Muzz

My favourite Class D amp of them all...and very versatile: between the Contour and the Channels, lots of great sounds to be had very quickly (which is what I need, playing in a band with a wide selection of songs from lots of genres), I'd probably still have it if I hadn't moved to digital modelling with the Stomp.

The longest gigs I've been doing recently are the jam nights, tho this fluctuates wildly, depending on who turns up: last night wasn't too bad, there were a few bassists in, so I only played about an hour in total, but the week before was hard work: just one bunch of kids in as a band doing two numbers, then a guitarist played bass with his pals for three songs, the rest of the 3 hours was me...and maaaan, it was hot and sweaty: high street bar, so all windows and doors closed for the noise... 😐

I had one the Weds before last; usual jam night, same setup as always, same kit, same room, same people (well, our hosting trio, at least)...just couldn't get out of first gear. Nothing definite, nothing like a 'disaster gig', but it just sounded mostly rubbish - I was faffing about with the bass tone for about ten minutes to no avail (and I'm normally about two and a half minutes from walking in the door, setting up, getting a tone and going to the bar), and the harder I tried to bring it back, the more it persisted. Last Weds was night and day better (as it usually is), for no reason...it just happens sometimes...

Apropos a couple of Police numbers (Message In A Bottle, Roxanne) always going down well, we chucked in Walking On the Moon. Maaaan, that song goes nowhere fast; it was touch and go as to who lost the will to live first, us or the audience... Funnily enough, and proving Fitzgibbons Law Of Contrariness*, Stuck In The Middle Witchoo always goes down well... * Don't look for this one, I just made it up...

I'd just add that open mic/jam nights don't have to be about intimidating improvisation from the word go - you can start by learning a few 'staples' and asking the hosts if you can sit in with them if they know them (and even if they don't*)...it's a good way to start, and you'll make some good connections... * I co-host a good jam night with some great musicians, so I'm on the hop a good deal, but that's largely accommodating people who want to get up and say 'Do you know...?', so it's out with the iPad if we don't and often the person getting up knows it better than us...

Not during a gig, but there's a very talented chap comes to the jam night who plays guitar (and bass) left handed, but if no-one's brought a LH bass, he just takes mine and flips it over. Gives me a mild panic attack watching him... 😐

'How many sound engineers have you got?' 'Two...two...one...two...' 😀

I use a Stomp now (after a few forays into bigger pedalboard setups), it's very very versatile, and in the covers/function bands I'm in, it makes a lot of sense; I can set my tones (I have about half a dozen that cover all eventualities (and a couple of 'dedicated' ones, like for Hysteria and Sledgehammer)) and I also have them set in different pitches for different bands - one band is tuned concert, another is Eb, etc, plus there's the odd song which gets played in a different position depending on the singer, so I have have all of my presets everywhere from low B to high(er) Bb (this is dead easy to set up; just a cut-and-paste in the software, took about 15 minutes). I'm not a cork-sniffer when it comes to the tones themselves, like a lot of things I'm happy with '95% there for 5% of the time and effort', especially when the drummer starts hitting things: it works for me. One guitarist/BL I play with has a huuuuge pedalboard, and he never stops fiddling with it; soooo many individual knobs... 🙁😀 I just turn up, set the overall level, and go...

I've ended up with a BB414, because it feels like the slimmest neck I could find in the range after my 80s BB3000; the 1024 was bigger, which is the only thing stopping me from getting a 2024. That and the weight...it wasn't heavy per se, but just a bit too much for me...

I've no idea if my substitution is totally effective, but I'd done some reading before I bought it, and it's very common over the pond, so I did it for a sort of insurance, really, but it's never not been enough. We did a gig last weekend in a big pub in Bolton where the landlord's rig (there's a dancefloor, it's a very big room, so he's keen) was absolutely deafening after we'd soundchecked, so we were more or less obliged to turn the mains up (and we're talking a pair of RCF 15s on full, plus the desk up to +10db, and we have a fully miked kit), and even then the little Rumble was fine onstage (I had my ACS plugs in)...

