Musicians check in here. If you play, tell us about it!

[Mac]

I have bitten off more then I can chew on this end. I have had to cancel 4 practices in a row and am trying to figure out how to tell my bandmates that ecig business has completely taken over my life and I don't have time for them any more. I am going to tell them on Tuesday that I can't do more then one practice a week. They will not be happy to hear it. This may be the end of my music career. I honestly don't know. I'd kill to be able to do music for a living and e-cigs for a hobby. But that isn't realistic..

 

[James Hart]

I wrote application software back in the 80s for several companies in town. There was a Ford dealer, a Chiropractor, a large rehabilitation company, and a company that provided sitters and maid service for shut-ins along with RN monitoring. I spent more time than I planned on at first, but was able to design reusable modules that paid off in later projects. I made about $15k over a 5 year period and more with modifications and additions after the sale. It was grueling work considering that I had to bone up on my accounting methods, but it paid for my high priced addiction to computers and peripherals.

I've thought about web site design, but there are so many places where you can design your own these days, I never delved into it. 1&1 has run a multi-page ad in Maximum PC mag for several years. It sounds like they have a point and shoot method for web site creation.

Very cool! I feel there is a big, noticeable difference in look and functionality between cookie cutter, template based site builders and one conceived/designed/hand coded by a pro. Sure there is drawbacks to both sides... but there is a need for people who can code a nice site

I learned HTML back in 96 when I found out my BBS/ISP offered a free 2mb personal web space... since then I've done at least 3 or 4 commercial websites a year on the side. Everything from Luthiers, to music gear retail & manufactures, to bands (label backed and not), to Lawyers, to Speech therapists, to radio stations, to service businesses, to knife makers, etc etc etc.

The one I'm editing (or trying to) is Maintain Spine Angle | Improve Your Golf Swing | Lower Your Golf Score | It's built using the Dynamik theme on the Catalyst framework on top of wordpress... It's many layers of hell

I found the guy on craigslist while slumming for work. Nice guy, retired upper management/marketing guy in his 70s partnered with a retired Bell Labs engineer. They are selling products at a steady pace and paying me an okay wage for my time.

In the past, I've charged and/or bartered my skillz... I've mostly just taken work for people I liked or people/places that made stuff I liked Like music, I prefer to not make a living on subjective careers so I never made the jump to full time webdev.

 

[DaveP]

James Hart wrote: I found the guy on craigslist while slumming for work. Nice guy, retired upper management/marketing guy in his 70s partnered with a retired Bell Labs engineer. They are selling products at a steady pace and paying me an okay wage for my time.

In the past, I've charged and/or bartered my skillz... I've mostly just taken work for people I liked or people/places that made stuff I liked Like music, I prefer to not make a living on subjective careers so I never made the jump to full time webdev.

That's probably the best situation you could have unless you have the time to spend with the customer working up a hit list for features and design. I had a friend/partner who I met through connections that shared the load and split the profits with me. I was coding in Dbase III, Clipper, and Foxpro for Windows back then. I was single at the time and would come home during the week from work and have a big mug of coffee. Then, I'd code from sometime after 5pm until bedtime. It got old after a while. We'd go together to install revisions and train the customer. That took more of my time.

I'd have loved to have a set of analyst specs and only the obligation to produce code. Things got much easier once I did a few packages. I realized quickly just how similar the modules were and was able to reuse some code to save time inventing the wheel. The most time intensive part of the coding was accounting and finance. I had to code in the tax tables. Later, I stored the information that changed in a DBF file so I could allow the customer to input the new tables for me. I only had to call up the tables and load an array with the data to produce accurate paychecks and produce bills for customers. I used that technique profusely throughout my code.

 

[DocRokRx]

i'm playing at church this week ( my only outlet currently) for the first time in over a month... i'm so glad

 

[DaveP]

i'm playing at church this week ( my only outlet currently) for the first time in over a month... i'm so glad

Church praise bands, however dull to those who play in clubs, is a great place for those of us who would be in church on Sunday anyway. I've been playing in a church praise band for almost 6 years. It's a 9:00am service with a mix of ages and we have a great time. The people love the music and there's a smile on everyone's face when we do rock based contemporary christian tunes. I never thought I'd be able to play overdrive guitar with rock and blues licks in church. Times have definitely changed. I played in top 40 bands in my younger years and CC music gives me an outlet for my guitar playing without being out until the wee hours of the morning. We have a quick rehearsal at 8am, play at 9am on Sunday and practice on Monday nights. It's a rewarding pastime.

I get to do a lot more exploratory fill licks these days and use all the lick types I played when I did popular music in secular clubs and parties. I don't miss anything about late nights and after gig loadouts. Our keyboardist/horn player is in a well known local oldies group that plays all over town. Sometimes he comes in at 8am on Sunday for rehearsal and comments that he got to bed at 3 and back up at 7 to get to rehearsal. Glad it's not me anymore!

