Muzz

Ohhhhh, that's genius... 🙂

We played a pub on Saturday night, and by far the biggest posters in the windows were for the previous night's entertainment...which was The Meat Raffle...

Don't forget the constant talking until the Bingo comes on... 😕

There's a wedding venue up in t'th'hills round these parts that we're not going back to: it's a big wooden barn conversion with gaps in the walls you can see through, and 'actively negative' neighbours on the volume front* - none of them are particularly close, but it's quiet up there and I guess the sound carries. Anyway, they have the most aggressive sound limiter I've ever encountered - our dep drummer at the time set her kit up, hit her snare once, not too hard, and off it went. We found it actually onstage. She then tried a rimshot...ping, off it went again. I walked up to it and clapped my hands...it went off. So we moved the kit to the far side of the makeshift stage, and started off at suuuuper low volume. There's nothing more depressing than being able to hear everyone's feet shuffling on the dancefloor, and people coughing, over the music. Still wasn't enough for the woman running the show - she was constantly on our case. The couple who'd booked us were desperately disappointed; ultimately, it's not a venue that can cope with amplified music, and really shouldn't have been advertised (or sold) as such. To add insult to injury, it was early in the year, and the wind was blowing through the walls (see 'gaps you could see through', above) - there were four of those big tube heat blowers going full blast, but it was still freezing anywhere not in a direct line with them. All in all, a nightmare of a venue... * Can't really blame them, as they've been there long before the owners decided to make it a music venue.

My favourite's still Earth And Wind For Hire...

So how are you getting on with them now? How long does a charge from the UV light last? Am considering some Luminlays, but if these are an option, they're a whooooole lot cheaper...

I've never been as comfortable with theory as I'd have liked, despite playing for forty years now, but I'd agree with the poster who's said learning and playing lots of songs (or all sorts of genres) opens up the kinda dry theory with some "Ohhhh, now I get what he did there..." moments, and they're the ones that have stuck.

There's basically two 'Generations' of Class D amps out there, a lot running the older power amp module (which, I believe the TH500 is one), which had its detractors, and was the origins of the whole 'heft' thing, but the newer generation module in the Magellan, Mesa 800, Darkglass, etc, is a different animal in terms of presence and 'heft'. Unfortunately, an awful lot of people's negative perceptions of Class D is based on their experience of the first generation amps... That being said, I think the OP will struggle to replace a db751, which is at the end of the day a £2500 amp, with a £5-600 amp...if weight is the issue, I'd agree with the folk above who have suggested keeping the 42lb amp and changing the 98lb cab for something half the weight...and there's plenty of options for that...

This was a Perception with Overwater soapbars and their EQ. Definitely polite, clean and sterile. Probably sophisticated, and certainly a lovely bass - just not for me. Having said that, Barts (and Jazzes, even copies) aren't my thing, either... This was before I got into modding basses, so it didn't really occur to me to start ripping out pups and EQs...I'm still not sure it would have made that much difference...

I think the technical term, given the smoky venues these basses will have been played in, is 'Fagnolia'... 😀

Ermmm...funny you should say that...I've got a John East U-Retro in mine... 😁 It's more to keep consistency with my other gigging basses, all of which have East pres, but it doesn't do any harm... 😊

I put the 'P-Type' pickup in the neck position of my ABZ, and it's no longer polite - actually, I'd have described it more as 'Clean'. When I think of 'polite', I think of the Overwater I owned once (actually twice...long story) and I emailed Chis May about its 'politeness', but there wasn't much to be done about that...

I've had an ABZ for years, and the fanned frets aren't an issue at all: as others have said, 30 seconds the first time you pick one up and they're a natural thing, and I switch between my ABZ and 'normal' Shukers at gigs without even thinking about it. The string tensions are great, and although mine's a 4, I'd imagine the benefits for a 5 are even more pronounced...If you are a 20th fret chorder, then you may have more of an adjustment to make, but that's not me... As Chris says, try and try one first, though: there's more to them than just the fanned frets - they're light, they have compound radius boards, banjo frets, they're tonally very versatile and feel like the hand-finished quality they are. All good things, IMO... 😍

Yep, I've commented before about the appalling quality of a lot of big festival/gig bass; it's invariably mush...or at least it has been at the last few I've been to. The two methods above are a step towards a better sound out front, but then the sound engineer will probably make a balls of it anyway...he'll just have to try a bit harder... 😏

No idea, I'm afraid - he does this a lot, and he has a pro setup...it was a small handheld unit, though (how's that for technical? 😀) I'll try and find a link to him...the sound came straight from the desk.

Ohhhh, I'm putting that in the 'Politely Appalled' phrase list...I can see us using that quite a lot...

So we had a video shot by a friend at one of the series of gigs we did at Xmas in a venue in Cheshire...it came out pretty well...eventually...

Played a regular pub gig this weekend, they have a stage the staff set up in one of the window bays kinda thing. It's usually a late gig anyway (first set about 10:15 start, second set 1:00am finish), but with Russia playing for penalties (and I'm glad they've gone out with that approach), it was gone ten by the time they started setting the stage up, so it was gone eleven before we started, so we went straight through in one set till one. Given the heat in the (packed) pub, it was rowdy, sweaty, hard work. Good fun, though.. 😁

...or a £1.6k starting price for a completely hand-built Shuker...

Although most of us hated it...

Went to the Hollywood Vampires. Dreadful. The Damned were great, I like everything about The Darkness except the songs, but we left after 45 minutes of Johnny Depp's w**kfest - and we only stayed that long because SWMBO had gone to the loo and got lost on the way back. Seven people onstage to remind everybody how much better the originals were done by three or four people. About as subtle as a kick in the knackers...and how can you get the wrong keyboard sound for a Doors track? And as for their 'original tracks'...pfffft... On the upside, it wasn't as ear-bleedingly loud as the last couple of times I've been to the Manchester Arena, and the mix was a lot better. Didn't help Johnny's lot, though...I've seen better covers done down the Dog and Duck...