Lunch Report, Friday, April 16th

[Darth Invader]

Hi guys,

Today’s lunch was at a nice Italian place called Mangia Mangia (“Eat, Eat”). I had Spaghetti Bolognese but I get it easy on the spaghetti and heavy on the sauce. Garlic bread goes really well with it.

First, I’d like to thank you guys for participating, and sharing a lot of good ideas for contest themes. I’m going to be discussing them more with some folks here, banging out stuff on the whiteboard as I like to do. Moving from concepts to executable programs is always a challenge, especially with stuff you’re not experienced with. The Devil, as they say, is in the details.

As my son is becoming more interested in playing guitar, I’ve noticed I’ve been playing more. Now I’d like to get a small band setup at home to encourage John to get friends over to jam, so I’m looking for some input. I’ve got a few questions I’d like to throw out. The room I’d use is about 15x25’.

I’d like to use electronic drums to keep the noise down and support late-night jamming. Roland, Yamaha and Alesis are the brands I see most, but it seems the power users gravitate toward Roland. What would you recommend for something mid-range? Are the mesh heads really worth the extra dough for amateur banging?

Should I get a powered mixer, or a conventional mixer and separate amp, or a conventional mixer and powered speakers? I think I’d need a half-dozen channels, but it may be a safe bet to double that.

Are smallish-speakers, say, 8” woofers, good enough for this or go with at least 12”? How many watts is sufficient?

These are just some things that come to mind, but I'd love to hear whatever you've got to say.

I think I’ll have one more go with a “what’s in Dave’s desk” prize. Hmmm… what do I have here… (back five minutes later)…OK, got it. I have a Hellecaster’s 1994 CD called Escape from Hollywood, Signature Edition. It is, as you might imagine, signed by all three Hellecasters. As new, still shrink-wrapped.

Today’s question is this:

What snack food was Leo Fender particularly fond of, so much so that examples of its packaging can still be found around his Laboratory to this day?

Thanks again, guys!

Dave

[Thumbs]

Cheese & Crackers?

[Darth Invader]

Cheese & Crackers?

Nope...

[bassman]

PEANUTS!

Planters Peanuts to be specific.
I 'm getting ready for a gig tonite and I can't stay on line, but good luck to whoever wins.

bassman

[repat]

I have that CD already, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Ltd. Edition from the Arlington Guitar show, IIRC.

Potato Chips!

[bassman]

Practice room recomendations: I don't know enough about electronic drums to make a recommendation, but I think acoustic drums are really the way to go.
Keep it simple. A good resonable acoustic drum set will feel more like what the drummer will play live so that is what kids want to play. Have the drummer bring his snare, foot pedal and cymbals unless these kids are just starting out, he should have those items. Keep it quiet: put a blanket over it or use wallet sized mutes on the heads. Electronic drums don't feel the same and with them you have to run them through an amp or the PA so you need more wattage.
And then the drummer will turn up

The hard part is getting kids to realize that they should play for the room and turn down. A Blues junior or equivalent will be fine. A single 15 combo bass amp will work fine. If you go bigger, you will have more volume issues.

[Ken Baker]

I think Bassman has it. Maybe. Closely followed by Planter's Mixed Nuts.





Ken...

[Darth Invader]

PEANUTS!

Planters Peanuts to be specific.
I 'm getting ready for a gig tonite and I can't stay on line, but good luck to whoever wins.

bassman

The bassman is correct!

Email or IM me where to send this lovely CD by the Helleman and his cohorts.

Dave

[Darth Invader]

Practice room recomendations: I don't know enough about electronic drums to make a recommendation, but I think acoustic drums are really the way to go.
Keep it simple. A good resonable acoustic drum set will feel more like what the drummer will play live so that is what kids want to play. Have the drummer bring his snare, foot pedal and cymbals unless these kids are just starting out, he should have those items. Keep it quiet: put a blanket over it or use wallet sized mutes on the heads. Electronic drums don't feel the same and with them you have to run them through an amp or the PA so you need more wattage.
And then the drummer will turn up

The hard part is getting kids to realize that they should play for the room and turn down. A Blues junior or equivalent will be fine. A single 15 combo bass amp will work fine. If you go bigger, you will have more volume issues.

Thanks for the feeback, bassman. The kids will be starting out, that's for sure. Growing up, we had a band setup at my parent's house. We had a decent Yamaha drum set with Paiste cymbals. Of course, my parents house was a lot bigger. The second story had a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and a big game room where the band setup was. I occupied one of the bedrooms, the other was vacant. Anyway, unless is was pretty late, we could make all the noise we wanted. My parents were pretty cool about that, but hey, dad was in the music business.

Anyway, I imagined all that bashing away like my friends and I did at my parents house, and thought there's no way acoustic drums are going to work. Can you tell me more about what to apply the blanket to? How about the cymbals? I do think that these little punks are will go ape <censored word> on the drums. Then again, I probably will too.

Dave

[Darth Invader]

I do think that these little punks are will go ape <censored word> on the drums.

