51m0n

An old one of mine from 14 years ago, that I'd forgotten. Wouldnt mind but its damnably hard to tempo (about 135 to 140bpm I'd say)...

When it comes to amps I really really rate the MB LMII/III family. They are very clean and just a lovely tone, I don't hear them as sterile or in anyway harsh either. I havent A/B'ed an SA450 against an LMII for years (not since I plumped for my SA450) but I recall thinking there was hardly anything in it - I went with the SA450 because I valued the more versatile EQ and other extras more than the smaller form factor. When I had a go on an RH450 I didnt think it was better in any way than the SA450. Then again I carry a full fat rack tuner, and a full fat compressor in my rack, and both those features in the RH450 are compromised in comparison. I still think the RH450 is good head, but I really want a head that obscures the sound of my basses with its own colouration less than I felt the RH450 does, if I was desperately seeking a tiny head I'd find it very hard to go for anythign other than an F500, but I am firmly of the belief that only the best will do when it comes to compression, and I'd rather forego any compression than have anything that wasnt as good as my rack unit. And if we are go ing for small form factor I can take an ickle tuner to a gig/rehearsal if I need to.

Errr its the Space Bass baby. Almost all Bootsy's basses from PFunk on have been variations on this theme, custom built for him (originally) with various mental numbers of pups in them. He said it sounded pretty pants, before now, until he fed it through the gazzillion fx pedals in three seperate chains into his three way 18 cab rig (I am not kidding, his rig was simply the biggest out there at the time). Then it sounded bootzilicious baby, yeah! Who are we to argue with the master

The cable twist and twist back method isnt so great at stopping tangling (I find) but its supposed to be very good for the cable (less twisty torque stress). If you dont care about cable heatlth then I found that if you halve, halve and halve again until you have a length of about 1M then tie a loose thumb not with it it stays untangled. It is NOT good for your cables by all accounts, but your set up time will shorter. Just undo the thumb, hold on to the two plugs and 'throw' the cable out, you are left with the plugs in your hand ready to stick in sockets, and an untangled cable. I have some cheap cables that are 12 years old that I always stored like this, and they havent failed at all, YMMV. I put up with the extra tangles of the twist/twist back method on my OBBM cables though

An LMII into any decent reasonably efficient cab will be loud enough. Its a great amp. If you tried it through a far more inefficient cab it would manage, but possibly struggle. Schroeders are LOUD :ph34r: but do have a rep for lacking a bit of depth (no flames please). Barefaced Compacts are a great cab for a rock orientated sound (no tweeter), well worth a listen (there is one on GAK you can listen to), they get very loud to... There are plenty of lightweight alternatives, there is even a lightweight cabs thread on here somewhere which goes into a lot of detail. Personally I find the Hartke you have to be bit gutless, compared to an LMII....

Who is doing it? Its pretty tricky to stop people filming stuff the days, I dont know how you can hope to stop them without appearing to be an a***hat, but you could politely ask people not to put them on youtube. The promoter you should be aboe to just say no to though I guess, unless he is willing to pay you extra for the priveledge, he is in all likelihood trying to promote the night on the interweb though, and probably thought it was a great performance and that you would thank him.

Definittely get a really cheap multi andhave a good long muck about. Some sounds may inspire you - some will leave you cold. It is, IMO, a very good idea to get a book, or do some research on the interweb to discover what these fx are each doing so as to best understand what the parameters mean and how they change the sound. Otherwise you are just stabbing in the dark all the time. Tat comes later though, if you really get into fx. For now stab in the dark as much as you like until you hit something you like....

Nice signal chains! Starting to really come togeher in there, how did it sound?

:blush: who me?

Loving this stuff MM! Can you put a few in that focus a bit more on the theory side, please? I know you've made a deliberate change to focus on the reading thing, but there are areas of jazz based theory that make my head spin (not being a jazz player at all). Substitutions particularly leave me mystified (why they work, where you can/should/would use them etc), and since you've just started to dip into walking bass as a string to the bassists bow, I'd really appreciate a bit more detail around this area if you feel like it, with some of your fantastic examples - I'd especially like to have an example with a substitution compared to the same chord seqence but without, if you see what I mean. Anyway, thanks for all the effort you've put in!

