Skol303

Great work guys! Looks very slick

[quote name='nilebodgers' timestamp='1510050043' post='3403451'] Neutrik jacks and VDC (XKE) or Klotz (AC104) cable are as good as it gets and as much as needs to be paid - ever. [/quote] This. End of thread. Next! ...in all seriousness, I [i]always[/i] opt for Neutrik jacks and either Klotz or Van Damme cable for analogue stuff, including 'guitar leads'. Plenty of alternatives out there I'm sure, but I've just never had any troubles with these brands (no crackles, breakages, etc) and can't notice any deterioration of sound quality when using them. And that's that. Life is otherwise too short to spend time fretting over cable choices. PS: I also highly recommend [url="http://bassic-bits.co.uk"]http://bassic-bits.co.uk[/url]

No so much bass related, but I started making my own music in the '80s using a tape-to-tape cassette recorder: bodging together parts of one track with another, like a crude form of mixing. I then had lots of fun using old video game tracker software to make rudimentary electronic music. And started DJing using a pair of turntables that had no pitch control - adjusting the speed/pitch by pressing my finger against the side of the platter to slow records down and match tempos when mixing. All very crude and rudimentary, but it encouraged me to be experimental and squeeze every last drop of usefulness from the tools I had available at the time. Today I think music-makers have almost the opposite problem: a bewildering and sometimes 'intimidating' amount of resources at their fingertips. All good, of course. And still loads of scope for experimentation - but more for those who seek it out by choice, rather than necessity. Hence less impetus for real invention, perhaps. I dunno

[quote name='roman_sub' timestamp='1509664912' post='3400782'] Sonarworks does look pretty good in concept admittedly. However, don't be convinced you can't mix without it [/quote] Absolutely. I'd go as far as to say that you don't even need a good room. I mixed for years on headphones and still do 80% of my mixing on Apple earbuds and a crappy set of cans we have kicking around for general use at home. The remaining 20% or whatever is what my room, Sonarworks, outboard, etc, helps me to attain. But a lot of that could be achieved on headphones with sufficient referencing and patience. For me, having a treated room (albeit a very amateur DIY setup!) is more about convenience and speeding up workflow than it is about attaining better quality output.

Off topic: we've recently acquired an Xbox One at home (feeding my son and I's addiction to Minecraft!) and I picked up DOOM on sale last week... it's great! Very akin to the original in terms of gameplay and the soundtrack is superb.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Next month is December... yeah, I know... how the hell did that happen so quickly!? So we're going to do the same as last year and run a cover song competition instead of the regular Composition Challenge. Here's a link to last year's festival challenge for nostalgia's sake. Just giving you guys a heads up so can start thinking about what song you'd like to irreparably butcher interpret in your own special way. This month's winner will then kick us off again with the regular challenge in January 2018. That is all. As you were.

November's Composition Challenge is now underway! Here’s the image for your inspiration, chosen by last month's winner, lowdown… Click on the 'Spoiler' button below to read the usual rules and caveats: If you have any questions, just ask. The deadline for entries is midnight on Thursday 23rd November.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1509528922' post='3399597'] Thanks for the kind words folks.... I am out at the moment, so will send a picture over later. Would that be to Skol? [/quote] Well done Garry! Great track. Yes, please message me with your choice of photo and I'll set up November's challenge ASAP.

[quote name='tedmanzie' timestamp='1509034257' post='3396214'] I was quite sceptical, but I have to say I am very impressed.[/quote] Ditto. My room is treated as far as it can be whilst still remaining accessible to other members of our family, rather than being my own private padded cell. Sonarworks make a very noticeable difference and my mixes have translated much better since I started using it, especially when it comes to mixing the low end. Highly recommended.

Great suggestions above. I mostly use the old Waves plug-ins and some of the Softube stuff for colour, but will almost certainly be picking up Ozone 8 sometime soon. Another quick tip is to try using [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_compression"]parallel compression[/url] on the master bus for 'loudness'. Works best with tracks that are already quite noisy. I find it helps to increase the perceived loudness, which means I can ease off on the limiter a little. Worth experimenting with.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/312741-october-composition-challenge-get-writing/"][size=5][b]October's challenge is on![/b][/size][/url] Look lively.

[color=#800000][size=5][b]October's Composition Challenge is now underway![/b][/size][/color] [size=5]Here’s the image for your inspiration, chosen by last month's winner, [b]Bilbo[/b]… [/size] Click on the 'Spoiler' button below to read the usual rules and caveats: [spoiler]By entering the competition you agree to the Basschat Terms and Conditions and Forum Guidelines, which are designed to help ensure the forum remains free of offensive and/or illegal behaviour and material. In a nutshell: [b]1) Please avoid any content that other forum users may find offensive.[/b] If your track contains explicit lyrics, then please warn other forum users so they can choose for themselves whether to listen to it. [b]2) Please make sure you have permission to use any 3rd party sounds included in your track[/b] (ie. sounds that you have not recorded yourself, such as samples of other people's music). The owners of Basschat accept no responsibility for infringements of copyright or other forms of legal ownership, which are solely the responsibility of competition entrants. [b]3) Entries should be no more than five minutes long and written/produced during the month of the competition[/b], taking inspiration from the photo provided. No cheating![/spoiler] If you have any questions, just ask. [b][color=#800000][size=5]The deadline for entries is midnight on Tuesday 24th October.[/size][/color][/b]

Well done on the win! PM sent about sending over this months picture.

