Rosie C

At our last gig, playing outdoors in a beer garden and plugged in to a socket in the outdoors bar. During the second set the power dropped out for 2 or 3 seconds. Then came back. It did it two or three times. My best guess is a dodgy connection somewhere in the pub's wiring. A Jackery would have been ideal - and avoided an extension lead running across the veranda.

I actually have a little 2kW petrol generator, it used to run halogen flood lights, I wouldn't want to plug anything electronic into it. But maybe I'll sell it to help with the cost of a larger Jackery. Our Morris side have the 1k Jackery, and you're right on both counts! I'll go for the 500W if I can - but the PA is rated at 350W, and with my bass amp too, it seems a bit close.

Yes, I'm only using the iPad as a capture device. It has a 12.9" screen, but even just for recording it's not great. But, I'm finding that having two microphones through the little Behringer mixer into the iPad gives better control over individual microphones than my 4-track Tascam recorder, so I'm persevering. But roll on Christmas and a stand-alone recorder! For editing I have Logic running on my Mac with a single 27" monitor - it does get very cluttered, but is usable.

After I slipped a disc, 5kg was about the most I could carry for a couple of years, so I gigged with a GR AT110 carbon fibre cabinet - it was pricey, but it sounded pretty good.

"Thump" is a double bass with Innovation "black rockabilly" strings. 😉

Thanks @dave_bass5 , that's good to know as I'll likely be getting something like the Tascam Model 16 at the end of the year - and while it can do stand alone recording, it has the option to output all tracks on USB. Meanwhile, I've subscribed to a £5/month Logic licence, rather than use GarageBand - but still recording 2 tracks on the iPad, and 2 tracks on the Tascam recorder. I've also managed to strain my voice (again) so have a couple of months where I can work on guitar skills and recording technique.

Yes, I have the smallest one, 240 watt hour I think. But if we keep doing outdoor gigs we're thinking of getting the 1k one for our PA.

Yes, after 40 years of bass guitar and playing bass in the background of a couple of bands, I was taken with an urge to be up front. I took up vocals, piano accordion and larger mandolins. Vocals and mandolin have gone well, I can perform them together, and a lot of practice is the two at the same time. Accordion has gone less well, there's a lot of muscle memory needed and without regular practice I'm not progressing. Also depending on the genre I need different size accordion. I've done a few gigs but wasn't 100% happy. Very much worth doing, and of course it means I can multi-track recordings - I'm in the middle of recording a bunch of folk songs with vocal and mandolin, and I'll go back and add bass guitar to them later.

I use an Orange Crush 25W practice amp, with a separate 'Jackery' battery pack that has a mains output. It works well and the Jackery is good for 6+ hours of play.

When helping my dad move furniture he had a similar injury - caught his finger between a sofa and a door frame and lost the end. He had a skin graft from his thigh and made pretty much a full recovery. He said it twinged from time to time, but slowly improved, and after a couple of years he realised he couldn't remember the last time it had hurt.

This was exactly our experience last Saturday (went to see a friend play, not playing myself) near Newport. 9pm - 11pm, with a 15 minute break. It was too loud for my taste so I sat in the beer garden but at 10.30 on the dot the bar staff closed the doors into the pub. They were double glazed so it was like switching off the PA. 9pm is too late for me, our last gig was 8pm start and at 7.45 they said as we looked ready we might as well start. Ideal, home by 11 for a cuppa and bed.

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.