51m0n

Snakeoil not allowed though

Sheeesh HVAC, hellish to get that right "after the fact"... Still enjoying the thread as much as ever mate, keep it up!

[quote name='dr Szelma' timestamp='1334162499' post='1611883'] 51m0n - I've never said this, I've said - "[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][b]Ideal compressor doesn't affect the tone[/b]. EBS does. A lot." And I'm still saying that THAT WAY AND ONLY THAT WAY mate [/font][/color] [/quote] Then lets disagree on some subtle points of that statement then. In general some of the best compressors you can get are good because of the very nature of how they affect the tone (1176, La2a, Fairchild) - even when they arent compressing at all they do something to the tone, and it happens to be something good, so much so that these devices can cost insane amounts of money (go search for a Fairchild compressor on google, sit down first though). In a more general setting any compressor can change the tone of the signal ging through it. If you set a compressors attack very short (like a limiter) then it will affect the tone since the transient will be significantly quieter, this means the tone is now darker as the transient carries a very high ratio of upper frequency info. If you set the release longer then on fast passages the compressor wont release before the next note, giving a similar effect. If you set a very high ratio and bring the threshold down you will change the nature of the envelope of the signal in such a way as to change the tone, dependant on attach and release settings and the release and attack curve of the circuit this could give a funky sort of bwoop thing that in certain styles adds masses to the bass tone, and in others just sucks so bad. I can go on and on and on.... So the 'ideal' compressor may well affect the tone considerably depending on a ton of stuff (the circuit, the signal level, the settings the musical style etc etc). That may or may not be detrimental, doesnt make the compressor the issue necessarily, it can equally be the operator. The EBS compressor is a funny beast though, take a look at the [url="http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/multicomp.shtml"]Ovnilabs review[/url] where Bongomania states issues with the devices changing their sound quality over time. It [i]can[/i] sound pretty good though, it certainly isnt always as bad as you make out, so the question is do you have a faulty unit? Also of note is they are liable to distort with high output basses, known issue with a lot of their kit actually, the old grey EBS pedals just didnt cope with anything like a modern bass IME.

Markbass F1 or F500 - ultra clean heads the pair of them Tecamp Puma is also in that area, though KJung on BassChat suggests they are more scooped/wider than the MB heads Pair either up with a Bergantino ae series cab (212 or 410 would be best) for one of the top ultra clean rigs. Or a BareFaced Super Twelve T, equally good, would really go with the Tecamp gear I imagine....

[quote name='dr Szelma' timestamp='1334140174' post='1611367'] Ideal compressor doesn't [i][b]detrimentally[/b][/i] affect the tone. EBS[i] can under certain circumstances[/i] [/quote] Fixed for you....

Cool. Studio 2 being the control room in fact yeah? With a ickle vocal booth type thing off it opposite the main entrance door. You are clearly going to be completely overworked with all this studio real estate to play with, you should give it to me and save yourself being worked into an early grave Nice to hear that the expected end date of the build is getting nearer rather than further away, that's more than a tad unusual! Did the main contractor manage to find an excuse for not telling you of their unexpected hols then?

Thats way nicer Mike, can actually hear what you are playing now in the opening. Like the way some of the bass parts end up sounding rather like a horn section in the background (to my cloth ears anyway). Like it a lot!

We didnt need a new bridge, although the bridge was seated better than stock as part of the set up, but the fingerboard got some love, and a new set of strings was an absolute must....

Well the Hellborog is purported to be equivalent (ie based heavily upon) the designs of vintage Neve preamp/channel strips. If that is the case, and the components are of similar quality, build is of similar quality etc, then given its an instrument level pre and an eq in a single box then £1300 is not in any way extraordinary. [url="http://www.vintageking.com/Neve-1073-CH-Demo-Deal?sc=18&category=336"]Go have a look at the price of some Neve kit[/url]! Of course it would help a lot if it actually said Neve on it

Another +1 for a Roscoe here. Mine is one of the lightest basses I've ever picked up, looks fabulous, but not daft, has gorgeous tones, and plays like a dream. Whats not to like?

But surely we should all really be saying that playing out of context with the music, or in a n unmusical way is all rubbish, not just slapping. There are plenty of examples of people flailing away at tapping producing an ungroovey unmusical mess, or fingerstyle, or with a pick. Equally there has been great music made using all these techniques on a variety of instruments. I understand that unmusical slapping is a predominant annoyance for bassists, and we are plagued by that particualr form of poor musicianship, but why allow people who are rubbish at fingerstyle off the hook so much?

[quote name='urb' timestamp='1333623168' post='1604358'] Thanks dude - yes Ableton can use pretty much all VSTs - I'll check those out - thanks again - I'm definitely going to remix this - the lines are there be great if you could hear them eh??? Appreciate your advise squire [/quote] If you dont get any luck with those links then I can send you the dll, its an old freebie after all!

Can it use standard VSTs? Cos I have exactly the right dirty phaser for that reverb return, but its a swine to find on the interweb anymore (even though it was a freebie). It was catchily called the WPhaser XD-78s, has a great sound and a built in saturation doohickey, does very very cool things to reverb sends! Also klnown as the [url="http://www.ronnypries.de/gear/gearnews/free-nomad-factory-plugin-warmer-phaser-vst/"]Warm Phaser from Nomad Factory apparently[/url] You may find its in [url="http://www.vstplanet.com/VST_effects/Bundle/free_vst_pc.zip"]this bundle[/url]

How about a tiny bit of grind, and a very very subtle chorus? If you can identify the difference as chorus then its too much, the overdrive should be equally as unobtrusive, just to add a bit of upper frequency harmonic info to drive the chorus really. Then back the verb return off by half, and if possible get the predelay on the verb to be either just off a semiquaver or quaver long (not dead on, generally late sounds more relaxed, early sounds more urgent, you figure out which feels right for you), so it drives off the last note not the present one almost.... That will standout, but not in quite such looosttttt-----dooowwwwnnnn---ttheeee----welllllll way. If your processing can do it, then put a very subtle dirty phaser on the reverb return only, for maximum coolness. I never managed to get my hand to feel right when plucking the string I just thumped on the upstroke. Will have to investigate further now - ta!

