mike257

Spotted this over on MusicRadar and thought it was well worth sharing. If you subscribe to six issues of Guitarist (think Total Guitar and Guitar Techniques are running the same deal) you get a tidy little Diago Commuter softcase pedalboard for free. The subscription is only £28 quid, that's about half what the board normally sells for! I think I'll indulge myself in it, not that I'm too fussed about six months of glossy adverts dropping through my door (anybody want six free magazines?) - I was just about to build a tiny little 'spare' board with some excess pedals to take to rehearsals so I can leave the big one in our lockup with the big gigging toys. Linky here: [url="http://www.musicradar.com/guitarist/subscribe-to-guitarist-and-get-a-free-diago-commuter-pedalboard-worth-59-99-485749"]http://www.musicrada...th-59-99-485749[/url] Mike

I'd agree with the posters who've said you'll soon get used to a different feeling bass. If the Yamaha sounds better to you and doesn't feel uncomfortable (just different) then I'd go for it. Made a similar change when I traded one of my Stingrays for my Sandberg, totally different feel and was set up completely differently to how I had my rays too. It felt odd for a couple of months, especially changing between the two, but the Sandberg feels so comfortable now. Just took a bit of time to get acquainted!

Its Abbey Road and the White Album for me, despite the latter having a bit of filler as mentioned (find me a double album that doesn't!). I think Abbey Road sees McCartney really showing his range with his vocals, as well as condensing tons of cool musical ideas into that big ol' medley on side 2. Having said that, I really enjoy the early stuff in a different way, great catchy pop songwriting isn't an easy thing to pull off. Don't listen to any of it all that much these days but always nice to revisit every once in a while.

Then buy a broken down SVT810, rip the insides out of it so its just a box with a grille, and stick your Barefaced inside! Best of both worlds for you. Mind you, I'd rock a BF with pride - great gear and its nice to see something other than the usual suspects on stage.

I think my Sandberg is a tremendous instrument and the longer I spend with it, the more I feel I'll never need another bass. Obviously things like neck profiles will come down to personal taste and it took some adjusting after being used to a ray but my MM doesn't get a look in now. No surprise that the waiting list is shooting up, they deserve any success and recognition coming their way - colour me a fanboy!

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1370353506' post='2099565'] I can also recommend the Squier Tele Custom ll; a very nice P90 equipped guitar for not much money, if I hadn't seen this I'd have one of those now. [/quote] Just missed an absurdly silly cheap one of them on Gumtree locally, had my eye on them for a while. Would match my '72 Deluxe nicely too! Plan B is turning my battered old Epi LP Special II into a Les Paul Jr - that's been in the pipeline for ages and I've picked up a few of the bits I need, I just don't really have the time for a project at the mo so it's going nowhere fast

Happens quite a bit - some mates of mine have even showed up on stage in the background. The studios are just up the road from my house, maybe I should drop by with my bass and try and sneak in to a few shots!

Thanks guys, some food for thought there. The Tritons are certainly great kit - I hadn't considered them as I wasn't looking at workstations but there's a few gone for a steal on eBay recently. I used a Trinity for a while way back when so I'm aware of the quality. Think the complexity might be a bit much for our man though. The 9 instant recall buttons on the Yammy sound good - I doubt he uses any more sounds than that in the course of a gig so I'll look into them. I've tried looking on some keyboard forums but there seems to be a fair bit of snobbery dropped on those looking at the lower cost end of things. Knew trusty old BC would come good! Will share all this with him and broach the difficult subject of getting him to part with some dough for gear! Thanks again and any more thoughts/suggestions are welcome

Looks lovely! Not helping my cravings for a P90-equipped axe one bit though. Great find at that price!

Our keys man, whilst being one of the most naturally talented guys I know (can play ANY instrument you throw at him) doesn't actually own his own keyboard. Every gig, he goes and pinches one from his dad (a veteran career muso himself) and uses that. Its not the greatest sounding piece of kit and we're constantly ribbing him about it in the hope that he'll take the unsubtle hint and upgrade. I'm shopping around for options for him and wondering if anyone had suggestions for me. Its solely a live performance board we need, and he's not particularly techy minded so a massive feature list and sequencing abilities are not important - good workable sounds that can be accessed quickly in a live situation are. Sounds-wise, its the typical acoustic/electric piano, organ, strings/pads stuff needed most. Decent sounding brass would be great too as there's some stuff we've attempted and abandoned because the brass sounds on his current board are laughable. Less important but a nice bonus is some decent synth sounds as I'd like to work some more modern pop material into our function sets. Got to be a self-contained unit as well - I've considered the VST route but its an extra level of complexity and potential problems that I'd like to avoid worrying about (because it will be me fixing it when it crashes!) One board I've spotted that is very affordable second hand is a Korg PS-60, seems geared to our kind of setup so I'm keen to hear any real world experience of that, or any other suggestions that won't cost a bomb on the used market. Looking forward to your thoughts! Ta, Mike

Does RM recorded delivery track internationally? I might be mixing this up with something else, but I've got a niggling feeling that it only tracks until it leaves Royal Mail and lands in the hands of somebody else, even if that somebody is another third party like the Greek mail people. I might be wrong, but I'd check the small print on what your recorded delivery actually guarantees for international shipping.

