TimR

[quote name='Jonnyboy Rotten' timestamp='1386348277' post='2299156'] Correction - the ebay one is free 48hr delivery within the UK. [/quote] Are you sure? A second class parcel is £2.60.

[quote name='Jonnyboy Rotten' timestamp='1386342741' post='2299048'] [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-Mains-240Volt-Kettle-Plug-IEC-C13-1M-5A-TVs-Monitors-PCs-Adapters-Printers-/281207239898?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item417941f4da"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-Mains-240Volt-Kettle-Plug-IEC-C13-1M-5A-TVs-Monitors-PCs-Adapters-Printers-/281207239898?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item417941f4da[/url] [url="http://www.comms-express.com/products/uk-mains-lead-5amp-iec-female-lead/"]http://www.comms-exp...ec-female-lead/[/url] [/quote] The first item says ask seller for delivery options. The second item is £4.95 for standard delivery and £9.95 for next day delivery. You can't get a lead for £1.50!

I would be surprised if you can buy one for £1.50. B&Q £4.99 Maplins £10.99 I can't think where else you'd get one less than a fiver.

Watch out when you have a 300-500w amp. They don't always have "soft start". This is just a circuit in front of the transformer that prevents a big inrush current when you turn it on. I grabbed a "spare lead" from my bag at a gig. Turned on and nothing. Went through everything and swapped leads with another. All was ok. The drummer chucked the lead in the bin because it was broken (save me from idiots). I fished it out and took it home and left it on the kitchen top to replace the fuse. Fast forward to next gig, same thing happens. Except it was the same lead. My wife had helpfully put it back in my lead bag because it was 'lying around'. Anyway, turns out it was only fused with a 5amp fuse which had blown due to the inrush. My 'normal' one had a 10amp in it. So, check what size fuse your amp needs and don't assume they're all the same.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1386254615' post='2297774'] Thats just not the case IME. If you have a player per track in the song and no overdubs then you can get a whole band down in one take if they are [i]really[/i] good. Usually you will then overdub the vocal - even in Nashville. Then you get to mix, and that will still take upwards of 10 hours for the first track in the EP and if the instrumentation or feel changes much between each song, then subsequent mixes will take as long as likely as not. It can be less you're right, but when it is its because everything worked in the room, and there was no need to make any arrangement choices, not even to help the dynamic though the track, no issues with any of the tracks siting in the mix correctly, and the way you tracked every instrument was such that you needed no real filtering at all. In truth, thats mighty unrealistic IME. And I believe whole heartedly in capturing the sound you want as best you can at the mic! [/quote] That is down to the engineer to explain though. If you have a band turn up and expect to spend a day in the studio and walk away with a finished track, he should be advising them to the contrary. We went into the studio. 2-3 hours of setting up and getting levels. We knocked up about 10 live tracks during the rest of the day. He gave us a live cd of the bare-bones recording to take away and listen to. As you say, that's where the fun starts... Having the band at the mixing stage is asking for trouble, but it's difficult to explain to non technical musicians that they've done the recording and it cost £x for the day but it's now going to cost £y for another 3 days of engineer time. Most of them just don't get it.

Well I guess they're not going to admit it. I would try to appeal to their better nature and suggest as you helped them out a £25 donation for amp hire wouldn't go a miss. If it's the GK 2x10 you're looking at around £120-£180 for a new driver. Ouch! My second hand cab was only £250.

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1386083211' post='2295480'] ... I think the Batt-O-Meter thingy just shows the voltage remaining in the batteries. So anything up to 9v or 18v if it's an instrument running two in parallel (or series, whichever is it). It's basically a voltmeter with a 1/4" jack cable. As for leakage relating to voltage...the general consensus I've read online is that batteries are much more likely to leak when running low (i.e. just before or after they go flat). Hot conditions, like the boot of a car on a sunny day, are also prime contributors to leakage. Allegedly. Nice one! That's a bargain [/quote] So the fact that most pedals run on CMOS technology at 3.5v means you're throwing batteries away when they've still got plenty of life in them. To make best use of the multimeter you need to take regular readings of the battery and take note of the voltage. Then when the device stops working you'll know the minimum voltage it works at and plan your replacement stratedgy. As soon as you use a battery (new it'll read 9.6v) it starts developing internal resistance, they'll read around 8.5 for ages, most devices will operate comfortably at 7.6v. Leakage is more to do with age and storage but yes used ones will have more pressure of hydrogen has in them.

I'm surprised that device doesn't work, it's got a gold plated connector. Seriously though. How does it know what voltage is the minimum required for that particular device. Actually how do you know? I think most devices have led indication on them don't they. I'm not sure how the voltage left in them relates to the likelihood that they will leak. I thought they just leaked.

[quote name='Dom in Somerset' timestamp='1386073191' post='2295241'] Get a copy of Mel Stein's How to Complain. Full of useful advice and case studies. The last time I had any reason to take legal action the small claims court cost about £80 to start proceedings and there could be further costs after that. As a rule don't make any threats you can't (or aren't prepared to)carry out, a solicitor's letter has no legal clout , it is just worded in a way that people find intimidating and shows that you are serious enough to pay for the letter.A full range of legal sounding phrases are outlined in the book. I used it to successfully get damages from a company that destroyed something of mine without spending money on a solicitor. [/quote] Precisely. And the OP hasn't even had a friendly chat with the other Bass player yet. Which should be his first course of action before starting a thread on a forum where everything gets blown out of proportion.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1386068056' post='2295160'] You might find the solicitors letter will cost £25 and still not get any response. [/quote] Indeed. As I say depends on who you know, how much the speaker is worth, whether the other bass player has a job etc etc. Me. I'd just buy another speaker and get on with the rest of my life.

