Stub Mandrel

Last rehearsal of the year(?) with the originals lot tonight. But now I'm choosing the versions of the new songs for Bendricks Rock to share, so the guitarists can be 100% sure to learn the wrong ones. 😶

I'm seeing as little as 0.6 to 0.5m being recommended for 'living room' calibration. Our vocalist has said he's happy to lend me his reference mic and I've found better software.

Good call. I asked Chatgpt for advice and that was one recommendation. Another was to use software that allows me to calibrate using a reference mic... I know someone who may lend me one.

Got me googling as well! 😁

I've been experimenting with testing microphones. I used a Scarlett interface into my laptop and Friture to produce Mel & A-weighted spectrograms. I used a HH Vector 8" producing pink noise over bluetooth as a sound source. Speaker and mic 1.25m apart and 1.25m above the floor in large room with lots of soft furnishings, curtains. Most obvious thing was the speaker had limitations, as you could see the same notches across all the mics. The flatest response was... a £30 generic BM800 mid-sized condenser microphone. Often used with 5V from a PC, these run well on 48V phantom power and are very sensitive. Lots of hacks for their circuit or putting larger inserts in them. I haven't modded this yet, but it gave the biggest signal and flattest curve with widest frequency response of all the mics I tested... I think this gives the best idea of the HH Vector's output. Note the dips at 450 and 550Hz which I guess may be the crossover frequency. My other condenser mic - Behringer C2, used flat and with low cut, which drops around 3dB from around 100Hz ish. Interestingly the 550 dip is not very pronounced. I think I need a better white noise source before repeating the experiment... things are going on for different types of mic, but I don't have confidence the sound source is flat enough to draw meaningful conclusions on anything but the sensitivity and the extent of the high/low frequency response. If anyone can recommend the ideal spectrogram settings, better software (Friture has no manual and appears to lack a simple save screenshot function) or any advice at all, all welcome!

Deck the Halls with boughs of Holly fits War Pigs perfectly...

The Starchers

The choice of Klingon bass players across the galaxy.

Had a good one. Took my Squier Standard Jazz with old style mutes to do Brown Eyed Girl (sorry... it's actually a lot of fun to play). Some fun new songs, Be Good to Yourself, I'm a Man, Roxette... Also took my Epiphone Embassy... singer and guitarist's eyes nearly popped out, then they heard it. Begged me to play it at gigs!

Cardiff has got The Spunkles. "The Spunkles are coming, across the land! The Spunkles are coming, they're a nasty little band!"

Nothing to do with bingeing the advent calendar? 😁

Not always. I'm thinking of Lemmy-era Hawkwind where he often carried the melody.

The Sex Pistils* *botanically correct band.

Why is it that DJs are pathologically unable to tell that their PA is distorting... let alone have any idea about EQ.

Looks a chilled place.

Most covers you pretty much have a rhythm to follow. Blues and originals, I get more opportunities to be creative. One example, I vary one shuffle based song by dropping in a triplet in a different place in the bar each verse. Was watching another band recently and their bass player did exactly the same.

He died so long ago... his influence is fading.

Goo Goo Dolts

Now that's a creative excuse 🤣

All those woke music fans cancelling Christmas this year...

I wasn't so much highlighting the importance of rhythm keeping, but thinking of the wide range of rythmic possibilities. It feels like we lack the vocabulary to discuss rhythm the same way as we do harmony.

Melt Loaf

Played the singer's local. Was a weird setup. Lead guitarist's pedalboard was very noisy Went down well, helped by various friends of the band. Manager kept videoing us and was right up vlose and trying to get us to look into the lens which was pretty distracting at times. Just rehearsals now until mid-january.

Geat Loaf (for fans of Bēowulf).

More variations than you can shake a stick at on Temu. Mine was about £19.