Leonard Smalls

Instead of a simple drum screen we'll need full band-screens! Or maybe now's the time to do a Spinal Tap tribute?

First time we played to a full Marquee Club was pretty good... But in terms of "Kwality", my old improvisational jazz band once decided to do a live thing on the roof of the studio the guitarist lived in in Shoreditch. While we didn't have any songs and everything was improvised we had the (possible!) advantage that the drummer and I had played probably 300+ gigs together with our other band, and he was proper funky. So we started playing - simple funky groove, occasionally slapped and occasionally Bootsy-wah-bass, with African percussion, Marc Ribot-a-like guitar and horn players who also played with Lol Coxhill (i.e. crazy every note possible). And before the Police turned up 4 hours later to stop us there were a hundred or so people dancing in front of the pub below (Bricklayer's Arms), windows opposite were lined with people hitting congas, tambourines and nobody threw anything at us!

One of my favourites (RIP Manu!)

After a bit of looking about I've discovered that the audio cues app for Android would do the basic job. BakTrax pedal for £135 would do it more robustly, and a Roland SD12 trigger pad would allow separate stereo output with synced cue track at >£200... Any more thoughts or experiences?

Our band have decided we might experiment with a more Ministry type feel to go with our punkfunk vibe... Which means either a keyboard player(unlikely!) or backing tracks (which I'll make - sequency rhythm guitar, hard synth stabs etc). So does anybody else use them? How best to trigger them (it will be entire song length tracks not just samples)? And from what? I've got Ableton on a laptop which can trigger clips, but not sure it can play them at different speeds (we're ranging from 90-160bpm) as well as a separate click feed that doesn't go to main output... Any thoughts appreciated!

I've finished mine... And it's about not taking any guff from bigots! It's inspired by the time Barf Roco played the Jericho Tavern in Oxford. After the sound check the band went out for some chips, and when we came back we saw a terrified local chap running for his life down the road; he was being pursued by one of the Bromley Boyz in full wig/headscarf/housecoat regalia waving an iron bar and shouting "we're from f@@ckin' Laaaaahnden!!!!" I've used that very phrase on a number of occasions as an excuse for bad behaviour 😅 Anyway, song features 2 x AAS synths, drums programmed through EZ drummer, bass is my trusty Wal pretending to be a sequencer with distortion from a Darkglass tube distortion pedal, guitar solo is also the Wal through Bias FX free and vox are by me (sorry) with added valve distortion to make sure you hear less of it... And sorry again ☠️

Almost finished - there's even "singing"! I'd better start apologising now...

Just so you know, this is the band they were all jumping about to... 😏

Aye! Don't know if it's going to be put off till Rebellion next year!

We're thinking of doing an open air rehearsal in my garden... Luckily we don't have any near neighbours - though when we used to rehearse in my (uninsulated) garage a bloke from the other side of the valley (400m away) complained to the council. However, this same bloke complained about his next door neighbours unnecessarily burning rubbish and making excess noise, on November 5th. So we're not at all worried about offending Captain Miserable...

Pic sent to Mr Lurks... And I'd like to apologise now if anyone feels either nauseous or deeply upset by it. 😎

Cheers chaps! As Mr Lowdown alleges a fix I am forced to issue a strenuous denial and point out that I have an alibi, and that the fingerprints found on the envelopes stuffed full of cash in the possession of those who voted for my ditty only bear a superficial resemblance to my own... 😁 Now before the rozzers turn up, who should I send my pic to?

Slightly odd Bradfordians:

😂 Great art should evoke a feeling of "please please please make it stop!", followed by enormous joy when it actually does... 😁😎 At least that's how I justify making such a terrible racket every month (*) *Though the real reason is to annoy Doug 😄

Not often I hear that - ta! (note to self; must up the dissonance next month - real art is about uniting the viewers/listeners in appalled abhorrence, not in pandering to bourgeois notions of beauty 😆😉)

Bit of jazz fusion with Hiromi, and the Fuze on guitar.

Just done that and it's working fine now...

I have! It's actually only worked once, and that was with glitches so it's possible the free download was a bit upgefuktgemache, as they would say in Germany if they didn't actually speak the language 😁

That's not a virtual guitar... It's amp/cab/fx modelling. I've got Bias FX but weirdly, Ableton has just decided it doesn't recognise it as a compatible VST so mebbe I'll try the free version of Amplitube if I can't fix it!

Love that GoGo beat!

I've never had any windows/PC type issues while making music on my laptop using Ableton... Funnily enough it just works! Saying that, I got an i7 processor with SSD and 16gB RAM - cost me about £650 5 years ago. However, I've since realised that 16gB gets maxed out if you use 20 analogue, 4 hungry midi instruments, plus Izotope Neutron and sound balancer on each track plus Bias FX on the guitars... I'm thinking of following Big Red's route - sort of; haven't used Macs since I was at the BBC (that was when Avid/ProTools was only just starting to be able to be used on a PC) so may go for a refurb 16 core Xeon processor business server or graphics machine with at least 64gB RAM running windows.