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.

No one is irreplaceable and I know that there are better bass players than me from a technical point of view out there. In the Hulla band there is one person who I've been working with so she can dep for me if the need arises. If I were to leave the band tomorrow, they would not be without a competent bass player. While I've never actually been 'replaced' without my consent in any band, I have moved on from bands who have continued with new bassists with little disruption. However, I'd like to think that bassists who have stepped into my shoes do not bring the same overall package - I'm thinking about style, creativity, experience, ideas and social skills in addition to playing skills. I remain friends in some form with most of the musicians I've played with in the past.

The band I was in from the 90s to Covid got to the stage where the B/L singer guitarist decided we didn't need to rehearse as we were playing regularly enough. I could see what he was saying but, of course, it didn't take into account new materiel or changes to existing songs. Both of these were infrequent and when they did happen, it was very often done on the fly - in the van on the way to the gig, at the soundcheck and sometimes during the gig itself ("we'll try xxxx, it's in C, follow me...") which the B/L thought made him a true professional and the rest of us, as we walked away, told him it made him a true amateur. I liked the social element of the rehearsal, and, as has been said, that feeling of having 'nailed it' as a group. In the distant past in my first band playing originals, a lot of the creativity came from the interaction in a rehearsal and I believe an element of creativity should be in the covers a band plays to give them a character that sets them apart from other cover bands versions.

If I make mistakes during a gig, it's usually a concentration thing and for me that means it's normally during a relatively simple piece. My bass 'upbringing' was in a trio where I had to be busy when the guitarist/singer went into solo mode. As a result, I tend to struggle more on the simpler lines as my mind tells me I can do this with my eyes closed while the rest of me does it's upmost to prove my mind wrong. 😀 I've missed the classic runs in Crazy Little Thing Called Love, played half a verse out of sync with the guitarist when I was singing 'How Long' (although the jury is still out on who actually instigated the half verse error), and dropped enough notes to fill an experimental jazz set. But as has also been pointed out, usually no one in the audience knows and most wouldn't care as long as the song carries on. I agree with those who have said it's better to play nothing than to play the wrong notes - I've done this and will continue to do it if I have to. Also I have done the 'repeat the mistake' trick and as long as the original error isn't too horrendous, it does work quite well. I now play with a band of mixed live gigging experience and skills and one of the things I tell them (mainly as humour to diffuse last minute nerves) is that if they make a mistake, to immediately stare at someone else to make it look as if that person is at fault. In the world of bands that I play in, perfection is an admirable goal but not an absolute requirement.

Last night was the annual Crown Court Xmas party gig for the Hulla band (our singist is a barrister therein). Always a good gig and not just because the buffet is superb. It's a nice hotel venue and a decent crowd who were all up for a dance and sing along. The setlist was long and varied (there were 40 songs listed) so I had two basses to cover the rocky stuff (Squier PJ) and more mellow songs (Ibanez AGBV200A hollow body) with a planned change over just after half time. However, the buffet arrived early and we stopped about a third of the way in to the set. Our singist occasionally gets a little carried away and can forget some of the arrangements - he has a tendency to start songs himself that have been rehearsed with different intros etc, so I was trying to anticipate an appropriate intro that would give me time to swap guitars. In the end I settled on 'I Love To Boogie' which I guessed (correctly) he would start with a complete verse of just him and guitar. There were the inevitable free jazz improvisations - for some reason I chose to modify the key change in 'Love Story' (yes, Taylor Swift forms a part of our repertoire) and the requested 'I Want It That Way' at the end was not working with the bassline I'd learnt from the original (in the end I just stopped playing as I couldn't find an easy re-entry point) but overall it was one of the best performances of the band as a whole and I was happy with my part in that. I always enjoy Hulla gigs as we have a lot of fun on and off stage and the atmosphere i unlike any other band I've played in. Kit list: A Squier PJ in Lake Placid Blue - a very recent addition to the fold - and my pre-aged Ibanez AGBV200A hollow body both plugged into a Zoom B6 (I love that I can swap between two inputs). I use the B6 in rehearsals to narrow down a set of sounds for a specific set and by the time of last night's gig I had the PJ going into a patch based around and SVT emulation with very slight grit and the option of adding flanger (Dakota) or chorus. I had a second patch which was basically the same SVT sound with a slight gain increase and reduction in bass EQ/boost in mid EQ so I could cut through the mix during a bass break in 'Seven Nights'. The Ibanez had a patch based on the AC370 acoustic amp and for a couple of songs I had a patch based on a TE400 amp for a more bassy feel. The B6 was DI'd into the X32 desk (we have a dedicated sound man) and I monitored through a Behringer P16 linked by Ultranet to the desk. I get a pre-fade mix that I have mixed to give me what I need. That was feeding a wireless IEM. Footwear: A matched pair of Skechers SN52635s modified to improve bass response and using a custom loaded impulse response model - or so the shoe salesman told me. 😀

