NJW

[quote name='Rumble' post='28749' date='Jul 8 2007, 08:04 PM']....You seem to have missed out an overnight camping stove and your shaving kit [/quote] Well - if I was on tour I'd have those with me too;)

2 basses head cab guitar stands box containing: 2 speaker cables 6 instrument cables 2 tuners 1 di box 2 packs of unused strings bag of picks 2 kettle leads an SM58 a4 paper sharpies ductape electrical tape 9v batteries foam disposable earplugs box containing every tool possible, most importantly: screwdrivers allan keys pliers and cutters soldering iron, solder + flux files and on my person i carry: torch drum key bottle opener good earplugs

good work. I approve.

Changing from say a squier pot to an alps pot WILL make a difference. However, the difference will be so slight, I'd work on other elements first When it comes to £2000 pieces of audio gear, things like that make all the difference, but not at this price range.

No, not the compressor/limiter. He means the Clarke Industries compressor. Is it any good?

its down an octave to guitar, but a lighter guage of string than your regular bass, so you can play it like a guitar. They're pretty cool instruments really, I've only played one once (to back up a bass line on a song) and it was a good laugh to play.

Sure thing - once it's been in for service I will let you know what we did. I played it at a show for the first time on wednesday night and I have to say... its quite a beast to tame, when youre not used to having 300w of tube power at your disposal. It was a little vocal PA show so there was no PA support for it... We started our set and I felt a bit uncomfortable with it... the low E string was 'grinding' a bit more than I liked and I felt it wasn't really warm or deep enough. After a few songs i cut the treble on the amp a bit, and notched back the mids a tad... It was better, sat in with the drums a whole lot better. Then as the set went on I notched the tone control on the bass back a bit and all of a sudden it just worked perfectly! A combination of less top end, more 'delicate' use of mids and a tad less tone on the bass, mixed with the tubes getting a workout over the course of 50 minutes resulted in a fantastically deep, warm tone, with plenty of definition. Good stuff! Now I really can't wait to get it in for service and have a matched sextet of power tubes put in, instead of the current 'compliment'. At the moment there are 4 Marshall 6550's and 2 Sovteks... hmmmm.

yes. it is a tool, and i love my particular tool very very much.

I spent some time with the SVT today and managed to locate and swap out the microphonic preamp tube, which made me much happier. Also, with some fresh strings on my jazz bass the tone of it was much tighter and rounder and ballsier than before. Good times. Rehearsal on tuesday will give it a good workout.

tried strings direct?

crazy idea.... soooo many bands! soooo many places. If you can pull it off, i'll eat someones hat (i dont have one of my own to eat).

[quote name='acidbass' post='21553' date='Jun 21 2007, 07:47 PM']Hello guys, Just wondering which plectrums you pickstyle players all use? I've recently started playing with a plectrum for a few songs in my new band, and I'm currently using Dunlop Tortex Yellows (0.73mm) and am very happy with them. So....any suggestions? What's your favourite? Cheers, Danny[/quote] I use t'yellows also.

crikey thats a toughie. im assuming you'd need different levels of electrical current to make them grow brighter/duller... what about using a noise gate's key input function running into some kind of amplifier, and then connect the speaker outs to the lights? on second thoughts, thats a stupid idea... give me time to think of a solution

[quote name='BargyBass' post='20538' date='Jun 20 2007, 12:43 AM']For all you Punk players out there... Sheffield Corporation. Our mate Sheffield Dave was the Promoter for this one and did a great job. The 'in-house' PA people were spot on, friendly and did us proud. I gather we played in the downstairs room and a larger room upstairs was where 'bigger' bands played. Still the venue was happy to welcome our crowd of Punks, Skinheads and general hooligans, who came along and had fun. I must point out however that later on after an altercation between a friend of ours and an odd member of staff, 3 of the 'security' did a dance on his ribs but stopped sharpish when confronted.. Might be one to watch in future.. Played with 2 excellent bands.. FC Dog UK and Scum..[/quote] The 'Larger' room is fantastic to play in also. I believe its a Midas Verona desk up there, and the PA sounds pretty great. Full monitor rig, 8 stage wedges and sidefills (if i remember correctly).

