51m0n

All of the above....

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='1189944' date='Apr 6 2011, 12:01 AM'][b]Could you blow up a sound man's board if you accidentally plugged into the speaker out instead of the DI?[/b] I once used an amp with XLR speaker connectors, not the connectors fault but it was the worst amp I have ever heard (Wareick Pro-Fet)[/quote] Absolutely - that would be, err, expensive!

Preaching to the converted, Paul! Just wait until you plug that into a modern efficient lightweight cab. That's when you start to realise how good things have got for bassists over the last 10 years. Honestly the first time I played through a modern rig I had to completely reevaluate my approach, everything is clearer, louder, more present, yet at the same time it sounds effortless. IMO...

I personally think its a synergy of all the components; player, strings, bass, preamp, (fx?), amp, cab, position, room Whatever the goal with regard to tone you have to get all these pieces to play together to get that result. Something as simple as a change of strings can completely change the frequency response and transient response of your sound to such a degree, the same can equally be said about changing the cab (although the series 1 Epi UL410 has always been about that big pillow of bass type sound, so I cant imagine thats in any way to blame)

Definietly NOT an absolute rule. Do not run phantom power into a ribbon mic, you will release the magic smoke and turn you ribbon mic into a very handsome door stop - there are some exceptions to this rule (Cascade Fatheads are supposed to cope, but I wouldnt put it to the test). Some old electrets can get very grumpy about phantom power too. In general dymanics wont spill your pint if you give them a dose of the old 48 right up 'em, but always check the nice manual that came with to be on the safe side - I know of one person who claims to have received said 48v off the body of a cheap 'n' nasty Chinese dynamic, very nice it was too I'm sure....

Well get it up there then, I'd love to hear it matey

You would do a lot worse than perusing [url="http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page"]Project Gutenberg[/url], hundreds of free (as in outside of copyright) books to download in Kindle format....

Waaaay more bass Pete! Loving it though, proper slap and all that, and you just cant go wrong with Bootsy and JB for samples

Sennheiser E845 my just come in under budget (havent checked for years) Before anyone shouts foul Marty whatsit used one for the last WetWetWet album, because they liked the sound of it on his voice apparently. Failing that the E835 is none too shabby, its a flatter version of the E845, so a little eq will bring a similar sound.

Top point well made HJ!

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184857' date='Apr 1 2011, 03:11 PM']Yeah, I think I should be fine. Just picked up one of the new MacBook Pro quad-core line (hence the lack of money for outboard ). I saw someone on Gearslutz post that they'd tested one by having over 100 tracks running in Logic, with heavy processing on nearly all of them and several instances of big NI instruments (Kontakt, Battery, that sort of thing)... and the machine was quite happy.[/quote] I need a new machine, that sounds fantastic!

[quote name='Beedster' post='1184860' date='Apr 1 2011, 03:12 PM']51m0nchatt, the new recording forum [/quote] 51m0n5h4tt talking out of his 4r5e for anyone who'll care to listen

[quote name='ShergoldSnickers' post='1184816' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:49 PM']Tried WoTs Genz Benz Streamliner 900 with mine at the Yorkshire Bass Bash. The two were made for each other. Never has my flabber been so ghasted.[/quote] They are the dogs danglies arent they

[quote name='ras52' post='1184823' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:53 PM']I've just finished reading this [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Reco...d/dp/1423454464[/url] as a prelude to getting back into the recording thang. The author generally advocates applying effects up front and "mixing as you go", principally because although you theoretically [i]can [/i]do it all later, in practice you'll be limited by CPU power etc. And of course you may prefer the sound of your outboard gear.[/quote] I'd disagree with that if you have a remotely modern PC. Even my rather antiquated work PC can run a 24+ track mixdown, and I use a lot eq's and dynamic processing and a couple of really full on reverbs and a killer delay as a minimum, add in tape saturation and gates, and so on and thats a lot of load by anyone's standars, yet I can do it all ITB with that machine. Furthermore, its trivial to run off some stems of heavy groups to work against and lighten the load whilst you are concentrating in a specific other area, and then switch everything back on for the big final render.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184808' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:42 PM']Thanks for that. Much as I expected... and kind of good to hear, because I've got no spare wedge for any outboard now! I'd be tempted to stick a smidgeon of my TC Nova Dynamics pedal on my bass if I was desperate to capture "full" bass notes along with high harmonics (something it seems to do really nicely in multiband mode). It doesn't have the flexibility I'd really like it to... but it sounds class. Another thing I've noticed, coming back to the recording end of things after a while away... I've been playing with BFD to generate drums (and bloody great it is too). The thing is, I'm so used to hearing bleed on drum tracks that I'm mixing it in from BFD, only to gate it out again in the mix, just like I used to. Talk about making it hard for myself... [/quote] I know what you mean, but bleed makes drums sound real, I (being a very very cheap son of a #@~{) use [url="http://www.bluenoise.no/mydrumset.html"]BlueNoise MyDrumSet[/url] precisely because there is bleed on the tracks (its a nicely done free VSTi too). It can really help. It wasnt until I did some work with a pro drummer who ran his own pro studio that I learnt the importance of a bit of bleed, especially the way the kick 'activates' the snares on the snare drum, adds some top end to the kick too, you see. He has a beautiful Yamha Maple Custom, and its tuned absolutely bang on, incredibly easy to mix, bleed and all. Rather than gating hard I just try and knock 4 or 5 dB off with gates, maybe mopre if there will be a lot of compression on the kit after the fact.

