StingRayBoy42

The footswitches on my Sansamp Programmable BDDI have taken to only working sometimes. Anyone else had this problem? Is there an easy fix? I believe the switches are a bit weird and not standard DPDT ones, so probably not easy to replace? Or if anyone know a pedal fixer anywhere around Birmingham or Manchester, let me know. Cheers

I bought an EB lead from Mr Spongebob and he was a pleasure to deal with from head to toe. Top Basschattist, buy with confidence.

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I'm a TOTAL beginner at playing with a bow, can anyone recommend a hakf decent starter french style bow for under £100? I'm assuming anything in that price range will be Chinese, are all the £50-70 Chinese ones much of a muchness? Are there any makes/sellers I should avoid? Is carbon fibre worth looking at? Are there any woods I should particularly go for/avoid? Do I want 3/4 or 4/4? There's a few on ebay, thomann sell a couple or the local violin shop has one for sixty-odd quid. My Bass is a big 3/4 size apparently if that makes a difference? All and any input appreciated, or if anyone has one for sale let me know.

Two very different gigs this weekend... Friday was the 4 piece rock band at the Murderer's Arms (?) somewhere in Derbyshire - Sabbath, Pistols, Motorhead, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Metallica type stuff. After the soundcheck, a woman asked "Are you going to be that loud all night?" and a bloke said "You starting at 9? We'll be leaving at 5 past" Not many in, those that were there seemed to enjoy it, bit of good-natured heckling and one of my jokes even got a laugh (first time for everything). We played pretty well, couple of rough edges as usual - I think we rehearsed twice about 9 months ago when I joined. StingRay -> Small board (Bass soul food, One Control green bass machine, MXR chorus) -> Sansamp programmable BDDI -> Mark CMD 121P. Great setup for rock stuff, love the different crunch/distortion/fuzz options. Good laugh, got paid. Saturday was the Jones Jazz Orchestra's 5th birthday/Christmas bash in Coleshill. 20-odd piece big band with 4 vocalists. Nice varied setlist, A few Michael Buble ones (MD is a big Buble fan), Live and let die, Fantasy (Earth, Wind and Fire), a few jazz standards, Gershwin, L-O-V-E, a few christmas numbers in the second set.. bit of everything. It's fantastic playing in a big band, such a different vibe to 'normal' 4/5/6 piece pop/rock/indie bands. I was wedged in between the drummer and the trumpets, thank god I had my earplugs. Really nice to hear the different stuff the trumpets get up to - usually I only hear the loud high bits, but being next to them meant I got to hear all the quieter/subtle bits that I don't normally hear. Highlights were the Trombone solo in Flip, Flop & Fly and the Trombone intro to Live & let die - our 1st Trombonist has got such a sweet, gorgeous tone that just sits beautifully on top of the band when she's giving it some. Good audience, a lovely bunch of decent musicians, we sounded really good, a real pleasure to play with. Unpaid as all the money raised goes back into the band, happy to do it for the fun of it. StingRay -> Thumpinator -> VTDI (set to Fliptop) -> MarkBass 802. And two Lucky Chops tunes on the Sousaphone for good measure. A good weekend!

Bought a Boss TU-2 from Mr Moon, perfect transaction all the way.

Not sure if this counts, but just done my first school concert in my new job teaching primary age kids to play in rock bands. More terrifying than any gig I've ever done. Enjoyed it now that it's over... No crying, being sick or wet pants and the kids did pretty well too.

Where are you based? I'm a well known Morris tart!

Sousaphone is good for Morris Dancing. I speak from bitter experience..

