Skol303

And why not indeed! I like it Happy to admit I own a copy of The Fame Monster and have messed around with some of her tracks myself in the past - example here: http://soundcloud.com/skollob/poker-face ...I guess we all have our dirty little secrets Anyway nice playing and I like how you've layered the track - and the videos. Good work.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1369682953' post='2091633']Loads of fantastic entries! But in the end, I went with the one I just liked the best. Skol, mate, your track was fantastically made, but just not exactly my kind of thing.[/quote] Milty, no worries at all mate! Glad you thought mine was well made and good on you for being honest about it not being your thing All that matters is that people listen and vote. And the more the merrier. I've yet to go through them all myself - I still have Garry's and Bob's to listen to - but I'm looking forward to that one evening this week...

It's time to vote in this month's composition challenge! 30 minutes or so of new music for your delectation. Think of it as being like the mid-week version of Jules Holland, crossed with the X-Factor and some kind of Medieval wrestling pit (that's really selling it to you, isn't it?). [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/208538-may-composition-competition-voting-time/"][size=6][b][color=#FF0000]VOTE HERE[/color][/b][/size][/url] Do it now. No really. Now.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1369562599' post='2090395']Question for the folks who use headphones for reference and some alt mixing.........Anyone use Paradox Audio phones ?[/quote] Never heard of them before you mentioned it Garry. I'd be interested to hear what you think after trying them out. I use a pair of old AKG cans - they give a fairly flat response which I've got to know well. But those Paradox 'phones look like the dog's proverbials! [quote name='charic' timestamp='1369563390' post='2090407']Votings up [/quote] Good work Rik!

Voted. It's close

[quote name='pantherairsoft' timestamp='1369481713' post='2089658'] June 24th is the official launch date. Keep an eye on the Facebook for updates: http://www.facebook.com/patientzeroproject [/quote] Excellent. Looking forward to that!

Like the video Nige P*ss funny in places - the opening lines by Kit genuinely made me LOL. And the band as a whole seem like a good bunch. I can see why you love being a part of this!

Congrats on the Beeb appearance! And I have to say that the Aura Negra track is superb - as is the video. You clearly have some very talented folk in your band. The bassist isn't too shabby either You can count another fan amongst the ranks here. Paul

My old man, a dab hand at electronics, once built a 2kw amp that notched up numerous speaker fatalities during its loud and murderous existence. Not helped by the fact that it ran at 2kw pretty much constant at full volume, rather than 2kw peak. First time I ever saw a speaker cab catch fire was a result of that monster. Definitely needed some kind of built-in limiter. Or fire-extinguisher. It ended up getting knicked during a house party years ago... I like to think it's still out there somewhere, slaying all speaker cabinets that dare cross it

^ Spot on suggestion that Mike. I have a stack of Computer Music cover discs at home - you've just reminded me to dig through them again! Some great stuff on those and it's all copyright free. Some good VSTs and other 'wares too.

I use a site called 'Freesound' for my copyright-free sample needs... http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=Drums This SoundCloud group also looks useful but I've never used it myself... http://www.soundcloud.com/groups/drum-loops-for-sale Hope that helps mate

^ Cheers for voting guys!

I always defer to the wisdom of Greg Wallace on this matter... http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=IfeyUGZt8nk He knows what bass is

^ Cheers for the list Garry. That's some line-up innit!

[quote name='bobbass4k' timestamp='1369279384' post='2087266']Collaboration sounds interesting, what would be really fun is if we did one month of just collaborations, everyone declares their interest then pairs are picked at random, but probably too much of a pain to organize and too much to go to wrong.[/quote] Well done getting your track finished Bob! I've not had chance to listen as yet but will do so. I actually quite like the idea of a 'collaboration month'... might be tricky to organize but plenty of potential for some very interesting outcomes! Food for thought anyway. [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1369311089' post='2087581']PS got a Zoom H1 yesterday so this opens up the options for me (i.e. if I can write tune for my trio and get it played within a month, I can record it and submit that way).[/quote] Great idea Bilbo. Be good to hear more from your trio on here Those Zoom H1s offer good bang for the buck$ too.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1369230366' post='2086629'] My thoughts are that your geekery knows no bounds Paul. And it probably varies a lot. [/quote] Ha ha, I think you've nailed it right there Dave! My geekery is indeed boundless...

The "EQ ?? question" thread on here got me thinking... most bass manuals don't actually specify the frequency ranges of what's deemed to be "low, mid and treble" in terms of on-board EQ. At least mine don't. Of course it's always best to dial-in your preferred sound by ear anyway. But the studio geek in me wants to know more! It's obviously going to vary between different manufacturers, EQ types, etc, but I'm guessing that for argument's sake it's something like a +/- 10db boost/cut around the following bands: BASS: 35-110Hz MID: 350-1100Hz TREBLE: 3.5K-11KHz ...and probably with a fairly gentle 'Q' setting, something like 1-1.5 or whatever. Anybody got any thoughts/info on this?

Only 17 votes thus far...! (hypocritical of me to say so, as I've not voted yet myself ). Time to give this a plug if you have the time, folks. I've spammed out a message on Tw@tter and given it a bump in the General Forum. Please ask any friends, Romans, countrymen (and urban women) you know to have a listen and vote. The more the merrier.