Purchased a 1987 Ampeg 'Skunkworks' SVT-HD from him and was a pleasure to deal with. Trustworthy and recommended.

yeah its through the 6x10. Tried the tweet on, but as per usual I ended up with it completely off. I'm not a fan of the way it sounds at all... I shall get pictures when I can, and let you know how it fares at a gig next week. Also gonna try replace the microphonic preamp tube to get rid of t't warning light, as its making me nervous, even though i dont intend to use the channel yet.

I bought this from fellow BC'er, 'danbanbass', and it arrived today, so I thought I'd post my first impressions. Baring in mind I haven't had a chance to play it in a band context yet, and that i've only had a limited time to play it - here's what I think so far. First of all, on powering up I noticed the fan was INCREDIBLY loud. Is this normal? It's loud to an almost 'this would be a problem when recording' level. I plugged into Ch. 1's normal input and started to bring up volume, playing my MIA Jazz bass. MIDS! Wow, this thing is mid heavy. It's fantastic. I haven't yet had the chance to try all the rocker switch settings with different pot settings, but I got a deep lo-mid'ish tone out of it immediatly. Cranking the top end, I noticed it was 'sweet' rather than harsh (compared to my tech 21 LM300). Pushing the bass up, i realised i didnt even need to push it much as the low mid provided so much 'oomph'. One worrying thing is that it really brings out the nuances in my playing! I'm gonna have to get practising!!! Plugging into channel 2 was a little dissapointing, as one of the pre tubes was microphonic and so I couldn't really get to hear the channel properly. I'm going to email my tech tonight and ask what he thinks about the fan situation, and also if he would recommend any particular tube compliment. I can't help but feel the Marshall 6550's could be replaced with something nicer, just to make it go from being 'Oooomph' to 'Earth Shattering'.

[quote name='The Funk' post='18416' date='Jun 15 2007, 04:55 PM']Damn. My next questions are: 1. Who is this manager? 2. Will he manage my band?[/quote] He used to be in a hardcore-ish band from Southend, and whilst standing at perhaps only 5ft 3" has a very aggressive appearance. A mix of extremely business like manner + aggressive stares are pretty intimidating i guess!

[u]Good venues[/u] [b]DUNDEE[/b] Balcony Bar - tiny little room with an upstairs that has a balcony all the way round to look down on top of the bands. A lot of metal/rock in here. Little vocal PA but always a good atmosphere. Westport Bar - my favourite venue in dundee. a good size (250+), nice PA (yamaha m2000, eaw subs/tops), nice and clean. Reading Rooms - a larger venue, but they seem to have gone off putting on rock/band nights in favour of clubnights. Good full PA and high-ish stage. [u]Other great venues that I love[/u] KINGSTON UPON THAMES the peel EXETER cavern PORTSMOUTH wedgewood rooms SHEFFIELD cricketers arms (a tiny little dinghy upstairs room in a dirty little pub outside bramhall lane. DIY promoters book it, lug in some form of PA and pack it full of excited youngsters. Every show i've played there has been super memorable).

