51m0n

The reaper license doesnt exactly expire, its trustware. Well worth the piddling amount they ask of you!

01. Silverfoxnik: Roscoe Beck V, BC Rich Eagle, Yamaha TRB5 with Norstrand p/ups and Auderre pre, Hughes & Kettner Bassbass 600 head & SWR Triad.. plus old Peavey Head and 1x15 for the Jamming Room (unless anyone has something else we can use that's better?) 02. EssentialTension: Fender Precision 62, Fender TF Fretless P, Lakland Decade, Mesa Walkabout 12. 03. Waynepunkdude : Arsenal shirt, Sunburst Musicman Sterling H and Ampeg SVT 2pro G&K Neo412 04. Clarky: Ampeg Baby Bass, Acoustic Image/Euphonic Audio rig 05. Truckstop: MIM Fender Jazz V, pimped Kay 2B; Gem/Ampeg rig; some effects 06. Urb - either Sei Jazz or Singlecut - and maybe some pedals - possible Genz Shuttle 9 07. dc2009 - Warwick CS Corvette $$ 5, Epi TB Vs (Reverse and non-reverse), my Dean if anyone actually wants a go, Trace Head, Marshall cab (heavy and big), various pedals. 08.Shockwave - Pedulla MVP5 Mean Green machine. 09. Sibob - '71 Precision, '73 Jazz, MIA Jazz 5 if there's interest, Barefaced Compact, Orange Terror, Pedal-board if there's interest. 10. 51m0n - Berg ae410, MB, Focusrite and Roscoe 11. Plux - Berg HT210 & HT115 Hartke LH500 Ibanez BTB 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

[quote name='Clarky' post='1294476' date='Jul 6 2011, 10:59 AM']Sounds like a good idea 51m0n. BTW, your compressor talk was possibly the least tedious talk about compression there has ever been. A request though - please don't pluck me out of the audience and make me play 'The magnificant seven' for 10 minutes again or I will be lynched [/quote] Was the highlight of the day mate!

Is there any real interest in a chat about recording (tracking/mixing/mastering)??? Generally rather than necessarily entirely bass specific. I'd prefer to do something more of an open forum to answer questions rather than a massive lecture, which will no doubt be as tedious as the compressor one was. Its a massive subject though, so if anyone has something they really want to know about it let me know and I may be able to prepare a bit...

wow! That was just SO lovely. Thanks MM!!

Super-duper! I will no doubt come along, I would imagine Plux will also be there.... Promise not a word about compressors this time I'll probably bring my rig, and we'll get as much of Plux's in the jallopy as we can, so it will be Bergantino-ago-go

I recently bought a Sony Vaio VPCF1. It has an i7 processor, up to 8 Gigs of RAM, came with Win7 Home Premium. It is a beast. Running Reaper I have successfully mixed sessions with 60+ tracks and groups with huge numbers of vsts (think gate, comp, eq on every track, 4 convolution reverbs, some real heavy weight power hungry saturation vsts, heavy duty analogue style delays etc). I have got up to 50% CPU utilage so far. That is pretty much stock, given the improvements that culling the Sony bloatware will bring, not to mention adding the extra 4GB of ram to take it up to full, and lastly using a very fast external eSata connected harddrive I cannot see this being unable to cope any time soon. As for an 8 channel interface I have used the original Focusrite octopre before to great success, its about the only unit with a useful single knob compressor that I've found in fact. Money no object I'd suggest an RME UFX, failing that the RME Babyface has an ADAT in so you can connext an Octopre to it and use it alongside the Babyface's other two inputs to give you 10 ins. RME are absolutely top top interfaces, and you pay for the pleasure, but they are seriously seriously good. You will not need an external mixer at all. Use the DAW to mix with, its what it is there for.

Ah well, thats cos you is reading it like a book. Nothing beats a pdf or other electronic format as a reference tool!

Personally I find the videos fine to watch, but I forget what I've seen too easily - it is a completely in your face blast of information you see. You need to take notes on the videos! Whereas with the manual, rather than trying to read it like a novel I tend to look down the index to the area that sounds like what I need to know about, go straight there and see if I'm right.

Nothing harder than not knowing the terminology well enough to even know how to ask the question! If anyone has questions about using Reaper, or more general questions about things you want to know how to do with recording or mixing generally - even if you dont know the terminology - just ask! Hopefully the good people on here who have some experience will between us be able to come up with solutions for you....

Sorry didnt know about the manual reading issue. My day job involves heavy dependance on manuals and hopw-to's, enough fo rme to be able to recognise a good one from a bad one lets say. If I could suggest anything it would be that you use the Reaper manual to 'dip your toe in the water' as it were. So if there is something you want to know about it really is worth the effort, for one thing rather than a very dry and impenetrable text every aspect of things like routing are explained like a recipe (ie like my steps above) with specific steps. This is backed up by the way Reaper includes a trial project to work with, and all the exampels are walk throughs on that project. I dont know if this is more helpful for you or not, I would hope it may encourage you to give it a try, worst case scenario you waste some time, best case scenario you get to figure out a few ways of using the tool that you wouldnt have figured out any other way. Its a very very deep piece of software, there are so many ways to do things that are not always obvious as a result I'm afraid. Same can be said for any really full featured tool.