With 24 bit there is no need to compress to tape, you can happily record with 6-12dB of head room, which pretty much guarantees there will be no transient lost. However that doesnt mean that you might not like to use some analogue (real) compression on the way into the digita domain, it may be a unit that you like the osund of even if the compression is very very light, or whatever. Whatever sounds better to you really. I routinely compress bass on the way in for instance, and use limiters when tracking drums to ensure that clipping wont occur, even with 6-12dB of headroom (especially hard to guarantee you wont get overs on drums, just ask Cheddatom!). However, the only thing to bear in mind is that if you compress it down to tape, you cant undo it later, so less is generally more... One other thing, a lot of nastier compressors add a tonne of noise (yes even rack ones, I had an LA Audio one that was utterly useless, so I sent that back), worse than well sorted tape by far! Multiple chained compression is a complettely reasonable thing to do, as is parallel compression, group and buss compression, all at the same time if need be to get the mix to work 'right'. Again remember that ratios are multipliers, so a 4:1 ratio followed by a 6:1 ratio is a 24:1 ratio (given the same threshold), so the more compressor stages you use the more careful you need to be not to crush the life out of the source material. Some gentle 'glue' compression on the 2-buss is a must for a good mix for me, and that is regardless of limiting and maximising and all that nonsense.

I'd suggest a Bareface SuperTwelve, cos I've head one powered by an LH500 just decimate a Marshal half stack and loud drummer in a rehearsal room. Mega punchy rig that, and very clean, super easy to use too (very simple eq). Not the lightest amp in the word, but nothing like hawling trace kit about. If you absolutely had to have ultra lightweight amp I'd say the same cab run off an MB head and is equally all out impressive. That cab weighs virtually nothing, and has a built in trolley wheels and handle too, its just a brilliant bit of design for anyone with a bad back. Highly recommended....

Roscoe Century Standard 6 About as light weight and playable a 6 as you will find, sounds killer....

I think it looks very wrong, you should have got an SSL, I tell you what, I'll take it off your hands to help you make the space for one, how about that

Yup, similar to the old SCSI vs PATA choice in the days of yore....

[quote name='Beedster' post='1183146' date='Mar 31 2011, 11:31 AM']I'll add one thing to this thread; don't believe the hype. The more you get into the recording culture, the more you start to believe that analogue is superior to digital, tape is superior to disk, valves superior to transistors, and expensive mics superior to cheap ones. In each domain, it's how you use the equipment that will determine 90% of the quality of the recordings, not what equipment you use. C[/quote] MASSIVE [size=6]+1[/size]!!!

Do not confuse mastering with tracking or mixing! It is a completely different dicipline, and requires a different (though vaguely related) set of skills. Its as different as live engineering to recording (tracking) is. Very few places set up for tracking/mixing have a dedicated mastering suite, and engineers. IME a hobbyist or a pro recordist can do so much with mastering, a mastering pro can usually take it to a different level in terms of polishing the result. I'm not talking about making something sound necessarily more polished either, but rather taking your 'finished' product (mixes) and making them sound like a single album that somehow just sounds better in every way, whilst not really sounding different at the same time. If you dont know much about recording and mixing then dont make the mistake of thinking mastering may be an easier or simpler route, it really isnt! You need seriously good ears to be a great mastering engineer.

In short I guess we are saying what you most need (clearly) is a great deal more knowledge on the entire subject of recording before you should consider building/running a studio.