloured for me. What I actually needed to do was spend more money than I had. There was no attempt to establish musical stye / sound preferences, just 'buy this' and when didn't bite, the guy just wandered off into his office. So I left with nothing - and for the crime of totally wasting my time, they will never get a penny of my business.