Muzz

Worst 'selling' experience I've ever had was trying to give away a pair of sofas; I'd clearly said 'Free to collect', and even reiterated it further down in the description, with the sizes and 'You'll need a van big enough to fit both'...that kinda thing. The number of people wanting free delivery was equally irritating and depressing, and one woman even turned up in a small hatchback (after saying she'd collect, asked me to hold them, etc) on her own, and demanded to know what I was going to do to help her take them away...

After a good deal of EQ faffage, I settled on John East's EQ offerings a long time ago, and now they're in almost all my basses (as much for consistency as whether the basses were drastically in need of it) I have (including my Dingwall, my bitsa Shukerbird, and my main Shukers) and have improved everything they've gone in. Mostly U-Retros, of various vintages... They're a very 'musical' control, but the mid-sweep is the key for me...

Skoda Superb Estate. Greenline 1.6 diesel, so 70+ mpg driven sensibly. Thanks to a BL brain fart when booking a gig from Manchester to the New Forest ('It's near Stoke, isn't it?' FFS...) we had a go at doing it all in my car. Three of us, the drumkit (not a big one, but not electric, either) PA (RCF sub and two 12" tops), lights (two sets of smallish 5 x LEDs), all the stands, guitar combo, two guitars (one acoustic in hard case), 212 bass cab and cased Walkabout head, and dual Mono gig bag with two basses. And all the leads. Averaged 65mpg over the trip, but I had to drive fairly carefully over any bumps...yeah, it'll carry quite a bit... 😀

Ahhh, 'rockumentaries'...it's a grey area, really; I rather thought Metallica at least were acting like weapons-grade numpties throughout theirs...

I thought Metallica's Some Kind Of Monster was by turns ridiculous and hilarious, in an unintentional Spinal Tap kinda way, but the all-time winner for a great band film has got to be The Story of Anvil...

I'll refer to them if I'm pushed for time (for instance, our BL has just disseminated a list of 21 new songs he wants to debut in three week's time; we may or may not get a rehearsal in before then), and tend to approach them on the basis of a quick start guide, rather than anything definitive. Sometimes aggregating the results from a couple can get nearer the desired result. I've also come across some which are bang on. They're not all perfect by any means, but as a resource, they're not bad at all...

I'm with Clarky...put it in the middle, you maniac! 😕🙂

I've mentioned this before, but I took my new 12-string bass to a rehearsal once, to try out on a couple of songs. Nobody said a bloody word, and they were musicians, so generally, unless there are That Type Of Tyre-Kicking Muso in the audience (a Muso punter once berated me for using a Fenderbird; 'But...but...that neck's not right...' pfffft.), there's zero chance of anyone else giving a, erm, flying fig... On the Generic Sound thing, I have no direct experience of Foderas, but from what I've heard, tone-wise, from vids of people playing them, they do sound very generic. A very good generic, but generic, and nothing I haven't heard in lots of places before. It's a Personal Taste thing (so IMHO, YMMV, and all that), but I like more character. I do have luthier basses, but in every case I've specced them with the pickups, placement and EQ to be able to deliver a specific range of sounds, centered around what I like. Which, if I'm completely honest, is a Precision, with rounds, driven hard. There, I've said it... 😀

Hahahaaa, yes, the veto...I have an oud, which is pretty much unplayable as an instrument (it cost me about £20 on holiday years ago), but is a rather spectacular thing in terms of wood, and that got the first nod for downstairs...

The whole MA/VH situation extended beyond the musical, tho; he was treated (and paid) like the hired help throughout... On the Malcolm Young thing, 90% of ACDC tribs who don't quite sound right are the ones who have neglected to spot that the person in the band who needs to be closest to the original is the rhythm guitarist; sure, someone who sounds like Bon/Brian is important, and a lead guitarist who sounds (and looks, tho Buddha knows that's an increasingly bum-clenching exercise these days, even with the man himself) like Angus is also important, but to make the band sound right, Malcolm's parts have to be spot on...

My other half has no real interest in musical instruments per se, but when we were decorating and arranging the house we moved into a couple of years ago, she suggested I hang my basses on the wall as objects, the luthier (Shuker) ones especially, because she loves the look of them, the woods, the craft... If your friend's aesthetic tastes were different, he'd be at home going to Jon Shuker, who's a luthier who doesn't play an instrument...

Surely you could ask your butler to do it, and give you the precis? 😃 '...have you seen the price of bassoons?!!' Awesome...I'm gonna do that right now...holy cow... £24k for a Thomann one? 😱

I was never happy with the video for that... 😕

Hellooooo... 😃 Don't be amazed; it cost a fortune to get where I am... 😕🙂

I've often said (in various contexts) that I'm as shallow as a puddle when it comes to some elements of basses (aesthetics, especially), but beyond that, after a LOT of trial and error (thankfully not too costly) I know exactly what I like, and I can look at a bass and say 'That won't work for me' immediately. On the positive side, it's a bit harder, because I've been disappointed before, but generally I can get close ("I'll probably like that.") Doesn't stop me keep buying Stingrays, for example, despite knowing they don't suit me at all. I do like a Stingray. And then, when I play it in a band, I don't... On the multiple basses thing, I don't I've ever seen a rule that you have to be a professional to have several basses that do different jobs in different bands. And even if I had, I'd have ignored it.

