EBS_freak

I'm trying to figure out if his makeup is an injury, or an attempt to colour coordinate with the painted plastic ivories....

Yes. Amazon is as good as anywhere. Search for eartips, comply tips or spinfits are usually a good bet depending upon your preference for foam or silicon. It's all personal though - everybody tends to have their favourite. Some inear buffs get pretty obsessive about them.

I think his health and vitality were left in 1985. He also looks like a wedding guest that nicked the keytar off the guy in my old covers band. That's also some pose to play a single D.

I know some people like their LDs. I personally would go wired because it will not mess with your lowend or top end by introducing a cheap compander. At least with wired, you are not introducing another unknown into your setup... for example, you can't hear you bass - is that because the bass isn't actually making it through the wireless compander in one piece - or to your liking?

Maybe the H&K is not up to it. If it's a entry level H&K, I'm not actually surprised - they are not particularly potent amps. It's quite a common thing with house backline... you always seem to get something OK for guitars... but the budget saving always comes down on the bass amp. If you aren't in control of the quality of the amps, it may be prudent to make your own arrangements anyway! That 610, even with fairly inefficient speakers, is going to be shifting a lot more air... and more towards your head level!

That's all you need to read. 1985 people, 1985.

Is your band loud? Theres nothing particular in your FX that would cause issues for you - although the distortion may be robbing you of bottom end. What amp/cab are you using?

If you thought that was bad... Vanessa Feltz before hand... OMG. Talk about obviously spewing nonsense to fill time.

Oh yeah - good call on the zoom. I set up a keyboard friend of mine up on a H6 - inbuilt mic and lots of options in terms of inputs to get better control over the key things that you want to hear. I see that the cost of the H6 has come down some what too since back then - you can pick them up for circa 250... which when you consider it includes the mic and mixer and headphone amp element, is maybe not too shabby... and also has the added attraction of being a multichannel field recorder.

I used to play in a covers band where the keys player used to be hell bent on getting wireless and walking about with his keytar. It's all a bit cringe really. If you gig calls for it, like a big 80s theatre show where you can really ham it up, then hell yeah, go for it. Otherwise, yeah... cringe city. If you want to do synth bass, the coolest thing to do is get a small setup running into mainstage and get some dirty 80s synth virtual instruments on the go. If you are still going to go for it (the keytar thing), there's two things to consider... either use onboard sounds, or use it as a MIDI controller to control an external module. If you want to go wireless, then you can use a standard guitar wireless type system... if you want to use it as a wireless MIDI controller, you'll need to get something like this - http://pandamidi.com/ - same guy who makes the Future Impact I believe.

Depending upon the desk, when you ask for more bass, or a change in EQ, there's probably little he can do for because unless he is running a separate monitor desk, he can only change the EQ of the bass so that it also impacts FOH - which he won't want to do - or by changing the EQ of the total monitor mix, which means if he adds lower mids, he adds it to your bass... and everything else which is going through that monitor. Can you tell us whats going on with your board, it may be the case that theres stuff going on that's adding in lots of low end fluff - something like and octaver or something? Or is the indecipherable notes all the time, even with no fx? When you say IEM system, I presume you are talking wireless? I would avoid going wireless until you have proven the concept. Decent wireless is expensive (budget 700+ plus). If you are going down the mixer route, you can run it all from the headphone out of the mixing desk, using a headphone extension as required. Failing that, go for something like the Behringer P2 powered belt clip headphone amp. You can get those for under £30 now.

And Virgin obviously think that he's worth it... 2 million a year salary is it?

