Franticsmurf

This is the way I worked with a band I put together to play a one off gig last year. We were all capable musicians and we needed to get 15-20 songs together over about 6 weeks. We agreed to work on 6-8 new songs per week in rehearsals that lasted about 2 hours. The format was that everyone worked out their parts in advance and the rehearsals were for taking the rough edges off, sorting the arrangements and working on vocals. We kept it loose and usually managed to do what we needed to do on as many of the songs each week. Sometimes we got 8, other times we only managed 3 or 4. Weeks 2, 3 & 4 started with playing through the previous week's songs and by week 5 we had the makings of a set. A couple of songs were dropped and new songs added along the way. We had an extra 'dress rehearsal' in week 6, by which time we'd sorted the set order. The gig went well. My only regret was that we didn't have more time to get to know each other so that we could include some improvisation along the way.

Great thread. The trio that springs to mind is from the 'Yesshows' live album. Technically the three tracks are Parallels into Time and Word into Going for the One. But Yes frequently came on stage to the final part of Stravinski's 'Firebird Suite' and I love the way on the album, the band start to play over the final few bars of Firebird, and Rick Wakeman takes the key change from the last chord up to the start of Parallels. As a kid, this album influenced me in so many ways and it's still one of my all time favourites. So my three are: Opening (Firebird Suite) Parallels Time and a Word.

It was the first rehearsal of 2024 for the Hulla band last night and the first time we'd played since 10 December. A medium sized pile of rust accumulated at my feet as we dusted off a few oldies, of few regulars and some I'd never played before. The first hour was largely catching up (they all live in a village the the drummer and I are 'outsiders'), so between songs there were great gaps as we settled in. But overall it was a good night with few glaring errors and nothing that won't be put right by the next rehearsal. I was using a new pair of earphones for my IEM; when I first started using it I tried the 'phones that came with the kit (a cheap Gear4Music set) and they didn't work for me - too tinny and low volume. I took to using a pair of Sony noise cancelling earpieces, which were fine. But over the break I tried the originals again and found that I hadn't been fitting them correctly and once I'd made the effort (in other words, pushed them in properly), they were much better. Last night was the first time I'd tried them with the full band and what a difference! Clarity, volume, more isolation and more comfortable to wear. In fact, so much more isolation that I'm going to have to set up a mic to pick up the drums to feed into them.

That's walking distance from me. 😀 I'll try and get to them - if you're at the Vivian Arms at all, that's crawling distance! 🤣

Where were you? If I'd known I'd have come along. 😀

I've just had the Hulla's gig list for this year - there are four in the calendar so far. We usually aim to play 6-8 per year (it's a community based band that just plays for charity), with a self organised festival in the village in the summer so 4 between now and June is pretty good. We usually pick up a wedding or two, the local food festival and spots at various other events. So far we have a wedding, a fundraiser for a local rugby club, a 'Full Moon party' ('Don't go on to the moors' 🤣) and the summer festival. I love playing with the Hulla - the rehearsals are very much social occasions (the band started as a bit of fun for the village) and the gigs are great but there aren't enough of them to satisfy that gigging itch. Before Christmas I was 'between bands' following the demise of the trio I'd attempted to bring to life. There were a couple of possibles hovering around but with no firm offers I was wondering what to do. This week I've been invited for an informal audition (it's only me and I've been recommended by a friend in the band) to play with a folky/bluesy outfit (I don't even know their name) who have been gigging without a bassist. My friend, their violinist, is arguing that they need a bass player and the audition is to see how it fits with the current arrangements. And I have two gigs, with the possibility of more, as a rhythm guitarist in a mate's rock band. The way he runs his band, it's very likely that I'll be playing bass for a few gigs over the next year as he takes gigs without checking to see who is available, creating the line up on the night.

They stopped after about 2 weeks.

Just before Christmas I had four or five of text messages (roughly one every other day), each with a Facebook recovery code. I guess someone was trying to hack my account as I hadn't triggered them directly, nor had I experienced any of the things in the posts above that might have triggered them.

I was 57 when I joined the Hulla band (covers), the 2nd youngest in the band. I'm in my mid 30's now. 🤣. I've just had this conversation with the drummer of the Hullas - 75 and working as the 1st call drummer for two big bands/dance bands and one jazz band as well as the Hullas. He's gigging or rehearsing at least three nights a week, regularly deps for bands around the area and was the drummer in my trio project playing rock covers until it folded last year. I hope I'm as active (and wanted) as he is when I get to that age.

Jazz improv, maaan. 😄

I had one of these when I was a geetard back in one of the days. As i recall it was 65w but very, very loud. NIce. 😃

That happened to me once. The band was playing downstairs (the dedicated venue for bands) in a pub and for the first half, there was no one. During the second half a young couple appeared and politely clapped after every song. When we finished, the landlord appeared and advised us to stay where we were as there was a massive fight going on upstairs and the police were trying to stop it. The couple had retreated to the cellar to avoid the action.

Count me in - my second attempt after a fail several months in to last year.

I'm not a psychologist: I don't mean to make light of the situation and having never been in that place I can't claim to understand what you're going through. But if there's a 'thing' that causes anxiety then there must be a way of overcoming that 'thing' (I mean with professional help as has been suggested above). And the first step is to identify the thing in question. Personally, I love playing live but I hate the bits around it - I feel stressed thinking about the parking and the logistics. Not enough to stop me playing but enough that I am thinking about it in the run up to the gig and I will look to share a car/van if at all possible. Don't sell everything. Keep enough to practice and gig. You never know what will happen in the next 12 months and from experience (I 'gave up' bands for a couple of years) you'll only have to buy new stuff when the urge returns. And, of course, stay on BC so we can hear about any updates.

