51m0n

The other day I put fretless on a pretty full on bluesy rock track for a band, as a bit of an experiment (it was the VMJ). Hardly any gliss, and no silly vibrato (nothing more obvious than you would get on a fretted), except in one section of the track which had a really catchy 'trippy'guitar part. The warm woody nature of the fretless sound really worked in context, surprised at just how great it sounded. And I am in no way a good fretless player, if I didnt have those handy lines on the board I'd be pretty screwed Its a completely different beast tonally, it offers a world of microtonal expression (for an expert) it can be played properly in tune (by an expert), it looks way cool (even to a non-expert) and is considered a tougher instrument to play (by everyone). If you dont drench it in effects it sounds gorgeous. If you drench it in effects it sounds like a reject fro a dodgy 80's covers band...

[quote name='TimR' post='757712' date='Feb 25 2010, 11:18 PM']You'll do fine if you remember. Bass is not just low frequency, most of what you hear and what goes up to make the character of your tone is middle and high frequency. The higher the frequency the more directional it is and the narrower the 'beam' of sound from your speaker is. To hear the proper tone you need to be in this 'beam'. Either by standing away from your cab, or by pointing your cab up towards your ears if this is not possible. [b]Low frequencies (bass) are less directional and have less energy and are easily absorbed. High frequencies (treble) are more directional and bounce off hard surfaces, but are absorbed by soft surfaces, sofas, curtains, people.[/b] Sound can form constructive or destructive waves, ie when the waves bounce off the wall; the waves going towards and the waves bouncing off can either add together or subtract from each other. How they do this is complex and its not necessary to understand exactly how, just that it does happen. Where they add together it is louder and where they subtract it is quieter. This is dependent on frequency and distance so in some places the bass will be loud while the treble is quiet and vice versa. Some points in the room will become sweet spots where it sounds perfect. Some notes you play will sound dead, others will ring on forever. Changing the direction and position of cabs affects this. Move the cab around, but always try to get its back as close to a wall as possible. Sound waves will also reflect off the floor and the ceiling as well as any walls. As was said above to increase the bass more put the cab in the corner. If this makes it too boomy move it away from the corner, but keep it against the wall. Angle it if necessary. Other instruments can mask the tone of the bass and the bass can mask the tone of other instruments. You need to work with the guitars to decide what overall tone you want from the band rather than the guitarists wanting a guitar tone and you wanting a bass tone. That's the most difficult part to work out.[/quote] Errr I'm pretty sure that Low frequency in a band situation has [b]way[/b] more energy than high frequency, which is partly why it passes through concrete walls, and can be heard miles away. They are very very difficult to absorb, which is why bass traps are generally massive, wall length affairs, 2 or more feet thick, whilst mid and high frequency absorbtion can be effectively done with a single 2 inch thick layer of acoustic foam. One thing to note , the human ear is 'designed' to hear mids (or the sound of predators circling ), NOT bass (which is an area in which it is significantly less efficient). If you want more conclusive proof put a couple of sheets of paper over your hifi tweeter, did hear a difference? Now put it over the mid driver and then the bass port, other than it flapping about in the breeze, you'll hear no difference now... That's because of the far greater amount of energy in low frequencies (why blue whales can hear each other half way around the world as well!). They pass straight through the material and are not checked, they make the material vibrate instead. So soft furnishings soak up top end nicely, and bodies are brilliant at this, leaving way less mid and high frequency energy in the room. Bass charges straight through bodies though, easy peasy - never felt the hihat go right through your chest have you? Large areas of glass or mirrors, hard stone or painted plaster walls, wooden floors are very very very bright sounding, they reflect everything back into the room, but the ratio of reflected energy is highly biased toward mid and top, since bass just tends to pass into the structure, energising it (so that it is heard on the other side of the wall for instance). Next venue you walk into clap your hands a few times right in the middle of the room, listen to the reverb tail, is it bright, dark, long, short, fluttering (good indicator that you are in acoustic hell) or smooth. Can you hear echoes? Ideally it is short (well under a second), not very bright and very smooth, with absolutely no discernible echoes at all. If you find a venue like this I'd like to know where it is so I can hear bands sounding great! As I said before bass is very omnidorectional, as TimR states, the node positions are dependant on speaker positioning, and less than 2.5 feet from the back wall or more than 10ft from it are the ideal (cant remember the site I got that info from but it had in depth analysis of nodes based upon speaker placement and tone frequency). However the bass is still bouncing off all the walls together, those behind as well as in front, its just that in the correct range the reflection remains nominally in phase with the source and so you project plenty of volume into the venue. The gigs I do I try and get all the amps to point at the players plugging into those amps. I try to get all the amps that are not going through the PA up high against a back wall. Ideally I get the guitars side of stage on the floor pointing across the stage and right up at the guitarists head, mic'ed through the PA and with foldback just for the guitarist, they are always amazed at how good this sounds (even with a tiny little 10 or 15w tube amp) and no one else has to endure the directionality of guitar cabs. Practice eq-ing your [b]band[/b] for different room conditions (some heavy drapes or hardboard sheets in a big rehearsal space can easily change the acoustic nature of a room. Practice eq-ing the guitar and bass sounds together (hard to get guitarists around to this to be honest). Go read up on frequency mixing, and get into recording multitrack stuff, it is the very best way to learn. Always have a drummer with a good, well tuned kit, with fresh (as possible) heads on. Oh and great cymbals, rubbish cymabls will just mask everything and hurt your head, and have to be bashed to bits, they are a complete false economy!