I suspect that your difficulty in hearing definition may be down to your EQ on your bass amp. You are probably pushing a lot of bass and as a consequence, finding it difficult to hear the difference in the notes because all the clarity is found within the mids. Of course, if you aren't using front of house support, you taking a load of bass out of your amp may impact the sound of your band considerably - although it may alter it for the better as it may clean up the low end and give the audience the opportunity to hear actual notes in the low end. IEMs will help -if you can find a decent way to integrate them into your setup - they will certainly give you the clarity that you are looking for... but like the above, getting the feed your require may give you some problems. Are you getting any monitor feeds at all? Something like a UE sound tap may be a useful investment. Just ask the sound guy to unplug the monitor and plug it into your UE Sound Tap - therefore, whether powered or unpowered monitors, you should be able to tap into the monitor mix (assuming there is one). As an alternative.... What may be worth trying is a simple mixer, a feed from your bass into the mixer and a through onto front of house (for example a DI box can do this - plug your bass in to the DI box, through into amp, DI to mixing desk and then use the amp DI to go FOH). Then on another channel of the mixer, a condenser mic on a mic stand positioned somewhere on stage to pick up what else is going on onstage - OK, it won't give you a perfect mix... but will give you similar to what you are hearing at the moment... but with added clarity in the bass... and the option to EQ and control volume. You will need good IEMs for clarity though... the good old ZS10s are a great starting point. You are probably looking at £150 max (can probably get it for less than £100 with some savvy buying) to try something like this out.

There's plenty of John Peel's out there... they are just not fortunate to have been propelled into the limelight. I suspect there's a load of people out there running music pub quizzes every week that have music knowledge (including up the minute chart news and emerging bands) far eclipsing Peel's... but the opportunity has never presented itself for them to be discovered (or they may simply just get off on doing pub quizzes and that suits them fine!)

What ageist poppycock. Theres 60+ year olds that have their fingers on the pulse more than teenagers. John Peel clearly had no idea about emerging music post the age of 40... right?

To be fair, he also had a massive listenership on Radio 2. As for the Top Gear thing... well, that was always going to be a poison chalice because it wasn't the chosen 3. I think Chris Evans does have a habit of succeeding (Top Gear aside) - and that's why they pay out the money. I suspect Virgin will gain from his move.

I think that sums him up nicely.

You may want to look into a Shure 56 on a gooseneck with an optogate on it.

Not even a hedge fund? Then again, he'd have to get off his own land to do that.

He clearly hasn't got the Jackanory skills in his back pocket either!

I'm surprised... they normally have scripted back stories for folk. I recall Matt Cardle being one candidate that told a good (entirely false) story.

I know people in both camps who have made it through to the live shows and those that have been subjected to humiliation. The contracts are watertight. These people know what they are doing. Whatever way they decide to portray you, good or bad, they hold all the cards... even if you become "famous" through humiliation, you are still owned by Syco. Even if you are nobody and you barely make a ripple, if at all, you are still owned by Syco. If people knew of the manipulation, I don't think that they would be so keen for such shows to be aired... but then again, the human race are toxic beings.

This is how Britain's Got Talent and X Factor works. When awful singers get to the live auditions and people are saying, "How on earth do people think they are good...?" - because they have been through 3 or 4 auditions before where the production staff are massaging their egos and telling them how good they are. This is the one that sticks out for me. They obviously made her do all the talk about Pink... Pink, Pink, Pink... edit it together, manipulate the public... and there you go. You got to be clearly a bit dumb if you can't see the whole charade. They clearly told her to sing a Pink song... so they then could then lay into her in the manner that they did. They would have told her to dress like she does when she normally goes on stage as Pink. We never told you to sing a Pink song - No, the production company did... and the panel were complicit in this. The producers knew exactly what they were doing - and the sooner that this sort of "entertainment" is regulated, the better. It's no wonder 1 in 10 people suffer with mental issues... especially when you have the public humiliation that this girl had to subjected to. You may say she knew what she was signing up to... but her getting through to that stage of the "competition" was for the sole purpose of getting that footage. It may get viewers... but I wouldn't surprise me if this girl has been left with serious mental issues after this... and of course, due to the "contract" there is no comeback on the producers. At least you'd hope that Matt and Luke are wise to it - and going by their social media interactions, are also in on it - or at least happy with - in the way that they are being portrayed. EDIT: just looked Zoe Alexander up...looks like she's still continuing with the music career. Good for her.

I just fixed my English so it's a bit more clear in the original post. No worries!