I watched Deap Vally from side stage recently while teching for their support band. I reckon they're the real deal - great riffs, good harmonies, MASSIVE guitar sound and some good tunes (that don't all sound the same - can be tricky in a two piece)

[quote name='DarkHeart' timestamp='1369447621' post='2089447'] not trying to be funny or anything but the people who go on about the settings on the amp, why not just take a pic on your phone of your settings (everyones phone has a camera these days) and it would take seconds to restore your sounds...........................just saying [/quote] Or if you're busting out the duct tape, just put a piece on top of your head with a quick sketch of your settings. Tried and tested. Half a dozen circles with a line to show which way they need to point and you've got instant recall! The old ways are often the best.

I'm wondering the same at the moment. This is my first year of full time muso freelancing and I'm planning what to do when the (thankfully very busy) wedding season dies off. More Christmas parties should have bands!

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1368567747'] also you can use the pan/balance control to send the signal to whichever side you want. Behringer desks generally have a mono output too. [/quote] The balance control won't give you both sides of the stereo image into one side of your main outs - it does literally what it says on the tin and shifts the relative balance of the two sides. Swing it to the left, right channel gets progressively quieter, and vice versa. Two mono channels hard panned as mentioned above will do it though!

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1369141289' post='2085308'] The original O1V - wow, I played in a band where they had that desk for a bit. It's pretty capable if I recall. £160 is an absolute steal for that - if I came across one for sale at that, I'd defo buy it, especially with the ADAT card. Nice find. [/quote] Yeah, I'm made up! It's more than capable for our purposes (5 piece function band mixing own sound from stage) and although recording types will tell you the preamps are a weak spot I think they perform more than adequately in a live setting. I'd been looking at analogue options but was struggling to stretch our budget as far as an A&H MixWizard (which was my first choice). That probably would have had the edge in terms of mic pres and EQ but costs upwards of 500 quid on the s/h market. I can bodge together a phone/tablet remote by connecting the 01v to my laptop and sending midi over WiFi from an app on my phone so can nip out the front during soundchecks to mix too. The only problem will be teaching my resolutely non-techy bandmates how to drive it!

My main guitar is a MIM Telecaster '72 Deluxe, its brilliant and I've never had problems with it. Superb playability, lovely neck and I almost always pick it up for a gig despite owning/having access to other, technically "better" guitars. If you find one you like, its brilliant!

If you want to go digital on a budget and the channel count is enough for you, you can pick up a Yamaha 01v (original, not the newer '01v96' models) for £300 or less. I've just got one for our band for £160 with the optional ADAT card installed! It's got 12 mic channels plus another two stereo channels with jack inputs, two onboard effects units, four aux sends you can route to analogue outputs for your own IEM/wedge mixes and 4 band EQ and dynamics on every channel. Total recall and motorised faders too. The mic pres aren't the greatest in the world, it's a little bit dated compared to current (but much pricier) digital consoles and there's a bit of a learning curve to using it if you're not a techy type (I learned to mix on a linked pair of Yamaha 02r's back in my teens so it's familiar for me!) but the features to price ratio is pretty ridiculous at current used prices. I'm without a monitor of my own in our current function band setup but as I'm starting to contribute backing vox I'm looking at either a wedge or going wired IEM. More often than not I'm wired with my guitar so seems little point in spending all that money on wireless when I can just tape the wire to my guitar lead and go with that!

Dave supplied me with some short lengths of speaker cable to wire up an amp rack - arrived extra quickly and Dave is brilliant to deal with. Believe the hype, the man is a gent and a credit to the community here. Thanks Dave!

[quote name='D-L-B' timestamp='1368347187' post='2075829'] I've always used this and it's never let me down. http://www.wilko.com/carpet-accessories/wilko-hook+loop-stick-on-tape-black-1m/invt/0190336 You just need to clean the surface you're sticking it to with alcohol and maybe give it a little roughen up. [/quote] Dan, I've seen your board close up, the reason you don't need heavy duty Velcro is because its big enough to have its own gravitational field. I'm pretty sure it was attracting all nearby pedals into its orbit!

I was scoping it out in B&Q the other day, they charge an absolute fortune for the proper Velcro-branded heavy duty stuff. If anyone's got a cheaper source, that'd be ace. Off to Google it now, if I find anything worthwhile, I'll report back!

[quote name='bassmachine2112' timestamp='1368262894' post='2074984'] It,s moved Almost straight ahead of the entrance to central station or exit if your coming off the train. It was a nice fireglo but seeing as I,ve got a jetglo . [/quote] That's where it used to be! Not there now, its on Williamson Street, an otherwise innocuous cut through just off Church Street's shopping hell. Nicer gaff they're in now though, although much further to walk to a parking space if you've bought something heavy!

I'd use index finger for the root, little finger for the octave and middle finger for the seventh to play a part like that. Although you've got to find what works for you, there's reasons (speed, potential damage/injury) that people generally don't play like that. I'd give it a go with some different fingering, it'll feel unusual at first if you've spent time working on it the other way but might be worth it in the long run, and if nothing else give you some other ideas about fingering patterns/techniques in general.