I pack a small umbrella with a screw-down clamp on the handle; it goes on my horizontal mic boom on really sunny days, or if black clouds roll in. I have another one for my new amp.
Hi Samantha. As a sometime-busker myself, I appreciate the idea of the hand-warmers. I didn't know they existed. That's going to be very useful, thank you.
I enjoyed and appreciate your videos. I haven't did any busking in a few years, however I recently moved to Las Vegas and want to hit the streets again. Wish me luck. :-)
Thanks for sharing, I suffer with arthritis and back ache a lot so am looking to reduce my weight without compromising my music, I use an enya carbon fibre guitar for practifce and busking which is extremely lightweight and a Spark Gride belt clip amp with built in guitar fx via app and the smart guitar connects without fuss every time. I'm going to upgrade my amp soon to incl vocals but so far I can now get on the bus with all my gear lol.
It's definitely a balancing act to find what works well for the act, while working within your requirements and limitations. Good job at finding lighter ways to go about it. Hopefully you can find a nice light amp and maybe you could get a wireless on ear microphone so you don't need a mic stand. Good luck with it!
Dear Samantha, Thank you very much for your tips, all these things are new for us in India. After learning from you recently got a page turning pedal and the mobilesheets free app. It's been very very useful. Thanks again, all the best and God bless.
This is a great video. It is helpful and well done. Thank you. I go busking and play dance beats on buckets and some other toys. I have found that the best time to go busking is late night on Friday and Saturday. When do you go busking? Are there certain places or times that you find are more lucrative? Thank you again and have a great day.
Thank you. They are the best times to busk over here too. These days I try not to stay out too late as I don't enjoy feeling unsafe. Friday nights aren't as good as Saturdays as the shops in the city are open till 9pm and so the amount of buskers out during the shopping hours is quite high and there's rarely space till after they close. It's Winter at the moment, so I'm out less than normal. Lately I've been trying a couple of suburbs spots during the week and doing the occasional Saturday night before midnight in town. Definitely Saturday night in the main mall area in the city is the most lucrative for me.
Ethan Campbell your comment is ambiguous to me. What do you mean? You want to busk to make money? You want to busk to perform your art/hobby? I think you can accomplish both, no?
WOKE BEAST you definitely can. If you’re smart about it and do it well you can make a good amount of cash even if it’s just once in a while and not full time
Hi Samantha. Still devouring these videos loving all of them. So incredibly helpful and informative. Can you elaborate on the sine inverter/portable power you use please? I'm useless at gear knowledge but I've been wanting a way of having portable power but yet to figure out how to achieve this. Do you hook up your inverter to a rechargeable battery or do inverters have a charge feature built into them? If it's an external battery, what type do you use? Deep cycling or not? How long do you tend to get on a single charge with the equipment you use? Do you find this cheaper than batteries? Thanks again for all you're doing by creating this series. You rock!
In episode 24 I go into my gear in detail, so make sure to check that out as it has all the specs! The inverter gets connected to a rechargeable lead acid motorcycle battery via alligator clips. A single charge lasts longer than 3.5 hours to power my amplifier, but not sure exactly how long it would last completely as I never busk longer than that! These batteries can be used and recharged etc for years before they need replacing. Glad my videos are helpful for you!
Samantha Edge thanks for replying. I'll keep watching. Definitely finding the videos helpful so thanks again for doing this series. Keep up the awesomesauce, Samantha!
Do you have any tips on how to protect yourself and your equipment from the weather? I'm mainly thinking of rain but wind, heat and glare could be an issue. So far, I've seen people using garbage bags to cover speakers but that is 1) ugly 2) when they're not in use.