Having had a go* of a fair amount of high-end (in cash terms) maker's output (stuff like Alembics, etc), I know what would suit me and what wouldn't, and a Fodera wouldn't. I'm sure they're beautifully made, but I don't like the aesthetics enough (at all, really) to warrant even a try...plus I don't have Fodera money to chuck about on the off-chance I'd like it to play. Good enough? How's that gonna work, then? Who's judging? I'm certainly not...depending on the night and the context, I might be onstage with a £250 BB or £2.5k Dingwall...it's still me... * Mostly in the sense of 'bought a second-hand one, tried it for a while, sold it on for pretty much the same money...'

In the function band, we often rearrange the first set (well, we have what would loosely be called a 'flexible' setlist - basically the BL calls them in the order he fancies; I don't mind, because he's very good at reading a room) around the number of Darling Kiddiwinks allowed/encouraged onto the dance floor by their doting parents, which usually precludes anyone else from dancing... On the 'sliding across the floor on knees' thing, the Singist/geetard/BL got carried away and tried that once, in some verrry cheap dress trahsers; cue instant tearing, the sound of the double-squeak of knees suddenly and painfully gaining traction, and him pitching forward onto his face with a resounding clang...the drummer and I played on, unable to look at each other, while he was helped to his feet and guided by kind hands back to the stage...

FWIW, I replaced the cheapo Chinese Eminence speaker in my Rumble 100 with one of those Beta 12s, after finding a good deal of (admittedly anecdotal) reports on people getting good results in the cab. As has been stated above, tho, speaker replacement's a bit of a gamble on what speaker works in what cab; I also made things less crucial because I cut all the bass out of the Rumble; in the scenario where I use it I'm into the PA and just using it for stage monitoring. I also have a couple of BF cabs which are light and loud (the Super Twin is 40lbs or so, and has wheels), but I'm guessing they're above the OP's budget... Oh, and I have a light sack trolley, too...all good except for Fricking Stairs...

Pretty much verbatim conversation a while back with the BL: 'What time are we setting off tomorrow Pal?' 'Get round to ours at about three. You can follow my car.' 'Three? What time's the wedding?' 'Normal time; arrive for six to set up, bugger off for the speeches, we're starting the first set about half eight.' 'But...it's in the New Forest?' 'Yeah?' 'And we're in Manchester?' 'Yeah? It's only Stoke way.' 'You don't know where the New Forest is, do you?' 'Stoke way?' 'Look, to get to the New Forest, you drive South till you can see France, then turn left.' 'You're kidding...hang on...' The sound of some worried Googling... 'Oh hellfire...I've not charged for mileage...we can't go in two cars, it'll cost a fortune in petrol. Can we fit it all in yours?' Cue some Olympic-standard Tetris packing at nine the next morning; we got the three of us, the drums, the PA and all stands, the lights, two guitars, two basses and the amps into my car...and people ask why I always drive large estate cars...

Only three or four years ago, New Years Eve, we (function trio) turn up to an agency gig (a new agent, too, whom the Singist/BL assured us was 'Bob on') at a working men's club; I'd originally been delighted, as it's a mile from my house - as with a lot of NYE gigs, the DJ was bound to want us to pack it in at 11:45 so he could do the chimes, etc; I could be home before midnight for once. The first small inklings that something might not be quite right were the posters saying 'Soul Band and Buffet' as we were loading in, but we thought that was another night. We got set up (with BC-approved Minimal Light Gear Including In-Ears, etc), on the very big stage, begin to soundcheck, and the landlord approaches. He looks confused, and not very happy. 'Where's the rest of you?' he said, with a kind of doomed, sinking tone in his voice. 'Sorry?' 'You know, the horn section...the rest of the band' 'Erm...this is it.' 'But...but...I booked a full Soul Band. Horns and everything.' 'Oh' 'Can you play any Northern Soul?' There's a pause. The singist has his acoustic around his neck. He decides honesty is the best policy. 'Not that you'd recognise, no.' We tried, we really did (after some furious Googling and scribbling backstage), but it was never going to happen. The audience weren't for giving us the benefit of anything, least of all the doubt. We did one set, then the DJ took over, and we slunk away. At least I was home in plenty of time before midnight. And we got paid, too, tho the agent (echoing the audience) seemed to think it was somehow our fault, and never booked us again. No loss there, to be fair... The only consolation was thinking some venue somewhere got a full Soul Band they weren't expecting...I'd like to think it was the back room of a small pub, and they blew the roof off...

On the sub-subject of Setting The Tone, the BL/singist/geetard has an almost Tourettes-level compulsion to blurt things out without running them through his head (or by us) first, which has set the tone many a time; we once played a verrrr posh Hunt Ball somewhere in Cheshire; this was a Masked Ball, so the great and the good (you know, Captains of Industry and their Lady Wives) were there in DJs, ballgowns and rather swish bejewelled masks. After the first song (we were introduced by the DJ straight in), BL walks back to the mike and says 'Ladies and Gentlemen, you're all looking very smart this evening, I love the masks...did anyone watch that program last week about dogging?' The tumbleweed was only interrupted by the drummer's faster-than-usual count into the second song...

To be honest, if you're getting your sound from the Helix (I do that, too), it's just about something to give you some of that sound for onstage monitoring, so whatever provides your Helix sound with as little colouring as possible at the volume you need sounds like the best bet; as I say, I use a Rumble, set as flat as I can get it (other than all the bass cut for volume purposes); I wouldn't necessarily use a Rumble without the Helix (or the PA), but it's small, light and was cheap... And point it at the guitards... 🙂