On 5th Sunday, we do a combined service and that lets the rest of the membership have a taste of alternative christian music. The little old grey haired ladies have learned to sit toward the back on 5th Sunday! I remember when we first started. They were used to sitting on the front row to hear better. I felt sorry for them as they sat with their fingers in their ears when we played the first few times ...

Welcome to the thread, Doc!

 

[DocRokRx]

thanks dave-
we do some pretty good music in church too, so it's actually fun!
and being at a satellite of a big nashville church, quite a few of the players are really talented session/touring guys, so its a blast for little ole me to get to play with those guys.

 

[DaveP]

I never thought church music would be so contemporary or that so much volume would be tolerated, but the other night at rehearsal the master on my amp was at 2 (60 watt Peavey tube amp) and frequently I'm at 4 when the room is full. 4 is loud on this amp with my humbuckers driving it. At home, 1 is too loud unless you find that little point just below 1 where it's tolerable. I can feel my shirt shimmer a bit standing in front of it at 4 and hear it bounce off the back wall of the sanctuary.

Sunday before last we had horns sitting in for one song. Things get loud when the horns start up (think Chicago). I was loud to be heard over it all and the sound was full and balanced. You'd think we'd have volume complaints when we do things like that, but no comments at all. There was one lady who mentioned to my wife that she was late one Sunday and could hear the music when she got out of her car in the parking lot. This is the Mother of one of our guitarists who's away at college these days. She's used to loud with her son practicing in his bedroom and knows the difference.

Contemporary church has changed the landscape of worship for the good, IMO. People loosen up a bit.

 

[BadHabitBand]

Here are some pics from last weekends gig. Huge crowd, great show and we had a blast...

 

[sandybeach]

Love love love the pictures, Habit, thank you!

 

[BadHabitBand]

Thank you Sandy!

 

[DocRokRx]

sounds like you got a sweet deal there dave....
I have to go direct since my amp is too heavy to haul around all the time, and they dont like a lot of stage noise... I'm looking to get a micro amp and a 2x10 and mic up in the future though
also- we have to use in-ears... ugh

 

[BadHabitBand]

Had another fan take some audio at our gig last Saturday. Set it to some of the still pics that were taken that I posted previously in this thread. Not sure what device he used to record it, so it's not the best quality live recording, but a recording none the less.

Bad Habit Live at Louisville Billiards Club - YouTube

Does anyone know of some decent free eq'ing software for cleaning up live audio?

 

[bassnut]

Had another fan take some audio at our gig last Saturday. Set it to some of the still pics that were taken that I posted previously in this thread. Not sure what device he used to record it, so it's not the best quality live recording, but a recording none the less.

Bad Habit Live at Louisville Billiards Club - YouTube

Does anyone know of some decent free eq'ing software for cleaning up live audio?

Sounds pretty good to me.
Search my band Pat O'Brien and the Priests of Love in Youtube and see about 3 pages of really crappy sounding iPod videos a few people keep posting. No shots of me at all and the bass is inaudible.
I happen to think we're pretty good but you'd never know it by watching those videos.

 

[Mac]

They didn't kick me out of the band

 

[bassnut]

They didn't kick me out of the band

I sorta predicted to myself that this would be the outcome.
I'm glad you didn't quit. Your level of commitment is irreplaceable.

 

[sandybeach]

Had another fan take some audio at our gig last Saturday. Set it to some of the still pics that were taken that I posted previously in this thread. Not sure what device he used to record it, so it's not the best quality live recording, but a recording none the less.

Bad Habit Live at Louisville Billiards Club - YouTube

Does anyone know of some decent free eq'ing software for cleaning up live audio?

I've been searching for free software to clean up live audio too. I post a lot of videos on YouTube, when I see bands live, and I would love to be able to clean up the audio.

I haven't really found anything yet. I use a Mac.

 

[Mac]

I sorta predicted to myself that this would be the outcome.
I'm glad you didn't quit. Your level of commitment is irreplaceable.

I cancelled 5 practices in a row. Then announced that I can only do one a week for the next 2-3 months minimum with no promises beyond that. They should have fired me. I have fired people for less.

 

[bassnut]

I cancelled 5 practices in a row. Then announced that I can only do one a week for the next 2-3 months minimum with no promises beyond that. They should have fired me. I have fired people for less.

..and what does that tell you about your standing?

 

[sandybeach]

I cancelled 5 practices in a row. Then announced that I can only do one a week for the next 2-3 months minimum with no promises beyond that. They should have fired me. I have fired people for less.

LOLzer

 

[Jfresh859]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMF8wjmdZkg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

That's me on the harp. Been playing about 3 weeks now. Also play bass(upright and electric) and French horn, trumpet, all the valved. But harp
Is hands down the coolest thing ever invented..
I prefer a old blues feel and like to toss in a bit of swing and jazz in there.
Influences would be Jeff beck, Eric
Clapton, the band, Neil young, and muddy waters.
Also hey guys how is everyone doing


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