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[quote name='BottomE' post='1171113' date='Mar 21 2011, 07:08 PM']I did try a compressor last night and was, well, left thinking whats it all about. In some ways i found it a bit of an impairment when i wanted to put some natural emphasis in certain passages of the song i was working with. All the compressors i have tried built into amps have been switched off after a minute due to IMO a negative impact on the sound. I am interested in trying a chorus though. Wondered what that might do for someone playing mainly old style funk and soul? And lastly - i probably DO use effects as the filters on the Little Mark are very powerful and i love 'em.[/quote] Compression requires knowledge of how it works and what it can and should do for you to use it well. If you look through my old posts you're bound to run into my Compression 101 which I jotted down for someone. Personally I think the same can be said for most effects, in order to get the most out of them you really do need to understand what it is they are doing, but compression is the trickiest as its so hard to really hear what is going on, and if you can hear it its doing too much so you think its stopping you being dynamic. All 1 knob/button built in compressors should be detroyed at once. Sweeping statement, but its true, they are all utterly useless due to the huge compromises for average styled bassists playing an average bass in an average way, or being a very hard and nasty limiter under the guise of a compressor. Either way do yourself a favour and just dont go there... Old style funk and soul is full of effects on the bass, from nice heavily overdriving valve stages, through all sorts of filters, phasers, choruses, overdrives, distortions, whatever you want to get the funk out:-

I gave up looking for people for a funk band, in Brighton of all places. You'd think there may be people looking to do a funk band in a place where there really is a market for funk (well there was a huge market for it 10 years ago anyway), but you would be wrong, its all rock, metal and punk. Pretty disappointing....

I used to help out with sound at the local music service when they did their shows for the parents at the end of a term. They had a guitar lesson with something like 18 guitars in. Each young dude had his 'axe' and a little marshal 112 2 channel amp. They would all turn up and crank their amp settings (the treble goes to 11 man, it must be better!) The guitar teacher would tell them that it wasnt their fault, you couldnt make these amps sound good. It was hellish. Plux used to go along to play bass for them (poor chap!) Anyway when I got involved I asked if they would mind me setting up the amps, said teacher said fine, but they will all sound rubbish whatever you do, they are nasty marshals.... I set them one at a time, from flat. I asked each guitarist to select their favourite pickup combination then back the volume off to two thirds. I set a hint of drive, just breaking up really, turned the treble down on most, and the mids up a bit, left the abss flat or even slightly backed off. Each 'dude' had a solo in turn (yup 18 guitar solos one after another - not pretty), where they would bring their volume on the guitar up to full, after their solo they just took it back down. Each amp actually sounded pretty nice like this solo'ed, worked great with the bass and drums and poked over the top for each solo. The combination of 18 amps running like this was a fantastic sound, really fat, especially for the Stones track they covered. It was loud too, but controlled. Oh and this took about 5 minutes for the entire group of 18 guitars, I wasnt aiming for rocket science at all! The teacher ended up chaging his opinion of Marshal amps completely.

Guitarists generally and genuinely believe that guitar sounds best when everything is dimed. Whilst a noble thought it is utter tosh. Fletcher Munsen curves dicatate that as the volume gets greater the sound that was super in the doudouir is way too bassy and trebly at the gig. A half stack is total overkill for a pub gig, even a 212 is a lot more than really required, and will suffer from beaming and phase cancellation. First thing is to see if you cant tune the drums better. Really, if you tune them really well they will be immensely loud in a small space, but thats fine, I've never heard a band in a pub with unmiced drums that really were too loud. Honestly. The rest of the band do need to work as a team to not degenerate into a volume war though. You will be causing the same issues with your eq too. Flatten your eq completely. Get the drums going and turn up the bass to war volume to match. Check you can actually hear the kick drum against you out in the room - now go and turn down until you can. Thats right, you were almost certainly too loud for the kick. Now tweak the eq (tweak is the operative word) to go in the direction of 'your' sound. Bring up the rhythm guitar rig (flat eq!), dont let them touch their eq, you do it, you want lower mids not treble and bass, a hint of treble presence will do, and some low mid (for guitar) for body. Remember you need a whole for the lead guitar, carve it out of the rhythm guitar. It need not sound like anything but awful on its own, it isnt going to be heard on its own after all. Bring up the lead guitar, this needs to be treated carefully to slot into the space you cut out of the rhythm guitar, and again not get into your area, a bit more treble, and a bit of bass can be a good thing, but not enough bass to hurt your sound. The lead gutarist also needs to understand that if they are working as a second rhythm guitar under the vocals they need to lose some presence AND some volume. Check you can really hear the snare, the rhythm and the lead and the bass as seperate entities, if the guitars both chug a rhythm on an E chord you should clearly hear the snare and the kick, if you join in then you should still hear the kick and snare. People always bang on about how loud they need to be because of the drummer, but in my experience, even a loud rock drummer doesnt compete with a modern bass rig without being mic'ed too. They never really competed with a half stack at all. In other words you arent competing with him, you are probably drowning him out. This isn't obvious at all in a small rehearsal room, but put the kit in a bigger pub venue and its easy to completely swamp the kick with bass or guitar. Now properly eq'ed a vocal should slide right over the top of all of this, and with a decent graphic on a feed t oa decent monitor you should be able to avoid any feedback.

