ThomBassmonkey

Yeah the few venues in London usually seem to be sorted for a decent (enough) PA. As stated though, we travel around a lot and there's pleny of places that don't even have a PA, never mind a decent one. Looking at this thread, you seem to be the lucky minority. I do wish I could take the minimum gear to gigs, I cant see it ever happening though.

I've had TERRIBLE service from GAK. There's been threads on here before about how bad they are, hopefully this is a sign that they're changing for the better. I ordered a head, tuner and rack case from them, the guy offered to put it all in the rack case so it would be more protected in shipping, I agreed and thought it was great. He then didn't touch it and went on holiday. Everyone else refused to touch the order until I demanded to be put onto the manager after about a week and a half (it was supposed to be next day delivery) then after an argument he agreed to get it sorted. When I ordered something else from them they said they'd do it cheaper (after I told them that I wanted it cheaper because of the last order) and they still basically price matched with other places in the UK and they managed to screw up the delivery times again so I had to spend 3 days waiting around for nothing (this was after waiting because they didn't have the item in stock, even though their website said it was, luckily I ordered over the phone so I knew about that, if I'd ordered online I probably wouldn't have found out). In the end I got some money back off them (I forget how much, about 5% I think) and they were supposed to send me some free patch leads with the 2nd order. After over a month of me ringing up once a week or so they sent me the wrong ones and I couldn't be bothered to follow it up. Not great service for over £1,000 worth of custom.

[quote name='silddx' post='1276521' date='Jun 20 2011, 11:22 PM']OK interesting, I think you're being way too paranoid I may be lucky in that I play most of my small gigs in London, maybe PAs are rare in the regions [/quote] PAs aren't rare, decent PAs are. Quite a few of the gigs we do only have vocal PAs, they struggle with the low frequencies and fuzz about if you put any more than just vocals through them (especially bass and kick drum). My band plays all over the place from large dedicated venues to festivals to small pubs. Our drummer is very loud, so if I were relying on a PA to compete with him, it'd have to consistently be up to a standard. I'd say roughly 50% of our gigs I wouldn't like to chance not having an amp for. There's maybe 10% that I'm sure wouldn't handle my bass as well as everything else at gigging volume. Having an amp on stage doesn't mean that the sound out front's going to be bad. Turn the amp down a bit (they do all have volume controls, even though you wouldn't think it from some people ) and it'll still give you the advantage of a dedicated bass monitor on stage but shouldn't interfere with the sound out front and the sound man will still have as much control. While I understand the need to keep things compact (especially on public transport and I'm a recent convert to neodynium and class D heads myself), I always prefer having my own monitor that I can set up how I like (before sound check, obviously) and I have control over. While I like the silent stage concept (everything through modelling soft/hardware, electric drums or in a sound booth and using IEMs, no monitoring at all on stage), I don't think it'd ever work for me, I like to feel the music as well as hear it.

The beautiful sound of silence (bar some tinnitus). I've just been stuck on a level on Mario DS for ages and all the bleeping got to me so I'm enjoying the quiet.

silddx, do you gig a lot and [b]know[/b] that there's going to be a good PA at every venue (i.e. you take your own or don't play venues that don't have a good PA)? If you don't have your own transport, I can understand the need to be as lightweight as possible, I'd panic before every gig though. You didn't even mention IEMs in your list of things you take to a gig, that says you're relying TOTALLY on the PA including for monitoring. That'd be sonic suicide for most people. If it does work for you, that's great. There's NO way it'd work for 99% of gigging amateur musicians though, venues simply don't put enough money into their PA and bands put their money into their own gear instead of a PA because most venues at least have one for vocals and changing entire PAs between sets is far from practical. It comes down to this for me: What can YOU do to make ensure that YOU can play that gig. As a bassist, I can take my own amp. That way, my bass won't be the problem. I usually take 2 basses, 2 cabs and ideally 2 heads (only one atm but I'm planning on getting another ASAP), enough cables and spares. I like to think I'm covered for any eventuality, including if the PA isn't substantial enough to support bass at gig volumes.