[quote name='Paul_C' post='760579' date='Mar 1 2010, 11:42 AM']the bass on These Boots reminds me of one of the tracks on Sheep Farming In Barnet [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jopci9kzoU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jopci9kzoU[/url][/quote] Should be a big 'here's how to use it' sign on all fuzz bass fx pedals pointing at that track Is It Wrong reminds me of Danielle Dax a bit (not entirely sure why) - who is IMO criminally underrated, and utterly, wonderfully bonkers!

Meshel uses a second bassist live, mainly cos singing those lines takes too much brain (although by all accounts she can do it). In her position I would do the same though

Ohhh wow, they sound fantastic! Best version of These Boots I've ever heard, damn Toyah sounds about a million times better than ever before. Cool! Only thing that springs to mind is a lot of the tracks on My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts have multiple bass parts

I reckon I have it down within 50ft of a stage, scarily down to mic choice as well, but I'm a bit of a PA nerd, soI will go check out th Sound guy's kit more than any bass stuff (which is SO predicatble). It certainly is no indication of the quality of the band, IME

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='748809' date='Feb 17 2010, 07:06 PM']I'll see if I can record some live on the laptop. They'll be video, as I don't have the gear to plug into the PC.[/quote] I cant hold my breath much longer, I'm going all blue!

[quote name='rubber_ritchie' post='757753' date='Feb 26 2010, 12:11 AM']That's strange. I've been to loads of gigs at big venues like this and seen kids there. Maybe you could call them and ask if they'd allow with an adult. It's April 25th. Here's the other dates of the tour [url="http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2010/02/03/larry-graham-and-graham-central-station-to-tour-once-again/"]http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2010/02/03/la...our-once-again/[/url][/quote] Nope they've messages all over the booking site that if you cant prove your age you wont be allowed in - and YOU WONT GET A REFUND EITHER! Thats really poor IMO. They are probably licensed as a bar rather than a pub, which is where this restriction comes from - and yes it totally sucks. He would be with me, he wouldnt be drinking alcohol, and its a really really rare oppurtunity to see one of the true greats on bass, gutted. As a result I wont be going either: yup I feel that strongly, I am not going to go and see GCS if I cant bring my eldest along too.

Next bass bash I go to, I'll try and remember to bring my lappie or some test tones (around 60, 80, 100, 120, 200, 600, 1200, 3K) to run through my rig in a venue sized room. Then everyone can have a wander around and hear the room nodes making the bass loud an quiet in different places in the room. Different frequencies have different troughs etc. Its mental!

[quote name='bubinga5' post='757460' date='Feb 25 2010, 07:19 PM']I often have issues with my amp sound, and different rooms...What sounds great in one room sounds crap in another...im also concerned as to wether everyone else in the room can hear what im hearing? Is it possible that im hearing a great bass sound but everyone else its too boomy etc.....? Is there any website for advise on these sort of issues....? Where does everyone stand in relation to there amp????[/quote] No, they cant, read my first post, they hear more of the sound reflected back from the room than you do, and less of the sound directly from the cab than you do Absolutely, what works great for you could be boomy or thin to them, it could be a very bass heavy or bass light mix to them, all dependant on the room, and where in it they stand in relation to you and the wall, where you put your cab in relation to the walls etc etc etc So many variables its unreal chaps! Right in front of it on a tricky stage, a step to the right (put your hands on your hips) on a good stage (lets more mids and tops out there like that - result better sound for the punters). Gents, this is why we have PAs Crikey, its tough on here without Alex C and Bill F chiming in with this stuff, I figure they are too busy or bored of repeating themselves......

