cheddatom

About a month ago in the recording studio, I started playing through my rig, and noticed it had lost it's usual "mammoth b*ll*cks". This was really dissapointing, but i've managed to add in some extra low end in the mixing stage. Anyway, the loss of low end was because my TE extension cab is broken! It has 1 x horn, 1 x 10", and 1 x 18". It's only the 18" which isn't working. I unscrewed everything the other day, hoping that it would just be a dry joint on the back of the speaker. However, I can't get the speaker out of the cab!! Any ideas?

I suppose it depends on the band you're recording. A lot of bands sound the same these days, and I wonder if it's the bands trying to sound like eachother, or the engineers getting lazy, or just me being bitter. The first ever time I went into the studio, we were 16 and paying for it all ourselves. It cost a lot of money, and when I got to put down the bass, he told me to put away the 6 string and distortion pedal (I only had 1 at the time) and just trust him to get a great bass sound, as he does it all the time. Well, it did end up sounding good, but, it sounded like every other indie band around at the time, and it really annoyed me and stuck with me, and I guess that's where I was comming from. If I was a session player doing less original stuff, I guess I would like a 5 string precision, and (judging from your posts) it could save the engineer some time. I've never really thought of it from that point of view. If a band sounds great live, using a certain set up, should they sound great in the studio using the same set-up? I think the answer is yes, but, more often than not, when you chuck an extra 20 guitar tracks on there and start compressing drums etc, you loose that great live sound you had.

I just don't think that this idea of a precision=time saved is a fact. Maybe a precision+an engineer who always works with them/loves them will save time, and maybe most engineers love precisions, but that doesn't make it a fact. I've never been under pressure for time during a mix though, so I really should shut up!

ARGH - I'm obviously not going to pursuade you on this one, as you have your opinions strongly set, and some would say rightly so from your experience. I personally think that studio time should be a time for experimentation and creativity, but, I suppose some of us don't have the luxury of making our own cds at home! I was in "magic garden" recording studios with Gavin Monaghan last year, and he was very sceptcial of my effects and stupid rig and active 6 string etc. He just got me to play through the songs, and went round listening to each speaker (with a facial expression like Yoda) micing them up with weird vintage mics. He loves his tubes and his ribbon mics, vintage guitars, and Precision basses! However, he claimed to love my sound, and did a good job of recording it. It was cutting through just fine on his rough mixes, shame we never got to finish them! It took 3 hours to set up, record the bass for 2 songs, and get a rough mix. I'm not sure of normal people's time restraints, but I thought that was pretty good? Edit: Whether it's passive or active or a Fender P or an crappy Ibanez, it will generally take me a similar amount of time to mix. I listen to the mix, I listen to what's not there in the bass sound that I want, I adjust that, i'm done. P.P.S I know i'm comming accross as an arrogrant young student type, sorry! I do genuinley have a lot of respect for people who know a lot more in the way of recording than me, and i'm sure that you're one of them.

[quote name='ARGH' post='82419' date='Nov 1 2007, 06:08 PM']Fine man,but Im just going on the comments Ive got and been given.......including "Oh thank god,a Fender..."[/quote] If an engineer is thanking god because you've brought him a familiar instrument he knows how to work with, then I think there's something wrong with the way the engineer is looking at his job. He should be interested to hear new instruments and relish the challenge of getting them to sound great, not getting them to sound like a fender. I like precisions, I just don't buy into all this "definitive bass sound hype", if you know what I mean.

[quote name='The Funk' post='82294' date='Nov 1 2007, 02:37 PM']MIDI Switching[/quote] Good point, well put.

[quote name='Johnzy' post='82130' date='Nov 1 2007, 10:25 AM']I probably play bass because of my mother's love of paul simon and his '80 albums. You can call me al was the first song I remember hearing and working out what the bass was! ..........[/quote] Yeh! Totally the same for me. I used to play basslines on my guitar though. The first bassline I learned to play on the bass was "carousel" (I think) by Blink 182 'cos my mate at school wanted to start a punk/pop covers band and thought it would challenge me. There wasn't much of a challenge in that band! Edit: Just to say L-mac - Most amusing.

If you set up a load of clean patches, 10 apart, and you can jump 10 with a footswitch, then, you wouldn't need to "toggle whilst playing", assuming you know where your patches are. I don't know if i've explained this properly, but it solves your problem.

I consider myself to be a bit of a recording engineer, and my comment was made with my engineer's hat on.

I really don't buy all this hype. I can get a good sound to cut through using a Fender, or a Yamaha, or a Schecter, or an Ibanez or...........

Ahhh, sorry!! I do have one but haven't tried that. The easiest way to get around this is to save a clean patch at say, position 9, and copy it to every 10th bank. Then get the extra footswitch to jump 10 banks. Then program your other patches in patch 8, 10, 17, 19, 26, 28 etc etc. This is what I do (kinda).

Do you have the Digitech psu? Or a psu that is supplying enough current? Other than that, I don't know sorry, are you using it for high-gain distortion? If so, I would expect some horrible noise. I don't really like the Digitech units for distortion.

Well, if you take the B2.1U as an example, it's obviously designed with home use in mind, with the USB interface etc. and when you add the extra footswitch, you can program this for bypass or tuner mute, or delay hold or whatever, but most importantly bypass. A very well designed pedal in my opinion, that you can add one cheap footswitch to, to make giggable.

I would keep sending him to piano lessons, and teach him a bit of bass on one of yours. Lend him one if they're not that precious. I think the combination of lessons on piano with fun/creative developement on the bass would "stand him in good stead".

I was refferring more to the switching options you get, rather than the actual quality of effects. A multi-effects unit that has silence between patches, or is difficult to operate with your feet, is fundamentally flawed, with respect to gigging, but maybe that's not it's intended purpose. As far as the ME50B goes, I wouldn't really know! If it's in "stompbox mode" or whatever it's called, then you would expect that pressing the same button you pressed to turn on an effect, would also turn it off! If not, then, yeh, that seems crap, but, it doesn't mean all multi-effects are fundamentally flawed. I find that having effects in a loop, whether they be multi effects or singles boxes, is useful, as you can take time setting up a sound before you kick it in. It's only my opinion, but I think that multi-effects are only worth buying, if you need to switch between different complicated effects settings. For example, if I use 3 different gain settings on one of the dirty patches on my Zoom, it would take 3 copies of the same pedal, with different settings, in a midi controlled rack, or in a looper on a massive board to replace the zoom with single pedals.

[quote name='funkysimon' post='81677' date='Oct 31 2007, 12:21 PM']... still, you know what they say about guitarists with big feet.[/quote] Big Heads! Seriously, I have to play with thinner shoes than I normally wear, so that I don't hit two pedals at once by accident.

Metalzone's are great on bass! I got an XP-100 cheaper than you can get new WH-4s or any other whammy. Maybe look for one of them?

I don't think that the lower end of multi-effects, where you have this difficulty, are aimed at gigging musicians. I use my B2.1U, but, it's part of a bigger setup, in a loop. I think the GT-6B works fine, and I would have no problem with the switching capabilities it has. You could add your own footswitch, to fool the unit into thinking you're pressing both switches at once. I used to use a zoom GFX707, which I added 2 footswitches to, to allow me to switch up and down by 10 patches.

I think your Daphon might be similar to the Ibanez CP5? If so, it should sound great!

Try the 22 through your bass amp, the 13 through your guitar amp! I like them together, but, I'm not running them through seperate amp chains, i'm running them through a bi-amp rig.

PM'd! I want to see how this compared to my BOB the blender, as i'm having issues with feedback etc.