I guess I can't say sh1t. Can I get a WTH?

[Darth Invader]

I do think that these little punks are will go ape <censored word> on the drums.

I guess I can't say sh1t. Can I get a WTH?

LOL... I can't put together W and T and F. It turned into W and T and H.

I'm gonna get banned!

[zapcosongs]

I do think that these little punks are will go ape <censored word> on the drums.

I guess I can't say sh1t. Can I get a WTH?

Yeah, WTH ;+)

Great week Dave, Thanks!

I'm off to Bassman's gig with the family!

[Brock]

I guess I can't say sh1t. Can I get a WTH?

...only because the "H" stands for "Heck".

Nice of you to give away a "Heckacasters" CD today!

-Brock

[GDub]

WTH? Reminds me of a George Carlin line:

"'Shoot', doesn't fool me. That's just 'sh*t' with two 'o's."

Peace...

GDub

[sam]

Hey Dave, was a fun week and some cool topics. Look forward to seeing the contests come to life .

Band set ups can be a mixed bag because as they progress in ability and size of practice space gear can change quickly. I totally agree with bassman on the acoustic drum kit. Amp wise the Blues Jr is a good option or crank an old VibroChamp. Being the Boogie fan I am, I would go with either the Mesa Boogie 5X25 Express or even better the Lone Star Special (5, 15 or 30 watts) I think you have killer tone and the ability to use the same amp in bigger venue as well as practice. Gdub can provide details on his 5x25 Express. 12' speakers are richer to my ear, single 10" speaker just sound a bit thin to me. All of my band experience has been in basements, barns and pool houses so I just say let 'em play and don't worry about the noise, but stealing from bassman again, let them play to the room. Glad hear the enthusiasm is still there.

TGIF!

[bassman]

So I won a Heckacasters CD! Yay!- I'll email you Dave, Thanks.
So we are being auto-censored, Eh?

Over at the F*nder forum, you can't even type out "Badass" bridge!

Practice room stuff:
You can quiet drums a number of ways, experiment with an old banket so that it can be cut up without anyone getting upset.
You will hear the muting affect as soon as you cover the front of a drum.
Strips of tape can quiet cymbals. A little bit will do a lot. BTW no need for Zyldjians on this set. The tone will be compromised with the muting.

Actually, I think you will have more volume issues with the bass amp, from across the house, than anything else, but that's just the nature of the beast.

[Craig]

For The Record:

WTH = "What The Hell" ...

... so, no conversion is necessary for the Hellecasters and helle-man.

[MrRoundel]

I have an Allesis SR16 drum machine. I don't use it as much as I should, but when I do break it out, it serves to settle me down a bit from getting ahead of things. Now that I have my Tascam Guitar trainer, I have the luxury of listening and playing right along with the artist, including the drummer on the recording. It doesn't get much better than that for moving match tempo, beat, etc., with the original performer.
JefF-100 recommended the GT to me for the past couple of years. I finally listened to him and went for it. One plus is that for practice, you plug your guitar into the GT, put on some headphones, and you can play along without disturbing anyone else in the house. While this might take the fun out of it for a teenager, it is a nice feature. It also adds a fair number of effects to your guitar. I believe it is helping my playing very much, at least as far as timing goes.
Get that whippersnapper a WhipperSnapper.
Good luck.

[spideyjg]

Hey Dave,

A lot of what you need aka powered mixer, amps, speakers etc is on sale right now at the Carvin stores. They got one in Santa Ana.

Swung by the San Diego factory yesterday and they had a DCM 1000 on the cheap, 12 and 15" PA speakers, and a couple of bass cabs. Their PA amps are respectable and their speakers are OK, the 1503 is the best to me, but a Sonic Maximizer helps a lot. It think you can locate one of those.

For mics and cables go to Orange County Speakers. Their GLS mics are copies of the Sure 58 and 57 and are excellent but stoopid cheap.

Jim

[Ches]

Should I get a powered mixer, or a conventional mixer and separate amp, or a conventional mixer and powered speakers? I think I’d need a half-dozen channels, but it may be a safe bet to double that.

Are smallish-speakers, say, 8” woofers, good enough for this or go with at least 12”? How many watts is sufficient?

Dave -
I started my son off with a used Mackie 406M powered mixer (http://www.mackie.com/products/406m/), two 12" monitors, and two 15" two-way mains. That set-up was plenty big enough for him to jam with friends, and they used it to gig all through high school and college. I never spent another cent on PA gear for him (and neither did he). I couldn't spend any more anyway.....I had gear needs of my own!

Brian

[MrRoundel]

Ches' recommendation sounds like a winner to me. Note: If you buy a powered mixer, make sure it has two power amps, as he'll need one to power the monitors separate from the main PA. I made a mistake buying a powered mixer with a single power amp and had to buy another piece of gear to power the monitors. More recent mistake: I bought some speaker stands that have mounting posts that are too big for my speakers and will have to buy another part, and adapter, to make it work. Now, what will next week bring?