[quote name='Mr.T' post='757487' date='Feb 25 2010, 07:46 PM']If you find two..... can I have one please? [/quote] If I can find two, I'm keeping them for meself (love a bit of two drummer action me )

[quote name='TimR' post='757439' date='Feb 25 2010, 07:05 PM']If you have your amp flat against a wall in a small room the bass frequencies from your speaker will reflect back off the opposite wall and the wall behind and cancel the ones coming directly from your speaker. Put your amp in the corner and try different angles. If you are still struggling then the guitarists need to cut their bass.[/quote] If you put your amp ANYWHERE in the room the bass frequencies (and all the rest) will reflect back and forth off all walls. Bass frequencies are omidirectional, ie they propogate evenly from the source in all directions. They are tricky blighters like that! Mids and above are directional. If you put your amp flat against a wall you will experience a +3db boost due to boundary effect If you put your amp flat against a wall and on the floor you will experience a +6db boost due to boundary effect If you put your amp in a corner you will experience a +6db boost due to boundary effect All from the wall directly behind the amp. Nothing to do with the far wall at all. If the other walls in the room reflect sound back into the room (which they will) and the room is of a certain size you will get an interference pattern causing areas of higher and lower volume within that space. Guitarists almost always need to cut a bit of bass, since thir bass is you low mid. You need to push a bit of upper mid and also cut some low mid (really) to gel in with the guitar as often as not. You often need to learn to hear yourself in this context as well. A bass sound that is frequency mixed with a guitar sound will more than likely sound plop on its own. A guitar sound that is frequency mixed with a bass sound will more than likely sound plop on its own.

Bass is not directional, mids and above are. Hence pointing a cab at your ears increases the ratio of mids to bass that you hear, and makes the cab seem to cut through- for you. In a small room the volume level will be much much greater, as that energy is all bouncing around in there, and you are all really close to each other (often you are facing each others amps rather than having your right behind you. The amount of direct interference sound (ie guitar spill) coming at you is massively increased. All this makes reheasal rooms very very difficult to work in more often than not! Bass signal - like all other sound drops in volume the further from the transducer you go. There is no 'throw' thats a complete load of codswallop unsupportable by the physics. See this [url="http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-distancelaw.htm"]page[/url].Something else must explain that phenomenon then.... The ratio of 'room' (ie the amount of bass coming back off the walls) signal to direct (straight from the transducer to your ear) increases the further you get from the enclosure. The overall volume still drops though, except when.... In certain rooms (typically of a certain size with parallel walls) you will experience phase issues at bass frequencies (from bass reflected from the walls interacting with more direct radiation into the room), these additive and subtractive nodes will massively affect how well you can or can not hear the bass. This is even obvious to me in my front room with my stereo, move a couple of foot closer or further from the speakers in various places down the room and the bass comes and goes by about 3dB. There is literally nothing you can do if this is the case, unless you can put in bass traps and generally play with the acoustics of the room. Hence many venues sound like garbage. So how do you get yourself heard at a reheasal then? 1) Get your cab up higher 2) Do not let the guitarist point that amp at your face, make him point it at his face instead! 3) Turn everyone down as much as possible 4) Rehearse in a larger room to help with the general noise (not always a goer this one) 5) Get a drummer who can restrain himself 6) Wear ear plugs - decent ones that attenuate reasonably evenly across the full frequency spectrum. A louder cab is not often the answer in a small room, it will just compound the issue.

Oh for crying out loud, over 18s only, Plux cant go

MWAAHHHHHHGGGGG! Sorry, just wet meself

[quote name='jakesbass' post='756295' date='Feb 24 2010, 06:02 PM']LOL I was considering refrigeration actually just to test my students at sub zero temps.... Thanks for all the info guys, all very interesting. I'm not concerned about total silence, more to give my neighbours a bit of protection. Being a muso I can record during the day and it's pretty quiet around my way... (apart from the occasional Chinook)[/quote] Are they going to be playing rock drums? Are they going to 'give it some' with bass? If either of th above is a yes, then you will really need at least the two layers (and preferably the three) of plasterboard IME. Comments about the roof of this inner space are all valid too, I worked in a few studios where they lined the roof of the live room with 4 tonnes of sand (and that was a smaller room than the one you are talking about). Largely as it was a basement next to a road and the bus noise was unreal through the vocal mics , but you get my drift! A couple of layers of plasterboard on the ceiling will deal with the worst of it though...

Oh yes one more point about the plasterboard. Start on a different wall each time so that the joints int the corners interlace too. Otherwise the corner becomes one big edge, and bang goes your sound proofing....

