radiophonic

I've got an Moog MF101 filter. It sounds great, but it is famously hissy, even with an isolated power supply. I assume this is due to the pre-amp and exacerbated by the lack of shielding (wooden side panels). In order to keep the noise down when not engaged, I'm currently running it inside a loop using a Boss LS2 but, noise aside, I rather like the pre-amp and I was wondering whether running a noise gate might be the solution. The TC sentry looks promising, with toneprint options. Anyone tried this and are there any issues with gates that I've not considered?

Small world. Matt Goom drummed in my very first band back in the late 1980s. I only just googled him when I recognised the name in your post. I had no idea he'd gone so far. He was a well known local scene player at the time and definitely slumming it with us even then!

The price drops on some of the pedals are pretty amazing. The rebadged Behringer stuff is now <30 quid! £65 for a Spectracomp? The MK2 Flashback and HoF are both only £90... Pity I'm so skint at the moment because these are pretty serious bargains. Not far off s/h prices in many cases. Unfortunately the Polytune Clip has been a fail for me. I just cannot get it to remain stable in my real world situation - there are no gaps in our set and I need to retune during a drum intro and have it right before that first guitar chord. Back to the ole Boss for me.

Nothing since August, but now prices have markedly dropped on TC pedals.... Must Resist.

We played the opening night of a 'new' (read: very old, reopening) venue in Nottingham. The Square Centre. It was a Monday night and it seemed more like a dry run for testing out the live sound rig, live recording and logistics but due to the proprietor owning a very large array of big old amps, I got to play through an old Ampeg Fridge, which was completely awesome. In fact - just in case the various bass players wanted different stage positions - he had two of them. One each side of the drums. The other bands both commented on how good the bass sounded out front - and being a post-rock type of evening, it was a pretty bass player oriented. I couldn't comment because all the other players opted to use their own rigs for some reason. No actual stage, just a floor area in what I think used to be studio live room, but a good room to play in. A bit odd for us since we rehearse there and felt like a play through with other people present. A bunch of technical problems with both guitarists caused a few squeaky moments (hitting the drive pedal = no sound at all, possible creeping death of power tubes - that kind of thing). Not much of a crowd either (Monday night, so not unexpected) but a nice vibe all the same. I hope it takes off because I'd definitely play there again. Very different feel to the usual rock club / pub.

IME you want an analogue octaver, not digital. It's a totally different thing (and brings a world of other headaches, so keep the POG as well). Gated fuzz. Something really spitty. Preferably run in parallel with the octaver. There was an Okto Nojs for sale on here recently, which does both. WRT filters. Personally I've had more joy with LP filters than with BP like the MXR. I did find the MXR very good for funky finger-style playing and of course YMMV, but ideally a 4-pole LP design and the option for expression control over the sweep . A Source Audio Manta would give you all the (digital) filter options you ever need in one fairly compact box. It's cleaner than a Moog (my filter of choice), but far more convenient and super quiet. EHX Enigma looks interesting too for the same money. Not tried it, but I believe it's all analogue.

Saturday was Ye Olde Salutation Inn in Nottinhgam. We opened the Metal night - even though we aren't metal. Load in is always a PITA due to there being little on-street parking, exorbitant NCP charges and the stage being upstairs. I blagged a lift though, so I even managed a couple of pints. Decent (although very loud) sound. Friendly and helpful sound guy too. I guess our heaviest material just about passes on an occasion like this and being openers, we got all the people who'd shown up for the later bands. They stayed and even clapped, so it was OK. Hard to imagine we'll get repeat business from them though - it was pretty much a metalcore crowd. We played OK despite a few technical issues and a misunderstanding by me about an intro but I felt oddly detached by the final couple of songs and had to force the energy a bit. My glasses keep sliding down my face too - this is a major distraction at the moment. This is only gig #2 for me with this band so it's all about finding my place on stage and dealing with the realities of playing the music at much higher volume than I'm used to.

That really is the downside of the US bar band world. Purgatory usually only lasts 45 minutes for a UK originals band... although it still seems like 3.5 hrs.

I think so. It's a real shame because the music is good and also quite unusual and I get to do quite a bit of stretching out. I even got complimented on my playing after Saturday's gig. It's just everything else about being in the band is various shades of annoying. I'm already playing with another gigging band and the vibes are incomparable.

I played my final ever gig with the Hungarian prog-folk band at Whitwell Festival yesterday. The gig represented a microcosm of all the reasons I'd decided to leave. A mixture of not seizing opportunities, letting bad luck get your way and minor details like not giving the bass player a set list all contributed. They also showed up with my intended replacement too, which I thought was a bit on the nose. There was bad luck, in that we were on the indoor stage at exactly the point it stopped raining - having been persistently pouring all afternoon. This coincided with start of a very popular novelty / comedy band on the main stage. Didn't stand a chance audience wise. The organisers clocked it and rejigged the timings to prevent the same thing happening to the guy after us, but it was out of our hands really. The monitor sound seemed good to me, but the singer was complaining - and I mean complaining - rather than sucking it up and giving it her best shot. Nobody likes to watch a moaner. I finally got a set list three songs in, which was then abandoned due to time being wasted moaning. The thing is, my wife filmed us and the sound was absolutely fine. Performance was OK considering we were pretty under-rehearsed (another bug-bear). Out on a curates egg and off to pastures new.

