mcgraham

Depends where you draw the line on what constitutes hand-built and what constitutes non-hand-built. At one extreme, does it need to be 100% done by hand to be truly hand-built? E.g. pickups wound by hand by the luthier, the casings moulded by the luthier himself, the preamp designed and built by hand by the luthier, the bridge, the tuners, etc. In which case, I can't name a single truly hand-built bass. At the other extreme, if you're getting at companies like Sadowsky or Suhr just 'fitting' necks and bodies together, watch some of their factory tours to get an idea of the actual amount of work that goes into making their basses. It's far from a Warmoth/USACG DIY job then slap a sticker on it and its done. For example, Suhr have their necks and bodies cut VERRRRRY ROUGHLY to size, but the actual profiling and coarse then fine shaping and detailing is all done by hand/human operation of woodwork tools (machines or otherwise). There's still a lot of artistry going on behind the scenes despite the idea it's ALL CNC... sure, quite a bit of it IS CNC, but it guarantees the quality and consistency of each batch, married with the talent and skill of the luthiers there. Best of both worlds!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1319567042' post='1415942'] IMO once you get past the sub £200 Fender copy market, basses are not [typically] substitutes for each other. There is no "best" just ones that suit [i][b]YOU[/b][/i] better. [/quote] Very true. What suits your taste now may change as your tastes change in the future. For example, I used to love the sound of Ken Smith basses... but now I think they sound awful [i][u]in my hands[/u][/i]. I used to dig the sound of Wooten's Fodera, Tony Grey's Fodera, and Tom Kennedy's Fodera, but now I hear artefacts in each of their sounds that turns me off them [u][i]for my own purposes[/i][/u]. But I acquired a Wood&tronics that [u][i]suits me [/i][/u]down to the ground. The basses I've just mentioned are stellar instruments, it's just a question of whether it suits you or not. Supply and demand means that Fodera can charge more for their work, because of the perception that the public has they never run dry of punters. Now, whether that perception is justified or true for you Pete (or any one of us) is something that only you can decide on. DISCLAIMER: I think Foderas (and Smiths) are fantastic basses and my comments are not to bash any basses, but just to illustrate a point objectively.

Backing vocals FTW. As an example, Michael Anthony's BV's practically make a lot of VH and Chickenfoot tracks. They turn what would be alright rock into something quite special (IMO). Someone also mentioned the guitarist using two guitar amps. Good idea! Another suggestion is to use a delay pedal set to a single uber-short delay - like one repeat at 40-70ms and at about 60-70% level of the original - to duplicate the guitar signal into the same amp (or even the other amp), but slightly offset from the timing of the original. This is a cheap and easy way to give the effect of double tracking but live. You can then also get away with lower gain levels from the amps while still getting a heavy sound, which then gets a slightly fuller guitar sound because the guitar has more natural 'cut' at the lower gain settings. Also, spend some time tweaking your overall sound out front. A polished 3 piece sound can sound much bigger and better with appropriate tweaking than even just a less polished 4 piece that could be even at deafening levels.

I was expecting to see a thumb joint replacement plectrum, like a prosethetic thumb with a pick on the end. Genuinely, that's what my mind read in the above title!

Mate, that really was fantastic. I could've listened to you go on for hours. Genuinely, that's possibly one of the best bits of music... let alone improv... that I've heard in a LONG time. Props to you... The question is now... why on EARTH do you bother with electric bass?

Shep, you need to update this!

[quote name='ShergoldSnickers' timestamp='1319201303' post='1411197'] I'm almost tempted to have a go myself. I know what it would sound like though. [/quote] Just do it SS!

No need to apologise! It's nice to have some proper conversation about music on a music forum (fancy that!) My apologies if my first few sentences seemed somewhat terse, they were not meant to be!

silddx, the analogy was meant to be restricted purely to the example of knowing and trusting different options for responding. Try not to take it further than it was intended please My point was was that skilled martial artists practice so as to be able to respond to a single situation with different options, e.g. to respond with varying levels of aggression, or with the aim of incapacitating an attacker to different extents, or (in a demonstration) in the most impressive way possible, or (in a competition) in the most efficient way possible, etc. All of your examples where a musician might have different goals can equally be applied to martial arts as a discipline, or other physical skills (e.g. football). In contrast to the above, an unskilled martial artist may have only one way that they can respond to a given situation... whether they can do it well or not is not the point, the point is that they only have one response to that situation. In the same way as an unskilled blues guitarist sticks to their pentatonic scale forms, while a more skilled blues guitarist may still stick to pentatonic scale forms, but knows and trusts the different flavours he can impart - he has options and has practiced them so whatever he wants to do is expressed, he doesn't have to think about it. He can think about it if he wants, but he doesn't have to consciously expend much effort to do so.

I would agree with both of you. I like to think of musical instincts along the same lines as muscle memory.. like martial artists train stances and particular moves, those respective stances/moves becomes instinctual responses when they meet with a particular circumstance that warrants that response. The more moves and stances they acquire, the more they need to adopt structured and focused practice to integrate that into their muscle memory and give them a wider 'vocabulary' to instinctually respond to different situations (I'm not a martial artist, it's just meant to be a rough example). In the same way, the more you have conducted focused and well structured practice in a wide variety of areas of music, the more you can trust your instinctual responses to fare well across a wide variety of areas. If all you do is straight ahead rock, you'll struggle with straight ahead jazz... as Bilbo has said, if all you do is straight ahead jazz, you'll (likely) struggle with some more out there jazz. But if we experiment and keep a wide field of view of different music genres and consciously work on those then it's easier to just slot into those genres and unconsciously respond to them appropriately. This is where consciously structured and focused practice pays off, because you can then unconsciously (asleep?) respond to those situations and reap the benefits. Of course, we all have off days, just as often as we have off days trying to string sentences together and convey ideas meaningfully.

