Sweep

My first posts to this forum were connected with an audio generator I'd bought, as I needed some advice on cables. I promised I'd post something about playing bass, as that's what this forum is for, so this is a link to my first recording with a bass guitar. I've played guitar for years, so learning bass has gone pretty quickly. It'll be interesting to hear what accomplished bass players say about this, though. It's `Watching the Ducks Land,' and it's number 38 in the player on my website at [url="http://sweep.infinite9ths.com"]http://sweep.infinite9ths.com[/url] `Watching the Ducks Land' was written after reading a passage from Mike Oldfield's autobiography about the pointlessness of a duck shoot he went on, and how much better it would have been to enjoy watching the ducks land on the water than to murder about a hundred of them and fill them so full of shot they weren't even eatable. Although I've used my more impressionistic style and not constructed the piece like something of Mike Oldfield's, I've played the bass like a guitar - I'm quite influenced by his approach to the instrument as well as by various jazz players. I played the bass guitar through a Roland V-Synth XT, and as well as adding a particularly nice reverb the V-Synth also provides sound effects controllable from the bass. From the beginning until about two minutes 26 seconds all the sounds are the bass guitar and the V-Synths's filters, apart from a couple of wing-flutter sounds that are actual samples. All the bird calls and sound effects up to this point in the piece are the V-Synth triggered by the specific frequencies played on the bass. From 2.27ish I've added electric guitar processed through the V-Synth, and some keyboards, plus additional samples of birds, but most of the piece is still the bass and the V-Synth effects. The ducks calls that come in later were all done by me using a duck caller (made in Indonesia, Fair Trade), and the water sounds were made by leaning over the bath next to a mic on a boom and swirling the water with my hand. I used a Lexicon MPX550 at this point, but all the earlier reverb in the piece was the V-Synth, apart from the keyboards, which use the reverb on my Technics KN750.

Thanks again. This is one of those times when I find out how little I know. I expected it to be a simple matter of making up a cable. I'm very grateful for all the advice with this. I hadn't thought of the nature of the signal when using a voltmeter, either, though on reflection I should have done. I've done stuff with semi-modular synthesizers. I think I'll get a manual - at least I'll learn a few things, in addition to what I've learned already from posting here. Maybe my next post here should be about playing bass. I'm working on something with a main part played on bass, so that should be on my website fairly soon. There's just the mix to sort out now. And I'll report back on this oscillator if I manage to do something musical with it.

That's great - thanks. It's starting to make sense now. I'm used to just plugging in audio equipment, as you'll have gathered. Bands like Hawkwind used to use audio oscillators and it seemed possibly interesting to see what might be involved in using one, hence getting this thing when it appeared. Foolishly I hadn't thought about output levels, though I suppose I was right to proceed with caution. It sounds like it'd be advisable to borrow a voltmeter, or, as you suggest, get a manual. I've now managed to locate one, at a price. So I think I know where I'm going with this now. I'm very grateful for all the advice. Thanks.

Thanks. You're right - this does seem to be more complicated than it should be. I suspected the information I'd been given in the electronics shop wasn't reliable, and after the first reply here I was sure about that. The oscillator itself has a proper mains plug on it, British type (I'm in Britain and the oscillator is from a lab here), so it's properly earthed through that. There are three connectors on the front of the oscillator, marked TTL, Common (which is the earth as it has an earth sign on it), and Output. The guy in the electronics shop sold me two jacks that will fit two of the connectors, and told me to take the two wires in the lead and attach one to the output and one to the earth. I'm now inclined to think one goes to the output and the other goes to one of the others, but not necessarily the earth. If this isn't any more familiar to you than it is to me I think I'll do a Google search again to see what the TTL socket is, and ask around a bit more. I've also emailed a friend who's a musician with some electronics background - she built filters and so forth as part of her music tech college course.

Right, thanks for that. And thanks especially for the quick response. I'm really not sure how to do this, now. I think I'll talk to someone with electronics knowledge and show them the connections on the oscillator before doing anything. What you've said is helpful, but I think someone needs to look at this directly.

Hi. Sorry to ask a question in my first post here, but I've hit a problem. As a quick introduction: I play many instruments, with synthesizer as my main one. I took up bass guitar recently, but as I've played classical and electric guitar for years I'm finding it pretty easy to make the transition. I made a note of this forum when I bought the bass not long ago. My question is something I thought I'd be able to solve quickly using Google, but I've had no success. I recently acquired a test tone oscillator from a lab, which I want to be able to connect into my recording setup. I was advised by the local electronics shop to separate the two leads inside a standard guitar cable and connect one to the output on the oscillator and the other to the oscillator's earth terminal. That should be simple enough, and I have suitable connectors for that. The problem is that I need to know which of the two cables in the lead goes to which terminal. You'd expect some website would say which is the earth, but I've spent hours trawling through sites that call the two cables the `top cable' and the `bottom cable' or simply say throw away a lead that needs work and buy a new one, so I've got nowhere. I don't want to just try it without knowing as - obviously - having the wrong wire to earth doesn't sound like a very good idea. Any advice would be much appreciated.