Yes, it's on bass. It might be instrument specific of course since it's relying on neck resonance. Sometimes it works, but it fails often enough that I can't rely on it in a gig situation. Pity because I could use the extra slot on the board....

There's the problem, right there. We get on fine but unless we're at a gig, I don't really hang out with the bands I play in.

I have a Polytune clip - and I don't know if this is a general issue with clip-ons - but it isn't that happy with drop tuning. It's fast and accurate down to Eb, but when I go to Db on the bottom string, it regularly loses the signal. Since I have to re-tune mid-set, during a drum segue, I've gone back to a tuner on the board for safety's sake. I'd prefer a clip on though.

I think he was in shock!

Oh yes. That's the stick grabber. There's another guy too, who is generally OK.

Or both. Separately and equally. He actually ripped the drumstick out of our drummer's hand during the soundcheck. It's not like he'd asked him to stop playing first either.

Friday was the first gig with an originals band I tried out for a month ago. We were nominally headlining, but effectively playing to the second - much younger - band's crowd, which is less than ideal but they did stay and listen despite us not really being metal enough for them. We front loaded with a couple of shorter/ heavier songs before stretching out into our more epic direction. I flubbed in a few places - partly down to only having played with them 3 times, partly down to the drummer introducing a load of extra and wholly unexpected fills and partly due to the reliably awful on-stage sound thanks to the reliably obnoxious sound-guy. Anyone who has played the Maze in Nottingham will know who I mean. I can only assume he hates rock music. This band seems to be all about being thrown in at the deep end. Live multi-track recording this week and another gig next week. Not much opportunity to iron out the wrinkles...

Unless the music was very demanding - either in terms of quantity or technical complexity, I doubt one band would be enough for me musically. I'm careful to not over-reach though. I'm currently in three bands. Only one them is proprietorial about my time and that's the one I'm leaving. I'm in a start-up band that is fairly intermittent and mostly about writing and arranging at this stage, which isn't heavy in terms of time commitment. I've also recently joined a fairly busy local originals band who are deliberately pushing their live schedule and have made that clear - and they already knew I played with other people. Provided I'm free to rehearse in their regular slot, there's no issue. Everyone has a job and a life, so they are just as likely to be unavailable as me if there's a gig at short notice. The band I'm leaving are very rigid and tend to interpret external demands on my time as lack of commitment, even though nothing has ever clashed, I've never missed a gig and it's their rehearsals that are the biggest pain in the neck because they insist on Saturday afternoons for their own convenience.

From the press release it sounded to me like they were running low on some components. They said that they are manufacturing until their existing stocks run out. I can recall Moog buying up NOS chips for one of their pedals (can't remember which one). I'm pretty delighted I picked up the MF101 a couple of months back (pressie from my wife - and the only piece of musical gear she has ever bought me). Given that I'd only just acquired a Manta, it was the single most unnecessary pedal imaginable, but the sound is like nothing else. I'd like a freqbox too, but by the time I can afford one... I won't be able to afford one.

I took the plunge on a set of these at the weekend. I've started playing in a band that both drop tunes and changes tuning during the set - I have a 4 bar drum intro to retune in - so the fairly high tension and claimed tuning stability was a selling point. First impressions are that they are noticeably smoother in feel than the Pro-Steels I was using before and the tension feels subjectively tighter when dropping to C# (a good thing). They also held tuning immediately - no need to wait and retune. Not initially as bright as stainless but very full sounding and much less fret rattle (which I'm assuming would also go for regular nickel strings - I've only ever played SS and flats). I'm entering a period of fairly heavy gigging and rehearsing with a couple of bands, so I'll be interested to see what the longevity is like in the hot and sweaty real world. Not cheap at all, but if they last, they could be a good way to go. Otherwise it'll be back to XL Pro-steels as the best compromise for the money

Turn down that gig in Dereham in 1989. It will go wrong in ways you are incapable of predicting.

I've just given notice to a band that I've been involved in since I got back into playing a couple of years ago. I'd intended to play the final festival gig we had booked this summer and then tell everyone, but then I started getting texts about availability for exactly the kind of gigs that have killed my motivation in the first place. I had to reply by text because i was away, but leaving them hanging seemed like a worse option. They are already trying to talk me out of it (draft video for the EP etc) so I expect the next rehearsal to be fairly stressful. Unfortunately, playing some fairly evolved derivation of folk music puts you on the map of promoters who are really only equipped to put on singer songwriter types - one or two acoustic instruments and a couple of voices at most. They want us to play, but they don't want to provide a suitable PA or monitors. They want us to play quietly and they really want us to play acoustically. In other words they want a completely different band playing all our material rather than shelling out for a decent set up. Plus, endless floor singers. Don't get me started on the subject of floor singers. The real killer though was weekend rehearsals - I've got young kids, so giving up several hours on a Saturday afternoon is a big commitment and I'm the only one who is affected by it since we rehearse in the singer and guitarist (couple) house and everyone else's family is older and independent. The cost benefit just didn't add up. The music is really good but everything else is a pain in the neck. On the upside., I'm already rehearsing with someone else (more sociable hours, I was already a big fan of their music and had seen them play a load of times and they approached me to try out). Three rehearsal in and I've got a gig next weekend. Plus I have a start-up band that is ticking over slowly in the background. I'm busy enough.