Adrian Ceroni It's a hard one. When the shops are open in Rundle Mall you need to be positioned in the centre of the mall which means no cover from rain. It can also become a wind tunnel. In summer you try to position yourself in the shade of buildings or the flimsy trees and try to pre-empt where the shade will move to so you can play your set without losing the shade in the middle of it. The rain is harder to manage. You can either decide that no busking will happen on a rainy day or find covered locations in places like outside the Tea Tree Plaza/Marion shops (you book in with them) to play instead. The other option with the mall is to play after the shops have closed under cover in front of shops, but playing after hours isn't for everyone. You're not allowed to take out an umbrella or gazebo as it's seen as a safety hazard, so you can't just bring cover with you. In regards to moving your equipment in the rain get a tarp and some rope/bungy cords/cambuckles (whatever works) to tie it over your gear and protect it from rain. Try to keep you gear out of the sun as much as possible. At the end of the day if it's too hard to play in whatever extreme weather just go home and try again another day. I know there's not much you can do, but hopefully my bit of insight helps. :)
Wow I just found this!!! Samatha you are awesome!!! Watching all episodes. Thank you I have been praticing for 7 months now and Open Mic night doesn't pay nothing. I live in FL. Any places you recommend in FL?
Yeah give busking a go! It sounds like you've been preparing for it with the open mic nights. My progression was the same, I was going to open mics fairly regularly for about 6-9 months before I tried busking. Open mics are fun to be with a crowd of musos and their friends and make music. I haven't been to one in years! Sorry, I have no idea where would be good to perform over there. I'm from Australia and haven't traveled to America at all.
I use a 6 year old asus tf300t tablet that has 1gb of ram, a 1.3GHz quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 T30L CPU and a 10.1inch 1280x800 display and it handles the app just fine. I believe most tablets would be good enough to run it, although I'd recommend getting one with a 10 inch or larger screen. Sometimes I find mine slightly small. Also mine struggles with lots of sunlight too, so if you can get one that is still readable outside in full sun, then it won't hinder your busking. As for stands, I just put mine on a regular folding music stand, but there are tablet holders that attach to mic stands and probably others I don't know about. Have a look around and find what works for you. Good luck with your busking!
I don't think there are any working in the mall. There were some in the past, but I think they stopped for reasons other than it not being good for clowns. I can't say for sure though as I'm not one and haven't been able to ask any how it's been for them.
+GNOMER _ Hi Max. Timing is a hard thing to figure out. It depends on the area, how many people, how many buskers and whether the crowd will be in a donating mood. It takes a lot of experimenting to work out what time works for you. Luckily even at bad times you'll usually come away with more than you came with, even if it's only a little, so the key is just to get out and start trying. For general info you want a good portion of your audience to be relaxed enough to take in your performance and the less other buskers performing in the area at the same time the more likely the audience will donate to you and the easier it is to find a spot. For me I do most Sat nights with the occasional Wednesday evening, Friday night and Sunday evening. I have friends who are instrumentalists and do the day shift, but it doesn't seem to work for me in my local mall. Another area could be a different story! Whenever it's next convenient for you to go and busk, try and see if that time gives a decent return. I've got my fingers crossed for you. Good luck!
Sunscribed. That was the best video on busking I've seen. BRILLIANT!!!!. Gonna chk out your other videos. Just a question. What was that poster in your case? Cheers
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I forgot about my poster. Could have been another tip! So it's a homemade poster. It's to promote my websites, online pages and CDs I have for sale when I'm out busking. I make up a photoshop file the size of 4 A4 pages wide (84cm) and 1 A4 high (29.7cm), design my poster and then print off the 4 pages and tape them together. I use matte photo paper for a stronger poster and I tape ribbon to the back of it and tie it to my case. Saves a lot of money vs getting one professionally made and it's easy enough to replace when it gets worn out or you want to update it.
+Kate McDougall I bought my hand warmers from the reject shop, but I have also seen them at the post office and I'd think it's possible that other cheap variety stores like cheap as chips may stock them too.
By that do you mean just get rid of the inverter and still have the amp and battery and keyboard and battery? My keyboard runs straight from a battery, the yamaha mm6, so I think that uses 12vdc.
Hi Jack. I'm sorry to hear you found my title misleading. Everything I mentioned is to help make busking easier or combat problems that can occur. I can see how this could come across as equipment tips, but if you're prepared and your equipment isn't holding you back you will have a foot up when you go to perform. This is one episode of a series I created where I talked through a lot of things regarding busking experiences and there are tips throughout the whole series that go into other areas of busking. I had already covered a lot of information by the time I got to this episode and didn't want to be repeating myself. Perhaps you may find more of the information you are looking for in another episode. Anyway thank you for watching. Have a good day.
