TimR

The real answer to this is found in the answer to the following questions: Can your drummer play at the appropriate volume? Can your guitarist play his amp with the "Stun" setting disengaged? Do you have effective monitoring for the singer? If the monitoring for the singer is bad and they can't hear themselves and/or have to turn the monitor up to feedback levels due to the aforementioned drummer and guitarist, then it doesn't matter how much power you have - you won't have anything coherent anywhere in the room.

Isn't that "A problem I never had"? Other than "I got paid for the gig and want to spend my cash." My laptop died yesterday. Sunday's gig money has just been spent on a non musical item. Well actually it was spent on a family meal on Saturday night. I always like to spend money 3 times. I need to do 2 more gigs last week. 😂

@dmccombe7 Are you measuring them under load or disconnected? There is a lot of voltage sag on a 9v battery depending on the load. So an effects pedal will be drawing more current and the voltage will sag a lot lower, compared to an active bass. The open circuit measurement won't tell you a lot. Best way is to use an actual battery tester rather than a multimeter.

This afternoon's gig. Pedalboard consits of Korg PB-1 tuner, Keeley Bassist compressor, Boss Chorus and Joyo Double Thruster. Tuner - used twice. Compressor - always on. Chorus - always off. Double thruster - always off. Pedal board bag, useful for carrying pedals, power supply and leads.

9v batteries are good down to 7v.

Just back from this afternoon's gig. Busy pub, loads of people in the garden. 2h30m including a 15 min break. Polite clapping after a few songs, more enthusiastic clapping and cheering after others. Some singing. Mostly lots of blank faces while we played though. Calls for an encore. We played 2 more tunes. I'll never understand audiences. Too hot to jump around. We got paid and will go back at some point.

You're You're definitely changing your Volvos too frequently. One 740 and one 940 should have been ample.

There was an old thread about music stands. My view has always been that any physical barrier between the musician and the audience detracts from the preformance and the show. I am particular in making sure that any aids don't distract from the performance and the audience are not aware of it. Autocue is widely used by professionals. Even click tacks and cue tracks in ears is widespread. A bad performance is where people are focused on the sheets, the fretboard or their shoes. Glancing at something by your knees for cues shouldn't be perceptible to the audience or distract from the performance.

I have bought a new bass head and am worrying about how I'm going to get rid of the old one.

I've been in bands where the role rotates. When I joined one band the guitarist did everything, then he got busy with work and it was down to me, now the singer has stepped up. If everyone is an adult, leading is easy, you just ask people, and they do what's required. It's not like you're bossing people around and putting unrealistic expectations and timelines in place. Singer asks if we can do a gig on a date. We say yes and turn up.

My pad has over 200 tunes in it. Three hours of material for my cover band. 2 separate one hour sets for 2 originals bands I play with. Two hours of tunes I play with a band I occasionally dep for. Plus three hours of jazz tunes for the occasional jazz gig with my dad. Some of the gigs are so far apart and such short notice that I'm not going to be even rehearsing with the bands let alone have time to be learning the material. I can literally press a button and find the tune I want. Or spend 10 minutes assembling a set. No folder to juggle and reassemble every time a set list changes.

I think you probably need to say the name of the song out loud and then play the first 4 bars. Do this a few times for each song working through your set list. Practice the bit you can't do: marrying up the title with the intro. Practicing the bits you can do is wasting your time.

Tablets are a game changer. Especially if you have a very low stand and put it to the side so no one notices it. Put it at chest height in front of you, and we may as well resurrect the Music Stand Thread...

And then you start to resent all the hard work you're doing when no one appears to be pulling their weight. You then have to question whether they're the kind of people you want in your band. Personally I've been in the band leader situation where everything you do is criticised, no one replies when you ask for availability, people decide they'd rather go to the pub to watch football with their mates than play a gig... Now I play bass, give a bit of feedback when I think it will help but don't get to worried when it's not taken. And make sure I'm available for all practices and gigs and reply as soon as possible when asked. We have a gig on Sunday. No one can practice this week. We had a practice a week ago and one about a month ago. The WhatsApp group is very quiet. Hopefully we can pull it off but I'm expecting a load of "What time are we on?", "How long are else playing?" Type questions. Which I'll let someone else answer, mainly to avoid filling the chat with lots of different answers.

If it's your band that you put together, hired all the musicians and the original premise hasn't changed then you need to sack the ones causing issues. If, on the other hand, you have defaulted into the band leader position because the rest of the band are flakey, then leave and join another band. The third option would be that the band has just drifted into being something that no one actually agreed it would be. In which case, you all sit down, discuss what commitment levels you have, what gigs you want to play and what songs are and aren't working. Basically discuss all the issues and see where the band is. And then leave or have a more realistic expectation of what the band actually is and where it's going.

Have you thought of getting a real bass player that plays with fingers instead of a failed guitarist?

I had to read that three times!

Some people just carry generic spares for themselves. You won't remember all the times the others have spares and quietly swap batteries, leads, or have pens and gaffa tape. You'll just remember when they didn't. An odd one for me the other week. Battery in the bass died at a practice so I stopped and went to my bag to get the spare along with my screwdriver but the guitarist insisted I used his, and was surprised that I'd got spares. 🤷‍♂️

They all use different compression and EQ at the broadcast stage.

Yes. One of the guitar players I play with often comments on my tone. He laughs at me when I say I need to cut my nails or that I've just cut my nails. He notices the difference but doesn't believe it's the nails. Go figure. Always keep clippers in my car (I'm not as fastidious as @Doctor J)

And Vice Versa. Its a communication thing. The first thing I look for when auditioning. Is the drummer looking at their hi-hat or are they looking at you?

Isn't it all about attack and compression? Some amps and speaker combinations will sound 'better' than others, and then add in playing style.

100% do it. Pro pit players that play the same tune night after night for weeks on end are bound to end up filling the time with something else. With an amateur group, in my experience, the music will be known months in advance as the actors like to rehearse as much as some cover bands do! You may only have 3 or 4 actual performances. The majority of the ones I have done, the MD will rehearse the singers and you'll come in for the technical and dress rehearsals, but there will be nothing to stop you going to the other rehearsals. If the MD is any good you'll get chord charts as well as a score, and the bass line (if there is one written) may not be that important. It all depends what they're doing.

Thanks. I can see how the ACS Custom 17s are first and then experiment with in-ears later if I need to. Sounds great.