Tonight: Depping on Sousaphone for a roaming/street brass band type thing at a fire festival in a park in Preston. Outside, in Preston. On the coldest night of the year. As you do. Me on Sousa, trumpet, alto sax and drums (marching drums type setup). Haven't played Sousy in public for a while, AND the guy on trumpet was their usual Sousa player, so I was pretty nervous... turned out to be an absolute hoot, the most fun I've had in ages. There were loads of people there, they all loved it, the band are all great players and lovely fellers, we sounded good and went down a treat. We did a real mix of stuff - couple of christmas numbers, a couple of trad jazz numbers, King of the swingers, Bear necessities, Seven nation army, I wanna dance with somebody... a real mix! Everything was in Bb, F or C (good brass keys) and mostly stuff I knew/could busk or three chord wonders. It wasn't as cold as I'd feared it would be, I even did both sets without a coat on because I'm a big brave boy. Two 40 minute sets, decent cup of tea and white chocolate & cranberry tiffin at half time, done by 9 and back at me dear old Ma's in Manchester by 10, good payer, and the band liked what I did so I'm on the dep list. For those of you interested in my feet, I wore two pairs of socks and my cow print DMs which also went down a treat.

The sort of place where you wipe your feet on the way out.

Played one of the worst gigs I've ever done last night... horrible grotty little (anti) social club somewhere in the Midlands. The sort of place pregnant women go to smoke. There was a loud ten piece soul band playing a private party in the next room (who sounded pretty good to be fair),there were about 20 people ignoring us, half of whom were kids under ten. Everyone was vaping indoors, including some of the kids I think. There was American football on all seven enormous TVs and a dog wandering round. One guy sarcastically danced, a women asked for Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre, apart from that, total silence. No applause, no engagement, nothing. I'd rather have played to the proverbial brick wall. Longest two 45 minute sets in history. 😐 Played the StingRay and apologised to it four times. We packed up in 22 minutes flat, which beats the previous record by nearly an hour. Got paid cash and let us never speak of it again.

My free angled polarity reverser arrived two days after contacting them Solid bit of kit, grips the plug tighter than a very tight thing and fits under my teeny board. 11/10 for myvolts, top customer service and good gear. I heartily recommend them. If anyone wants my straight polarity reverser for nowt, DM me. Disclainer: I *presume* it will work with any PSU but iyou plug it into anything that's not a myvolts PSU and a Harley Benton ISO-5, you're on your own!

I asked myvolts if they do an angled one and they're sending me one for free. Hooray!

My adapter arrived, complete with polarity reverser. Decent bit of kit. Unfortunately, the straight plug into the ISO-5 doesn't fit under my teeny pedalboard so if anyone can recommend an angled polarity reverser that's the right size, I'm all ears!

Just had a response from myvolts "Not to worry, your order includes a polarity reversing tip adapter which allows the power supply to be used with your device" Might need some heatshrink, or for a permanent solution gaffa tape.

Tonight: A social club somewhere near Walsall. It was as glamourous as it sounds (if not less so) - the average age was about 100, and that's including me and the three 20-somethings in the band... We had a dep singer as our singer/guitarist was busy/couldn't be bothered, she was great- really nice husky voice, got stuck in lugging the gear, lovely lass and a good laugh. We did mostly 50s and 60s stuff which went down well - you've not lived until you've seen a dancefloor full of septuagenarians shuffling away to a Connie Francis number, and a few of our usual set. Not sure what they made of Dakota, Brightside and Footloose but they gave it a go, bless 'em. We changed key on the fly for a few songs (to give the female singer a fighting chance) which meant I launched into my BVs on autopilot before realising I couldn't get that high, so I ended up alternating between Barry White and Alvin and the Chipmunks. There was a raffle at half time. Glamourous, like I said. Played the 'Ray for the first time in ages - it's been out of action for a bit due to me not being happy with the LaBella DTFs that were on it, back to EB Cobalt flats and it sounded fantastic. Thumpinator -> VTDI was all I took so no pedals to worry about. Probably for the best, as I think the Bass Soul Food would have finished a couple of them off, never mind the one control green bass machine. Dodgy XLR meant horrid crackly/cutting out IEMs for the first set, the joy I felt when I could hear everything in the second set was almost a religious experience. Paid cash, a pint on the house and home at 1:30 to a Westons Special Reserve and a sulky cat. Better than staying in watching telly, innit?

That's the one I've ordered I hope so!