I wouldn't normally do this, but really really really do yourself a favour and download and read the [url="http://www.reaper.fm/userguide/ReaperUserGuide375c.pdf"]Reaper Manual[/url]. It is full of useful tips, and is really well written. Sound qulaity is ok, not too bass heavy or anything like that. Its a simple mix with timbres that frequency mix for you a lot, which helps a lot!! The drums sound pretty compressed, dont know whether that is the samples or you, its not nec essarily a bad thing either though. You would do well to seperate the two guitar parts in the stereo field however. Pan them at least 70% left and right opposite each other. Try this. Add a new track, label it reverb. Add a simple reverb click the IO symbol on one of your guitar tracks and drag to the reverb track do the same for the other guitar track You now have signal being ent to your reverb from the guitar tracks - this is just one way of doing it, you can also just click (and not drag) the io button and select sends and returns, # of channels of audio for the track, panning of sends and returns etc etc. Note how you can control the level of each send independantly by clicking the IO button. Nice! Also you can do complex routing very quickly if you click view -> routing matrix. This will take you a while to get to grips with, RTFM to get the most out oif that one! Now add a new track, rename it Guitar Group Now click and drag one of your guitar tracks to the guitar group, it will indent when it is 'in' the group. Do the same for the oither guitar track. Now you can control the volume of both guiatrs with one fader. You can do this group assignment thing using the folder icons too. Again RTFM, its a beauty! You can also send the output to your reverb panned opposite to the original sound, which can be kind of cool....

Hey nice effort! I would say this though, looking at your Repaer project image you should really really explore how you can use groups, (folders), and also sending signal to other tracks (like auxes on a mixing desk). That way you can have one track with a Reverb fx set up on it, and send signal to that track from other tracks, so you need some verb on your guitar, you send some guitar signal to the reverb track. This is far more efficient than poutting a reverb on every channel. Its also just the tip of the iceberg in terms of project set up (see attached piccy, thats about half the project you can actually see in the picture...)

Absolutely. DAT was shockingly bad back in the 90's for erroring even when brand new, it suffered from a painfully over complex transport based upon a minitiarised VHS system. Which was crap. All tape deteriorates significantly though, not just DAT, some old analogue tapes are literally baked in an oven before being played to try and get them to work a bit better. My advice, get everything you treasure put on to a good digital copy as a data file and make several backups. if its analogue then make a very high resolution digital copy at that (96LKHz 24bit at least).

I should add that in the above 57/DI test you would want to put the 80Hz cut on the 57, and also slope the eq off above about 4KHz gently The DI can be cut fairly hard in the 200Hz to 1KHz area if you have a desk with a wide Q. Blend the two sources to taste - clearly the above is a rough guide.... Whatever you do the D112 is going to not have the mid information to compete with guitars in a mix IME. And it always loses to the kick in FOH.

[quote name='Monckyman' post='1288792' date='Jul 1 2011, 11:11 AM']I must remember to tell all the Soundguys in Europe not to use a Kick drum mic on a bass, because they all do... Every last one of them. From scuzzy clubs in Dresden to massive Festivals like Glastonbury. And so do I. At least for the past 20 years. But now I know better hey? I[/quote] Just because you see it a lot doesn't make it the best solution by a long way. How many gigs have you been to where you've thought, hmmmm the bass is an indistinct fuzzy noise, and the kick is totally detstroying my chest cavity? If you had to have rules for mixing (which you dont, they are guidelines) then rule one is dont fight for the same frequqncies with multiple sources, something always loses out. If you mic the kick and the bass amp with the same mics, with the same built in eq you are on the way to doing that. It does NOT help. Try it sometime, I dare you, get a 57 and a DI vs a D112 (horrendously over eq'ed mic that it is) and a DI, alongside the kick drum with the ubiquitous D112 in it. The 57/DI rig will win out in the final mix, everytime. The D112 can take immense SPLs, is built like a truck and will take touring opunishment. It is targetted at kick drums and eq'ed for a perceived type of kick drum sound. None of which makes it the best mic for bass. In fact it doesnt make it the best mic for a kick drum either. Current favourite in the studio is a Heil PR40, precisely because it has a wider and far flatter frequency response than a D112, which means you get the sound of the kick drum, not the sound of the kick drum as filtered by a specific mic. Yes you have to eq it more, but you get a result far more representative of the actual drum in the room in our experience. Again I point out that the sm57 is there for the mid growl information, which is precisely where the D112 loses out. Dont believe me? Download [url="http://www.akg.com/mediendatenbank2/psfile/datei/38/D1124055c25c068d6.pdf"]the D112 datasheet[/url] [b]it shows it to be scooped by 20dB at 500 Hz[/b] That is shocking for a bassist! Compare that with the [url="http://www.heilsound.com/pro/products/pr40/productsheet.pdf"]PR-40 datasheet[/url] Its virtually flat in the mids with a presence boost between 2KHz and 10KHz. For completion here is the [url="http://www.shure.com/idc/groups/public/documents/webcontent/us_pro_sm57_specsheet.pdf"]SM57 dataheet[/url]. Note again how flat it is in the mids, with a presence boost. I guarantee you the Heil is a better mic for bass live, in the studio, anywhere you like.