+Matt Chow There are a variety of AA battery powered amps out there that are handy for busking. I bought one that could do this, but found it wouldn't perform loud enough this way for piano and vocals. So instead of buying another amp I went to jaycar and bought a 12v 18AH lead acid battery for $80, a battery to cigarette lighter connection for $10, a lead acid battery charger for $30 and ordered a 300w continuous/600w max 12v-240v pure sine wave invertor from ebay for $70. You might be able to get away with a smaller battery such as a 12v 7.2AH for $35 depending on the required power for your amp, but I found the 18AH version gave me all the power I needed whereas the 7.2AH sometimes died before I was ready to pack up. The battery is rechargable and has a life of approx 4 years, eventually they don't output enough power anymore and need to be replaced. The pure sine wave invertor will ensure minimal to no electrical noise is heard through your amp. It's a bit more to carry, but it means you can plug in a large array of amps. Be aware though that this set up won't power my Yamaha 400i PA system. I believe an invertor with a higher output would be needed for that and then probably a larger battery too, but we're talking busking, so my set up should work for most busking style amps. Hope this helped. If you have any further questions, let me know.
+Matt Chow There might be something that has the battery and invertor all in one, but I haven't seen one yet. You may need to do a bit of research on that to find out.
+Matt Chow I was just watching this video ua-cam.com/video/5p0d0cBNFu4/v-deo.html and he talks about a RavPower battery which looks pretty light and doesn't require an inverter to run my specific amp. Not sure how easy they are to get a hold of or how expensive, but it's a possible option.
@@mattchow5629 I have a solar generator for my van, its also a huge power bank and silent...but it was really expensive, but I can plug it in to charge it...look up Goal Zero generators, they are pretty expensive but maybe that can give people more ideas....I can run a Yahama or Roland Cube on it for literally over a day, havent really measured it. Im not saying that that is cheap, Im just saying there are insteresting things to find in the solar generator category.
That in my unprofessional opinion is a lot of time memorizing while also needing to keep track of the tempo. My personal preference is to try and find the music tabs on UA-cam and play along with the volume low
Why don’t you make a video about it then? By the way your concept of your own self importance is ridiculous. No one cares if you dislike. It’s not the end of the world! You’re only one person!!! Give her a break
I'm an occasional metro busker, a newbie to the busking scene; a looong time vocalist. Your last tip was mind shattering! That idea is fantastic!
I pack a small umbrella with a screw-down clamp on the handle; it goes on my horizontal mic boom on really sunny days, or if black clouds roll in. I have another one for my new amp.
Clearly the voice of experience! Not only good advice, but you did such a good job producing this video!
Finally! A female busker! This was super helpful, thank you!
So many good sound common sense solutions to real every day busking problems. Brilliant.
This is a great, practical video on how to make life easier busking. It's actually one of the better ones on YT. Very helpful, thanks!!
Thank you! Glad it helped. 😊
Hi Samantha. As a sometime-busker myself, I appreciate the idea of the hand-warmers. I didn't know they existed. That's going to be very useful, thank you.
I enjoyed and appreciate your videos. I haven't did any busking in a few years, however I recently moved to Las Vegas and want to hit the streets again. Wish me luck. :-)
Good luck!
This has been the most helpful video I’ve found! Thanks
This was super helpful! thanks Samantha :)
you have planned your buskiing experience very well. thank you for sharing
I AM using Lenz electric heated socks, they are a Life saver. This is when temperatures are Sub zero
Thanks for sharing, I suffer with arthritis and back ache a lot so am looking to reduce my weight without compromising my music, I use an enya carbon fibre guitar for practifce and busking which is extremely lightweight and a Spark Gride belt clip amp with built in guitar fx via app and the smart guitar connects without fuss every time. I'm going to upgrade my amp soon to incl vocals but so far I can now get on the bus with all my gear lol.
It's definitely a balancing act to find what works well for the act, while working within your requirements and limitations. Good job at finding lighter ways to go about it. Hopefully you can find a nice light amp and maybe you could get a wireless on ear microphone so you don't need a mic stand. Good luck with it!
Dear Samantha,
Thank you very much for your tips, all these things are new for us in India. After learning from you recently got a page turning pedal and the mobilesheets free app. It's been very very useful. Thanks again, all the best and God bless.