Focusrite make lovely compressors. Its stereo but I only use one channel of my compounder, its superb!

Another plus for the fuse trick, I have spares in my bag.

[quote name='throwoff' post='765166' date='Mar 5 2010, 02:18 PM']How good would it be the first time someone tried to plug in without asking you first and just stood there dumbfounded[/quote] I pop the fuses out of the back of the amp. Same result

[url="http://www.fmraudio.com/news.htm"]FMR PB6A[/url] - very new unit from them that brought you the RNC. Top quality compressor this, by all accounts:-

[quote name='throwoff' post='765143' date='Mar 5 2010, 02:03 PM']HAHA I think I might well buy one of these - [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/fullers_unilock.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/fullers_unilock.htm[/url][/quote] I like your style sir!

IMO any cab going for £179 new has to have major shortcuts somewhere. You cannot expect a decent bit of kit for that price.

[quote name='dangerboy' post='764085' date='Mar 4 2010, 04:14 PM']At the nights I run, we have hard and fast rules about this. Want to to use your bass amp but not let anyone else use it? You can get a gig somewhere else, because we don't want you. If bands can't be nice to each other and share, then they haven't got the right mindset for a DIY night. And we're not greedy promoters - we never take a penny out of our nights. Here are the Rules of Duel: [url="http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=173394714&blogId=516965889"]http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...logId=516965889[/url] On the other hand, we only put on bands who know what they're doing with gear![/quote] That is a different thing altogether though, isnt it. That would be a case of upfront organisation of time and resources, not some prat turning up on the night with no kit and no idea what to do with decent kit, who you dont know from Adam asking for a loan of your gear, who will just shrug his shoulders if his actions in any way damage said gear. I would expect you to be willing to provide some recompense if some oik in band A broke or stole kit from band B and did a runner though, since you are insistant on these conditions. After all you force this to be an issue. You do offer this dont you? Otherwise I wouldnt want to be playing a gig you set up anyway. Course I probably wouldn't be playing in the venue, since you probably wouldn't be liking any of the bands I play with, no doubt we arent hip, cool and down with the kids enough for you How about you provide quality backline for everyone, always, and take the hit if things go pear shaped. I assume you are happy doing this, and therefore you must be vetting the people who use this equiptment in some way (even if they are just mates). If not, and something gets trashed by some little swine who then hightails it out of dodge leaving you none the wiser, I really feel for you. My attitude comes from this happening to me a couple of times. Think what you like, it's an attitude that has served me and my kit very very well ever since. It's a completely different kettle of fish if the people in question are close friends, everythings been organised and arranged up front and you can be sure that should some accident happen they definitely will help you get things sorted (financially as much as anything) and will take responsibilty for any problems they cause. I'm putting on a gig with just such a set up, and yes all my and my son's kit will be used by other people that night. But I know every single person involved very well, so it just isnt an issue.

I'm not addicted, I've just got a bit of a cold right now, you know, it'll pass, I could give up if I wanted to, just call me Zamo......

Consider yourself lucky, last time I agreed to do something like that (big ole multi band gig where every b**ger wanted to use our gear) a riot broke out between the various factions of punks in the audience. I'm not exagerrating, there were tables and chairs and glasses and bottles being used in the resulting maul, we had 4 police vans turn up to cart people away, the bouncers laid into anyone they could reach regardless of their actions, and tried to trash our gear outside the venue afterwards! I still have nightmares

Dont have a preference. On certain basses one works, on others the other works. Either looks stunning on the right instrument, both can sound either too bright or too dull dependant on a squillion other variables with so much more tonal influence that its not even an issue. The Roscoe is maple the old Vester is Rosewood and the VMJ is ebonol, they all sound, look and play great to me

Nope, sorry it aint happening, you could be gods gift to bass, but if you think you are going to walk up to me on the night and use my rig when I dont know you from Adam you can f*** right off. I've done it before and I could not give a monkeys if I seem like a git for it. Buy some kit, a few hundred quid will get you started, so start saving monkey boy. In the mean time try some practicing too. Once you've got a rig together, then you can go getting a gig IMO.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='763612' date='Mar 4 2010, 07:47 AM']He can play, but this is a perfect example to me of why the double bass is such a dull and unsatisfying sounding instrument![/quote] Errrr hey bud you need your ears cleaned out I think