I paid for Reaper too, its superb. It will run on Mac or Windows and is exceptional value for money. Looks fine for a lappie btw.....

[quote name='thebrig' post='1164985' date='Mar 16 2011, 08:57 PM']I've just seen the [b]Alesis MultiMix16 USB 2.0 Analogue Mixer & Audio Interface[/b] [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug08/articles/alesisMultimixUSB16.htm"]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug08/arti...ltimixUSB16.htm[/url] Anyone have any thoughts on it? Cheers.[/quote] Why would they not have insert points on the channels???? That is insane...

[quote name='TomKent' post='1165861' date='Mar 17 2011, 03:14 PM']I think the 10k rule is more of showing your dedication to music, however having done 10,000 hours.. yeah you do get substantially better (however, practicing 8 hours a day.. 7 days a week.. did help lots).[/quote] No the 10K rule was determined by a bunch of people who did a lot of research into truly virtuosic performers, apparently on average they all put in apporximately 10,000 hours of practice before achieving the point in their career where they were said to be virtuosic. IIRC they were all classical performers, although I may well be wrong. Its nothing to do with showing your dedication, it is about the literal amount of time you have to spend practicing in all to go from never touched an instrument to a virtuoso.

My understanding of the 10000 hour figure (Having not yet read the article by the OP) is that that is the amount of practice time required to become a virtuoso performer, not the amount of time required to become a functioning pro quality musician. There is a very big difference!

I just get broken links when I try and view the articlew - running firefox 3.6.8

Really well played slap bass absolutely rules. Badly played slap bass absolutely sucks. For slap read any technique, for bass read any instrument (believe me, I have kids, and recorder and violin can make bad slap bass sound heavenly!). In short then, bad musicianship sucks, good musicianship rules. Aside from this you may have a prediliction for certain genres that may or may not have certain instruments played with certain techniques that you dont like the sound of particularly (I loathe that horrible rhodesy sound you get on fusak, just makes me puke), or just certain eras may have certain aspects of their produciton that you do or do not like (Phil Collins' sickening gated reverb for instance ). Doesn't the generalism that you hate all slap bass suggest that you a particularly close minded individual though? I love it when its done well, hate it when its done badly. Anyone saying there wasnt much slapping going on at the last SE bash wasn't in the room with me then - fair soiled me keks slapping away like a loon, if you didnt enjoy it, sorry, if you did, great, I had a lovely time though

He we go again If it has to be a pedal:- Markbass Compressore Joe Meek FloorQ If its in a rack then the usual subjects are:- dbx 160a Focusrite Compounder Transparent levelling is all about settings, and if you dont have all the comtrols and the meters to set up the device properly then you are on a hiding to nothing....

It better be the be all and end of of 2nd hand consoles for that much of a road trip! BTW cheers for the heads up (on GS) about the Red5 kick mic being only £35 at the moment, just got mine delivered, superb for the cash, incredible really!

[url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Roscoe_Century_Standard_Gallery.html"]Roscoe Century Std?[/url] very very light basses, lots of cash though....

The guitar tone is pretty nasty, I can hear what the guitarist is going for but its a pretty plasticy synthy version IMO. To really nail this kind of immense chugg/grind sound have a search for Slipperman's guide to tracking heavy guitars, he puts it pretty well IMO. Be prepared to get it very very loud to achieve it though. More importantly you seem to have fallen into a bit of a classic trap of everything front and center, everything as loud as possible. It means you have had to bring the vocal up a lot to make it clear, at the expense of the energy of the entire track really. If you can get the rhythm guitar double tracked and hard panned left and right then you will open up the middle for the vocal, which can then go a bit further back in the mix. Carving space in the stereo field is as important as frequncy mixing IMO... I think the drums could have more impact, they dont need to be louder so much as poke their nose through a bit more and have more life. Maybe a bit of very very heavy parallel compression to bring out the attack and weight of the shells? Also I'd defintely duck the bass off the kick (just by a dB or two) and possibly even the rhythm guitar of the snare (just the immediate transient of the snare) to allow the kit to really punch through. Something sounds like it may be distorting a bit when it shouldnt be to my ear as well, whether that is an overdriven preamp on tracking or something else I cant tell... Thats about it really. Its pretty good though, great starting point for fettling IMO!

Anything upto 8K, wasnt running flat out or even being pushed, but sounds totally immense....

When you say "you recorded a band the other night" its important to understnad what that means. Did you take a long a decent 2 track recording machine and capture their live sound warts and all? Did you take a long a multitrack mahine and capture them playing as a band so that you could mix it later and make a great sounding demo for them? Were you considered responsible for any more than the technical recording? In other words was the idea just that you turn up and 'run the board' during tracvking, or were you supposed to be telling them if it was a good take? You see if you are in some way helping produce this then to a certina extent you should have been trying to guide them where they played a ropey take during tracking IMO. If on the other hand you were just there to capture the noise they made then the band/band leader was making that call. Either way though you need to get the mix to them asap do all the stuff you wuold do to make it sound clear and well produced, and expose the truth about their playing. Then they will hear for themselves and if they are any good they will ask questions about their performance, not your recording ability....