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='756197' date='Feb 24 2010, 04:00 PM']This might sound like a stupid question... hell, I'm pretty sure it is. Anyway, how do you go about figuring out how much to insure your instruments for? Especially when they're modded and thus pretty much unique. Do you take the RRP (or street price?) of the instrument and then add on the cost of the mods and how much it'd be (if anything) to have them fitted/routed/painted/whatever? Or would insurance only pay out to the value of the original, unmodded bass? Out of my 5 basses, only 1 is stock (the SUB), so this is a pretty important factor to me.[/quote] I took the opinion that I'd insure for the sum of the parts, since to replace something modded I'd have to get all the parts and at least do the work myself (never asked anyone else to work on my gear so I wouldnt add any cost for that). Also I want to be able, where possible, to go and get a new version of the instrument/device in question with the insurance money, so I always insure to new value - which has meant insuring for more than I paid for in several cases, since replacing the items in question would now be far more expensive than the initial purchase... It soon adds up!

Ooooh boy. Sound 'proofing' is one thing (and seriously, to make it truly sound proof is beyond your budget, but you can at least make it useable without the neighbours knowing its not a stereo). Room treatment is a lot more complex, I await Rimskidogs later posts with interest Oh and my point about the plasterboard layers being at right angles to each other means the joints should never overlap, but make sure they dont! If layer one has the long edge vertical, layer 2 should have the long edge horizontal and not have edges that line up with layer 1 edges. layer 3 would then have the long edge vertical again, and not have edges that line up with layer 2 (and if you can do it layer 1). All caulked and green gooped together. Luveerrly! And, as has been stated they should be attached to studs a good distance off the walls, ideally none of the inner walls should be parallel, even a couple of inches off through the length of the wall will do it. This will help with sorting the acoustics after the soundproofing has taken place. There are also rubbery products out there to rest your walls and studs on to help prevent transfer from the floor. Not sure how much real added benefit they will give you over a good caulking to be honest.

OK, this is all very much IMO, so go easy on me guys... 3 fingers is an easier way to play than 2 fingers There got it off my chest . If you are starting out or looking to improve (in a very serious way) your right hand ability, then I honestly think 3 finger technique has a lot going for it. And I'm not talking about fast stuff here. The additional digit can make string crossing easier (look into Gary Willis' varaition on this, its really complex, but it does make sense), RH muting easier, and means you pluck with each finger less, so your stamina is increased. The downside is you will have a significant job to get 3 finger picking up to speed without a triplet feel being evident in your playing at all times. For a lot of people this learning curve is so great that they find 3 finger technique to difficult to master to ever make it easier than 2 fingers. It took me a very very long time indeed to get close. The most useful change to my RH technique that I have made s switching to floating thub, your right hand is so much more relaxed that you can play for hour and hour and hours without it getting tired. Also its worth investigating how hard you strike the strings, softer is genuinely better in a lot of ways (fuller sound, less efort = more potential speed &less fatigue etc). Finally work on the Alain Caron 16th note exercise. This can be played on a single note, its all about RH dexterity and control. Basically you accent a different 16th note on each beat of the bar so:- [font="Courier New"] 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a 4e&a *--- -*-- --*- ---*[/font] Where * = accent and - = an unaccented note. Once you have this down up to 125bpm, move on to the same exercise, but alternate very staccato and legato notes with the same accent pattern. If you can do that at 125bpm your right hand is fine!

[quote name='Clarky72' post='756032' date='Feb 24 2010, 01:06 PM']If people assume my amp is communal I ask if their wife is. That usually stops them touching my gear! [/quote] Great until she is, and a syphalitic m*nger to boot....

[quote name='TheRev' post='755887' date='Feb 24 2010, 10:32 AM']It seems that most of us are OK with someone 'having a go' as long as they ask nicely. Others (like OTPJ) have a strict 'no chance' policy as their bass is their livelihood - I've used this excuse myself on more than a few occasions, even though I'm not a pro player. But - what are peoples' feelings about bass bashes? Would you be happy to let anyone at a bash play your bass? At the last south west bas I found myself in a weird place of being surrounded by an abundance of amazing gear but with no idea of who to ask for permission to play it. [/quote] Its a bit odd isnt it, I found myself happily letting people hav a crack on my bass through my amp, but its simply because they are bassists, they know what its all worth, and I'm watching them, and they dont know about the lead pipe up my sleeve in case they need reminding.... :ph34r: (in the immortal words of Ray Winston, "Where's your tool?" )