Jack

Second number? First one is the series.

Yes sorry I saw that, I was commenting on the benefits of going from X12 to X32. Either way, shiny new gear is always fun.

The indie band that I was in until recently went from 712 (the drummer's) to 732 (which the guitarist bought for another project) and I was skeptical that it would make much difference but actually it was quite profound. (No, this test wasn't double blind, yes, my expectations and room will affect.) You might be surprised at the upgrade. I will say though that nothing has changed my gigging life more than getting a digital mixer 8 years ago. That's where to go first IME.

That's easy, what did your contract say? It's easy to do a pub gig on a handshake but when it gets into things like this I don't think we handle it very well as a breed. I think because for most of us this is our hobby and not our job. There's a local band who buys PAT test stickers from ebay and fills them out themselves.

But again, most things aren't auctions now anyway.

I got this today too, my first thought was that it was great but then I can't really remember the last time I sold anything on eBay anyway. It's already just another AliExpress.

We played a charity night for a good cause I'm Cullercoats on Friday. Sarah's Stars are a little charity that help people with terminal diagnoses. The singer and I are both NHS so we were happy to help. It was nice to have another good gig under our belts, this project has been struggling to find its feet since we started. Our guitarist's son recorded the medley of songs at the end of our set and edited it into a nice little video, shame there's no bass on the phone mic but rest assured it was sufficiently pumping in the room. Hey, I'm the soundman. Bass all round. Sorry about the song choice, the medley is specifically for songs that were kind of feel obliged to play as a party band, but that we don't want to do full renditions of.

Can you explain the problem with this please? Not the physics, that bit I get, but the install? When one is installing a large system such as this do you tie all the power together first and then plug the system in? I just can't see the issue if one side is on one and the other on the other.

I had an R5 2x10 combo as a stage amp for a few years, and this same R1 practice amp for many many years, Laney stuff does its job exceptionally well.

Yeah but the problem is I'm always drunk. I know my locals (not that I'm a regular) and call them direct. But after a gig or when I'm somewhere that isn't my house then Just Eat is easier.

Pretty much this. Stomp in a pinch, lt or full fat to do it properly.

Well this was unexpected.

My brother has those, whilst he now also has the matching sub they were great without. Superb little things. Gives my monitors a run for the money and mine were £300+.

Took advantage of the good light today when I was unloading my car to get some better photos. After a LOT of gigs, the rack itself is starting to show some pretty serious wear. Gator should offer cases that look like this when they're brand new and charge extra for the privilege. From the front there's the ethernet, usb and aux channels permanently wired in through a very badly drilled hole. Those rack ears are tough. At the back there's a power strip with everything plugged in all the time, the router, and some cable tidying that's optimised for durability if not neatness.

I do worry about mine getting hot, part of me thinks that in about 8 years it's always been fine, the other part of me thinks that I should look after it more as it gets older. Are the xlrs permanently mounted? Do they fit in the depth of the lid? According to my Amazon history, my ethernet cable is this one. There are probably better deals out there if you look. No Apple products for me, I'm a tech nerd even more than a bass nerd, my house has a few Mikrotik products and I've had two in the xr18 rack as well.

That's a huge downer but thanks for posting your experiences.

This rack is about 8 years old now, the only thing I've ever changed is the router. Gator gr4s, mixer, media player, power bar, shelf, captive cables and a router (now a Mikrotik hap ax2).

With all the interest in small combos, busking amps, and frfr stuff, I thought that this was an interesting products launch recently. Spark Live I know they're brand new, but has anyone had any experience yet? I'm tempted to have one as a house practice amp, as well as small pa when needed. My Thomann Six Mix runs out of steam on bass guitar duties, but the Spark sounds great on the Andertons video.

Do you have a link to the duo page?

After two great gigs last weekend I'm back on my losing streak as of Saturday. A local agent who's a semi big deal wanted to try us out and booked us into a local club. We questioned the choice of booking twice, as we really didn't think a bouncy pop punk band would go down well (two of us have played the club in previous bands and it's very much not a pop punk venue) but the agent insisted we'd be a riot. Anyway, on chatting to the secretary it seems that we're the punchline to a bad joke. There's some bad blood between the agent and the club and now he's purposefully sending them bands they'll hate. Last week it was a band from Wales who had to charge £1200 by the time a hire van was filled with diesel and hotel rooms were booked. (This is in Gateshead) The committee were angry and vowing never to work with him again as we were setting up. Not the best welcome. At half time I went to the toilet. A man came in after me and spoke to a guy who was already in there before me. "Alright John, didn't realise you were in tonight" "Yeah we're upstairs, apparently the band are shit" "Yeah you're not missing much mate, they're awful". The sad thing was, we weren't awful. I've been in and been to see enough awful bands, we were good! Let's just say we weren't the right fit. Oh well, the money was about double a decent pub gig... Ebmm Stingray, Helix, IEM. Thinking about becoming a wedding DJ.

You can score a G&L Tribute LB100 (quite traditional) or SB2 (punchier and growlier) for very cheap these days.

Saturday was my newish pop punk band playing a birthday party at a tiny bar in the wilds of County Durham. Good gig, and a real trial by fire for our hastily-recruited new drummer who outdid himself. Very happy all around. This project is struggling to find its feet a little and so it was really nice to have a good gig. We have a medley in C that seems to get longer every gig. It's for songs that we have tried to turn into pop punk versions but they haven't quite worked, if there are any salvageable bits that do work we add them to a medley. The crowd simply would not let us transition out of 'Country Roads' to the point where I was able to just tap the root notes and pick up my phone. Oh well, if they're happy... Joke's on them though, it's 'Mysterious Girl' next in line, much better song. Rig was my Fender P, into a HX Stomp, into my IEMs. Sunday was a farewell gig to my indie rock band after 6 years of being my main project. Mostly family and friends of our two guitarists in attendance. They're the full on mods with the scooters and the haircuts to prove it, so we packed the tiny tiny pub when you put all of them lot on top of the locals. Rig was, funnily enough, my Fender P into a HX Stomp (well the car was already packed) but GET THIS, no IEMs for this band so I used my QSC K12.2 behind me as backline. Sore throat from the night before meant my dodgy backing vocals weren't needed and also we've already sold our subwoofer so I felt a little more ooomph wouldn't go amiss.