Leonard Smalls

Indeed... Even though it was music produced, written and performed by me I'm sure PRS would still want a cut of it! It gets an admin or collection fee for every royalty varying from 10.5% for stuff played on BBC iPlayer up to about 23% for "other recorded" music playback and concerts. I can understand why there would be a collection fee for the PRS to collect royalties on behalf of one of its members, but what I don't understand is why would somewhere that is playing original music produced by a non-PRS member (with their consent) would have to pay a fee to the PRS? Even the BBC don't charge you a licence fee if you have a TV that isn't capable of receiving broadcasts!

This does seem a bit weird...Why should a venue have to pay a %age of box office to the PRS in order that the PRS then pay royalties to a band for playing in a venue that has already paid them a fee? After all, if a band are getting paid to play their material why should the PRS get a cut? Sounds like tax! And perhaps I should just play music by non-PRS members in my shop? Or perhaps my own music (though that would no doubt result in fewer customers, and those we did get would be generally odd)? No doubt I'd still be required to pay under some obscure loophole...

I had a long spat with the PRS a while ago about the 2 licences we have to pay for - 1 for our public area and 1 because music can also be heard in staff-only areas like the store room. They were adamant we needed 2 licences. After getting nowhere arguing about this I asked how the royalty money was distributed - they said it was shared among its members. I pointed out that our playlist was highly eclectic, and if I had to pay royalties I'd like to ensure that those whose music I was playing actually got the money. They said it wasn't possible to work that out; so I offered to give them a print-out of our playlist to make sure it wasn't just the already highest-grossing artists were getting other folks' legitimate royalties. They couldn't work with that, but assured me royalties would be properly shared out - they had no answer when I asked "how do you know what we've played?" So it's yet another tax... And I also discovered recently that I have to pay £40 a year to the information commisioner's office because I have CCTV!

Time for Betty!

I learned how to get a bit funky by playing along to Bootsy records, starting with this one: While it's easy to work out the notes it's the feel that counts - especially when it gets to the dirty groove at 2 mins...

It's possible to negotiate good rates for both credit and debit card sales just by some shopping around... AmEx is always expensive though! I'm always amazed when I hear of businesses paying 2-3% for visa/mastercard transactions - just means they've stuck with an old and over-priced merchant-services provider... (Saying that, there's some to avoid due to both high fees and horrific contracts)

Gary Willis keeping it relatively simple!

I'm about 40 minutes from there. And I've got a slightly battered (by me, over the last 30odd years!) Custom - if you're in the area you can have a go! And just to make you really sick I bought it from Allbang and Strummit (RIP!) in Covent Garden for £500 in about 1989...

To be fair, I wouldn't class many of my late 70s/early 80s singles or even indie albums as hifi in any way,as it was likely the mastertape was also just as lofi. A "Porky Prime Cut" usually meant it was a step up, soundwise,but still not a guarantee of hifidom. But absolute sound quality wasn't really the point! However, my funk and jazz albums of the 70s, 80s, 90s were invariably of very good quality and playback just as well now...

I suspect that was inevitable, what with the OP being about how the Government turned down visa-free touring for musicians during their Brexit negotiations!

The whole thing is more stable. Bearing noise, ac motors and resonances between arm, cartridge and TT itself all exacerbate surface noise; after all just the act of scraping a diamond over moving plastic will make some noise but if all the stuff related to the TT itself is minimised then so is the noise. Not only that, but a cartridge properly matched with a decent tonearm seems to track better and almost ignore anything that isn't music - no idea why, but could be because there's effectively more dynamic range due to reducing the surface noise floor? Perhaps it's audiophile pixie dust I like to sprinkle before listening? 😁 Either way, I know I have records where I can hear master tape hiss (I know it well after all those years at BBC sound!) when played on my system, but not on cheaper kit... As for poor pressings, I've found that to be relatively rare - I've got a couple of thousand LPs and while some have some damage from my DJing days not many have obvious lumps n bumps. And when properly cleaned even they are listenable without scratches intruding too annoyingly.

