General Music Chat

Personally I wouldn't go into a project with doubts. Gung ho or be damned!

Personally I wouldn't go into a project with doubts. Gung ho or be damned!

Easy for you to say, Jimmy - you're in a great band!!

Im with Jimmy, also you say they arent gigging and you are assuming you will make $200 per gig, have you got that in writing?

I ask cause in my area that would be premium pay to say the least, Ive been doing this for a while and our deal is $600 a night, $150 per man, Im not saying what you are saying is impossible, but it sounds kinda strong to me.

I personally wouldnt be in a tribute band, I entertained the idea of a Zep Tribute group a few years ago in my area that was working, and thier Page quit, I was contacted and auditioned and basically got the gig, but they werent able to tell me what we would make money wise.

On the other hand if you are trying to get your chops up and they are playing a wide variety of Beatles past just Love Me Do, it might be a great vehicle to get your playing up to snuff.

Good Luck

Oh one last thing if you cant imagine having fun in this group, all money, ear monitors aside, then why even think twice on it?

I'm going by the venues they mentioned, don't think there can be a guarantee on the $. Haven't talked business yet (only had the audition-practice). WIDE variety of tunes will keep me hopping and should help my key and guitar chops . I have felt the same way about tribute bands, jw. The overwhelming consensus of opinions, though, is to go for it. Even my wife (who says 'no more guitars') is saying go for it and to buy the monitor.

Man get them to do an instrumental version of A Day In The Life, ala Beck, that would be cool!

Years ago I had a Beatles Song Book and it helped me with different chords, at the time I was only doing Barre Chords, kinda like Jimmy in the Farleys! j/k Jimmy, you know your my favorite PRUNK ROKKER!

I think they are pretty into doing the songs exactly as the Beatles did, although they are talking a mashup of Revolution (single fast version) and Revolution 1 (White album).
Instrumentals of Beatles songs tend to come off as elevator music (unless you're shredding them of course).

Update after 2 more practices.

I bought the in-ear system, had it for last night's practice. Nice being able to hear ALL the vocals, and my ears weren't ringing after, either.
We've pretty much got the first set of 20 songs down, just some polishing and tightening needed. The next 2 sets will be more difficult as we tackle more of the later Beatles tunes.
For the first set I play acoustic for all but a few songs (electric on 2 and piano on 1). There has been some talk and dissension regarding 'what to wear' when gigging, but at least 2 of us are in the 'no costumes at all' frame of mind.
We apparently have a 1-hour TV gig lined up for the end of July, and bid on a town party for around the same time, too.

Mike, are you guy's mic-ing all the instruments? If not those IEM's can be a little limiting as it makes it hard to hear the other instruments. What kind did you get?

We will mic everything for gigs, but at practice its not needed as we're practicing in a fairly small space. The ear buds cut out about 30% of ambient sound. If not singing, its a good idea to turn one's personal in-ear volume down a little bit.
We are using the Shure PSM 200 system - it's what the band members already had, so I picked up a receiver/earbud package from Sweetwater which saved me about $60: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/P2R215CL-H2/
Some of the guys have earbuds that sell for more than the whole receiver package ($300!) but I can't see those are really needed.
There are ridiculously expensive systems that allow you to adjust what each person hears (on a seperate frequency), but that's pro level stuff.

We will mic everything for gigs, but at practice its not needed as we're practicing in a fairly small space. The ear buds cut out about 30% of ambient sound. If not singing, its a good idea to turn one's personal in-ear volume down a little bit.
We are using the Shure PSM 200 system - it's what the band members already had, so I picked up a receiver/earbud package from Sweetwater which saved me about $60: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/P2R215CL-H2/
Some of the guys have earbuds that sell for more than the whole receiver package ($300!) but I can't see those are really needed.
There are ridiculously expensive systems that allow you to adjust what each person hears (on a seperate frequency), but that's pro level stuff.

Those systems are called Aviom monitor mixing systems. We use the Sure PSM 900 systems everyone in the band has them. The earbud quality is just as important we use the PS5's. Carvin and Synheiser have good systems as well.

That Shure system is about 4X the price of ours! I'm sure the extra features make it worthwhile.
Top-of-the-line ear pieces as well, guess if you're pulling in the big $$$ its worth it!

Personally I wouldn't go into a project with doubts. Gung ho or be damned!

Hell yes ... on these things Jimmy and I see eye to eye.
There are no perfect campaigns, only perfect commitments.

Consider fully, act decisively.



OH and happy birthday you old fart ... I'll be there in August.

Good advice from everyone!
I'm going to go to practice next week, see how it is and then make a decision on buying the in-ear monitor set-up. A decebnt set of in-ears will assist on the hearing issues. At age 56 (as of this past Tuesday), hearing is not too bad and I try to avoid the superloud shows these days!
My biggest concern at this point is getting 'filled up' by Beatles tunes. Generally I vary what I listen to and play a lot, this is going to require a fair amount of homework, cutting down on my 'other music' time. I'm still looking to start/join an acoustic duo/band, as well as working on my originals - I have about 3/4 of the songs for my 2nd CD recorded (if not fully mixed), as well as a number of songs for CD#3.

Thanks for friending me on reverbnation, Tammy - everyone here should do the same for everyone else, helps our 'numbers'!

As I get sick of my own crap very rapidly, I have discovered that there is a threshold where its comes out by route (rote) ... I think that's prolly natural...so just pound out and let the auto pilot kick in from time to time...That will quell the variation thang

It's actually been a great way to get 'dedicated' - been doing several hours of homework each week, learning the songs I hadn't played before, practicing harmony parts. Learning 20 songs in a few practices seems pretty good to me (can't compare to Jeff and his 50 songs in a day and a half!), and this all should help me in my playing and singing skills.

It's actually been a great way to get 'dedicated' - been doing several hours of homework each week, learning the songs I hadn't played before, practicing harmony parts. Learning 20 songs in a few practices seems pretty good to me (can't compare to Jeff and his 50 songs in a day and a half!), and this all should help me in my playing and singing skills.

Mike that was a week and a half and I did the gig with no rehearsals! 20 songs in a few rehearsals is damn good. Sounds like things are going well I am happy for you!