So glad to hear this Clifford! 😊
God bless?tf is this, she aint do anything amazing. This video was helpful indeed, but god bless?
Wow, interesting little things I never considered before.
Really enjoyed your content, have subscribed for more.
Excellent Video.... Good Tips, Thanks!!! - 👍
thank you great tips for my 10 year old daughter is just getting in to busking thank you
Very helpful. Many thanks for sharing.
Hi George. Thank you for your kind donation!
Awesome video Samantha👍👍
Awesome tips Thanks
Thanks, you rock
Very useful tips, thanks you sis
Thanks for telling us where a water fountain is
This is a great video. It is helpful and well done. Thank you. I go busking and play dance beats on buckets and some other toys. I have found that the best time to go busking is late night on Friday and Saturday. When do you go busking? Are there certain places or times that you find are more lucrative? Thank you again and have a great day.
Thank you. They are the best times to busk over here too. These days I try not to stay out too late as I don't enjoy feeling unsafe. Friday nights aren't as good as Saturdays as the shops in the city are open till 9pm and so the amount of buskers out during the shopping hours is quite high and there's rarely space till after they close. It's Winter at the moment, so I'm out less than normal. Lately I've been trying a couple of suburbs spots during the week and doing the occasional Saturday night before midnight in town. Definitely Saturday night in the main mall area in the city is the most lucrative for me.
Very interesting
thank you. great tips.
Good tips! Thank you!
Dam i enjoyed yr tips, so innovative, well done
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
Thank you for the tips, but the reason im considering busking is to earn a bit extra cash, not as a money consuming lifestyle/hobby.
Ethan Campbell your comment is ambiguous to me. What do you mean? You want to busk to make money? You want to busk to perform your art/hobby? I think you can accomplish both, no?
WOKE BEAST you definitely can. If you’re smart about it and do it well you can make a good amount of cash even if it’s just once in a while and not full time
Thank you for this upload. Very helpful.👍
BAMBOO STICKS OMG YES THANK YOU!!!!!
Have you ever had the rare occasion of someone stealing grabbing money from your tips? Do you ignore and Let it Go or chase them?
Ok, so half of this stuff didn't even occur to me! Thanks! 😁🎸🎵💚
Hi Samantha. Still devouring these videos loving all of them. So incredibly helpful and informative. Can you elaborate on the sine inverter/portable power you use please? I'm useless at gear knowledge but I've been wanting a way of having portable power but yet to figure out how to achieve this. Do you hook up your inverter to a rechargeable battery or do inverters have a charge feature built into them? If it's an external battery, what type do you use? Deep cycling or not? How long do you tend to get on a single charge with the equipment you use? Do you find this cheaper than batteries?
Thanks again for all you're doing by creating this series. You rock!
In episode 24 I go into my gear in detail, so make sure to check that out as it has all the specs! The inverter gets connected to a rechargeable lead acid motorcycle battery via alligator clips. A single charge lasts longer than 3.5 hours to power my amplifier, but not sure exactly how long it would last completely as I never busk longer than that! These batteries can be used and recharged etc for years before they need replacing. Glad my videos are helpful for you!
Samantha Edge thanks for replying. I'll keep watching. Definitely finding the videos helpful so thanks again for doing this series. Keep up the awesomesauce, Samantha!
Thank you
I just need to know the key and I improvise with the guitar
thank you!!!! very helpful
Do you have any tips on how to protect yourself and your equipment from the weather? I'm mainly thinking of rain but wind, heat and glare could be an issue. So far, I've seen people using garbage bags to cover speakers but that is 1) ugly 2) when they're not in use.
Adrian Ceroni It's a hard one. When the shops are open in Rundle Mall you need to be positioned in the centre of the mall which means no cover from rain. It can also become a wind tunnel. In summer you try to position yourself in the shade of buildings or the flimsy trees and try to pre-empt where the shade will move to so you can play your set without losing the shade in the middle of it. The rain is harder to manage. You can either decide that no busking will happen on a rainy day or find covered locations in places like outside the Tea Tree Plaza/Marion shops (you book in with them) to play instead. The other option with the mall is to play after the shops have closed under cover in front of shops, but playing after hours isn't for everyone. You're not allowed to take out an umbrella or gazebo as it's seen as a safety hazard, so you can't just bring cover with you. In regards to moving your equipment in the rain get a tarp and some rope/bungy cords/cambuckles (whatever works) to tie it over your gear and protect it from rain. Try to keep you gear out of the sun as much as possible. At the end of the day if it's too hard to play in whatever extreme weather just go home and try again another day. I know there's not much you can do, but hopefully my bit of insight helps. :)
They do sell Speaker Covers. This should help.