I've commented on a few bits and bobs here and there, but unless people really are saying "How can I make this better?" then how do say to them, "I think it would be better if..." without feeling like you might hurt their feelings? Put this another way, I am currently mixing a very very good friend's tracks that we have recorded together. He has brilliant ears, really hears things with scary detail from an engineers perspective, he can comment on a mix with real authority, he can pick out precise frequency ranges in a snare drum that are bothering him for instance, or notice a delay line that may be set a little too long. We have known each other for years, and effectively speak the same language with regard to audio. We trust each other's opinions pretty much completely, and if we disagree we usually find that after further explanation we can get to a compromise pretty quickly, or more likely we didnt manage to communicate the problem well enough in the first place, and are actually agreeing, but with the wrong terminology (yes even though we speak the same language wrt audio). And yet, mixing his band has been hard. Its all being done remotely, so I have to wait for his comments on a mix, then take them on board and try and either fit them in to the mix, or argue the point (when I really think he's missed something). I would find it very hard to find fault in the band's efforts, and even harder to be detrimental about some aspect of the playing, fortunately its been tracked really well, so I havent had to make comments there, and they have a very self deprecating British view of their abilities (totally unfounded). Also helps that they really are seeking perfection from their point of view, and anything I've heard has been checked over many times already. On the plus side the results so far have blown him and his band away completely, can't wait to get it finished! The reason I am mixing it and not him, is because he trusts my ability to make the tools get the results he wants, more than his own ability. Yet he can define the results he wants incredibly well. Its a hell of an endorsement, and no small responsibility to be honest... If I didnt know someone at all, and they weren't paying for my honest opinion, I really wouldn't want to comment, unless they were really open to comment other than the usual "Sounds great, you'll be a star!" which I sometimes think we are all a bit guilty of hoping to hear when we post something. I've tried to help a few people out with some bits and bobs before, and they've all been pretty receptive to anything I've said, but I also dont want to be putting myself forward as some kind of expert either, since there are so many people out there who make my knowledge look pathetically limited IMO.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1156897' date='Mar 10 2011, 05:05 PM']I think with regards to recording/mixing etc i've had a couple of great discussions as a result of me listening to someone else, or them listening to me. When I had a CD player in my car, i used to download people's tracks at work, burn the onto CD, then listen on my way home. That way I didn't have to log into BC at home. I would only ever comment if I thought it was really good, or if I thought I had a decent opinion to add. I don't have a CD player any more so I don't do it. I go on the muse messageboard, and there's a "plug your own band" thread on there. I try to listen to as many as possible when I get a day off, but I would only comment on 1/10 of what I listen to, because the other 9/10 is either sh*t or just not my thing. EDIT: A great example, I uploaded a song I was working on as I wanted comments on the drum sounds. This prompted 5imon to reply with some very helpful comments, that lead to a long conversation about recording/mixing which taught me a hell of a lot (anyone can learn from 5imon!!!).[/quote] Awww shucks dude!

[quote name='Toasted' post='1153643' date='Mar 8 2011, 12:09 PM']Bassic cables from forumite OBBM. I dont know why anyone would buy anything else. [url="http://www.bassic-bits.co.uk/"]http://www.bassic-bits.co.uk/[/url][/quote] [size=5]+1[/size]

SHould be fine for bedroom use. Just not bedroom use up aginast a drummer on full chat )

I think you would do well to reconsider recording on computers for a moment. You have two seperate tasks to achieve. Firstly tracking, secondly mixing. In the dim and distant past the two at the level we are talking about happened in a project studio onto tape (or adat). A more homegrown approach was the old 4 or 8 track tape. That was what consumers could hope to achieve. At the same time, going back ad infinitum the 'big boys' have enjoyed all sorts of location recording with full on broadcast style trucks (I know the Quo used to do a lot of recording at Stanbridge Farm using their own broadcast truck for instance, Bob told me all about the trouble they had getting it up the lane!). These days you can use a computer for recording, but all laptops are significantly less powerful than desktops to this day, and whilst they are fine for recording and mixing in a very limited process (ie not too many tracks at a time) lappies and all the assorted guff required for recording (interfaces etc) arent really very good for recording or mixing with out a hardware interface (IMO). I would really really suggest you stick to a PC if thats what you prefer (I've seen macs go wrong enough times to know that they definitely can give as much grief as a PC), go over to Reaper (if nothing else because it is far more lightweight on your machine) and mix with that. When it comes to tracking though you need a device to capture sound and record it as wavs as well as possible for the money, and I still reckon the Zoom kit hits the mark, I'd suggest you consider a pair of R16s for tracking then mix down on the PC in a DAW, file transfer is a snip, whats not to like?

Is it active? Battery? Just a thought... Not sure what you mean by flat exactly. Lacking in zinginess? Make sure the VLE is fully anticlockwise.

Latest Lines Horizontal mixes I've been working on.... Sounding pretty mean too if I do say so myself

Cheers!