[quote name='Les' timestamp='1386065511' post='2295111'] You defo need to speak to him first. He might be a stand up guy and completely mortified by what's happened and want to put it right. We can put the public crucifixion on hold till after we hear what he has to say. [/quote] Exactly. It's not going to go to court you're looking at around £50+ for a new speaker. Talk to him, if that doesn't work get someone to send him a solicitors letter threatening action (someone on here is bound to be able to write you one). If that doesn't work, walk away and chalk it up to experience.

I would get a quote to fix it or find out how much a new speaker will cost and add £20 if you're fitting it yourself. Then contact the venue and get contact details of the band. Get in touch with the band, tell them how much it's going to cost and ask them to foot the bill. Take it from there. Next step would be a solicitor's letter...

Analagies rarely work. As I wrote above; Watts are fairly meaningless.

The power figures are fairly meaningless. The speaker power is just the electrical power the speaker coils can dissipate before they melt. The amplifier power is a measure of the current it can deliver before the transistors release the blue smoke. The danger of having a big amp driving small speakers is you can either overheat the coils or more likely the speakers will move too far (called over excursion) and break mechanically. You will hopefully hear this happening. The danger of having a small amp is the same but the added danger is that the amp could overheat before either of those things happen. You always need to listen carefully for distortion when you use gear and recognise when it's doing damage. However, not all distortion is bad, depends how long and how hard you drive everything.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1385843420' post='2292846'] Depends on the person asking. If they're staggering around drunk and being a PITA, then absolutely not. If they ask nicely and the request is for something we can use elsewhere afterwards then probably yes. [/quote] That's more what I'm thinking. If its a regular who is there everytime we play that pub and they keep asking it's almost embarrassing not to learn it. In my previous band we played a few RBL gigs and they always asked for the Alice song. It's rubbish and I hate it and we never learned it.

Say an audience member at a regular gig persistently asks for a particular tune and you don't know it. Would you learn it for the next time you play there?

He spoke to her. She means too precise. He's not feeling the music.

Like most things in life, it's always more complex than that... Would have ended up binning everything in the set that wasn't rock, which was probably what the band leader (drummer) wanted anyway. He would have struggled getting big paying wedding gigs, which were what he wanted to do. I gave up... You can lead a horse to water.

[quote name='solo4652' timestamp='1385726490' post='2291535'] ... Lessons for me; focus on the drums, don't over-play the bassline, listen to singer's comments about the groove, try not to be put off when guitarist messes up. Thanks to everybody here for their help and encouragement, Steve [/quote] Steve, I played We Are Family for years with a drummer who was a rock drummer first and foremost. He couldn't funk his way out of a paper bag. It knocked my confidence a lot. His bass drum trod over the baseline and made the song unplayable in its original form. His random 4.5 beat fills were also a problem He wouldn't budge or improve, I had to rock it up and simplify the bassline to the point that it was very different to the original. The rest of the band said I wasn't playing it right. I tried to explain... Concentrating on the drums shouldn't be necessary, it should be natural to feel, I left the band on the end and played with proper drummers.

Just seen Annoying Twit's thread where he's proposing using one as a looper. That's an amazing idea. Anyone else doing things like this. Is it simple? How are you getting on?

That's seriously creepy. Especially at this time of night!

The 80s was a never ending parade of slapiness. If you walked into a guitar shop all you could hear was slapping. Horrible. The thing about 50s-90s music is it's been around long enough for the cream to rise and the dross to drop out the bottom. 00s-10s are still fresh in most people's minds. My dad moaned about 80s music, the 60s and 70s were much better he jokes, then points out that a lot of the 60s and 70s music was hated by my grandad. It's what happens...

God! Is that place still standing? I played there in'88. A play to play rip off. We bought about 100-150 fans with us. Apparently only 10 managed to get in...

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1385305003' post='2286603'] It's almost as childish as middle aged men pretending to be pop stars..... [/quote] I thought that last week when they were talking on the radio about men who sail model boats. The pub we played last night didn't put our posters up. Strange. Maybe they think our posters don't look good in their pub. In fact most pubs we play don't. Pubs seem to be closing and the pubs aren't thinking of new ways to compete with Dr Who, Strictly, Jungle and X-Factor. They seem to have a fixed mindset of quiz nights, kareoke and Sky football as the way to get people in. They're missing a trick somewhere.

The problem I find is that you can fall into the trap of learning a song off rote and turn up only to find that the song doesn't work. We tend to go away, learn the structure, chords and general feel of the song. Come back and run through it, only then, if it looks like it's going somewhere, do we go away and learn it properly. But that's just my current band, all bands are different. I've gigged from charts where the only rehearsal for the whole band has been a single run through with the keys player and singer while we looked over the charts.