asingardenof

Another vote here for Roqsolid covers

Having lived in Stowmarket I feel your pain and desire to not go back.

I just about managed to buy a Squier P-bass with my grant in the late 90s. Tempus fugit I suppose. I do recall seeing a 70s Jazz in a second hand shop in Leeds in 1998 that would have only set me back £750 - at 20 years old I guess they wouldn't have been considered "vintage" yet, just heavy. I still have and love that Squier though.

I don't think that's limited to Tamworth though, although I admit I haven't spent an awful lot of time in Tamworth - an old colleague used to live in Wilnecote which was about as close as I got to Tamworth proper.

£200/wk? I assume that's all in because that's considerably more than I'm paying for a 3-bed house!

I'm the same, the extra money is definitely one of my main reasons for playing, although after the fun reasons. It's basically my fun money, funds for new gear, etc. as otherwise I'd be able to pay for necessities and not a lot else. This is why I'm the person in our band putting the effort in to find new gigs.

Wasn't my amp, and the amp owner who was the music organiser for the event basically told me in advance of the event that I had to use it.

Nope, you've read the situation correctly. Amp was supplied by the band that was due to play before ours, whose bassist was the music organiser for the event but who was hospitalised the day before.

It sounded great through FOH and I'd love to try one properly in the future. But yes, you're right, I was basically shown it and told there you go literally minutes before we were due to go on.

Some do use FB groups for Google, but a lot of the time they're asking for opinions from people who have used certain bits of gear. Only up to a point though; asking for recommendations for strings is pretty pointless as you'd get 50 different suggestions, and unless someone has £2k around to spend on strings in one go one may as well just pick a brand at random and try it. There are certain types of post that do grind my gears though: "I've just put an order in for this [brand] bass. What does everyone think of it?" - I've just bought this, look how great I am/please validate my impulse buy I did no research on "I've just bought this [brand] bass, what upgrades should I do?" - I've heard modding is cool but I've no idea what the failings of my current bass are or what I want to improve as I've never played it Pretty much anything from Jeff Berlin

User error (whatever the bass equivalent of PEBCAK is) strikes again. The sound guy told me that he'd turned off the distortion setting on the amp. What I didn't notice though is that he'd also helpfully turned down this rather crucial dial: FFS. Anyway, it's back to using my own gear in December and giving my ABM600 its first outing since June.

You can always sell on the original preamp, it'd make a great upgrade for someone and you could make some money back.

Nah, you've room for one more there

Ooooooooooooooooh!

Do it, do it, do it!

I believe it would. I run mine through a Two10S and I haven't had the volume past halfway yet.

Tonight was... interesting. We were second to last on a bill after a GNR tribute act, whose bassist was the musical organiser for the event and whose equipment we were all sharing. The bass rig in question was a Darkglass Alpha-Omega and Barefaced Four10. Except the poor guy was rushed to hospital on Friday night so wasn't around to give the lowdown as his band pulled out. I watched one of the earlier acts, an Oasis tribute, and their bass sound through the Darkglass/Barefaced was immense, with a Fender Ultra Jazz being their bassist's weapon of choice – things are good in the Oasis tribute band game it seems! The band before us was a last minute replacement Blink-182 tribute, whose bassist brought his own amp. I'm not sure what happened between them packing up and us setting up, but I could barely hear myself through the rig. Even crouched in front of the speaker and with the master volume maxed I should have been deafened, but not even close. So I was largely relying on muscle memory – again – to get me through where I didn't have a clear run without being buried under our guitarist in the mix. To be fair she and our keyboardist, who were on the other side of the stage to me, also said the mix was rubbish, so at least it wasn't just me that got shafted. Still, apparently we went down a storm and have been asked to play the same event next year. Which is nice. It was also the first time my little boy (he's at the front wearing a Power Rangers costume in the top photo) has seen me play and he really enjoyed it – he even asked for my autograph when we got home!

Am I missing something or have you somehow found a way to wrangle 500W out of a 200W amp? Or are you talking about a future 500W amp? Sorry, not enough coffee yet...

There is if needs be. I understand other bands have played there recently with similar setups to ours, so possibly a hired-in sub might give a bit more headroom?

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the conclusion we're reaching

We've a gig coming up in December at a venue we've played at before, but unfortunately it's had a change of ownership since last time, and the old owners took their £5k PA system with them (understandably!). We've been asked to provide our own PA but we're not sure if what we'll have will be enough. For context it's a 300 capacity bar. Noise makers we'll have are: 2 x 1000W Behringer active speakers for vocals and keyboards Unmiked drum kit My Ashdown ABM600 + Barefaced Two10S Boss Katana 100W guitar combo A recent photo from the back of the venue is below, with the stage in the distance. The question is will our PA be sufficient? We don't have any subwoofers but if needs be could buy one.

Seems to work OK on Firefox mobile.

Oh dang! And I thought Joe Dart played Dean Town quickly.