51m0n

[quote name='Tait' post='557297' date='Jul 31 2009, 05:19 PM']thanks, that makes sense. so what are the advantages of an audio interface? i guess it just makes the quality better if its a digital signal? you said being able to plug a keyboard controller into it is useful if my brother plays keys, why? is there any difference between that and just using a line out from my electric piano? or am i completely misuderstanding you? reacomp, i'm guessing thats an effect on reaper? oh yeah, i've just had a look, i see it. i'll have to have a look at how to use a compressor because i have no idea what any of those buttons do. then i'll check out sound on sound's guide to it like you said. what do you mean by frequency mixing? and as for EQ, any tips/advice please? especially for EQing my guitar, particularly an overdriven sound, which i don't think i use in this song, but i have in others. i can get a nice enough live sound on guitar, but on a recording it always sounds too fuzzy and too overdriven, and when i turn the gain down and volume up, it doesn't sound dirty and growly enough if you get what i mean? its something i meant to ask about in the original post but forgot, how to get a nice overdriven tone on a guitar when recording. both my guitars have seymour duncan s8 invader pickups (dual humbuckers) and i use a marshall guv'nor pedal for the overdrive. one of my guitars also has coil tap. reverbate? do you mean ReaVerbate, the one on reaper, or something else? i'll have a mess around with reaverbate for now, get used to how it works and stuff. i'll look up reatune, but atm i've got an electric tuner and i also use the one built into guitar pro. is there much point in me learning to use reatune or not? whats a vst? and any suggestions for good ones that i ought to download? although the song i posted a link to is completely different, with my band i play a mix of punk and sort of classic rock, lots of solos and tiwddly bits, but the basic songs tend to be quite punk. i've not got any of them recorded, but thats what i'll be recording with my band. do you want a wav/mp3 of each track? i'm not sure how to send them through basschat, but if you PM me your email adress i'll send them to you. hearing a mix by someone who knows a bit about recording would be great, i'd really appreciate it. is it the track what it is that was recorded on reaper? i can already hear that sounds a hell of a lot more "professional" than my recording. also thats some great bass playing.[/quote] Reacomp, ReaVerbate, ReaEq are all Reaper specific fx. Read in the manual how to set up an aux channel for reverb/chorus etc and send to it or you'll use up all your PC's power very quickly. ReaComp, ReaEq are so called inline fx and are generally used 1 per channel or 1 per group of channels. Reaper lets you do either. Frequency mixing is the art of eq'ing space in each instrmet for all the other instruments so everything stays clean and not a muddy mess, must do this to mix anything with more than a couple of sources really. EQ'ing is a deep subject mate, would take a while but I will post another time with a bunch of good tips... Compressors (ie ReaComp) control peaks and dips in loudness (limiters are similar but far more overt) VST's are other peoples fx that you can load into your system and use in Reaper. There are squillions of them! Many are free and good. VSTi's are similar to VST's but actual virtual instruments (ie hammonds, or drumkits or bass guitars - really!) Yes I'd need an mp3 of each track (lets not bother with wavs for this, I know mp3s dont sound as good, but this should be as much about showing you how to layout and use different fx as getting you a final mix...). When I'm done I'll email you back the Reaper project file (tiny), if youput that in the same directory as the tracks and start up Reaper and load that project you'll be away. I'll pm you my email addy....

01. Silverfoxnik: Roscoe Beck V, Wal Pro2e, BC Rich Eagle, Fender Jazz V Deluxe, plus my recently acquired Eden Metro Rig 02. Merton: Status Retroactive, Mikey's Singlecut Fanned-Fret Prototype, LH500 and Barefaced Vintage 03. OBBM: StRay5, MB F1, UL212, something else. 04. Hamster: BFM Omni15 tallboy, Barefaced Compact, Fender P with Thumper & Villex PTB 05. Alex Claber: '87 Warwick Streamer, RIM Custom 5 with 36" scale and Q-Tuners, Avalon U5/QSC PLX3002, GB Shuttle 6.0, Barefaced Compact, Big One, Midget, Midget T, maybe Big Baby. 06. Johnnylager: Spector Euro 4LX, KSD Jazz, LH-1000, Barefaced Big Juan, DHA Custom Shop VT2-Twin-EQ-Bass with Tech Tube valves & whatever other effects I have at the time. 07. Happy Jack: Lightwave Sabre VL, Hofner 500/1 (1964), Hofner 500/5 (1959), PJB Bass Buddy + headphones. 08. MacDaddy. Custom Shuker (hopefully!) and possibly Hamer Blitz or Iceni Zoot. 09. Stingrayfan: G&L Tribute L2000, Yamaha BB614, Hartke LH500, Warwick 4x10 10. Chris B 11. Cetera: Pre-Kramer Spector NS-2, Wal Mk1 Fretless, Fender/AllParts 70's Jazz, Tech21 Landmark600, GenzBenzNEOX212T 12.Andyonbass. ACG Recurve, ACG J-Type, Pair of BFM Omni 10.5's 13.Waynepunkdude Fender Jazz + DHA-DI-EQ 14.Jakesbass Alembic MK5 Deluxe, German Blockless Wonder 1880 Double Bass (and the '78 Jazz if anyone wanted a go) 15.51m0n (& Plux if he's not gigging): Bergantino AE410, MarkBass sa450, Focusrite Compounder, Roscoe Century Std V, (If Plux isnt gigging) Berg HT210, HT115, Hartke LH500 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Good luck mate, been there myself, its a hard choice, and in some ways even harder to come back, but sometimes its unavoidable.

