lozkerr

I've decided to treat myself to an Electro-Harmonix Big Bass Muff, as the distortion pedals I've tried so far have been a bit on the weedy side. I can't think of anything else I'm likely to want. This week, at least 😉

There's a pretty good chance I'll make it through next year - I've just moved house and the legal fees have severely depleted my gear fund savings. That, plus having to buy a lot of new furniture means that I won't exactly be flush for quite a while now.

Fundraising gig for International Women's Day at Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar last night. Pretty packed, lots of people dancing and a great vibe. VID-20241125-WA0000.mp4

Same here. I'd tried a couple of six-strings a while back, and had another go when I bought my Stingray earlier this year. Both times I found the neck on the sixer was far too wide for my girly wee hands as I use the B string a lot. So I bought the five-string Stingray and I'm chuffed to bits with it. It's far punchier than my Fender Jazz Deluxe.

Well for me, it's the neck width. I've played fives for quite a while now and can't see myself ever going back to a four, but I don't have hands the size of shovels and I'd struggle with a six. And yes, I have tried a few.

A memorial night at Colinton Bowling Club in Edinburgh for a friend in another band we know who died last year. Five bands, with our friend's old band as headliners. The stage was surrounded with Christmas lights and looked very pretty: We broke our record for packing down and loading out -35 minutes from the last note being played to driving out of the car park. That might sound a lot, but as the gear included four Hughes & Kettner PA cabs, a heavy amp rack and the lights as well as our backlines, I think we did pretty well. Here's my bass rig - Sterling Stingray, Eden WTP600 amp atop a 210 and 118 cab:

Done it! Just shelled out for a Shure GLXD16+. If it arrives when Gear4Music say it will - not always a given - it'll have its first outing at next weekend's gigs. Though I'll be taking cables along, just in case...

I think I'm going to have to snap up a wireless unit pronto if I'm going to have a chance in 2025...

I use New Moon: https://www.newmooninsurance.com/

Exactly this 👆👆 When I joined my punk band, we had a lot of covers in the set, even though we wanted to be an originals band. We kept them going for a wee while while we added originals to lengthen our set to a minimum of 45 minutes, but now that we're there, most of the covers are on death row. We're keeping two that really chime with our vibe but the rest will go as we get new originals gig-ready. We might add two or three I - IV - V three-chord bangers to rotate as encores, but they won't be part of the main set. As we lengthen our set to 60 and then 90 minutes, they'll all be originals unless a cover really gels with us. Get out there, get started and then shape things in the direction you want to go.

A little late, but we played a multi-band gig at Legends in Edinburgh on Saturday for a fundraiser for Gazan families. Great atmos and a seriously pumped crowd. My friendly and approachable stage persona was in full swing.

I'm very lucky in that my partner is also a musician - guitar for fun and baritone in a brass band for the serious stuff - so there's no problem with having gear around, buying toys or with evenings being taken up with rehearsals, gigs or band admin. It's a mahoosive difference from when I was married - back then, I couldn't call my life my own. Model railways were my thing at the time and I hated having to sneak in a wagon that cost all of 20 quid. But that made me more determined not to be completely ground down... not a great basis for a healthy relationship.

Thanks! Just given Thomann some beer tokens for a strip. Hopefully they'll arrive before next Saturday's gig.

Seconded @Jack I really fancy a nice red fiery glow underneath mine!

He thought it might have been the snare mic feeding back through the drummer's and my monitor. Possibly, but I think we need to work it through with cool heads. Said mic was an SM57 rather than a drum mic - I'm not enough of a PA expert to know if that's relevant or not. The singers' mics were feeding back too and they were a fair way away from us. The way we set up was to have everything going through our own XR18, with the outputs going into the PA power amp. We've done it that way at other gigs and it's worked well, but something was definitely wrong yesterday. I video all our gigs and I've just had a look at yesterday's footage. The FoH sound is awful - bass and guitars randomly cutting in and out, vocals buried deep in the mix, drums sounding like the Battle of Jutland... we deffo need to dig into what went wrong yesterday.