[quote name='silddx' post='1275614' date='Jun 20 2011, 10:18 AM']Can't really see the point of bass amps and cabs, they are a pain in the arse getting them to gigs and in and out the van, people want to borrow them at gigs, rehearsal rooms usually provide backline anyway, they are almost never miced on stage, and they are very expensive.[/quote] Too many reasons to list, consistency, PA support, reliable on-stage monitoring, IMO you can feel a bass amp better than you can monitors, control over where the sound goes instead of relying on a monitor, additional height. If you're only ever playing venues that are garuanteed to have a good PA, cool, convenience can win. I've been playing loud rock for the best part of a decade and I've never been able to rely on PAs for bass. Either they struggle putting through enough bass to the monitors to compete with drummers or they're only there for vocals/keys. I also (as I said above) found that a bass amp gives much better vibrations, you can actually feel what you're playing rather than through the monitors in a mix with everything else where even if you can clearly hear it, you might not feel the punch. Case in hand, I played a gig last Thursday in Barnsley, lovely venue and they usually have a decent PA. There was another gig going on run by the same people who took the PA. As a result the PA we had was a mess, bass was distorting and we only had one monitor between the whole band. if I hadn't been using an amp, it would've been awful.

In the last two years, I've been asked to turn down once, for a lot of those gigs I've used a 1080w GK head and one or two 4x10s. There's no reason you can't take big amps to small gigs, it still sounds better IMO even if you can't crank it.

Bit late, but I saw someone filming and they usually upload pretty swift, but it took a bit longer this time. This was Thurs at the Pulse Bar in Barnsley, awesome venue and Gilby (the guy Joe's talking to at the start about his voice) is an awesome guy. Song (You Are The Sun, our most recent single) starts after 1:20 of Joe's arsing about.

I could take or leave SCs, I find there's as many DC designs I don't like as SCs. As for posts about this kind of thing being a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, I disagree that it's meant as a solution. If the 51 P was perfect for everyone and these are all designs that aren't needed, we'd have missed out on thousands of brilliant instruments. We'd never have got as far as the Jazz and P and would never have known because we were still on the 51s. If Leo felt the J and P were perfect, we'd never have MMs or G&Ls, both great brands. There's nothing wrong with old designs of basses, but tastes progress, technology progresses and things can be done that weren't available 60 years ago (like Lightwaves). Just because they didn't exist, there's no reason they shouldn't now.

[quote name='Lifer' post='1274883' date='Jun 19 2011, 04:14 PM']IMO it's easier to take stuff out, chuck everything you can think of on there and then start messing around with it.[/quote] You're totally right for computer recording but not if you're bouncing down because you're limited to 8 tracks. Once it's bounced you can't do the mix again and if you decide to take something out, you've shot yourself in the foot for no reason. It's also a shame to waste loads of time when you could've recorded over a couple of sessions instead of trying to get it all done at once. Though if you're enjoying playing with ideas, why not?

+1 to risingson. When (tmetaphorically) you're writing something by recording it, you're very involved with the parts (usually the last one you write) and if there's a space, you might end up thinking "ah, a ______ would sound good there", so you record it, then you do the same thing for that part and so on and so forth. When you listen to it the next day, you've filled every space and it's too busy. I find it's worse with production for me, after a day in the studio I'm in no fit state to mix, it sounds terrible when I listen back. If you're using it as a sketchbook, try and stick to what you're using in your band (or add in a few extra bits to pad it out if you're solo without going mad). If you want to record, do it properly on a PC then you can give it better polish anyway.