Great tips!
those were great tips thank u
Thanks a lot!
Wow I just found this!!! Samatha you are awesome!!! Watching all episodes. Thank you I have been praticing for 7 months now and Open Mic night doesn't pay nothing. I live in FL. Any places you recommend in FL?
Yeah give busking a go! It sounds like you've been preparing for it with the open mic nights. My progression was the same, I was going to open mics fairly regularly for about 6-9 months before I tried busking. Open mics are fun to be with a crowd of musos and their friends and make music. I haven't been to one in years! Sorry, I have no idea where would be good to perform over there. I'm from Australia and haven't traveled to America at all.
Samantha Edge At least Australia is way more lenient with Busking then the States by a longshot.
thx 🎉
Hard core punk rock singer/songwriter
The Sheet music app and page turning foot pedal is so good to know about. Is there any particular type of tablet (or tablet holder?) you recommend?
I use a 6 year old asus tf300t tablet that has 1gb of ram, a 1.3GHz quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 T30L CPU and a 10.1inch 1280x800 display and it handles the app just fine. I believe most tablets would be good enough to run it, although I'd recommend getting one with a 10 inch or larger screen. Sometimes I find mine slightly small. Also mine struggles with lots of sunlight too, so if you can get one that is still readable outside in full sun, then it won't hinder your busking. As for stands, I just put mine on a regular folding music stand, but there are tablet holders that attach to mic stands and probably others I don't know about. Have a look around and find what works for you. Good luck with your busking!
Do you use a battery for the piano?
Yes I do. You can check out my equipment details in this video. ua-cam.com/video/PrTL8GZoqm8/v-deo.html
Nice video. Are clown's well received there?
I don't think there are any working in the mall. There were some in the past, but I think they stopped for reasons other than it not being good for clowns. I can't say for sure though as I'm not one and haven't been able to ask any how it's been for them.
Hi I'm new to busking what time of day would you recommend and also another advice you can give me?
Thanks in advance,
Max
+GNOMER _ Hi Max. Timing is a hard thing to figure out. It depends on the area, how many people, how many buskers and whether the crowd will be in a donating mood. It takes a lot of experimenting to work out what time works for you. Luckily even at bad times you'll usually come away with more than you came with, even if it's only a little, so the key is just to get out and start trying. For general info you want a good portion of your audience to be relaxed enough to take in your performance and the less other buskers performing in the area at the same time the more likely the audience will donate to you and the easier it is to find a spot. For me I do most Sat nights with the occasional Wednesday evening, Friday night and Sunday evening. I have friends who are instrumentalists and do the day shift, but it doesn't seem to work for me in my local mall. Another area could be a different story! Whenever it's next convenient for you to go and busk, try and see if that time gives a decent return. I've got my fingers crossed for you. Good luck!
hi , what kind of battery and converter do you use thanks
Hi Stephen. Check out this video at 3:40 for that info. Cheers. ua-cam.com/video/PrTL8GZoqm8/v-deo.html
@@edgesamantha great. , your a star
Subscribed!! N thanks a lot.
LOL I do things completely different from you including not drinking water because I won't have access to a restroom for 5 hours.
Get a bunnings snag!!!
Sunscribed. That was the best video on busking I've seen. BRILLIANT!!!!. Gonna chk out your other videos.
Just a question. What was that poster in your case? Cheers
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I forgot about my poster. Could have been another tip! So it's a homemade poster. It's to promote my websites, online pages and CDs I have for sale when I'm out busking. I make up a photoshop file the size of 4 A4 pages wide (84cm) and 1 A4 high (29.7cm), design my poster and then print off the 4 pages and tape them together. I use matte photo paper for a stronger poster and I tape ribbon to the back of it and tie it to my case. Saves a lot of money vs getting one professionally made and it's easy enough to replace when it gets worn out or you want to update it.
wow my busking setup suddenly feels prehistorically primitive.