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1369222057' post='2086428'] EQ is on an amp to be used. Use it to make the sound you want to hear to represent your playing. I've never understood the 'look at me, my EQ is flat' tosh you get so much on the US sites. G. [/quote] Spot on. EQ should never be discounted as being unimportant "fiddly stuff". It's one of if not [u]the[/u] most important tools in live performance, recording and mixing. And only good things can come from learning how to use it well

[quote name='Pete Academy' timestamp='1369165690' post='2085772']The new Daft Punk single is ultra catchy and has Nathan East on bass and Nile Rodgers on guitar. But I can't help thinking it's just a Chic rip-off. Anyone agree?[/quote] I kind of agree. But tell that to anyone on the danceloor and they'll say "So what?" [quote name='urb' timestamp='1369218212' post='2086351']I love it and I don't care if it's a rip off - proper musicians playing funk grooves in the charts again... what's not to like???[/quote] Ditto... [quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1369219239' post='2086363']I am sick of it already, which makes me a bit sad.[/quote] ...and ditto! Well, I'm starting to get sick of [i]Get Lucky[/i] - but only 'cos it's being played to death on the radio. 'Tis a great bass riff though. Quite simple but with lots of room for improvising. I've been having fun at home jamming to it

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1369128855' post='2085064'] I am the opposite. I live alone, so there's nobody to get upset and almost everything is done on speakers. Mixing and judging... i only use the phones very rarely....... [/quote] I want to come play at your house! I do nearly all of my music stuff in the evening once our 2 year-old is tucked up in bed, so that rules out speakers most of the time for me. Plus the room I work in doubles as a spare bedroom / store room / fly tipping site, so it's anything but an 'acoustically treated' environment. It's more like an experimental reverb chamber, designed by Aphex Twin... When I do get chance, I crank up the hifi and stand just outside the door, which helps to stave off rogue bass frequencies and provide the closest thing I can get to a 'flat' environment. So yeah, it's complicated We're moving house sometime this year, at which point I'll have opportunity to set up a more 'useful' space for music making. Till then it's a case of make do and mend.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1369128336' post='2085053']Now the number of people voting like they are would lead me to believe there is a lot of headphone listening and not a lot of listening on speakjers. Which I can understand actually, but it is strange that that may well be what is leading the voting the way it is going...[/quote] I guess that's symptomatic of how a lot of people listen to music these days. I only get chance to crank up the home hifi at weekends myself, so I'm certain among the headphone brigade.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1369126771' post='2085035']I should also add that I give a listen on my macbook too, which has terrible speakers buried beneath the keyboard. If you can clearly hear a baseline with this sitting on you lap at a moderate volume, it's almost certainly too loud when you listen in the headphones. I find Sennheiser in general (maybe just the cheaper ones) to be lacking low end clarity. Maybe i'm just used to hearing bass too well?[/quote] Bass on headphones is always a slippery beast! Generally speaking, if you're using a 'flat' pair of headphones that are designed for mixing (like your Sennheisers perhaps) rather headphones than are built for just listening (like those Dr Dre 'Beats' jobbies), then the bass tends to sound more quiet than it does when listening through external speakers, such as a home hifi. Why? Because when listening over speakers you literally 'feel' the bass as the low frequency waves impact with your body - especially the very low sub bass in certain genres of dance music, which is certainly more felt than heard (and is almost totally absent on headphones: it tends to feel like a pressure headache, if anything!). Hence, when mixing on headphones it's easy to over-compensate and crank up the bass too loud - so that it sounds good on headphones, but will generally sound boomy thru speakers as a result. I've kinda got used to this, and I now know when the bass sounds about right on headphones. But it's still a guessing game. And all the more reason why I need to sort myself out with a pair of monitors! (a priority once we've moved house...). If anyone else here is mixing solely on headphones, then you might want to have a look at this product - a magic box that emulates different listening environments for the purpose of mix referencing: [url="http://uk.focusrite.com/usb-audio-interfaces/vrm-box"]http://uk.focusrite....erfaces/vrm-box[/url] I don't own one myself - so this isn't an endorsement! - but I've heard that it's a useful little gizmo, although of course no substitute for decent monitor speakers. [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1369127950' post='2085047']How many of you have actually downloaded your favourite 2 or 3 mixes and compared the wavs - the difference between the wavs and the soundcloud stream is scarily noticeable to me, the soundlcoud stream sucks big time comapred to the wavs on every thing I've used to compare the two. So much that I'm thinking it may make more sense next time to upload this to a dropbox account, to encourage people to download them.[/quote] Nope, but maybe I should. I always just play them all via SoundCloud as I suppose it's a 'common denominator' - each mix is being subjected to the same streaming - although I know from experimenting that SoundCloud is typically brutal with mixes that leave little headroom (and demolishes those than try to push up hard against 0db - a good argument for preserving dynamics!). I'm not sure about the idea of using a Dropbox system. The pro's are obvious in that it would provide better quality material. The main con, IMO, is that is loses the convenience of SoundCloud and would deter some - maybe even a lot - of people outside our immediate cadre of enthusiasts from listening and voting. But I'm happy to go with the flow

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1369125257' post='2085008']Having thought about it a bit more, I wonder whether people ought to divulge what they were listening to the mixes on when they came to the opinion they did.[/quote] Good question Si. I always test my own mixes using:[list] [*]Studio cans (AKG K240 MKII Semi Open). Not the best cans by any means, but I know them very well and do 99% of my mixing and listening on them. [*]Home hifi (old Tannoy speakers with a Cyrus amp, all 20 years old now! Adds lots of low end warmth so nowhere near a flat sound, but allows me to shift some air and check for issues at loud volume). [*]Bedroom hifi (some 'all in one' combo thingy that Mrs Skol refuses to throw out. Skews the sounds all over the place! If a mix sounds good on this, it sounds good on most things). [*]Phone ear buds (iPhone 5 jobbies). [*]Phone speaker (the most brutal test of all!). [*]Car stereo (if I can be arsed burning the mix to disc). [/list] ...when listening to mixes as part of this competition, I nearly always just use my AKG cans. Simply because they're the source I know and trust the most. PS: I've still yet to vote...