Which IMO completely negates the point of vinyl as a decent playback medium, if you have to spend that kind of money to recreate what is already lower-quality audio. Plus no matter how much you've spent. it won't remove flaws in the manufacturing process - pops, clicks, surface noise or put the hole any closer to the centre of the record Personally I'd say that in order to get serious hifi reproduction using any medium there's an absolute minimum spend... Frinstance with cd you can achieve reasonable results using a cheap cd player, but not if it's playing into a strained poor quality amplifier and bandwidth limited speakers that distort or have very irregular frequency response curves or impedance that swings wildly with frequency. And the cheap cdp player can be bettered by one which reads more of the information on the disc accurately (stable transports etc), and even more so if digital to analogue conversion is of a higher quality. However, you may get musical enjoyment from a cheap record player, but not much in the way of actual hifi reproduction because of poor tracking, low quality needle/magnet/coil assembly, speed instability, bearing rumble, low frequency feedback from inadequate isolation. Then there's the conversion from RIAA standard - a cheap phono stage won't do it particularly accurately. So while a big step up in price for cd playback will probably give some small benefits, if you want serious vinyl hifi you either need to spend some reasonable money, or be very astute on the 2nd hand market! However, the law of diminishing returns sets in quite quickly... If you look at just the Project line of TTs they start at about £179, up to around £7999 (signature 12). And the top end one doesn't even include a cartridge! The bottom model is capable of reasonable hifi quality - it'll sound OK but won't have anywhere near the detail retrieval or weight (i.e bass quality) of the top one - you could clearly hear the difference between the 2. However, if you move to one of their more mid-range offerings the difference between £7999 and £1049 (the X2) will be much less pronounced, but the X2 will still sound significantly better than the £179 Primary E... You can see where the difference comes by looking at tech specs - the E has speed variance of about 0.8% and wow/flutter of 0.29% with mid-range X2 at 0.25%/0.12% and top line signature at <0.1%/<0.08%. All these differences in spec will mean that the bottom model sounds much thinner, lacks a large stereo image and will suffer far more from pops and crackles that either of the other 2. You'd be surprised just how quiet top flight vinyl can sound - with my set up I find on analogue produced albums that tape hiss is louder than any surface noise (though proper cleaning is also essential (I use a £49.99 Discmagic)). But bear in mind that a Project Experience 2 at £500 2nd hand will sound as good as the £1049 X2 - though both will need a quality phono stage (and amp/speakers) to bring out the best in them!

It's quite ironic that many of those countries that are currently under the EU's shackles have quite different requirements... It's almost as if they have actual control of their borders!

The point appears to be that the EU offered their "Standard" 90 day visa exemption that's presumably offered to other countries, British gov turned it down because they were being rabidly dogmatic about ending any form of free movement, then tried to pretend they'd tried to negotiate a better deal (30 better than 90 days?). From the NME: “It is usually in our agreements with third countries, that [work] visas are not required for musicians,” an EU source told the paper. “We tried to include it, but the UK said no.” The UK are reported to have turned down the offer because they do not want to give the same freedoms to EU artists visiting the UK. A government spokesperson previously told NME that it was Brussels that had rejected the idea of allowing artists to tour the EU on a visa-free basis. “The UK pushed for a more ambitious agreement with the EU on the temporary movement of business travellers, which would have covered musicians and others, but our proposals were rejected by the EU,” they said. However, the Independent’s source said: “The UK refused to agree because they said they were ending freedom of movement. It is untrue to say they asked for something more ambitious.”

So you're saying that because it's in a newspaper it isn't true? Or that because it's in this newspaper it isn't true? It appears wholly consistent with the Government's rather rabid and dogmatic "Sovereignty at all costs (especially if it means cutting off our noses to spite our Empire-bred, beautifully proud British faces!)" mantra!

I've done a little one... It's a bit funky, a bit cheeky (or puerile for those of a non-Carry On persuasion!) and for a change was started by a bluesy keyboard groove, with bass added later - DI output of Wal direct into Ableton, other output via Future Impact, Bass Whammy and Fwonk Beta pedals into another track. Guitar is a Strat through my bass rig and Bias FX, drums programmed or loops in EZ Drummer...

Indeed... I've written to my MP a number of times; every time he's just replied with a direct quote of government policy and absolutely no attempt to address any points raised or to engage. And he's got a huge majority!