[quote name='WinterMute' timestamp='1506262631' post='3377393'] Fibre cored units are much better than foam, which isn't as effective as some people would have you believe, but will help some. [/quote] Absolutely this. Foam is next to useless for taming bass, which accounts for 99% of problems in 99% of home studios [i](*Department of Made Up Statistics, 2017). [/i]It mostly just dampens the high frequencies, which can leave the room sounding 'off'. Bass trapping is all about density and volume of 'stuff' and the more the better. Most manufacturers seem to use ECOSE (a type of Rockwool). If you have the time and patience, you can manufacture bass traps yourself fairly easily and cheaply (says someone who has never done this himself...). Lots of tutorials online for how to do so. [quote name='WinterMute' timestamp='1506262631' post='3377393'] I used Fuzzmeasure to get the basic plot of rooms to tell me where the problems are [/quote] Never heard of FuzzMeasure before. I'm going to investigate...!

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/312360-september-composition-challenge-voting/page__pid__3377382#entry3377382"][size=6][b]VOTING THREAD IS UP![/b][/size][/url]

[color=#800000][b][size=5]Voting has now started on September’s Composition Challenge.[/size][/b][/color] [size=5]Here's the inspiration for this month's music, chosen by our previous winner, [b]xgsjx[/b]…[/size] [size=5]…and here are the compositions. Please vote for your top THREE favourites:[/size] Dad3353 [url="http://soundcloud.com/dad3353/doom-di-doom-di-doom"]‘Doom Di Doom Di Doom’[/url] Mornats [url="http://soundcloud.com/mornats/carouhell"]‘Carouhell’[/url] lurksalot [url="http://soundcloud.com/lurksalot/all-the-fun"]‘All the fun…’[/url] Leonard Smalls [url="http://soundcloud.com/leonard-smalls/scream-if-you-wanna-go-faster"]‘Scream If You Wanna Go Faster!’[/url] christofloffer [url="http://soundcloud.com/christofloffer/acid-at-the-carnival"]‘Acid at the carnival’[/url] Bilbo [url="http://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/carousel"]‘Carousel’[/url] xgsjx [url="http://soundcloud.com/gxmix/steam-fair"]‘Steam Fair’[/url] Indy [url="http://soundcloud.com/thevelvetknock/the-bone-rattler-demo"]‘The Bone Rattler’[/url] fingers211 [url="http://soundcloud.com/nigel-jewell/caravan-of-fun"]‘Caravan Of Fun !’[/url] Rikki1984 [url="http://soundcloud.com/rikki-boyes/way-of-life"]‘Way Of Life’[/url] [color=#800000][size=5][b]Voting ends at midnight on Saturday 30th September.[/b][/size][/color]

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1505758754' post='3374120'] However, if someone has strong objections to [b]being ogled or having lewd comments made[/b], then becoming a dancer where they have to wear what they're told would seem to be a strange career choice. As with lots of these things there is always the option to say no. [/quote] You're placing the responsibility for socially acceptable behaviour on the dancers and not the audience. That's your fundamental mistake, if you don't mind me saying. It's the responsibility of the audience - of society in general - to behave itself. Lewd comments are, by definition, lewd: [i]"crude and offensive in a sexual way."[/i] The wrongness in this situation starts and ends there.

I can't recommend the Gearslutz forum enough for this kind of thing... https://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/ ... lots of pro audio folk on there who are happy to help. Other than that, there are basically two ways of approaching this: 1) The easy way, which is to assume that your room will need bass traps in every corner, side panels next to where your desk is and a 'ceiling cloud' panel above it. Pretty much 99% of home studios will need that exact treatment. 2) The more involved way, which is to buy yourself a calibrated measurement mic, download a free copy of [url="https://www.roomeqwizard.com"]Room EQ Wizard software[/url], learn how to use it (no mean feat - I've dabbled!) and get yourself some accurate room measurements to inform your choices for acoustic treatment. Or... if you're able to spend some money, there are a number of companies who can do all this for you. The people at [url="http://gikacoustics.co.uk"]GIK Acoustics[/url] are arguably the market leaders with offices in the US and UK. Very helpful by all accounts. I personally have experience of using [url="http://www.bluefrogaudio.co.uk"]Blue Frog Audio[/url] (small independent company), who were just great and spent a lot of time working out what treatment I needed, using Google Sketchup to illustrate their ideas. But ultimately... acoustic treatment is a HUGE topic that gets very scientific very quickly. There's lots of basic advise on Gearslutz and elsewhere online (pretty much summarised by my point 1 above), but of course each solution is ultimately specific to the room itself - so if you want a detailed answer, you need to measure/provide the detail yourself or ask for help from a professional. Which sadly isn't me

