Rosie C

I think this is true. My grandfather played sax in a dance band in the 1930s - 1950s. 4 hour gigs, three nights a week - which sounds like he had made it. But he had a full time job in a factory and gave piano and sax lessons too.

Thanks! I'd not hear of 'OMEC' until a new Orange amp arrived with an A4 sheet of stickers.

Ah, thanks for that. Particularly about the Behringer. Yes, complicated but it's just what we already lying around. Once we've done a bit of recording we'll have a better idea what to actually buy. I do like the look of the Tascam DP-24, so thank you for that suggestion. The 12-track one would probably do at half the price - and that's in the same price bracket as the Scarlett 18i20 interface. Once I include a second hand laptop, the Tascam starts to look like a very interesting option! My Tascam DR-40X has been very good, so a larger Tascam does make a lot of sense.

They are on the same network, though the Mac is on wi-fi, and the iPad on ethernet-over-power but I can check that it works. The 'studio' is in a converted garage, probably a 30m run, through the house, outside across the yard. That said, buying a cheap second hand monitor and moving the Mac might be easier than running a cable. Or just bite the bullet and get a cheap laptop. I like the idea though, it vibes the old BBC TV Centre with a video tape department in a dark basement all remotely controlled from the studios.

I'm busy setting up a home studio, cobbled together with equipment we already have. I have Logic Pro on a Mac for mixing, but it's not practical to have that computer in the 'studio' room. In the studio vocals are recorded through a little Behringer mixer with 2 channel USB interface into a first generation iPad 12.9 pro running Garageband. The instruments are recorded with a Tascam 4-track DR-40X portable recorder, and we have an elderly Sony camcorder recording video and a clapperboard to sync everything. Looking forwards, it would be good to simplify things a bit, and I'm thinking something like a Behringer ADA8200 8 channel interface would be simpler. But I'm thinking there must be a limit to how many channels an iPad can record? The Behringer interface is within our budget, but having to buy a new laptop isn't! Any advice/opinions welcome

I think so. We had our first professional studio session last week. Enthused, I'm currently watching my incoming studio mic parcel on the courier's website. Going to spend the next few months making recordings & videos rather than gigging.

Gibson SG for me. In red, of course. My budget didn't stretch to a genuine Gibson though, and anyway I had it chopped around to mandolin tuning. I can play 6-string, but not very well. I had to for my end of year assessment, so I recorded each chord I needed, then edited them together with Logic. 🤫

I'm doing this right now - hiring my ex-bass teacher to record bass lines I've written that I'm not up to playing.

Sound advice! I play in a completely different genre, but it still stands. I'm typing this on a break from decorating a corner of our practice room ready to make videos of the slow numbers that we love but which don't go down well live.

I tried it for a while. I swapped the E string for a fatter one for the C, the A and G I just tuned up and down. I couldn't play scales without a lot of hand movement so I changed back though I expect I'd have got better with practice.

Not just basses, but with double bass, mandolin, viola. I've learned the amount I save buying from Thomann more than covers taking a new instrument to a local expert for a good setup. Actually not double bass anymore - my local guy stopped doing basses though I've no plans to buy another one.

I've had similar with mandocellos and octave-mandolins. I had to take a chance mail ordering a Goldtone mandocello as there wasn't anywhere in the country that had one in stock. That worked out well, but I bought a Hora one from Thomann which really doesn't suit me, even after fettling by my guitar tech. I'm currently waiting for a Goldone octavemandolin to arrive - hoping it's going to be good, but I've learned with the Hora and will return it if not. Oh for there to be a shop where I could go and try them all out!

It took longer than planned, and in the end my local luthier did everything except designing the graphics. But it is fantastic!

I had a similar experience in my last band along the lines of "if you don't like it...". I gave an opinion (very rare) and objected to a song being included in our set. They agreed to drop it, but played it at that night's gig. Somehow because I quit I was a the bad person. Anyway, I'm not doing that again, so play in a duo now with my partner and when we have larger gigs there's a couple of local guys who are music teachers, session musicians, etc. who can join us for the gig. I also dep in a friend's rock band, but never consider myself a band member, just someone helping out one a per-gig basis.

My own experience is being able to play a song, and memorising a song seem to be completely separate skills and tasks. There are tunes that I've played 200+ times from a chart, but I couldn't play a single bar without that chart in front of me. Memorising is something I do line by line, looking away from the page and trying to play from memory. Takes me ages, but once a tune is learned it seems to persist as long as a I have a play through every month or so.

I'm a bit late to this conversation, but for what it's worth... I use ACS "ambient" IEMs which act as 19dB ear plugs - so I can still hear the rest of the band and the audience. I plug my upright into a Boss TU3 tuner, which has two outputs - one onward to my amp, then other I plug into a small headphone amp to drive my IEMs. The result is everyone else is a bit quieter, while my bass is easier to hear. NB: this is with an acoustic bass with a pickup, not EUB but I think it should be the same.

and yet, one band I was in everyone else was only in that band. I also played in various community music projects, solo etc. and that really was a problem for them - even though I made every rehearsal & gig, etc.

I had a chance to play a C-griff model a few weeks ago. It felt like a step up in complexity from a piano accordion, but I could see that once I got my head around the button layout it had a lot more options, in a relatively small package.

Today's gig, I'm on the left playing my shiny new mandocello, our new bass player on the right. He's actually very good - better than me. But I'm still playing bass elsewhere, and enjoying the change today on rhythm and backing vocals.

I have been known to play the main melody from 'Eye Level' on double bass, while waiting for the rest of the band to assemble. I think it sounds kinda cool on DB.

He's my favourite accordion player. He did a 3-episode series on BBC a while ago which is on YouTube and tells pretty much everything you need to know about accordions

We used to have someone like that. NEVER came to rehearsal, and would turn up 5 minutes before the service asking where her music was. Fortunately she doesn't play anymore, as it used to upset me that she made me think un-Christian thoughts just as eucharist was starting.

I'm not saying mine are the right hands, but here is me playing (accordion) bass in my friend's covers band. I play recorder too, and viola. I'm a real sucker for unpopular instruments!

I have a WL20 and generally it is good, but once when I activated Bluetooth on our PA the WL20 immediately dropped out. I'm not sure if it was related - they're both on the 2.4GHz band, so possibly. But it did make me wary of using it at gigs.

True story! Though I am married to our drummer 😉 After a six month break I dragged my upright to the weekly rehearsal of our community big band. Generally I was OK, some more challenging syncopation got skipped over. The band leader called 'All About That Bass' as our final number which went less well, I've not played it on upright before and there were some challenging jumps. A slightly sore left hand when I woke up this morning, that'll teach me for leaving it so long!