Like 656 well done! Great tips!!
Where can I buy the hand warmers?
+Kate McDougall I bought my hand warmers from the reject shop, but I have also seen them at the post office and I'd think it's possible that other cheap variety stores like cheap as chips may stock them too.
What are the dimensions of your trolley? Cheers
Just gave it a measure for you. Here are the dimensions of the trolley shown. W: 465mm D: 720mm H: 820mm
you are cool
Instead of using a battery and inverter to power your amp and keyboard find a keyboard and amp that uses 12VDC, battery.
By that do you mean just get rid of the inverter and still have the amp and battery and keyboard and battery? My keyboard runs straight from a battery, the yamaha mm6, so I think that uses 12vdc.
This was more so equipment tips...
Title was very misleading
Hi Jack. I'm sorry to hear you found my title misleading. Everything I mentioned is to help make busking easier or combat problems that can occur. I can see how this could come across as equipment tips, but if you're prepared and your equipment isn't holding you back you will have a foot up when you go to perform. This is one episode of a series I created where I talked through a lot of things regarding busking experiences and there are tips throughout the whole series that go into other areas of busking. I had already covered a lot of information by the time I got to this episode and didn't want to be repeating myself. Perhaps you may find more of the information you are looking for in another episode. Anyway thank you for watching. Have a good day.
@@edgesamantha -- the title was not misleading. Good job.
Jack Seifer Waaaaaaaaa
How do I plug in an amp?
+Matt Chow There are a variety of AA battery powered amps out there that are handy for busking. I bought one that could do this, but found it wouldn't perform loud enough this way for piano and vocals. So instead of buying another amp I went to jaycar and bought a 12v 18AH lead acid battery for $80, a battery to cigarette lighter connection for $10, a lead acid battery charger for $30 and ordered a 300w continuous/600w max 12v-240v pure sine wave invertor from ebay for $70. You might be able to get away with a smaller battery such as a 12v 7.2AH for $35 depending on the required power for your amp, but I found the 18AH version gave me all the power I needed whereas the 7.2AH sometimes died before I was ready to pack up. The battery is rechargable and has a life of approx 4 years, eventually they don't output enough power anymore and need to be replaced. The pure sine wave invertor will ensure minimal to no electrical noise is heard through your amp. It's a bit more to carry, but it means you can plug in a large array of amps. Be aware though that this set up won't power my Yamaha 400i PA system. I believe an invertor with a higher output would be needed for that and then probably a larger battery too, but we're talking busking, so my set up should work for most busking style amps. Hope this helped. If you have any further questions, let me know.
Are there any types of mobile power sources?
+Matt Chow There might be something that has the battery and invertor all in one, but I haven't seen one yet. You may need to do a bit of research on that to find out.
+Matt Chow I was just watching this video ua-cam.com/video/5p0d0cBNFu4/v-deo.html and he talks about a RavPower battery which looks pretty light and doesn't require an inverter to run my specific amp. Not sure how easy they are to get a hold of or how expensive, but it's a possible option.
@@mattchow5629
I have a solar generator for my van, its also a huge power bank and silent...but it was really expensive, but I can plug it in to charge it...look up Goal Zero generators, they are pretty expensive but maybe that can give people more ideas....I can run a Yahama or Roland Cube on it for literally over a day, havent really measured it. Im not saying that that is cheap, Im just saying there are insteresting things to find in the solar generator category.
No need to download song sheets, just learn the songs!
That in my unprofessional opinion is a lot of time memorizing while also needing to keep track of the tempo.
My personal preference is to try and find the music tabs on UA-cam and play along with the volume low
😘🦋💋✋🌹🤗❤️🌸🙌
you are fucking cute
Could of been better
will you marry me ?
is this about busking or u trying to sell things? dislike from me!
So how should she describe what she uses in detail?
Why don’t you make a video about it then? By the way your concept of your own self importance is ridiculous. No one cares if you dislike. It’s not the end of the world! You’re only one person!!!
Give her a break
@@MacDeece it's the internet. No one gives you a break. No matter who you are