+1 bought a pair of speaker cables which turned up so fast I think he must be employing sweatshop labour techniques on himself Quality is superb as ever, thanks Dave!

Yeah I studied for 2 years at college, and new far more on recording when I went than they could teach. in fact they asked if I wanted to teach the course at one point A few years before college I had paid a couple of local studios for private tuition (they were running what turned out to be superb courses) and then just got all the real experience I could sitting in, running whatever they needed. This is the days of 16 track reel to reel studios with a couple of rack uints being pretty nifty! Then as computers have come along and made this stuff accessible I've realised how much a really good grounding in the theory behind eq, fx, mixing, compression etc is a huge bonus and a true differentiator between how I work and some other people I have worked with. The results usully work out better quicker for me as a result.

Not forgetting that active electronics will push signal down a significantly longer cable (all things being equal) than passive, with less degredation of the signal....

First of all - considering your level of knowledge and kit thats a great effort - and a really nice song, well done!! Reaper is a fantastically powerful tool, you wont need more software for a very long time! Listening to this you need the following kit:- Decent audio interface Decent mic for vox/general Decent preamp (good idea if it takes line level as well as mic) Decent need not cost the earth!!!! Read a lot of reviews and check back with us first before buying. OK in terms of the mix, you need to look at the Reacomp effect. Its a fantastic compressor that used properly will really control those dips in the vocal volume etc Sound on SOund have an online review/guide to it, but read up on how to use compressors first, they are tricky to get your head round, but vital pieces of kit. You also could learn a bit more about using EQand frequency mixing to be honest. Another must have is reverbate, which is a good reverb. Finally did you know that Reaper has a superb inbuilt auto tuner? Look up Reatune in the manual. I'm not saying you need it or not, but its nice to know its there! Also look downloading other good free vsts - there are huge numbers out there! (my favourite soft filters are free for instance) If you send me the wavs/mp3s I'll do a Reaper mix for you and send it back. That way you can see what I've done with the effects to make it sound like it does. Hopefully I'll be able to give you some pointers. PM me if you want.... Track 1 on my myspace was recorded in Reaper with a drum kit VSTi called mydrumset which (used to be) free (might not be now).

It was all so simple when I was gigging a lot in the early 90's, course we was immortal too so none of thie lectricity gubbins could harm us, however dodgy the toilet we played in. I have no idea how I have survived this long - really My boy just got told he'll have to have his lovely LH500/Berg rig PAT tested if he wants to use it at the local Rock School course/gig. Shame, I think Herbie F would have liked it !

Oooooh I'll bite... Flea - 12" version of Higher Ground - havent heard that version for nearly 20 yrs mind, but it was soooo good! (v grateful if anyone has a copy!!) Michael Manhring - Adhan - totally blows my mind (along with Selene and Watson and Crick) Les Claypool - Tommy The Cat - off Sailing The Seas, daft as a mudflap, love it! there are plenty more but they are superb...

I picke dup a new DTR2000 for £125 at the beginning of the year. Its fantastic.... But the strobo-whatsits are meant to be the bomb.......

Back on topic: The Big One: The Only One (you'll ever need or buy again) springs to mind

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='556114' date='Jul 30 2009, 01:07 PM']Maybe marketing should have thought about that a bit more: I read that as "Ultra Piece of sh*t". [/quote] Nah it stands for UltraPointOfSale, and thats pretty accurate as it goes In the circles we work in POS is always PointOfSale, never Piece Of S**t, so in that regard the marketing boys were/are spot on, but the capitalisation drives me up the wall!

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='530333' date='Jul 2 2009, 10:23 AM']That won't stick. Camel case never does. How many people (apart from me and probably you, Alex, you anal fella you) actually go to the effort of writing eBay or PayPal? It makes me wince every time I see Ipod or Imac too. Mind you, don't get me started on people writing MAC when they mean Mac. [/quote] Bwaah count yourself lucky, my day job involves a product called UltraPoS, and yes spell it wrong you get pistol whipped by marketing

my son has a Squier Bronco, does a superb imitation of a very old beat up P to my ears. Love it!

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='128656' date='Jan 27 2008, 02:10 PM']"And the winner for most pickups in a single bass goes to..." [/quote] bootsy's star bass normally....

Freeway is just sublimely funky, how come I've not heard of this lot before then????

Never heard of them, listening on groove shark now. They're excellent, like it alot! Bit Jamiroquoi, but without the edjit singer..... Ta

Nope, I'll give it a go, but bear in mind its up against a couple of 18v active beasties, so it aint gonna compete really

Thats a sweet bass, love the case too. Whoever gets it is going to fall head over heals I reckon

normalise will help BUT all it can do is make the loudest level in a track hit 0db (max loudness). If the dynamic range of that track is wider than most (the peaks are higher than the average on the rest of the tracks) you will still suffer the same issue. Then you have two choices - make the loudest tracks quieter, or compress the quieter tracks. You are getting into the beginnings of mastering at this point... If you dont want to have to master it yourself ther is another option... Foobar2000 is really helpful here. It can set replaygain on mp3 files then run a conversion including the replay gain tweak. This will take into account peaks versus average vol etc.