Post Rats chat, pics & clips

mrkb

pmbomb said:

Good you got the chance of run throughs @munckee - that would have really helped me on my tunes. I put the above on a post now buried at top of thread, if I was to be back it's certainly what I would aim to arrange:

Thoughts - my 3 tunes were all 1 take and out, it was a bit of a blink really, I would have really enjoyed a little practice time as a 'band' prior to the performance (and would have played better). Obviously that would need changing the format to more "bands" playing mini-sets rather than hot seating every tune.

I guess for the hot seat format this is only feasible towards the end of the day as people's commitments start to close off.

To be fair I also should have practiced Tush more!

It’s worth grabbing any of the other people playing on your songs early on and arranging this (or contacting them in advance)- you won’t ever got the full band (there’s never enough drummers or singers), but you should get the chance to run through with someone. You could even bring a Y cable and MP3 player and plug a backing track into the practice room PA. I’d love to get to do more run throughs but I played on over 10 tracks yesterday, so only managed a Comfortably Numb play through and a chat with @brocco to talk through our solo harmonisation.

I did singing, guitar (inc solo) then drumming on the first three tracks, so went into them all cold, but learnt to grab a few minutes to warm up (unplugged) when everyone else was setting levels and then get focussed on the song/calm myself down.

It’s part of the fun seeing what you can get away with - it’s about performing not doing a record perfect copy. Your Tush playing was great and we all adjusted to suit what the track needed, that’s what playing music TOGETHER is about, and you can’t get that experience playing along to tracks at home.

Im sorry to everyone who I asked to bring pedals for me to try out, I never got time to do any geeking out, but hope they got drooled over by others. I must get to try a Broadcast at the next one!

McToot

Just catching up on all of the post Rats chat. Last night I was mainly busy inhaling the lovely cold craft beers that @pmbomb gave me from his own company's stash and feeding my face after a one-Twix day. I was well and truly knackered. 

It was was quite a day. My first formal jam and deffo not my last. Thanks to all who had a hand in making it come to pass and to those what took photos and videos to remind us what we look like when trying to remember the 4 chords in Learning to Fly...

I learned a number of lessons yesterday:

1. If you really want to play well with others you need to put in the effort and do it often
2. Talent helps with the above but is not essential: effort trumps it in importance
3. I would play better with food and (a little) beer in me so next time I'll bring supplies
4. A superbly well built Marshall JTM45 clone (probably better than the real thing) sounds utterly jaw dropping played at full chat. It's what made me want to be a guitarer. 
5. I need to smile more and worry less

And one more lesson already learned but reaffirmed: we have a pretty special thing going on at the Fretboard. 

mrkb

munckee said:

Loads of highlights some I will already have forgotten, watching @lovestrat74 s lad playing on come together, @mrkb s mick jagger dance, @peteri playing the solo to beat it, @slacker being good at everything.

Seeing all the talent and gear was brilliant, @mtb casually saying he had hand built both his lovely tweed amps, hearing @Flanging_Fred show me what my strat could sound like if I learned to play and finally letting me try a hudson broadcast, a drum lesson from mark blagdon, good looking, good singer, drummer and guitar player, your mates must hate you : )

Cheers @munckee - your comments made my wife laugh! 

The atmosphere at these is excellent - supportive and inspirational.  Was great to meet up and talk Tele mods - I definitely want to try others guitars at future events to see what styles and mods I like. I started Tru oiling the back of my necks after trying some at previous events.

It was great to play backing band to the @lovestrat74 family - hope his lad enjoyed it and wants to attend other events to develop his playing.

pmbomb

@McToot  ;Glad the brew went down well. (So did mine). I have a bit of a problem getting high on my own supply, those are sales samples!

> 1. If you really want to play well with others you need to put in the effort and do it often

I go to Rock Project in Dorking, standard can be very variable and it needs to be approached as a bit of fun, but it quickly gets you used to playing with others without all the overhead of finding a band.

darthed1981

I have to admit seeing the samples bought along yesterday is starting to change my mind about vintage guitars a bit!

Some truly fantastic instruments all round brought along yesterday in fact, everything from that astonishing sounding Hello Kitty Squier strat (the pickup was STOCK!) upto the gorgeous '53 Les Paul.

Also some beautiful custom made, modded, British made, and clearly much loved gear.

And my little PRS SE came as well, and sounded great plugged into that big Marshall, even with me playing it!

McToot

Ooh. Another thing I learned yesterday: Julian is actually a rock n roll name. There were three of us there yesterday. 

Who'd have thunk it. 

pmbomb

> I have to admit seeing the samples bought along yesterday is starting to change my mind about vintage guitars a bit!

Yeah man, I now have a guitardon for a birth year Strat like peteri's. There goes my littl'uns university fund!

McToot

Ah - one more thing. Next time, to avoid yelling "Oy! @slacker or @poopot ", etc across a crowded room we should all bring a sharpie and do this:



  

TTony

McToot said:

Ah - one more thing. Next time, to avoid yelling "Oy! @slacker or @poopot ", etc across a crowded room we should all bring a sharpie and do this:



  

Trouble is, there were quite a few "Jules" there, but only one McToot.

