Members StratGuy22 Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 What's up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sventvkg Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 I took the family down to South Florida my old stomping grounds, for the kids spring break:) we went out and Jammrg with some old friends tonight good times:) Nice get a break from the last 5 months of colder weather in Tennessee! That's my report. Sun, fun, family and friends this week;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 Working on a simple hardcopy promo kit for my band. This is harder than I thought it would be. Pasting together cameraphone video from our only gig with the current line-up is almost done. Demo sits at just over 5 minutes in length... I'm planning to deliver it as a DVD with a cd "folder" that gives a bit of information on the band and our contact information. Wes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 Nice! We just have our website and business cards. Works out ok. We play out maybe 10 - 12 times a year. Sounds like a nice little break! We are still getting snow up here in Alberta Canada Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dan88z Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 Anticipating the arrival of my new Roland FA-08 keyboard. Then I will be holed up in the basement for a week programming it, hopefully in time for my gig Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpaceNorman Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 Been busy lately ... lots of ice hockey and a little bit of bicycling ... in between gigs. Played two difference League Championship games on Friday and on Sunday - and ended up on the winning end of both of 'em. Managed to get a 21 mile ride in on Saturday and 13 miles on Sunday as well. Spent Saturday night learning new tunes for my eight piece. We gigged the Friday before (3/21) and will be gigging again this Friday (4/4). That's my report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 Congrats on the wins!!! I'm going to be doing more mountain biking this year but we are sitting with about 18" of snow. I have a friend who has one of those fat bikes with big snow tires. I'm like "I like biking, but not THAT much." Tonight I'm loading in for a weekend gig. This Saturday is a hockey thing at our local arena, so I'm doing some lights and sound for it. The reason I'm setting up tonight, and setting up lights on Thursday is because I'm taking my neice to see a band called Hedley on Friday. It's my Christmas present to her. We have floor seats, 7th row so she's pretty excited! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 The venue is 3 hours away so it's going to be a long day. Also, the hockey group is interested in using my sound system wed thurs and fri to play music during the games that will be going on. Haven't heard a confirmation, but it will be set up in case they want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jeff42 Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 We have more bookings than we planned to have between now and August, but I say : Take the work while its there... Some day no one will want us. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 No kidding hey. We don't play out tons so this year I wanted to get more bookings for the band. It's working out pretty good. Just landed 2 gigs at our local music festival so I'm pretty happy with that. It will be a lot of fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 Latest band news: After struggling with her vocal issues for the last 2 years, Tiffany decided to leave the band (or at least take an extended hiatus). She thinks she needs at least a year off if she's going to have any chance of it ever getting back to what it was. We all agree. So the search is on for a new vocalist. Good news is the response has been pretty strong. We've got over a dozen strong candidates we're going to audition over two days in mid-April and hope to be up and running with our eventual selection for gigs in mid-May. Unfortunately, this has pushed back even further our long-overdue revamp of the promo video. The light show upgrade has been coming along, but slowly as well. We jettisoned the light trees for a pair of standing trusses and added a couple of Colorrails which I think look pretty cool, but we're still just using a few stock scenes and programs with the foot controller and are a ways of from having stuff programmed and still want to add a couple of movers. Here's a crappy clip from the show this weekend. The lights wash out my cheapy-vidcam (you guys all know what to chip in on to get me for Christmas!) but you get the basic idea. Crazy room we were playing on the 2nd floor where the crowd jumping makes the whole floor move so much that it was continually knocking the projector out-of-whack so we just gave up trying to keep it focused after awhile. Also, not that you can tell from this clip, but Sarah was out of the country for a college event, so our former singer Amy filled in for the date. Also, it's a bit buried in the mix, and I don't wanna bore anyone, but I do manage to jam an 8-bar piano solo in the middle of all this mess.... [video=youtube;m0DYXdTud-Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0DYXdTud-Q The freak late-season snow storm that dropped a couple of feet of snow on us while we were playing that night aside, I'm glad spring is here and so I'm busy getting my lawn in shape and attending to my rental properties and such, which was the bulk of my weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 So busy with my day job... and also marketing and booking the band. This winter has been terrible. No less than 5 rooms have closed or stopped having bands so our calendar dropped to just 1 booking for all of April (in included a wedding too.. the wedding was called off). So myself, our manager and our band leader have been in over drive contacting agents and former club owners for referrals. The good news is buzz is finally starting to grow for us. I've been promoting the *** out of the band via Twitter, FB and Instagram. Last weekend we played Orange County Choppers for the first time without