For goods under £135 to a non=VAT registered UK business/person then: To charge and account for VAT the seller will need to: know the precise nature of the goods to find out the correct rate of VAT to charge register for VAT - sellers that are already registered for VAT do not need to re-register keep records of the goods sold, and make sure they get accurate information to apply the correct VAT treatment to them https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-directly-to-customers-in-the-uk That doesn't sound like German VAT! And for non-Uk seller to UK VAT registered business for goods under £135: Business to business sales to UK VAT-registered customers The seller will not need to charge and account for VAT if the customer gives them their VAT registration number. The seller can confirm it’s correct using the online service. The seller can add a note to the invoice (for example, by writing ‘reverse charge: customer to account for VAT to HMRC’) then send it to the UK business customer. The business customer will then be responsible for accounting for any VAT due on their VAT Return, if the goods are supplied in: Great Britain using a ‘reverse charge’ procedure Northern Ireland, using Postponed VAT Accounting In both cases, the seller will be able to recover the VAT as input tax on the same VAT Return under normal VAT recovery rules. Sellers do not have to register for VAT if they only sell goods that are outside the UK at the point of sale to UK VAT-registered business For transactions over £135 it appears we'd need to become an importer, use an agent or pay VAT there and then. Now our European suppliers don't want the extra grief of dealing with a myriad of tax rules they never had to before, and we're a shop who already has to do enough VAT/TAX/Accounts submitting. We don't need more red tape! https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-imports-acquisitions-and-purchases-from-abroad

It's not just a question of not wanting our money! It's whether the extra barriers that the UK Government have put in place make it still worthwhile to trade with us! For Thomann, as the world's biggest (probably!) musical instrument retailer they already have the UK Vat registration and the means to deal with that. They do enough business in the UK and have the mechanisms in place to keep trading with UK consumers profitable. But for smaller sellers that's not necessarily the case; firstly they've got to register with HMRC for VAT. They've got to take VAT from UK customers, do a VAT return to HMRC quarterly and pay their UK VAT bill. That's all fine if you're a UK business (arguably!), but as, say, a German business they already have to do all that with the German BZst - doing the same thing for another country for a few grand is probably not worth their while! Not only that there's also a sense of rejection on the continent - our Government hasn't really made itself friendworthy with some of its actions - people think "why should we bother with them if they're not interested in us?" Then businesses like ours will miss out... Our little orchid supplier, who sell us all sorts of exciting varieties that you just can't get from UK growers, doesn't think it's worthwhile. Our lovely French homeware supplier, who sells us all those particularly Gallic trays and cups, isn't interested either. We'll briefly suffer in the short term - our customers will miss those bits'n'bobs you couldn't get elsewhere - and we'll find something hopefully new and interesting instead, but the real question is why? For what? Have we actually gained anything at all, or is it just about a small section of or society now having the illusion of Empire Rebirth?

There's a link to the actual rules in the policy document... https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-directly-to-customers-in-the-uk Yer actual rules appear to be: Consignments valued at £135 or less The seller must charge and account for VAT at the point of sale, unless the consignment is a business to business sale and the customer has given them their UK VAT registration number. To charge and account for VAT the seller will need to: know the precise nature of the goods to find out the correct rate of VAT to charge register for VAT - sellers that are already registered for VAT do not need to re-register keep records of the goods sold, and make sure they get accurate information to apply the correct VAT treatment to them For goods supplied into Northern Ireland from outside the UK and EU, low value consignment relief will no longer apply and the seller will be liable to account for the VAT on the VAT return instead of at the border.

Was it Boris who famously said "F*** business?" If so, he obviously meant it! 😀

It's not a link, just a quote from this: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021

Indeed! For goods sent from overseas and sold directly to UK consumers without OMP involvement, the overseas seller will be required to register and account for the VAT to HMRC. In other words, non-online marketplace sellers (eg Thomann, or Jerzy Droyd, or that little boutique guitar seller you used to use in Aachen) have to register for UK VAT and charge that VAT on any sales to UK buyers, In other words, if a shop wants to trade with Britain it needs to go through all the rigmarole of submitting a VAT return to HMRC every 3 months... That's why our garden centre no longer trades with 3 of our Lovely Little Things suppliers in Europe - they didn't want the extra grief!

You're not going to like this months special offering then! 😝 And so far I've laid off both the Uillean and Northumbrian pipes, but with all the insults I've been getting I may have to break them out, as well as getting my Galician neighbour Jose in to do a Gaita solo. And he can whistle and yodel!!!

Can I use the Uillean pipes I got for Christmas? They sound great through a Future Impact pedal!