I guess it would depend on the subtle nuances you bring to the arrangement. 😄

The band I'm with does 'Sound of Silence'. And, of course, if there was ever a problem on stage that resulted in a delay starting a song one of the band would always announce that we'd just played Sound of Silence'. 😀

Would that be a c/d box, perhaps? 😀 ...I'll get my coat...

This, and be early - don't let it drag on. You might want to phrase it along the lines of 'do you think your voice is suited to our music?' In other words, try and get her to self assess and realise. Try recording a rehearsal (a band I was in did this and it highlighted the singer's weaknesses nicely). Also (depending on the exact circumstances) is there any way that practice or lessons would improve things?

I've just been offered a rhythm guitar role in a mate's band so rather than shell out for a guitar amp for what may only be a few gigs, I've been trying out various combinations using my existing bass gear. Still early days and I haven't been up to war volume yet, but so far I've been using my Warwick 1x10" (with an adjustable horn) and: Zoom B6 with an Ampeg amp simulation to get a valve emulation - it would do at a pinch, the clean sound being better than the driven sound. I'd consider this if I was playing bass for most of the gig with one or two guitar parts just to keep kit to a minimum. Boss ME80 through my TCE BAM 200 with the bass rolled off, mids cut a bit and treble boosted. The ME80 is made for guitar and the sound through Warwick is quite nice although it doesn't have the clarity and bite I was looking for. I suspect this is due to the BAM200's pre-amp. Marshall JMP1 rack valve pre-amp into my Peavey Minimax effects return. This is the combination I'll be using. The JMP1 is an ancient relic of my guitarist days and the Minimax amp section doesn't colour the sound. As an added bonus the Minimax master volume still works despite bypassing the pre-amp. I think the variable volume horn on the cab is great for fine tuning and all I've had to do on the JMP1 is reduce the bass a little. To be fair, as rhythm guitarist, I'd probably be doing that anyway to thin the overall sound out a bit.

My spare is usually a passive headless Spirit - small, light and reliable. I'll keep it out of sight but on stage and ready to grab with the minimum of fuss. On some gigs, usually the ones with a proper stage, I'll take a different spare with the intention of swapping during the night. That will be on stage and visible. The spare bass is tuned and it's volume is roughly matched with the main if necessary. I went to see my mate's band last week and he (the guitarist) broke a string at the start of the second song. He had a spare, so the bassist did an impromptu solo while he swapped over. Only to find the spare guitar wasn't tuned and was much louder than his main guitar, which led to howls of feedback as he plugged in. It was as useless as the one with the broke string until he'd fixed it.

For information: I've been playing around with my Minimax 600 and my recently purchased Zoom B6. I wanted to bypass the pre-amp of the Minimax so I plugged the B6 directly into the effects loop return. At first there was no sound but after some fiddling I found that although the tone and boost section of the pre-amp is, indeed, bypassed, the volume control remains active and can be used to adjust the output volume as normal. I couldn't find any reference to this in the manual and it isn't how I expected it to work - my Laney RB7's effects loop return bypasses all the pre-amp controls straight to the (full volume) power amp. Volume control then comes from the unit feeding into the return socket. The Minimax way of doing it makes it much easier to use and adjust while playing.

Of the songs I can see in those lists I think I've played more than half in various line-ups over the years. Either we're conservative bunch or (most likely) as you say - floor fillers and crowd pleasers.

I've used the Zoom Ms60b and the Zoom B1four but I was finding that for songs where I wanted to change/add/remove an effect mid song it was a faff as I had to know the precise order of songs so that I could set the sequential order of effects to match. But any glitch ("we're dropping xxx and going straight to yyy") was a potential problem. I have just started using a Zoom B6 and this has four patch selection foot switches (as described above a patch is a set of effects including amp, cab and IR settings). The four patches form a bank. You could set up a bank for a song and then have four options within that song - for example 1= your standard tone, 2= 1+added chorus, 3= 1+clean boost, 4= 1+a bit of dirt. But the way I use it it to set the bank up with four basic patches (in my case based on amps) and then using the option to turn each patch into a pedal board, I have the ability to turn on and off up to four effects within that board. For example I select bank 1, which has two patches based on the Ampeg head and cab, one based on a TE head and one based on an acoustic head. The song requires me to select patch 2 (in which the Ampeg is set up with some drive and I'm using a 4x10" cab). Three clicks of the selection foot switch brings me to the 'board' function. Patch 2 has chorus, flange, phase and delay and I can turn these on and off like individual pedals during the song. The next song needs a clean sound so I select patch 1, with a clean Ampeg head and a 1x15" cab, and I now have chorus, flange, bass EQ and reverb as options. If most of your 'in-song' changes involve single effects this is probably the best way to go. If you drastically change your sound mid-song, creating entire patches for each sound is the better option. The editing can be done on the unit itself (which is what I've done) or using Zoom's Guitar Lab software (which I can't comment on as I haven't used it with the B6 yet). As has been mentioned, the B6 has a mute/tuner function, four DI types and a parallel line out and two separate inputs that are foot switch selectable. It's more complicated to describe than it is to do and, like most things, the hard work you put in at the start makes using the kit in a gig easy. And, of course, you only have to set it up once. I expect other multi fx units will provide similar functionality - I went with Zoom as I'd read good reviews here and had experience with other Zoom units.

Interesting to see the different formats, too. All too often I end up with a hastily hand written one as the band tries to figure out the set list just before we go on. 😃

Yes, although until reading this thread I thought it was the angle at which my middle finger strikes the string - i.e. my poor technique. I usually keep my nails short anyway, but the right middle fingernail tends to end up shorter.