Franticsmurf

Do you have my Pentax K1000, which was stolen at that gig? 🤣

Sign me up for 'Black Sword'. I saw the Hammersmith Odeon date of that tour, with Moorcock reading excerpts from the books and Lemmy showing up for a guest sport at the end.

Mine was on the bass board for ages when the band was working up a rock and pop set. I ended up using it for a few gigs where I was playing rhythm guitar.

Big jumps along the fretboard, a particular liking for playing up at the dusty end (no dust on my end!) and dark stages (or stage lights glaring in my eyes) means that I have relatively large side markers. It doesn't affect the sound of the bass like a duff note would and most punters can't see them.

100% agree.

It's moments like these (not the messing up but being able to laugh at the messing up) that make playing in bands so enjoyable for me. It's difficult to describe. I have a photo that sums up why I love playing in a band, and it's not unlike this one above.

Oh, that is lovely. I had my GAS under control until just now. 😢

As an ex-guitarist, I always had a spare guitar to hand and more often than not I'd swap guitars between sets anyway. Last year I had a string of rhythm guitar deps and always had two on call.

I'm using a Gear4Music WPM200. It was the cheapest unit I could find when I was looking to try out IEM a few years ago and the drummer in the trio I was in was already using one. We shared the transmitter just for vocals. It does everyting I want it to and I like the sound so I haven't felt the need to upgrade. I tried a couple of different earbuds and I'm currently using a pair of KZ ZS10 Pros on the recommendation of a fellow BCer.

The P16 is on a stand to one side of me but the wireless link gives me the freedom to move about so I'm not tied to it. At some gigs, there isn't much room on stage (we're a 13 piece) and I can leave the P16 out of the way. The alternative, which I have tried, is a headphone extension cable which tends to pull on the phones and which I am expert in treading on/tripping over. 😀

I started with a Behringer P2 hardwired and soon fell foul of all those little wires dangling around. Wireless was the obvious solution. Our band uses a Behrindger X32 and I had a personal mix from one of the aux outs for about a year and it was great. But then I discovered the P16 and, as has been said above, it is a game changer. I have mine fed with the pre-fade mix so effectively I have my own mix which I can adjust accordingly. The Ultranet (Cat5) cable is thin and runs alongside my DI and Mic cables. My wireless set up comes from the phones out of the P16.

I'd certainly recommend the dedicated thread elsewhere on BC for a range of opinions, advice and information. But my personal experience is as @Phil Starr says. It took me probably 6 months of building up confidence in what I was hearing through the 'phones, getting the mix right and getting the technical side right (finding the right 'phones and buds). I would not go back to physical monitors now for the main band (The Hulla) I play in. I can hear an improvement in my backing vocals now I can hear myself properly, I feel my bass playing has improved now I can hear clearly what's going on and I'm playing with the actual sound I spent ages and ££s getting right rather than a muffled version through old monitor speakers. I would add that in my experience having a dedicated sound engineer has made the process of switching to IEM much easier as I've been able to work with him to refine the mix I'm hearing. The rest of the band, with two exceptions, are not using IEM but I don't think it will be long before the majority see the light. In bands where I dep, I tend to plug in to the headphone socket on the desk so that I can hear the vocals through my IEM and use different earbuds so that some of the backline sound comes through. It's not ideal but in the circumstances I can get a decent enough balance. In both cases there is a very valuable bonus in that I can manage the volumes and protect my hearing.

I'd just like to register my thanks to @neepheid for his sterling work last year, and to @Richard R for stepping up this year. And to sign up for a bass gear free 2025. (That funny noise in the background is the rest of my band sniggering 😀).

I've tried several pedal tuners but the TU300 is the one I keep coming back to. And the BDI21 is my always-in-the-bag back up for gigs where I'm going through FOH.

I set mine to just below the red clipping level when playing 'normally' - i.e. the red LED does not show, or shows very briefly now and again. With a pedal or two and an active Sterling HH, the gain control is between 2pm and 4pm depending on whether I use a pick or not.