The youngest is 7, his favourite song is I am the Slime by Zappa, the eldest is 17, at his 9th birthday party his friends got to liste to Stockhausen's helicopter quartet while they scoffed their food My work is nearly done I think

Dont whatever you do use a kick drum mic on a bass cab. They are heavily scooped with large presence peaks, because that sounds good for a kick drum. It happens to sound completely rubbish for bass, and is effectively putting a smiley face eq on your sound before it gets to the desk. Remember, whatever you take away cant be added back again. So what mic should you use? In the ideal world you would get either a Heil PR40 or an RE20. The Heil is particularly superb, goes deeper and higher than the RE20, and sounds incredible. But these are expensive mis (worth every penny mind you, they are both incredible vocal mics too). What to do then? Well if you are trying to get the mid-grindy goodness of your amp, or the sound of your effects I would suggest a DI off the bass (clean) for the low end, and a decent mic for the mids, even an sm57 is perfectly capable of doing this fine, it can take the SPL without a problem, and will certainly handle the mids. A step up would be a Heil PR30, or even PR20. The trick is in the blend through the PA, and you have no say in that at all. If you dont use amp grind, or loads of grindy fx then the mic is superflous, if you only use fx other than overdrives then DI after your fx, but let the soundguy know so that he can gain stage your signal on the desk with the hottest signal from your fx possible.

Mixed on [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]Reaper[/url]:- [url="http://soundcloud.com/kit-richardson/you-always-did-from"]You Always Did - Kit Richardson[/url] [url="http://soundcloud.com/kit-richardson/you-look-so-good-tonight-from"]You Look So Good Tonight - Kit Richardson[/url] [url="http://soundcloud.com/lines-horizontal/the-individuils"]The Individuils - Lines Horizontal[/url] [url="http://soundcloud.com/lines-horizontal/your-mouths-are-killing-you"]Your Mouths Are Killing You - Lines Horizontal[/url] Using nothing but free vsts and the effects packaged with [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]Reaper[/url]

[quote name='Thurbs' post='1287595' date='Jun 30 2011, 12:48 PM']You could put them both on their sides to arrange the drivers vertically and watch the middle of the audiance wonder where all the bass has gone... [url="http://www.astralsound.com/bass_pattern.htm"]http://www.astralsound.com/bass_pattern.htm[/url][/quote] Errr no. Two 2x10s on top of each other vertically are not about to remove the bass, they will help dispersion, and you will still get boundary effect with the bottom 2, maybe even 3 speakers and the floor.

Hmmmm, try this. Set up your amp as normal at stage levels. Switch the amp eq in and out. Does the hiss disappear, or is it just less obvious. You see it could be the eq circuit, it could be hiss from earlier in the signal chain and the eq is just making it louder. It could be the preamp gain stage, have you ever recorded your bass DI'ed directly and if so did you get a lot of hiss. If its the eq you could use an external cleaner eq and not use the amp eq I would suggest in any case you compress before the eq. The eq'ed signal will drive the compressor very differently from the un-eq'ed signal, not necessarily worse, but IME a lot of mid suckage on an eq before a compressor tends to makes the compressor react less well.

Clapping and Counting the 'right' way. So for 16th notes (semi quavers) count:- 1-e-an-a 2-e-an-a 3-e-an-a 4-e-an-a | 1-e-an-a 2-e-an-a 3-e-an-a 4-e-an-a | Really really slowly (metronome on about 40bpm). Now clap the 1(2,3,4) and the an, whilst counting. Now try just the an Now the 1(2,3,4) and the a Now just the a Now the 1(2,3,4) and the e Now just the e Now the e and the an Now the an and a Now clap the e and the a (that is the killer-diller right there) OK, do each of these for a couple of minutes, you do not want your bass in your hands for this at all, you need to be trying to get the sound of the qroove (such as it is) into your head. Now try joining two of the subdivisions together, so 1-e you would clap once for. It can help to vocalise these rather than clap them because you are starting to give the notes a duration, rather than just subdividing the beat. So 1-e becomes 'da-ah' as you join them together, whilst the an-a is 'diddy' That gives you:- da-ah diddy, say it intime to the beat, and clap on the d's A bar is:- da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy | Swap them around:- diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah | Now join the middle to semiquavers together:- da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da | Right out the above rhythms in standard notation (it is not difficult!), this will really help make that link between reading and playing rhythms. Take the tempo up over a few days to a medium-fast tempo, as you do this it will all click into place. Right, now comes the really fun bit. Every single time you sit down and listen to music whatever style it is, break up the beats into the subdivisions, clapping or singing them through the whooe song, intentionally swap between them. Finally write out on a single page every single variation changing from one to another. Now clap, sing, fart your way through that regularly. Now pick up your bass. And do it all on that

MMMMMMM Crunchy bass!

Where do you generate the hiss though.... If you compress after the hiss you will just make things even worse.