That was on the provisional setlist of our first gig but didn't make the final cut. We did 'Assault and Battery/Golden Void' and 'Utopia' though.

15th June 1989, first band, first gig, I was playing guitar and the first song of the set was an original called 'I Don't Fear The Night'. We then careered through an 80 minute set of originals and covers before finishing triumphantly only for the sound guy to tell me we needed to play for another 10-15 minutes. So we started again from the top! 🤣

I played a short solo spot in a relaxed multi-act gig to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the RNLI. I've never performed on my own before and to say I was nervous would be an understatement. I was joined for one number by the guitarist from the band I'm in - fair play to him he was there just to watch and I asked him to join me on the spot. Most of the rest of the band were there, either as punters or doing short spots of their own. I find it much harder to play in front of people I know so that didn't help the nerves. My guitar performance was not as good as I would have liked but I was happy with my vocals and even happier when people joined in, laughed at my attempts at humour and gave me a rousing cheer at the end! I was told it was strictly acoustic and yet everyone else there had little amps. I managed to borrow one from one of the other acts as the on-stage microphones ("they'll pick up everything on stage so you won't need an amp") weren't working and, in any case, I wasn't on the stage as it was being prepared for the choir coming on after me. No photos, probably for the good. I was using my Crafter semi-acoustic 6 string plugged into a small Fender acoustic amp. Edit: Photos have emerged!

Several of the folk in my main band, the Hulla, are volunteers at the local lifeboat station. Somehow, I've managed to get myself on the line up for a charity night celebrating the 200th anniversary of the RNLI on Saturday. No biggy, you say. Well, after 35 +years of gigging, Saturday will be my first solo spot. I've sung lead and backing vocals, played guitar , bass and even a bit of keyboards in duos through to 13 piece line-ups. But I've never stood on the stage on my own with just a guitar to hide behind. 🤐

We did that once, many years ago. We were the last act of a charity night and it had been a bit slow and down tempo so we figured we had nothing to lose. It was completely unplanned (basically we did all the up tempo songs from our set), but we were in the midst of a run of years when the gigs were plentiful and the band was very tight and we played non-stop for about an hour. There were some dodgy transitions, some stutters when we were trying to understand the singer/guitarist's gestures and mimes, definitely too many extended choruses and probably a few too many drum solos and bass solos but we did it. The dancers were up and down in relays but the dance floor was never empty. I was knackered coming off but I still remember it as one of the highlights of my live career.

We used to play a medley of rock cliches as although none of us really wanted to play them, we recognised that many of the audiences we played to wanted to hear them. It consisted of the 'recognisable' bits of Alright Now, Wishing Well, Sweet Home Alabama and Sweet Child of Mine. We were a busy and tight 3 piece and the medley evolved over a few gigs as the singer called the changes. Nothing was ever formalised and the transitions were quite good most of the time (when the singer was on top form). The tempo remained the same (or within a few bpm). Often the bit in Wishing Well after the descending riff, which we would play four times through at the start, would briefly veer into '500 Miles' and/or 'Psychokiller' before coming back out into Wishing Well again. Or, if the audience was bouncing to 500 Miles (which they often did) we'd just stick with it and drop the rest of the medley. It worked because we could react to each other after hundreds of gigs together. I did consider formalising the arrangement but to be honest in this scenario it worked well and I didn't want to mess with something that wasn't broken. From my experience if I was going to work out a medley from scratch, I'd be concentrating on getting the tempo right first. As we used the example above to keep people on the dance floor, we kept the tempo danceable. Had we inserted an abrupt tempo change it wouldn't have worked.