our female singer (she was on a preplanned vacation) and killed it... drew more than 200 ppl in torrential downpour. Last week we had a brand new bar in CT call us... a referral from another club. We're finally starting to feel some traction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TIMKEYS Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 I am made the decision to take a leave from the songwriter band for a min of a month or two. Its the off season , I need a break. I have been going full bore for a few years and just need some time and weekends free. I will continue to to play in the side project. No drama ,or bad feelings ,, just a break to recharge and do some sailing and enjoy the off season. If something big pops up I will hit a few sessons and gun up. I used to lay out of this band for 6 months at a time over the summer so the down time just isn't going to be an issue for me. Its been 4 years so I think a break is going to be a welcome change from the grind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted March 31, 2014 Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 It snowed in southeastern Ontario over the weekend....4 inches. I could not effing believe it. We also have a website (http://DrBombay.ca/) and business cards. I did a complete rewrite of the website 2-3 weeks ago. The business cards are really nice; good thick paper and minimal-yet-sufficient information. We're in a bad position, though, our market is shrinking and none of us have the "connections" to get bookings, and our band does not have any kind of rep yet. So I am producing a trimmed-down paper press kit with a DVD containing 5 minutes of music...and the link to that 5 minute video is also on the business cards. I then plan to do a bunch of cold-calling and using every tiny bit of relationship I have to drum up some gigs. We're getting there. Slowly, but surely. There are bands who are not nearly as good as us getting work. I just hope they're not working too cheaply..because I want to take their gigs. Last summer I worked way more as Dixie/Swing pianist than as a rocker. I hope to keep the Dixie/Swing schedule this Dave, love your light rig. I think each of your lights is worth more than my whole rig, LOL. On the flip side... there bands here playing with no lights at all. Yikes. I hate that. Wes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted March 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2014 4"???? We got over a foot since the first day of spring lol. My goal is to somehow get our community center to let us usa a hazer. It will take some work but that's my goal The video screen and lights look really good Dave!! Without haze tho movers aren't real useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 1, 2014 Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 4"???? We got over a foot since the first day of spring lol. My goal is to somehow get our community center to let us usa a hazer. It will take some work but that's my goal The video screen and lights look really good Dave!! Without haze tho movers aren't real useful. We're getting there. Still a bit too frenetic, but the pieces are falling into place. I want to eventually program the show, but as a stop-gap, I'm thinking of using a foot controller with DMXIS and then I can easily transition to a tracked show. We do use some haze. But need to program that in as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SeeU 22 Posted April 1, 2014 Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 Dave, I would avoid programming the haze into you lighting cues and trigger it manually. Every venue has different haze needs based on the size and ventilation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted April 1, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 As much as I dislike Behringer, the FCB1010 plugs in and works like a charm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted April 1, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 The FCB1010 has 2 "volume pedals" I use one to control the haze machine and the other to control the brightness of the lights on the band. These days I've swapped the 1010 and my ME5, easier access to the light foot pedal. I've always defaulted to amber/white to light the band. I have to get more into colors on the band. In this video, you can see me step on the volume pedal to start the hazer on the left hand side (stage right) a neat thing is this. If the next scene has the hazer off then it will stop. Pretty obvious, but it just means I don't have to necessarily step on the volume pedal, I can just change scenes and it will stop. Here's the video: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 1, 2014 Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 Yeah, that's good stuff, Stratguy. Where's the front lighting in that clip?So your setup is the 1010 into a laptop running DMXiS and then out to the lights, correct? What sort of interfaces are you using in and out of the laptop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted April 1, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 There's one Blizzard Fab5 on each side, mounted to the top if each main speaker, on one of the lifting points. I just take out the bolt and use that. You can kinda see it in this video. The FCB1010 goes into a Roland UM-One MIDI to USB adaptor and that goes into the laptop. Then the laptop uses DMXIS through a USB to DMX hardware piece (included with DMXIS) and out to the lights. The UM-One was maybe $30. I have to sit down and organize my presets a bit better. Having everything going crazy the whole song doesn't give any flow or buildup during the song. And like I said I might start using colors for the front lights shining on the band. I kept it simple with the amber/white combination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 1, 2014 Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 Nice stuff. I'm stealing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted April 1, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 1, 2014 Take Anything you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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