("thank the lord" I hear in the background ...)

poopot

pmbomb said:

overheard from StarDrummer at the end: "23 guitarists here and I bet not one bugger offers to help with my kit".

Ahhh, ignore her... long standing drummer joke

tbh must have been a nightmare for him, locked i n a building with 20+ guitarists and nowhere to run!!!!

spoke to both Matt (drummer) and Bill (big bloke plays bass banjo) last night, both enjoyed the day and were glad to help out!...

Tone71

munckee said:

pmbomb said:

I'd also take a nice long cable so I could move about, see the other players better and wave at the control room.

this definitely, what seems like a long cable at home really restricted me, especially as I was trying to watch other people to make sure I was in time, being in the room I heard things very differently and with ear plugs in.

Having the rehearsal time was lucky, I think that everyone I was playing with seemed to have a gap during the first set.  Really helped for how to finish comfortably and everything.

Don`t make the mistake of a 10m cable!! Absolute pain in the arse.

A couple of us did help the drummer (always glad to help someone in a Brentford top) but crickey what type of industrial weight lead was in those bags?

Good to listen to the vids posted, funny how its heard different when your in the room playing, that was only my 3rd time in a studio and have only left the house to play with others in the last 9 months, its a huge learning curve but really enjoyable.

Would highly recommend it to anyone else thinking/considering it, I was 99% sure I would bottle it and cry off by the time yesterday come around after signing up but really glad I didn`t.

lovestrat74

Bridgehouse said:

Now I’m this next pic you will see @Guitar_Slinger slowly bending down to sing into his mic.. which was 6” off the ground after slippage...

Didn't see "Going Down Slow" on the set list!

TTony

Tone71 said:

Would highly recommend it to anyone else thinking/considering it, I was 99% sure I would bottle it and cry off by the time yesterday come around after signing up but really glad I didn`t.

What WISE words !!

Tone71 said:

Good to listen to the vids posted, funny how its heard different when your in the room playing,

When we get the mastered recordings back, it'll sound very different to the sound from an in-the-room smartphone recording too.  Everything in there was mic'd up separately, so all the tracks can be rebalanced and mastered separately.  Really looking forward to how it all sounds once that's been done.

mrkb

lovestrat74 said:

Bridgehouse said:

Now I’m this next pic you will see @Guitar_Slinger slowly bending down to sing into his mic.. which was 6” off the ground after slippage...

Didn't see "Going Down Slow" on the set list!

I’m glad @bridgehouse wasn’t stood a foot further to the left or that photo would look suspicious!

Bridgehouse

mrkb said:

lovestrat74 said:

Bridgehouse said:

Now I’m this next pic you will see @Guitar_Slinger slowly bending down to sing into his mic.. which was 6” off the ground after slippage...

Didn't see "Going Down Slow" on the set list!

I’m glad @bridgehouse wasn’t stood a foot further to the left or that photo would look suspicious!

It looked pretty suspicious from where I was anyway.. but then I saw what @Guitar_Slinger was up to and it all made sense.

His knob had slipped and required adjustment.

Guitar_Slinger

None of that would have happened if @Bridgehouse twisted my knob hard enough to start with.

The boring truth is as I leaned in to do backing vocals, the boom drooped towards the floor.  I knelt down to sing, hoping for an open string note, to lift the boom back up while playing one-handed.

Of course, it would have fallen back down as soon as two-handed stuff started again... but it hall happened so fast, officer.

Bridgehouse

Guitar_Slinger said:

None of that would have happened if @Bridgehouse twisted my knob hard enough to start with.

The boring truth is that as I leaned in Todo backing vocals, the boom drooped towards the floor.  I knelt down while hoping for an open string note, so I could lift the boom back up while playing one-handed.

Of course, it would have fallen back down as soon as the two-handed stuff started again... but it hall happened so fast, officer.

In fairness, I didn’t tighten your knob in the first place - that was one of the sound guys. My first encounter with your knob was when you were scrabbling on your knees trying to get your gob round the bulbous end.

slacker

And back on topic...

What a great day, well organised, good venue, positive atmosphere, some real team work and some really generous people.

Guitar_Slinger

Tone71 said:

Good to listen to the vids posted, funny how its heard different when your in the room playing, that was only my 3rd time in a studio and have only left the house to play with others in the last 9 months, its a huge learning curve but really enjoyable.

Would highly recommend it to anyone else thinking/considering it, I was 99% sure I would bottle it and cry off by the time yesterday come around after signing up but really glad I didn`t.

You should get out more.

Two minutes in a room with somebody I've never met before (you), without amplifiers, and we worked out what to play parts on two songs.

I enjoyed those songs the most and IMHO you'd make a good bandmate.

Tone71

Guitar_Slinger said:

Tone71 said:

Good to listen to the vids posted, funny how its heard different when your in the room playing, that was only my 3rd time in a studio and have only left the house to play with others in the last 9 months, its a huge learning curve but really enjoyable.

Would highly recommend it to anyone else thinking/considering it, I was 99% sure I would bottle it and cry off by the time yesterday come around after signing up but really glad I didn`t.

You should get out more.

Two minutes in a room with somebody I've never met before (you), without amplifiers, and we worked out what to play parts on two songs.

I enjoyed those songs the most and IMHO you'd make a good bandmate.

Thanks pal, very kind words.