The MB200 will be fine if you're using enough speakers or have PA support you can rely on, I don't think a 2x10 would do it though (especially at 8Ohms). I did use it with a NEO410 at the LBGS and it could be heard through all the din, it did struggle a little though. I use an MB Fusion and it's great. The 500 has the same power section AFAIK so that should be fine too. The 700RB is also a good pick if you don't mind the extra size and weight. To use it with 2 cabs, if they don't have parallel sockets, you need to get an adapter lead, someone like OBBM should be able to knock one up for you easily.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they're a bad band but I don't like them any more personally. They're still good musicians and tight players, I preferred the funk stuff they did earlier though. I don't feel that they kept bringing out the same stuff album after album though, Fungus Amongus and Volume 1 were very funk and slap orientated, they said quite openly in the sleeve that they were trying to be the Chillis. SCIENCE was more metal, Make Yourself was more of a mix then Morning View was very laid back and chilled. My favourite stuff was their early stuff with much more of a funk influence. IMO they were consistently groove based throughout Dirk's time in the band, there were hints at what they'd become on a few tracks on Morning View, it wasn't an overnight change, but there was an obvious shift from groove based songs to riff based ones between Morning View and A Crow Left Of The Murder IMO.

I'm still not sure why people buy basses that they want to sound like other basses. SBMM Ray 35s, SUBs and Tribute L2000s are all around the same price. Proper Rays and US L2000s are around the same price too from what I've seen (often G&Ls are slightly more IME), if you want a ray, you can get a ray for the same money and it'll sound like a ray. IMO rays are one of those instruments that have a distintive sound, like Ps and Rickys. You're not going to get that sound unless the bass is built to sound like that and most basses aren't. I have a Sandberg with two MM style pups in it, it sounds great but I'm under no illusions that it does a ray tone, it has it's own great voicing but the pup placement is wrong for the ray tone, same as G&Ls.

I've never really used either but I'm not sure what you'd even use to record on an Android/Win7 tablet. Obviously there's a garage band built specifically for the iPad but AFAIK there's no alternatives for other tablet OSs and I expect the full versions would be too slow. A friend of mine uses his iPad for live sound, it lets him move around the venue and adjust the desk (obviously all digital) on the fly without being stuck in one place. Pretty neat function IMO.

[quote name='rOB' post='1273684' date='Jun 18 2011, 12:39 PM']but can we place that solely at the door of the bass player?[/quote] Yes. From what I've heard, Dirk left because he wasn't happy with the music that they were making rather than any personal fall outs. When he left, the rest of the band moved in the direction they were trying to pull but he was resisting. Without him pulling the other way, they completely changed music until they were unrecognisable in a very short space of time (apart from Boyd's increasingly annoying warbling which is still recognisable).

I used to love Incubus until Dirk left. The funk metal they were doing was brilliant and Dirk's a great player. When Kenny joined, they lost all the groove for me, all the funk got sapped out of the band and replaced with punk which is a shame because they worked so well together as a funk metal band. They're still a good band, I can't enjoy them as much as I did before though.

I really wanted to see these at Glasto a few years ago, unknown to me they cancelled at the last minute. Add in some quite strong halloucinogenics and I ended up repeatedly asking my friend why Cake weren't playing before various adventures resulting in me waking up with a huge banner saying "The Jesus Centre" over my head. Strange day.. But back on topic, I love Cake. This is the first thing I heard "by" them. Nifty bass playing too..

Still none that have taken my fancy, never mind that the owners are looking to trade.

While I'm not sure you can really "practice" moving about on stage, there's a few facts that will make your stage presence better if you realise them IMO. Biggest one is that the crowd sees you from the front. If you step forwards and backwards, it's a very small movement for them. If you do the same step from side to side (or turn your body 90 degrees the move forwards and back), it looks much bigger. Up and down movement is also good, so jumping, headbanging etc as required. Also, practice moving your bass around, the less static your bass is compared to your body, the more natural you'll look. Stuff like raising and lowering the angle of the neck, doing stuff like when you're dropping to a low note for a hang, pulling the bass around your body with your fretting hand and pulling your picking hand back away from it. It will take some practice to keep your playing consistent while you're waving your bass around, but it really does make a massive difference. Lastly, unless you're doing something properly daft like head banging at a pop gig, no one's going to laugh at you. Just do what you want, Stage show is stage show, even if you are doing your best impression of kiss does Spice Girls, at least it'll keep the audience involved instead of bored. Obviously, that's written from the perspective of a rock musician.