Ach, at work right now so can't justify watching it til lunchtime. Even without having watched it, I commend you for sticking it up here Mike... really, well done.

Quick question, our church has a new PA setup and the sound has improved drastically from better equipment, but it still feels somewhat hollow and harsh top-end heavy... also, the vocals (other vocalists who do not use my magic box ) can often seem harsh yet distant in the mix... the overall mix seems fine in terms of respective levels, but it just doesn't seem right when put together. Live engineers, what would you guys recommend to help combat that and fill out the mix a bit more? boost the mids overall? stick light compression over the whole mix to bring it 'forward' a bit?

To my knowledge, it doesn't take those factors into account. I do not understand the digital trickery at work, all I know is, my voice and the mix sounds better for it and I've had lots of compliments that I can attribute to use of it.

51mon, absolutely, I agree the compression would tip you over into feedback quicker than without in those cases, though I haven't found it to be an issue yet. Re: adaptive eq - My understanding is it compares the incoming signal to an 'ideal' frequency response for vocals (there's a 'standard' eq setting that can be adjusted brighter or darker via a knob on the box), then adjusts the incoming signal to reflect that ideal response more closely. So if you've got a really bright voice you can darken it up or vice versa, and if you're a brighter voice singing high it will darken it up versus a darker voice singing lower in which case it'd brighten it up. I don't know the ins and outs, but it creates a very balanced vocal sound with minimum effort.

51mon, I could see in very high SPL environments with bad positioning of various sound sources that compression could exacerbate feedback issues, but I've never encountered such issues (also an example of where it's important to learn about your craft and take responsibility for your sound). That said, in any case T1 is a very subtle device, it just smooths off peaks and troughs rather than squashing the signal, and the eq is adaptive to respond to whatever is going into it. It is likely strokes for folks, but I'm a big fan of it as I've found it really can enhance a vocal performance whether solo or with a full loud band.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1319119205' post='1410161'] Effects and the like will follow in the future, funds are currently short unfortunately and the microphone is the first obvious replacement as it really is doing him no favors at all. Thanks though, I will definitely keep and eye on tc gear. [/quote] Charic, compression and eq on vocals is NOT an effect - it's ESSENTIAL for taking your sound to a better level than wherever it's at. It's as essential as eq-ing your bass. Sure, if the bass is good to start with, you will likely have less to eq, but nevertheless you still end up having to make the conscious decision to EQ or not EQ. SM58's are good mics (only good, but good nonetheless) and having something like the T1 will fix A LOT of the issues that you have with the mic... it really does make vocals sound incredibly polished and crisp and sit/cut through a mix beautifully. It will make the subtle things your singer does jump out in a mix and make the massively loud things sit back against the backdrop of the band more appropriately. At the end of the day, don't blame the kit. People are always too quick to blame the tools. Of course, good equipment helps, but if you don't know how to get the best from what you've got then buying better/more expensive gear just gives you better/more expensive gear that you still don't know how to optimally use.

Yea, I wouldn't do that to a mic, regardless of any rumoured tonal benefits. I realise that many people swap components from stock because manufacturers often skimp on quality of components so as to maximise profit... that's understandable... but to completely [i]remove [/i]an entire section of the design of a microphone.... even without knowing the full ramifications of such a decision I can tell you it wouldn't be a good idea to do so.

I had a look at that after Andy mentioned it, thinking 'someone is pulling Andy's leg'... but no! It appears to be a real mod. Some other forums indicate that removal of the transformer leaves the capsule susceptible to getting shorted by phantom power... not something I fancy dealing with. Alternatively, if he's looking for something to polish up his vocals with whichever mic he presently has, I can recommend the TC Helicon T1 - it's an 'engineer-in-a-box' stompbox for vocalist. Compression and adaptive eq with warmth switch. Really smooths out vocals and allows you to accentuate parts of your voice that would otherwise disappear or sound gnarly with stock microphones. If you're someone who uses a lot of vocal effects and dynamic range this will help even these things out live, all without requiring the soundman to do a thing to your settings other than bring up the level to suit the mix.

6 posts in and there's already been angst exchanged? Grow up, both of you. To the OP, I don't blame you for how you feel. But like you say, it'll be you on the next one

Had my Berg IP stack for the last 3 years - extremely happy with it. Sometimes I try out other gear just out of interest, and every so often I get the hankering for something else just for the sake of a change! But it's such a fantastic rig that just works without any extra effort I have no need or real desire to get anything else.

Go for it! Don't be afraid of making mistakes, just go for it. I fully believe that a player who asserts an air of confidence in their playing can bypass a lot of the killer issues we face as musicians that the same player would otherwise be criticised for without that confidence. Hesitancy is one of the greatest threats to musicality (IMO).

Good effort mate - I tip my hat to you!

Never heard it, nor have I ever heard of it, but I'll give it a shot I'll put something up towards the end of the week, either Friday or Saturday as I said. That way we are (or at least I'm!) doing something once a week.

Not your bag? How so? Feel free to throw some other ideas into the mix, I'm always game for new ideas.