Skol303

Ditto! I'm loving my ROLI Block. The term 'game changer' gets used a lot, but I think the ROLI products really are that.

August's challenge is now on...!

August's Composition Challenge is now underway! Here’s the image for your inspiration, chosen by last month's winner, Bleat… Rules: Avoid any content that other forum users may find offensive. Make sure you have permission to use any 3rd party sounds and samples in your track. Entries should be no more than five minutes long and written/produced during the month of the competition. Still no bagpipes. The deadline for entries is midnight on Friday 24th August.

Well done Bleat! Great track 👍 PS: no idea what happened with the voting being locked early. I'd set it to close at 11:59pm... but I might have done this whilst in a different time zone, which may explain it. I'll double-check in future.

Long-time Mac user here, at home and at work. We have a 10 year-old iMac at home that is running the latest Mac OS and still works flawlessly, albeit now painfully slow in comparison to a newer and faster Mac Mini. By comparison, we have a cupboard full of obsolete PCs in the office at work, all of which never came close to seeing their 10th birthday. I'm not sure whether any of this aids the discussion... but in my own experience, Macs tend to be much more cost-effective than PCs over the long run.

Virtual Studio Technology... typically a 'plug-in' (add on) for music-making software. As mentioned above, definitely opt for 16Gb RAM if you're wanting to run music and/or photo editing software. SSD drives are useful but not essential. Hybrid drives are also an option; My Mac uses a hybrid set-up, whereby the software/files I access most frequently are stored on the SSD partition and everything else is archived on the regular HD (I assume PCs must offer the same approach). Refurbished machines are certainly reliable, especially if the refurbisher is certified by the manufacturer.

Welcome Jeff! I have one of your basses. I mean not literally 😉... but a Cort Rithimic V Jeff Berlin Signature. It's one of the most playable instruments I own. Love it.

Nice videos Jaime! And a great project. Rest assured you don't need to promote the importance of bass guitar to anyone here. We're all very much onboard with you Might be a good idea to 'infiltrate' some guitar forums and share the love with them too. If anyone needs to understand the importance of bass, it's guitarists...

Voting thread is up!

Voting has now started on July's Composition Challenge. Please choose your top THREE favourites: Mornats 'Strings' Dad3353 'Lethargy, 5/8, 88' lurksalot 'Childrens Hour' JBP 'Moon Dance' Leonard Smalls 'Hot Air' Akio Dāku 'Separate from Her Motion' Bleat 'The Artist's Passion' alittlebitrobot 'seeds' Voting ends at midnight on Tuesday 31st July.

Nice thread and some great examples. It sure is! And I like that you're having a go at these solos yourself (at least I assume that's you?). Cliff Burton's Anesthesia was one of the reasons I took up bass guitar as a teenager. Here's my own favourite version of it... slightly different to the album version. Still gives me goosebumps. Cliff really was a beast on bass (NSFW with some swearing at the start).

Right now I am mostly listening to Jazzanova's new album, 'The Pool'... ...and Amp Fiddler's new album, 'Return of the Ghetto Fly'... ...both of which are rather splendid

It's like the return of the Prodigal Son! Nice to see you around these parts again mate. Hope you and the family are all good. And cheers for the input on this thread; very useful. Cool to know you've been gigging with Steve Lawson. I remember that gig where we saw him in Manchester along with, was it Jon Thorne? Anyway. Let me know if you're in town for the Manc Jazz Fest next week, be good to catch up.

Nice set up 👍

Ahem... 😉 Basschat Groove Library

It's a big subject and unfortunately I don't have time to write a tutorial on it. ... but YouTube is full of very useful 'how to' guides, specific to a wide range of DAWs, and I personally find video to be a much better medium for tuition that written text. So that would be my recommendation to get you started Let us know how you get on and good luck with the gig.

You might also enjoy this https://b3ta.com/danny-dyer-soundboard/

+1 to the above. You can set up pretty much any DAW for live performance, but Ableton Live is quite literally designed for this purpose. Hence it's the popular choice.

Very late to this thread and honestly not willing to read 7 pages of it to catch up... So I'll just add that the "best pro-bass players" are surely capable of playing 4, 5 or possibly even 6 string instruments, depending on what's required of them. And in some contexts (e.g pit players in stage productions) you'll raise eyebrows if you turn up with fewer than 5 strings on your bass. I think we're searching for a "general rule" here where one doesn't exist.

Looks very nice Rob! Akin to Roald Dahl's famous writing hut PS: I'm amazed at how well your garden is coping with the heatwave; mine has been reduced to scorched earth.

It's implied.... always implied I was thinking of extending the banned list to panpipes and harmonicas too, but didn't want to come across as being too dictatorial; probably best to offend people's cultural heritage one nation at a time.

Well done guys. I'm well aware of the effort that must've gone into this. Sterling work! 👍 I've so far listened to the first hour or so and bailed out during the interview with Chowny Bass (not due to boredom I hasten to add!), so I have the rest to finish. Thoughts so far: I think the format works well as a starting point and can obviously be refined/adjusted with experience. The current runtime is too long, as already mentioned (but I think you know that). Up to 1 hour would be ideal. It'd be nice to include a regular feature on writing/performing music. Potential here to link with contributions in the Share Your Music forum and/or the monthly Composition Challenge.

Been at a kids party today... "The horror, the horror" July's voting thread is now up. Go, go, go...!

July's Composition Challenge is now underway! Here’s the image for your inspiration, chosen by last month's winner, discreet… Rules: Avoid any content that other forum users may find offensive. Make sure you have permission to use any 3rd party sounds and samples in your track. Entries should be no more than five minutes long and written/produced during the month of the competition. The deadline for entries is midnight on Tuesday 24th July.

Voting ends tomorrow night.