PA is loud and music is fun.

Though not quite as loud as I thought, which is good. I was expecting my ears to bleed at full volume, but no just a bit of a ringing sensation!!!

I have a small Yamaha Stagepas portable PA system I bought for the bands. Between gigs (which are not often) its sits in the spare room...bit of a waste.

So I hooked it up in the studio, Although I have a decent set of studio monitors, they don't do bass well and are not that loud...and when the bands are here, we can't hear ourselves so well..but tbh we tend to use the Jamhub when there's a full set, for the neighbours benefit, but its still nice to blast things out sometimes, within reason.

The PA blows the little monitors away :D lots of volume and no problems at all with buzzy distorted bass and since I can hook up my Ipod/pad to it and play backing tracks...its my new favourite thing for practicing.
But I am going to have to buy a CD player, I find that I have many many more backing CD's than I can store on my 32GB Pod...so....a small further investment, assuming you can still buy CD players :D.
Though I am giving some thought to retiring my old Pod, due to a cracked screen, so perhaps loading it up with nothing but the backing tracks is the way to go. Its still working for now though, and damn a new 64G is expensive...not sure I want to invest that much. My Pad is also on the verge of retirement...its a 1st gen, and no longer gets updates for IOS..I suspect it might be time to put it to use as a full time Ampkit setup and buy a new one with a bit more memory...hmmm I think thats probably a better idea...use the old Pod for a while and retire the pad. I have a couple of Sony Android pads I can use for mail and websurfing, with occasional gaming, which is after all the Pad's main use now.

The Studio is undergoing a bit of a reshuffle as I now do most of my school and coding work downstairs in the boxroom office now. I've got a bit more space on the big desk for music toys which is better. I want to try to keep everything contained and tidy for when friends and band members come to play.

Still have to deal with the ever present curse of cables though..my dreams of a wireless set up, seem to be fraught with technical challenges....and the curse of short battery life.

I'm sure there has to be a solution somewhere.....that or I need to work out some way to place junction boxes at strategic points to plug in..Even quite simple band setups seem to need miles of cables, and my own wireless systems always seem to fail at key points when others are here so out come the cables again, and the inevitable tripping.

I also need to do something in the upcoming holidays...catalogue all my guitars...which is no mean feat. I might even thin the herd a bit..though I'm always reluctant to..Going to photograph and itemise them with as many secific details as I can remember.

I have found myself these last few months, more and more playing just 2 guitars, Marge my vintage Patrick Eggle Berlin and Libby, the Gibson Blueshawk. Maybe it because they are they nicest ones to practice on, easiest to play and always to hand.
I know I get different tones from my Lucille and Strats etc, when I want to do recording, but I'm finding I love the tones of these main two more and more....hmmmm decisions..I'll think on it for a year or 2. Marge does need to go in for a bit of a setup though, her high notes are buzzing ever so slightly. I'll do that after Mondays band practice, the StarrCase crew are quite taken with Marge's tone on certain songs, so don't want to be without her.

I was over in London last week for a meeting at Sony regarding our Academic status, and got a chance to discuss PSM with the chief tech guy...very interesting overall, but I have to say the St Giles 3* hotel in town was a major let down...crap tiny room, transport cafe restaurant for brekkie and overall not very nice. I did sleep well though, despite noisy party people in the streets.

But of course London means Denmark St :D. I dithered about going since I needed to use any spare cash this month to finalise the mortgage transfer, but I went, saw, played and walked away....nothing really took my fancy, apart from a very old and battered 1962 Fender Mustang for around 2K...a bargain, cos someone had painted the back of it.....but no...no no..tempted as I was, as an investment, I'm sure restored properly it would be worth double, but I decided looking was better than buying, no telling what else might be wrong with it, and sourcing vintage parts would be expensive.

Besides if I am going to buy anything that old, it needs to be a 1963..the year of my birth. I'm keeping an eye open for a flying V from that year. Then I can pretend to be Albert King. (yes I know his was a bit earlier..but...)







Ahthankyew