Wooooaaahhhh hloooossstttt iiiiinnnn reeeeeeevveeerrrrrrbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb b b b b b bbb bbbbbbb bbbbb Mental as anything though mate, very musical, love it! Wish I could do that funky but mellow double thump thing you do, its such a nice relaxed groove, when I try something like that it just sounds pants, then I get bored of failing

[quote name='Doctor J' timestamp='1333577193' post='1603931'] Uh huh. That album was the catalyst, it made hundreds of white men mistankenly believe they had the funk. [/quote] But by far the most slap heavy album from RHCP is Mother's Milk. Still does my head in when you see chaps attempoting to slap Suck My Kiss, which always was fingerstyle, silly s*ds Funk != Slap I think its so down to the player, if you have a bassist who is truly a great musicician, then that transcends anything to do with technique. Larry Graham (and particularly the Betty Davis stuff for me) plays some of the best funk grooves, It is music for one purpose (hint, it aint for dancing to!), and hits that nail right on the head (Betty doesnt hurt onel ittle bit either, Nasty Girl indeed....). This is great slap bass IMO... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weN7DkrLjEU&feature=related Great slap is even rarer than great funk though, mainly because it has become a parody of itself.

Their loss dude

Nah, this is always the end of the discussion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md70JWL49GU

And here's a great pop song built entirely around Mr Herbie Flowers' bassline(s):- [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRqBG1ov07A&feature=related[/media]

[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1333311124' post='1599958'] 'Good only knows' would probably have been my choice. Both can certainly be described as 'outstanding'. While my contribution may not be the greatest pop [i]song[/i], I think the phenomenal production/arrangement makes it one of the greatest pop [i]records[/i]. I'm Not In Love 10cc [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2BavhwpIJg&feature=player_embedded#[/media]! [/quote] Staggering recording that, here's how they did it accodring to the engineer Eric Stewart (from[url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/classictracks.htm"] Sound On Sound[/url]):- [size=3][i]"I think they'd been at the wacky baccy at this time, and it took me a couple of hours to get my head around the idea. But then I figured how we could physically make the loops and set up the studio to do that. I rigged up a rotary capstan on a mic stand, and the tape loop had to be quite long because the splice edit point on the loop would go through the heads and there'd be a little blip each time it did. So, I had to make the loop as long as I could for it to take a long, long time to get around to the splice again. That way you wouldn't really hear the splice/blip. We're talking about a loop of about 12 feet in length going around the tape heads, around the tape-machine capstans, coming out away from the Studer stereo recorder to a little capstan on a mic stand that had to be dead in line vertically with the heads of the Studer. It was like one of those continuous belts that you see in old factories, running loads of machines, and we had to keep it rigid by putting some blocks on the mic stand legs to keep it dead, dead steady."[/i] [i]"It worked, but the loop itself — and this is where it gets interesting — had to be made up from multiple voices we'd done on the 16-track machine. Each note of a chromatic scale was sung 16 times, so we got 16 tracks of three people singing for each note. That was Kevin, Lol and GiGi standing around a valve Neumann U67 in the studio, singing 'Aahhh' for around three weeks. I'm telling you; three bloody weeks. We eventually had 48 voices for each note of the chromatic scale, and since there are 13 notes in the chromatic scale, this made a total of 624 voices. My next problem was how to get all that into the track."[/i] [i]"I mixed down 48 voices of each note of the chromatic scale from the 16-track to the Studer stereo machine to make a loop of each separate note, and then I bounced back these loops one at a time to a new piece of 16-track tape, and just kept them running for about seven minutes. Because we had people singing 'Aahhh' for a long time, there were slight tuning discrepancies that added a lovely flavour, like you get with a whole string section, with a lot of people playing. Some are not quite in time, some have slightly different tuning, but musically a lovely thing happens to that. It's a gorgeous sound. A very human sound, very warm and moving all the time. Anyway, after putting the 13 chromatic scale notes back onto the 16-track, it meant there were only three open tracks left!"[/i][/size] One of my all time favourite stories about recording a track

Cant believe this bunch havent turned up in this thread - criminal that! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crgQGdpZR0

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1333367455' post='1600566'] i cycled to practice with a pedalboard and an epiphone thunderbird last week. it's an [i]interesting[/i] experience ! [/quote] Used to do this all the time, you get some odd looks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5_QV97eYqM

[quote name='Alec' timestamp='1332771639' post='1592839'] [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Krampera_Amplifier.html"]Krampera[/url] KVB800 head + KVB1B + KVB1T cabs - package price £3,475 from Bass Direct [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Mesa_Boogie_Big_Block_750amp.html"]Mesa Big Block 750[/url] head + PowerHouse 4x10 + 2x15 cabs - around £4,450 from Bass Direct In my view, PA based setups shouldn't count in this category. I'd say it should be purpose built bass kit - a head and 2 cabs. Maybe a separate pre & power amp configuration. PA systems could get silly, as you can just put together a Glastonbury, or bigger, PA system of any time and it'd cost you a hefty six figure amount. It would amplify bass, but it's not a bass amp. [/quote] Thats OK then, nothing I suggested is anything to do with PA kit at all