Hooner 4000 moves on....

You all remember our old car, the Hooner 4000, well, it was time for it to go, so i popped and ad up on gumtree and later on that day a gent was happy to take it off my hands for a trade, in the ad i had specified a table tennis table, and he showed up with the goods, four brand new bats and everything. I think he got a bit of a rough deal, the car was falling to pieces, he didnt mind thought, he was just happy that it started.

Liam came over the other night and we set it all up in the carport under the house.

GAME ON!

New gig settup

Remember that Roland Mobile Cube I got a few weeks ago, well i used it last night at a solo violin gig for the first time. It was a cocktail function, new office opening, and they wanted some easy listening background music and also a PA to use for the speeches. Well my roland worked a treat. Above you can see it mounted on a mike stand, electric viola resting on the side and a line with a mike running to the podium.

Note the excessive use of velcro on the back of the unit. I used my pedal juice for power, (the unit itself runs on 6 AA batteries, but I treat those as emergency backup) so no mains plug required (less wires and looks neat) and played some backing tracks I made last year using Band In A Box, jazz standards mainly with the odd novelty tune thrown in for fun, (flintstones, batman and a few others, nobody even batted an eyelid when I played a jazz version the doors 'light my fire') and just crooned along for an hour, then a break for the speeches, then more jazz crooning in the keys of D and G, it was great. Also, i used my phone to play the backing music, which for every track change, would bluetooth the song name to my watch, so I would know what is playing next without having to refer to a playlist or anything like that. It really made for seamless music and effortless crooning.


And here is the most important item of all, the beer holder. It took a while to set it up as it was my first time doing it, but next time I reckon I can get it all down to about 5 mins settup and soundcheck. Also, due to the compact nature of the whole thing, this was a gig I could cycle to and enjoy a few beers without worrying about driving or parking. I have another gig exactly like this in a few weeks so I'll be well practiced by then.

Sound equipment

I used my small PA system for a gig last saturday, here it is all wired up to rock the place, two mikes and two instrument inputs, MP3 player velcro'd to one side (along with backup MP3 and a charger) and my violin preamp velcro'd to the other, didn't need to remove the desk from the speaker at all and yeilded the quickest pack up in ages. Punchy sound, yamaha stagepass 500.



On my preamp is a very fancy button usually reserved for starships and sci-fi clifhanger episodes, its the "Phase Inverter", just flick that wee switch and hey presto your phase is inverted. You know the stuff: "captain, we cant penetrate their shields", "try inverting the phase, ensign", "huzzah it worked", that kinda stuff. I once played a computer game (star trek bridge commander) and the last level took about absolutely aaaaages to solve, eventually realising that the solution was to invert the phase. If only I had that button....



In a tetronian effort after the gig here is the fiddle and bike in the back of the hatchback without folding down the seats.



Also, I got one of these last week and cant recommend it highly enough. It runs on batteries for about 20 hours, also runs on mains (or the pedal-juice), and can take three inputs. Plenty loud enough to function as a speaker for one of my solo violin gigs, or as an on-stage personal monitor when playing with bands or just as a boombox out at the bbq. Also good for practicing at home with the electric viola without having to set up all the big equipment. Its really small, about the size of a small shoebox, here and here are demos where you can get an idea of the scale. It can be mounted on a mike stand or just leave it on the floor. I have a gig next week where I am going to use it to play jazz backing tracks for a few hours whilst I croon away and at the break the host is going to use it with a mike to make a few speeches. The best bit about all this is that I can now cycle to gigs with a PA system, score another one for the environment.