Rehearsal Report - Check In Here

[FingerDub]

I had an incredible rehearsal on Tuesday, but, I didn't want to start a whole new thread for it. The gig thread inspired me. Our band was energized.

I thought it would be cool to check in and say how your rehearsals went, what you changed and what got better (or worse).

I just finished a jazz build w rounds and it's a great bass and I had been using that in rehearsals. I also have a MIA P bass with flats I was about to give up on. It didn't play well and I had put it out to pasture for years. Instead I got a sweet set up on it on Monday for the first time in 9 years, then played it on Tuesday and the difference was night and day!

Now I know why a P with Flats is so good. (I also didn't want to start another P w Flats thread). Man, not only did I sound that much better, but the whole band did. The P hits the sweet musical spot like no other. I also enjoyed playing it more and I don't think I missed a single note. We sounded great. Almost Pro like. I was really happy for me and my sound, and our whole band is really sounding amazing. Beyond what I ever thought my musical ceiling was.

 

[bwildt]

It's amazing that a p-bass can sound so bland in your bedroom, but just kills it an ensemble situation. Add flats for additional wonderfullness.

 

[rllefebv]

Great idea for a thread! I’ll play... had two really good rehearsals this week. Actually, with the two groups this week, they’re always great, and are more like “hangs” than work. Everyone is an adult, comes prepared, zero volume issues, etc. Boring, right?

First up was the “old-time” group... Normally, I play upright with these guys, but have been having a few issues with knees and my left shoulder... I sometimes bring the Musicmaster or Kala, but to keep things as “back-porch” as possible, I threw together this cigar-box bass, which keeps the vibe. Sounds great with the band and has gotten plenty of love from the guys... The weather has been beautiful, so we sat on the patio and played for a few hours...

The next night was the blues band, guys I’ve played with forever. The guitarist played bass about a hundred years ago and finally decided to part with his cab... Back in the day, when he was young and dumb, he cut his Sunn 215S in half to make two cabs (I know, right???)... He offered it to me, so I pulled my Sunn 200S out of the bass room and brought it along... Okay, bummer about cutting the cab, but WOW!!! As a 115, it was incredible!! Punch, deep lows, grit... yeah, the head is a perfect match. The P32 was no slouch either!! Tone Trifecta!!

Great week of rehearsals! Here’s to wishing the same for everyone!

-robert

 

[pablomago]

Those Sunn cabs were great. All of the '60's SF bands used the 2 x 15's. Either with Sunn or Dual Showman heads.

 

[FingerDub]

Great idea for a thread! I’ll play... had two really good rehearsals this week. Actually, with the two groups this week, they’re always great, and are more like “hangs” than work. Everyone is an adult, comes prepared, zero volume issues, etc. Boring, right?

First up was the “old-time” group... Normally, I play upright with these guys, but have been having a few issues with knees and my left shoulder... I sometimes bring the Musicmaster or Kala, but to keep things as “back-porch” as possible, I threw together this cigar-box bass, which keeps the vibe. Sounds great with the band and has gotten plenty of love from the guys... The weather has been beautiful, so we sat on the patio and played for a few hours...

View attachment 3030850

The next night was the blues band, guys I’ve played with forever. The guitarist played bass about a hundred years ago and finally decided to part with his cab... Back in the day, when he was young and dumb, he cut his Sunn 215S in half to make two cabs (I know, right???)... He offered it to me, so I pulled my Sunn 200S out of the bass room and brought it along... Okay, bummer about cutting the cab, but WOW!!! As a 115, it was incredible!! Punch, deep lows, grit... yeah, the head is a perfect match. The P32 was no slouch either!! Tone Trifecta!!

View attachment 3030864

Great week of rehearsals! Here’s to wishing the same for everyone!

-robert

Nice! That cigar box bass is super sweet. Did you buy it or build it yourself? Our weekly practice takes place on Tuesday's, so hopefully we can kill it tomorrow also. We have our first gig coming up in a week and a half.

