Muzz

I use a pick mostly (Dunlop Nylon 88s, always), but when I switch to fingers, I just put the thing in me mouf...can backfire, though: we were playing a festival over the weekend and the geetard/singist was last to arrive (from a solo set elsewhere), so I set his geetar up...and realised I'd put his pick in me gob while twiddling leads...ew. 🙁

Played an outdoor festival - one of those 'back of a flatbed HGV' setups, and used my 100w 112 as a monitor (bass dialled out, just some mids and highs) on a tiltback 'point at yer ears' stand, with the rest through the PA. Admittedly, the PA was close by, but it sounded immense; it's an odd thing how your ears focus on the location/direction of the highs and mids and attribute the bass to it, too: it sounded like I'd defied the laws of physics, and it was all coming from a tiny box... 😀

Nail -> Head here from Lozz...if you need any convincing, then have a listen to some isolated bass tracks (a delve on YouTube will locate some) of famous bassists, and their isolated sound is always somewhat harsher (genre dependent, obv) than it sounds when the whole band's in...Mids are your friend...as is judicious use of compression...but that's whoooole other box of frogs... Way before I moved to digital pedals (I had a MS60B, now I have a Stomp) and was just using an amp, I had a Schroeder cab that was the smallest 2 x 15 in Christendom, and as such sounded harsh and honky and boxy when played in isolation...but with the band, it just worked...

Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that... 😐😁

I was never a Goth, but a lot of my good friends were...my favourite and most-frequented club in Manchester back in the day was the Banshee, which was generally Goth downstairs and Hair Metal upstairs, plus on a Monday at the Ritz it was Goth night. I went with a friend who was going there for the first time, and as he watched a full dance floor (and it was/is a sprung dance floor, so even more amusing) of Goths, he said: 'Errr...are they having a good time?' 'Yeah, course.' 'How do you know?' 🙂

Good luck...and don't forget to glare at the drummer if anything goes wrong... 🙂

Promo from a little while ago, shot at a posh Do in Cheshire, hence the Sparkly Jackets...sound is captured live, then remixed...and who says you can't play modern dance music on a Fenderbird? 😀

ISWYDT... 😀 I love a P, I do - I don't have one right now (tho I really, really must go to Jon Shuker's and pick up that JJB that's been sitting there waiting for me for months), but the vast majority of my basses have a split-coil pickup in the P position, so no matter what they look like I can get a P-Tone out of them. They all have a second pickup, too, so J-territory isn't far away, either (tho I never go there), sooooo... P/J? Wouldn't that be the best of both worlds? If you don't like the P shape, there's Jazzes with a split in the right place - Aerodynes?

I think there's a fine line between the evangelical zeal of discovering something that works very well in a particular environment, and the insistence that this is THE BEST WAY...I'm in three bands, one has embraced all/some of the no/minimal backline/DI/IEMs route, one had a go but it the IEMs didn't really stick (there again, that band doesn't rehearse, so trying to get it all running during a soundcheck was, erm, fraught at best), but the third is a startup, and from the word Go it's all going to be DI'd (triggered kit) and processed - luckily, the drummer is also a talented techie/producer, so he's driving all that. As I've said previously, I haven't used a big (i.e. head and cab(s), bass sound onstage) rig for a good while now, and I can't really see me going back, but those standbys YMMV and IMHO always apply... On the in-ear volume thing, yes, headphones can can cause significant damage if overloud, but judicious use of the Volume knob is at least possible...not so much when you're standing next to cymbals and big rigs; as a long-term Tinnitus Boy, I'm very aware of my personal volume levels (I wear ACS attenuators when I'm going to other band gigs), and the Brave New World offers opportunities which weren't previously possible at the levels (SWIDT?) a lot of us are playing at i.e. pubs, clubs, functions, etc...

On the plus side for cricket, I've never been to a game and not spent the whole afternoon getting casually drunk in the sunshine*; the match itself just kinda goes on in the background as a mere incidental to the rest of the proceedings...we played a posh corporate gig at Old Trafford (huuuuge ground in Manchester) for some official awards ceremony, and were introduced to the whole England team; didn't know who any of them were, just smiled and waved...the food was particularly nice, though... * No idea what happens if it rains: I presume everyone goes into the clubhouse and carries on drinking...