This has now morphed into people shouting the (not) hilarious 'Alexa! Play xxxxx...!' 😡

'If we've got time at the end' usually works for the more persistently ridiculous, especially when (if) they're still around and bleating at the end, you can blame the venue for having a strict cutoff time... Oh, and 'Alexa, play....' is starting to get shouted at gigs these days...ohhhh, the irony... Apart from the usual things like 'Play Mr Blue Sky' (this one to us as an acoustic trio), there's been... Had a residency in a very Oirish pub* in Manchester City centre for a while, and despite doing a good 45 of Oirish songs, we'd get (usually mid-song, obv) unending requests for obscure stuff: 'Play Paddy McGinnerty's Pig**' 'Sorry, we don't know it' 'Ohhhh, you do' 'No, we don't' 'Sure you do; it goes...' The worst we ever had tho, was some punter at a private gig (bloke, 30s, Weasel Dusted to the eyebrows) with half a dozen mates come up to the singer (at mic's-length away) during the first song of the second set and shout 'I'll sing the next one.' 'No, mate, you won't' 'I'm better than you, you're sh*te' 'Still no...' He stayed there, literally at the other end of the mic from the singer, shouting the lyrics. We stopped, muted the PA, and spoke to the bloke whose Do it was. Apparently Weasel Dust Boy was some kind of local Face, so he paid us off, put the disco on (whilst looking for the karaoke mic for WDB), we packed up and left. Home by ten, full pay. Wasn't so bad, but we thought there'd be a scuffle, and I didn't relax till we were well away from the place... * By which I mean a big Oirish contingent in the crowd, rather than one of these Plastic Paddy places that puts a couple of Guinness pumps in, hangs a couple of plastic shamrocks up and thinks that's what it takes... ** Insert obscure song title here...

That Sims would still be a compromise, because of the difference in positions of the original P and Ray pickups...now a sliding Sims; that could do it...hmmm...

My other half and I met him a few years ago when he played a small club (The Trades) in Hebden Bridge. Lovely lad.

Naked?! Imagine the scandal! 😀

It's a lovely neck, tho... 😐🙂

For any curmudgeons (and this is a particularly curmudgeonly thread) who don't rate The Smiths because they (for understandable reasons) can't get over Morrissey, check out Rick Astley and the Blossoms' set of Smiths songs at Glasto (still on t'th'iPlayer IIRC) - terrific pop...

Just realised, that's not Jon's neck, that was the old Lakland one that developed a backbow like something Robin Hood would have been familiar with...this is Jon's neck...

As I've said before: the worst upper fret access in Christendom, but I don't care: I seldom go up there, it gives me a nose bleed... 😐 It's definitely solid, tho... 😀

How's this for a daft arrangement? (not Jon's, obv - he just worked with it (and very very well); the heel of the neck is twice as long as a 'normal' heel...

I had Jon Shuker put a custom neck on my Shukerbird (definitely not standard - he profiled it to my spec (Jazz width, birdseye board, etc) and custom-made it to fit perfectly to The World's Longest 4-bolt Neck Pocket), but as above, he may be busy if you're in a rush. Worth a try, though. It was also cheaper (at the time, admittedly a while ago) than a Warmoth neck (which wouldn't have fitted the daft pocket anyway).

Along the lines of the HPF mentioned earlier, can you dial out the bottom end in your monitor mix? Lower down the tech chain from you, for small pubs (in fact for bigger stages, too) where IEMs are impractical, I use a 112 combo on an angled stand which lifts it about 18" and angles it like a monitor at my head, but I also dial all the bottom end out of the combo, because my DI to the FoH fills in back in again automagically - I mentioned somewhere else, but I played a festival on a biggish stage, and I was admittedly fairly close to the FoH stack on my side, but that little 112 combo sounded like an 810... 😀

Can I just say how much I'm enjoying this most British of Mod's Comment? You don't get that sort of thing over the Pond... 😁

My current gigging rig is a Rumble 100, which I use on an angled stand to point at my head, with the low bass dialled out, and I use the PA for the heavy lifting of the bottom end via the second out of my Stomp. Super light, great stage monitoring, will go far louder than I need; well into the 'hearing protection required' zone. On a midweek gig this week there was a problem with the desk, so I dialled the bass back in and it did well for a couple of songs till we sorted the desk problem. Not thunderous, but still there, even with a loud drummer. I should add I had replaced the speaker with a 'proper' Eminence 12 (about £60) which copes better at higher volumes. It's a common mod, and there's lots of detail about it on a site based over the pond...

'One of the highlights of a pub gig for me is listening to guitarists tune up; it's so disappointing at bigger gigs when they're muted; I miss that 'will they, won't they?' tension as they search for the pitch...' 'I may have had a few, but I'm certainly going to resist shouting 'Three! Four!' while they soundcheck the mics...'