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1505651892' post='3373340'] To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with here's a couple of pics of my room.[/quote] Ah, that gives a much better understanding! I'm guessing from the photos that your room is almost square? If so, you're going to run into all kinds of problems when it comes to acoustic treatment - to the extent that it might be a pointless endeavour. Under those circumstances I'd certainly recommend going down the headphones route. PS: your mixes sound consistently good anyway, so whatever you're already doing seems to be working just fine

[quote name='fftc' timestamp='1505667514' post='3373455'] How about one of these? [url="http://acmeaudio.net/motown-di/"]http://acmeaudio.net/motown-di/[/url] [/quote] These looks great and get good reviews. Thanks for the heads up. From personal experience I'd also recommend any of the [url="http://www.radialeng.com/radial-products.php"]Radial DI boxes[/url]. Superb sound quality and built like tanks. For bass, the [url="http://www.littlelabs.com/redeye.html"]Little Labs Redeye[/url] is something that gets consistently great reviews from pros and amateurs alike. I don't have any experience with it, but seems well worth a look. Beyond these you're getting into the realms of stuff like 500 series (aka lunchboxes) and other pro outboard. If so, you can't [i]ever[/i] go wrong with an [url="http://www.apiaudio.com/product.php?id=103"]API 512c[/url] or similar, which are pretty much 'industry standard' when it comes to multi-purpose DI for guitar, bass, vocals... whatever you choose to throw at it.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1505339838' post='3371248'] I also can't install anything anywhere as it's rented. [/quote] PS: 'gobo' traps or other screen panels might be the solution here - moveable panels that you can position wherever you like. Examples here: [url="http://www.bluefrogaudio.co.uk/gobos_screen_panels.html"]http://www.bluefrogaudio.co.uk/gobos_screen_panels.html[/url]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1505339838' post='3371248']So I've been thinking about the Sonarworks plug-in. Would this help alleviate some of the bass issues by boosting the bass so that it's about the right volume in the triangle between the speakers and my head? Or would it not fix such a bad problem in the room?[/quote] Hard to say... I've found the Sonarworks plug-in to be very useful, but it's no "silver bullet". A bad room with always be a bad room; the plug-in will just make it slightly less so. But noticeably so in my experience (my own room has the opposite problem with some hefty bass nodes near my listing position, which the plug-in does help to even out). In your position I'd probably focus on mixing with headphones (Sonarworks have a plug-on for those too!) and then do final tweaks through monitors, mindful that the room might be playing some tricks on my ears. That was my approach at our old address and it worked fine. Many would shoot me down for saying this, but I think a good room only accounts for say the last 10% of any mix, maybe less. I still spend the majority of my mix time using Apple earbuds on a laptop, but that's just my workflow and might not be suitable for everyone. [url="https://www.sonarworks.com/professional"]Sonarworks offer a free 21-day trail of the plugin[/url], so as always the best option is to suck it and see [b]EDIT to say that you'll need a calibrated measurement mic to set up the plugin. [/b]You might have one already; I bought their own product but any calibrated mic will do (also good for recording acoustic guitar and other stuff...).

[quote name='WinterMute' timestamp='1504214207' post='3363513'] Posted a kit shot a few weeks back, here's a longer shot of the room with the treatment showing, there's similar bass trapping on the back wall. [/quote] Nice work! Mine is a very similar space... converted internal garage, about 5m x 3m x 2.5m. I've included as much bass trapping as possible, but you can never have too much I have a similar pair of upright corner traps front and back, side panels and a 'ceiling cloud' above the desk where I work. Does a good job given the limitations of the room. I've also started using the [url="https://www.sonarworks.com"]Sonarworks monitor calibration plug-in[/url] which is great. Highly recommended for small home studios.

[quote name='funkgod' timestamp='1503576692' post='3359310'] Inspierd by Skols post, i made some sound boards, some cheap batton wood from B&Q some wiggley nails, and a large roll of foam backed black cloth from aberkhan £2.50 !, all the boards done for under £20 with loads left over. large one on the ceiling which im putting a tacky rope light round. makes a huge difference.[/quote] Looks great! And more importantly, good to hear it's made a difference to your sound. Acoustic treatment is [i]always[/i] money/effort very well spent. PS: I'm very jealous of your tape machine! Always wanted one myself... but I suspect it wouldn't get much use beyond me watching the spools go round and round

[i]Still[/i] one of the most wriggly earworms out there IMO... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWP-AsG5DRk