[quote name='iconic' post='763707' date='Mar 4 2010, 09:51 AM']sweet....oooh no I think I fancy one...must resist...must resist...must resist.....no need for 4 basses...seem great value at £223.99 new...be rude not too, but I only just got my BB last week! [url="http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product.asp?id=5402"]http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product.asp?id=5402[/url] [size=1]just how much is kidney worth on Fleabay in this credit crunch climate???[/size][/quote] I than'yew'verrmuch littlepaperboy.... That was full bridge pup, neck pup added to taste (about 30%) played over the neck pup, into a Joe Meek TwinQ with light compression (about 3:1 ratio is all I can remember off the top of my head) and some further eq'ing to add depth and warmth, onto an HD24, then transfered onto a G5 Mac running protools for mixdown with a bunch of very shiny Waves platinum vsts and all sorts of other fine quality stuff. Frankly you could make a hamster being crushed with a cricket bat sound good with that signal chain and a little skill IMO. Although I would say that it still is representative of the quality of the instrument somehow (the way it gives a little mwaah on that one slide in the chorus tickles me every time I hear it to be honest). Makes me feel that I can get a decent result anyway I think they are just the best value for money fretless. If you are at all unsure about getting into fretless then buy one, they turn up second hand on here fairly regularly, I picked up mine for about £150 IIRC!

[quote name='iconic' post='763622' date='Mar 4 2010, 08:04 AM']fretless have my attention now...do they all sound like this VMJ fretless, or this going thru oodles of witchcraft boxes? ....obviously a great player but it's the spanky tone that I find wonderful.... [/quote] Thats about right - he might have a tiny tiny hint of a chorus on there (tricky to tell with it being an mp3), he's eq'ed it and maybe even compressed it too. The core tone on there is all about the VMJ, they a re just superb for the money IMO... Here's a snip of mine (having gone through a wide variety of wonderful boxes to make it sound as spanky as poss!):- [url="http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~snaish/music/Tall_Trees_edit.mp3"]Tall Trees[/url]

[quote name='purpleblob' post='763069' date='Mar 3 2010, 03:55 PM']Quick answer is that the easiest way to home recording nowadays is with a computer, audio interface and software. There are still many very nice hardware solutions out there, but they do not ultimately offer the simplicity and at the same time power of using software on a computer. Now, depending upon how many tracks you wish to record at a time and whether you want MIDI interface etc. prices can start as low £80 up to (well let's just say a lot ). Obviously you'll need a computer, whether it be Mac, Windows or Linux based is upto you. Software wise, there are free packages (or at least come with the hardware or computer) such as Cubase which is often bundled an audio interface or guitar tracks or the likes or Garage band comes with the mac. Or you can pay money out for Cubase, Sonar, Logic or whetever all the way upto ProTools. EDIT: I used to use Sonar a fair amount and was very happy with that. Lately been messing with Logic Express on a mac. Which seems pretty good also.[/quote] Again I'd say if you have a poor spec computer or just want to get into recording and not worry so much about editing stuff up at the start the Zoom R16 would be my go to (and I've been recording for years and years). Computer DAWs offer massive control - its true - but you are always mucking around keeping the computer stable, latency down to a minimum blah blah blah. And I've used Mac, Windows and LInux to record multitrack. They' all have issues. Hardware devices take care of that from the get go, and frankly I'm yet to see anything close to the R16 in an interface. After all it IS an interface - albeit with only 2 outs, but transfer speeds of the memory cards via USB2.0 make that not an issue anyway. Its also a control interface for your computer DAW. Come on guys what is not to love about this device???? You can even mix down on it if you want to. I havent had serious GAS for something since I got the Roscoe, and telling you about this is starting to make me feel the urge The studio I work in most has massive Mac power (really hugely overpowered G5 uber Mac), and runs protools for mix down and mastering. Yet even there they have had sufficient hastle getting over general tracking annoyances over the years that they track to a pair of HD24s as there are never any such problems with hardware. YMMV but if I were you I really would very seriously consider this little beastie, seems to have covered quite literally ALL the bases for home recording.