 

[rllefebv]

Nice! That cigar box bass is super sweet. Did you buy it or build it yourself? Our weekly practice takes place on Tuesday's, so hopefully we can kill it tomorrow also. We have our first gig coming up in a week and a half.

Home brewed all the way... All parts from the “project” pile. Old upright fingerboard I’ve had kicking around the shop since the early ‘00s... Cut it down and glued it to a maple plank and started beavering the heck outta it! Biggest “unintentional” surprise was the Sentell pickup I had kicking around for the past few years. Not intended for this bass, but worked out well. Oh, and splitting the headstock was definitely a surprise!!

-robert

 

[Jimmy4string]

We got a gig Saturday so tonight really need to work on some songs that we are weak on. Particularly the drummer not doing the fill before chorus on "Radiation Vibe" and some others. We normally have pretty good practices -guitarist gets a little unfocused when he has had a few beers and starts throwing out song suggestions that we would never ever do -but you know how it is in a band

 

[dlb1001]

Our practices have been good for the most part but still struggles with the volume. The BL, who's one of the guitarists, still has a habit of turning up his volume so by the end of practice, his sound just overwhelms everyone else. I mentioned it to him but he keeps saying that he can't hear himself...gonna recommend to him that he goes out and buy an amp stand, this week.

 

[RoadRanger]

One of my rehearsal spaces I have an Ashdown CTM-30 (30 tube watts) into a stoopid heavy Peavey 4x10 that someone gave me - that sets the max volume for everyone there. I've no prob being the band arseh*** if needed (IME every band needs one LOL). One of the guitarists is back after we kicked him and his ******* Fender Twin WITH extension cab out a few years back - he has a nice light Fender 1x12 18 watt tube amp now that sounds great .

Another space has my Tube Works 1x15 combo (60 watts). Both guitarists use Monoprice 15 watt 1x12 tube combos I ordered for them (or actually I keep one in "inventory" to demo and sell-and-replace them as needed).

Latest band power trio + singer - earplug melting time . I use the multi-kilowatt tri-amp'd(?) rehearsal PA direct, it has two 18" Cerwin Vega folded horns plus tops, no prob against a Marshall stack . Sometimes yah just gotta be face-melting constipation-curing loud .

 

[Jimmy4string]

Well we sounded great last night. All the songs i was worried about we did really well.
We will see how they play into a 4 hour set at our gig on Saturday. Guitarist only meandered off for a couple of minutes.

 

[Sir Lord Legit]

We've got a show coming up on June 15th in D.C. which we are rehearsing our set for. We're in this weird spot where our first album will soon be released but we've been playing these songs going on three years now. I am getting terribly bored and been wanting to introduce new material. Part of it is also that I am really stoked on the new stuff and want to get it out in the universe.

 

[jthisdell]

Great rehearsal last night. Normally we do Mondays but we switched to Tuesday. Except I thought it was Wednesday so I got a call about 20 min after we were to start. Luckily the drummers house is only about a half mile away. But we did a bunch of new songs, most of which worked in one or two takes. Cold Rain and Snow (Grateful Dead), Aimee (Pure Prairie League), a couple originals that Steve had written. After we went through Aimee a couple times I said if we are doing songs that my other band could never get we should do Willin' (Little Feat). Took him a couple minutes but Steve figured out the basics of it on the spot! Also worked through a couple of songs that Steve thought needed a little attention.

Interesting how one week you can have a one off session where nothing is very inspired and the next be so much fun and productive.

 

[FingerDub]

We got a gig Saturday so tonight really need to work on some songs that we are weak on. Particularly the drummer not doing the fill before chorus on "Radiation Vibe" and some others. We normally have pretty good practices -guitarist gets a little unfocused when he has had a few beers and starts throwing out song suggestions that we would never ever do -but you know how it is in a band

Our practice last night went well, we have one more before our first gig as a band. We are covering Sorrow, and we just cant get him to play the intro right. I mean, it's good enough, and granted, it is tough, but it's these little things that make a band sound *that* much better. Other than that, he blew a couple fills last night also, but he is pretty good otherwise.