long past warning. [u][b]BRADFORD RIOS[/b][/u] This is the only venue I have ever played that I feel the need to write about. In february last year we, Hundred Reasons and a band called Save Ourselves were due to play there. It's a large venue (i'd guess 1,500 or more capacity? maybe i just remember it wrong) and on arriving, the HR crew asked the in house engineer if there were any house crew to assist with load in. The engineer laughed and said 'no chance'. When asked (out of courtesy) if it was ok to set up, he said 'pffft on you go', and then left the venue. He was gone for a few hours, so the lads promptly began to set up their backline in their usual layout. By this time, the engineer returned and promptly ordered the crew to move everything about. Arguments ensued and I left the venue for some fresh air. After they sound checked, we put OUR backline on the stage. Again, the soundman showed indifference, so we set up in the available space in/around the headliners backline. I set up my amp on top of my 6x10 and went off to grab a bag from our van. When i had returned, the engineer had pushed my rig out of the way with his foot, and it stood precariously on the edge of the stage, and probably would have toppled had a crew member noticed. The engineer didn't seem to care. Anyway, finally we got round to sound checking. Unfortunately, this was the one night when we didnt have our touring engineer with us. After a fairly long sound check where we tried our hardest to be polite to the engineer whilst he was rude to us, we were happy with the monitor mixes. We thanked him. One of the guys in the headline band was stood by the desk watching (he is also an engineer) and watched in horror as the house engineer flattened the desk without noting down monitor settings (or anything else). He said "are you not going to note those down?" to which the house engineer replied... wait for it... "no chance. I don't even want to be here!" - "fine. go home then. I'll do their sound." "no you wont". He walked off. SOOO.... Time for the gig. Save Ourselves play a fairly uneventful set. No big problems. They come off, and the engineer starts to play a CD through the PA. As we begin to set up, a huge POP as the entire right side of the PA cuts out. Oh god, we think. The next 40 minutes is spent with the engineer running round clueless. After almost an hour, one of the bands crew find the problem. A power cable with a broken plug powering a rack of amps had been TAPED onto the socket, instead of fitted properly. Turns out it was a bodge job by the house engineer. After a while, the PA was fixed, but the gig was running way overtime. Everyone was pretty angry, and pacing about looking menacing. The tour manager had his best terrier expression on. We spoke to the band, and tour manager and said... look, were running hugely overtime. We'll cut our set to 20 minutes (from 45) and that'll give you most of your set time (they still had to cut a few songs). We played our hugely shortened set (in our opinion, our duty as a support band) and then watched the headliners. After the show, we packed up, loaded out and waited in the venue with the rest of the band members/road crew. No one appeared from the 'office' to pay us. We were angry, and there was NO WAY we were going to leave without being paid for this shambles of a night. Eventually, the promoter approached us and politely informed us of the bad news. He told us we had not stuck by our contract. It was agreed we would play a 40 minute set minimum, for our fee. He failed to acknowledge the fact that we HAD to cut our set due to the venues incompetence. Tempers flared, and the idiot promoter returned to his office and shut the door. As we don't have a tour manager of our own, we weren't sure what to do next, other than kick his door down. Luckily, HR's tour manager said "ill sort it out boys" and he dissapeared for a while. To this day, I still don't know what happened, but he returned with a handful of cash and gave it to us. The venue says sorry, he told us, as we counted the money, realising it was significantly more than we were supposed to receive. Sorry for the stupidly long post, but avoid this venue like the plague. Entirely unprofessional, worryingly aggressive, and deceitful.

[quote name='jmesa' post='18371' date='Jun 15 2007, 04:17 PM']Be Prepared ![/quote] haha... sooo ridiculous. yet so good at the same time.

highlights include the lyrics - "THIS MICROPHONE TURNS SOUND INTO ELECTRICITYYY" "IVE GOT... FIFTY THOUSAND WATTS OF POWER" and "I WAS BORN WEARING PANTS".

[quote name='john_the_bass' post='18089' date='Jun 15 2007, 10:38 AM']when did you play at firebug? It appears to be the favourite place amongst the inner circle of the leicester music scene. We've played there a few times, but it's difficult for us to get a gig there as we don't seem to mix with everybody else. Gaf will know what i'm about!![/quote] It was back at the start of april 2006 I believe. A friend of mine who used to be in a leicester band called Team sorted it out for us. It was pretty cosy, quite busy, and we got dinner and breakfast the next morning on top of our fee... couldnt complain! All the points in this thread are valid... I would say a big plus one again to Peavey stuff, despite the fact I wouldnt use it myself. It seems a universal standard in practise rooms and people know where they stand with them.

[quote name='Krysbass' post='12444' date='Jun 5 2007, 01:10 PM']So now we have a bass that looks quite nice, (mainly because it's hardly ever been played) but has a neck like a banana and strings getting on for 10mm off the fretboard![/quote] Thats how high I like my action on my Jazz

I'm a fifer that escaped across the water...