Bear in mind (and I may be wrong, never having heard it) that the Markbass won't be anywhere near FRFR...let us know how you get on...

Sounds like a plan... 👍

Well, I play (with the same bass-dialled-out-12-combo as a monitor) in another band that has no sub, but the RCF 15" tops, and that sounds pretty good, too (and goes loud) - that sounds like it might be a more practical solution for you...

We play a few Smiths songs on occasion, and they're the ones I look forward to the most, because those lines are the song...59 is no age, but as someone said above, there is a light that never goes out...

Oh, man: Andy Rourke and now Algy...it's been a bad few days... 🙁

We use a spare overhead mic for 'room', which opens up the inears - IME the vocal mics are too focused on the voices themselves, plus the room mic can be adjusted separately for 'colour' I have my bass EQ'd in my Helix (which is done in headphones as well), but any monitoring EQ-ing required I do on the Aux channel - we had a couple of Technical Rehearsals to get this right, and, vastly different drummers notwithstanding, the theory is that this shouldn't change, it's only the FoH mix/EQ which should need adjusting per the room... This is the sub we use: not cheap, I know, but we only use 12" RCF tops, and this completes them - I can't think of a gig (pubs and clubs) where we've thought we needed more... https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/rcf-sub-702-asii-12-active-subwoofer

I think it is, like pretty much everything involved with reproducing sound on a larger scale, down to EQ. Even well EQ'd, inears can be isolating unless the often-overlooked stage/room mic is added in, so the sound of the stage can open up the 'closed in' feeling of inears. A good system will allow individual monitor mixes for each person (often on a phone), and you can play with it from there, but if your bass doesn't sound the same in your ears, then it needs EQ-ing to suit. It's similar to when switching from coloured cabs to flatter-response ones - the amp/preamp needs tweaking to compensate for the lack of colouration... Our sub (which as I mentioned above will fill a 150+ room) is a small 12", a simple one-man lift, and less hassle than a bass cab, considering it's for the whole band...

Slightly off the FRFR route, but definitely in the 'easy carry monitoring' area, I've had all my tones coming from my Helix for a few years now, so even when I've used 'proper' backline (not done that for literally years, btw, other than house rigs) the amp's set pretty flat, and the Helix sends direct to the PA and to my monitoring/backline in parallel. If you're using a capable PA (and the modern stuff is very capable, even if it's the band's for a pub gig - two tops and a small 12" sub will kill even in a biggish rooom), then the heavy/FoH lifting will be done by the PA. Sooooo....not FRFR, but I use a small 12 combo (a Rumble, with a 'proper' Eminence in it), cut all the bass out and leave it pretty much flat, put it on a stand that points it at my head, and, what with the PA/sub doing the bottom end, it sounds just fine...combo weighs about 20lbs, the rest is just bits and bobs...

Not since school, but more or less every town has a cricket green/ground and a clubhouse...coincidentally we played for a friend's wedding at a local cricket club Satdy evening, and when we arrived the car park was rammed full because the match was still going...it calmed down later, and there was room for all the guests once the cricket crowd had dispersed...

I used to love it when my Mum came to my gigs, too... 😀

It's a really, really good small venue in the city centre...and yes, it's in the old Deaf Institute* building... * Actually kinda worse than that: it's in the Adult Deaf & Dumb Institute building...

It's always handy to have Eye Of The Tiger ready to go in these circumstances...

Now look what you've done - I've emailed Jon Shuker... 🤪 🙂

For that sort of money I'll be speaking to Jon Shuker about a chambered headless, to be honest (perhaps one of his Superleggeras)...which I may yet do...although I'll have to sell something to do it... 🙁🙂

Close, but no banana: 3.4kg = heavier than the Quantum I have now, unfortunately...I quite like that, tho...those pickups look very like the ones in the BX-1, too