soundian

And that bloke from Jethro Tull.

C# in Em? Anyway Tav, which of those chords are minors ?

Don't use ear protection live until you're used to the sound. Most ear protection primarily cuts out the tops, before you know it you're amp is so toppy that the audience would need to be bats to appreciate the full sonic content. Use them at rehearsals, play for a little while, til you're happy, then pop them in and don't adjust anything afterwards without checking with them out. That'll get you used to the dullness of your sound. I've got a pair which I use when the band has their own engineer, RnB 15 quid, get the vented ones.

The final for the current one is in two weeks, there's reap and echomind there already and one of stanley, flicker and diablo. I honestly can't remember who won before you, which I think would entitle them to be in the grand finale as well, it could be the front, not sure though.

First of, the reason for soundchecks. Imo soundchecks are there for the monitor levels, equipment check (i.e. all amplifiers microphones and cables etc are working) and to agree levels with the sound op, if there is one. The actual sound out front doesn't matter so much so don't get hung up on it, it can change dramatically when the venues got a few bodies in it. Trust the sound op to know the room. Now to the actual soundcheck> The standard way is to start with drums Kick ( bass drum, it gets too confusing if you call it that though) snare, hats then the toms on order. The drummer should hit the drum at gigging velocity leaving enough time for the sound to decay before hitting again, repeat until told to stop then move onto the next one. Next is normally bass, play a reasonably slow riff ,covering all of the strings preferably, until you're told to stop. Guitars next (in my world anyway), get you're clean and distorted sounds balanced up (follow the engineers instructions on this once YOU'VE got them in the right ballpark) Keyboards, acoustics etc are normally dealt with next but I'll skip them. Then comes vocals. Preferably sing into the mic rather than shyly whispering "check one two" into the mic. Now monitors (the engineer will most likely have done some of this already). Your band should have a well balanced sound without monitors, you should be able to hear everyone, apart from maybe the guy on the other side of the stage. That should make it easy enough to get the vocals up enough and all the 'bleed' through other mics doesn't fuck with the sound too much. Keep your monitors simple on a small stage, the more sound knocking about up there the more potential phasing problems and just sheer unwanted crap flying into the mics. Identify what you work from at practice and make sure you can hear it. I've probably missed out tons of stuff here but if it's your first gig, get there in enough time to watch other bands soundcheck (if you're sharing drums with another band you'll be spared the evils of a drum soundcheck for your band, lucky people).

In my experience very little can be fixed on a well maintained guitar/pedal on the fly, especially if you don't have the experience to do it. The trick is to make sure it's 100% before you even arrive for soundcheck.

Did anyone else have big problems with the sound on the highlights. It kept sounding really wooly, liven up slightly and then go back to muffle mode. The strange thing is it did this with a definite time period but a different frequency for every band, so my first thought of a badly set compressor on the ambient mics was wrong. Actually that was my second thought but a quick check of the other channels and the fact that the channel was fine before and after soon ruled out my rather old TV as the cause.

He uses an electric and an acoustic Del. To be fair they're not shoved in your face (not when I mix them anyway) but they're still there.

A glowing testimony to teaching yourself spelling.

I hope not, I might get them in Drummonds if the ticket sales are really poor. I don't see them getting enough votes to win though.

I had the misfortune to hear a bit of their comeback gig on the news. He's certainly lost it has old Farty, ropey as fuck.

Unfortunately you all moved on while I was typing, damn phonecalls. Imagine my dismay when I spotted that everything was alright again.

It means the same thing if you take it in context and the humour was in the delivery.

You seem to be getting your information on the diversity of music in Aberdeen from the same place as Stripey, mostly in your head, or the AUBL downloads. There are plenty of bands out there who don't sound anything like you describe, maybe you should try finding the ones that are different and ignoring the ones you don't like, it seems like the easy option. I've stopped worrying about it, it'll never change because as soon as something becomes popular (e.g. this innovative music of which you speak) it is no longer innovative cos every fucker wants a slice of the action and will copy it, then we'll be looking for something innovative again once we're sick to the back teeth of that. I find it best to let innovation take it's course naturally, not to try to force it, because the innovators are normally rebelling against the norm and quite often the music shows the passion. Basically leave people to it and it'll happen when it needs to.

Exactly that, the sound of the guitar is unsuitable for the tracks. It doesn't make it a bad guitar sound though, it could work well in other circumstances.