We've got a show coming up on June 15th in D.C. which we are rehearsing our set for. We're in this weird spot where our first album will soon be released but we've been playing these songs going on three years now. I am getting terribly bored and been wanting to introduce new material. Part of it is also that I am really stoked on the new stuff and want to get it out in the universe.

Our band does 2 things for introducing new material. First we are a cover band, so we decide on some new songs we all like and then practice them at home and come in ready to go. That way we don't waste a lot of time and can put together new material pretty quickly. I realize that won't work for your band with original material.

But the other thing we do is break up our rehearsals into 2 parts. We arrive and play through the set business like just to stay sharp. Then we break and work on the new material for the second part of practice. Maybe that can work to change it up and ease the boredom of repetition.

 

[GBBSbassist]

Had rehearsal last night for the originals band I play guitar in. I used it as an opportunity to play around with some new gear purchases. I recently picked up a new guitar, a Jericho Fusion (link below), which I adore. I also tweaked several of the patches on my Axe-fx ii to fit some new songs better.

My band has no gigs booked right now, but has a few planned on the horizon, so we're using this opportunity to start rehearsing some of our newer material and work it into our set.

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[FingerDub]

Had rehearsal last night for the originals band I play guitar in. I used it as an opportunity to play around with some new gear purchases. I recently picked up a new guitar, a Jericho Fusion (link below), which I adore. I also tweaked several of the patches on my Axe-fx ii to fit some new songs better.

My band has no gigs booked right now, but has a few planned on the horizon, so we're using this opportunity to start rehearsing some of our newer material and work it into our set.

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So that bridge self tunes? Cool concept, never tune again? Looks like a nice instrument.

 

[GBBSbassist]

Our practice last night went well, we have one more before our first gig as a band. We are covering Sorrow, and we just cant get him to play the intro right. I mean, it's good enough, and granted, it is tough, but it's these little things that make a band sound *that* much better. Other than that, he blew a couple fills last night also, but he is pretty good otherwise.





Our band does 2 things for introducing new material. First we are a cover band, so we decide on some new songs we all like and then practice them at home and come in ready to go. That way we don't waste a lot of time and can put together new material pretty quickly. I realize that won't work for your band with original material.

But the other thing we do is break up our rehearsals into 2 parts. We arrive and play through the set business like just to stay sharp. Then we break and work on the new material for the second part of practice. Maybe that can work to change it up and ease the boredom of repetition.

Right on. An originals trio I'm in plays Sorrow very occasionally for fun. Even as an originals band, we have a handful of covers in our pocket just in case. The intro to that one is a bit tough to wrap your head around. I've seen many bands butcher it pretty badly.

 

[GBBSbassist]

So that bridge self tunes? Cool concept, never tune again? Looks like a nice instrument.

Not exactly. I still have to tune the guitar when I change strings, and intonate it, but for context, I've had it for over a month and a half now, and I've tuned it one time and one time only.

It's incredibly difficult to explain in a way that it makes sense, but it's not like the Gibson Robot guitars or anything like that. It seemed gimmicky to me at first, but I saw a rig rundown for Propagandhi and I noticed they use it, so I looked into it a bit more, and now I'll probably get it installed on my other guitars.

 

[FingerDub]

Not exactly. I still have to tune the guitar when I change strings, and intonate it, but for context, I've had it for over a month and a half now, and I've tuned it one time and one time only.

It's incredibly difficult to explain in a way that it makes sense, but it's not like the Gibson Robot guitars or anything like that.

That would be a big step up for our guitarists, they are out of tune constantly! One of them needs to get a tuner pedal.