51m0n

I'm defining pop as what is in the 'Top 40' as it were. Jeff Berlin reckons he can take a hard working student to the level of serious session muso in about 4 years. That involves a lot of very hard tedious work on theory and its application, getting your reading of charts and dots to the level of a monster and being able to improvise in any style and or key with great feel. Thats in four years folks. I dont think anyone can do it, but a lot could given the motivation. Given that, I think its safe to say you could be a very proficient workhorse bassist in 2 years with the right attitude. Most pop requires good solid foundations and a great feel, and some taste. Thats all. It's nothing like as demanding as being a session player IMO. When you start to get down the more bass-centric areas though, you need to invest more time on technique, but these are mostly outside the realms of current pop IMO. I've played for about 20 yrs, I took 4 yrs off from gigging, but picked up the bass occasionally (far too occasionally). I got some formal training, but never pursued it with anything like the dedication required to be a serious session cat, I was too busy impressing ladies with very fast fingerstyle, slap and tap stuff. More's the pity now! Nevertheless if you want to be that pop cat you have to keep your chops up, mine are woeful compared to what I once had IMO, and my forearms are killing me from having to really work at some new songs that demand a lot of concentration to get the feel right (sigh!) - and these are pretty much pop songs. You just can not expect to play as well without the chops, physically, to be right on it at any given tempo. Let alone improv etc.... IMO

[quote name='iamapirate' post='521341' date='Jun 23 2009, 12:22 AM']As for singing style, I'm not sure what songs I have on the myspace, but it's [url="http://www.myspace.com/bandhybridhybrid"]http://www.myspace.com/bandhybridhybrid[/url] Our singer sings at people's normal shouting volume, and yet we can't get the energy across that's in his voice very well. Is there a substitute for a wire coathanger for a pop-shield? I expect we'll get some tights and get the drummer and g-tardist to hold it in position! xD[/quote] Performance energy is not related to volume IME. Think of the energy in Sinead O'Conner's 'Nothing Compares' performance. She aint that loud in that.... This is a tricky one, he may be just unused to singing to a stocking in an empty room , he may be very self conscious about being critiqued :blush: , he may hate the sound of his own recorded voice (a lot of singers do!) Try dimming lights, get him in a seperate space, only have you and him there, getting him mellow, getting him riled - whatever. Ty getting him ti explain the lyics and what they mean to you. This is the bit a producer is for, an engineer catures sound, a producer creates the right atmosphere for the performance to be optimal (in theory anyway). You as the engineer can take a huge amount of that role on your own shoulders (and should in this case IMO) Good luck!

How about a 1" length of 4" diameter plastic drainage pipe?? + stocking of course....

[quote name='iamapirate' post='521341' date='Jun 23 2009, 12:22 AM']As for singing style, I'm not sure what songs I have on the myspace, but it's [url="http://www.myspace.com/bandhybridhybrid"]http://www.myspace.com/bandhybridhybrid[/url] Our singer sings at people's normal shouting volume, and yet we can't get the energy across that's in his voice very well. Is there a substitute for a wire coathanger for a pop-shield? I expect we'll get some tights and get the drummer and g-tardist to hold it in position! xD[/quote] Yeah any stiff but of bendy stuff that will hold its shape. Wire is best, and most people can find a wire coat hanger, or buy one. A 'proper' pop shield will certainly cost over £20, the DIY version is less than a fiver. The results are certainly equivalent for the home market - with a little time and effort you can actually make it look pretty pro too....

Please bother to write in English not text speak. As best you can. Some people on this forum are older than your dad, many have been playing longer than you have been alive, for some English is a second language, they dont do text speak. They all have great advice and knowledge they are happy to share with anyone willing to ask... I include myself the above (not the English as a second language bit tho ) crap I'm old ......

[quote name='Rimskidog' post='521205' date='Jun 22 2009, 09:53 PM']Yeah I get what you are saying but "a condenser mic" is a very wide church. I have a locker full of them and every damn one of them sounds different. One condenser might sound awful with that voice in that song. Another might sound amazing. Try a condenser mic is a bit like saying 'try a stringed instrument'. Here's a good example. Listen to the tracks SDC1 and SDC2 here: [url="http://www.myspace.com/circledemos"]http://www.myspace.com/circledemos[/url]. Each of them is a high end small diaphragm condensers recording exactly the same performance. Both pointing over the players shoulder directly across the picking hand toward the thigh. Both sound very different. As it happens both work pretty well in this clip but imagine it was a voice being captured. One might work very well. Another might not. Make sense? Sorry, not intending to labour the point. Just trying to open people's eyes/ears to a whole new way of thinking about recording.[/quote] Exactly, there is no right or wrong mic, take what you've got, try them all, the one that fits is the right on for that song, that performer on that day even. Getting the right mics for drums if you have the time can take ages. Really! Voice is usually pretty easy, you whack all the mics you've got up, and take the one that gives the best recording, but even then you can fettle the angle of the mic to the singer, and the height of the mic and the distance to the mic (easiest in a really dead vocal booth - but doable with Rimskidog's faux booth mentioned above) Saying get a condenser is fine, but you can in certain circumstance do way better with a great dynamic (RE20) or a nice ribon (Cascade Fat Head) or something different (Heil PR40 - its a dynamic but not as we know it Jim, it uses neo magnets). Not to mention the sheer number of bad condensors out there.... I'd bet on a dynamic up to £500 over a Condenser up to £500 myself for vox, over that and the condensers start getting interesting IMO...

[quote name='ironside1966' post='520853' date='Jun 22 2009, 04:01 PM']PC are getting faster all the time, A few years ago you had a point about Mac vs PC but now with the latest processes the argument is e relevant. It is not a case of Mac for Pros and PC for amatures it is a personal preference, Laptops have a slower hard drive so less tracks. Spend the extra money on items that will improve the actual recording quality if you have a limited budget, why spend all that money on a mac and use the internal sound card (not the best) when a decent Audio interface, Pre amp, condenser microphone and studio monitors will make more of a difference to the recordings. Try to stay clear of battery operated microphones the are not as good quality as phantom power only.[/quote] Firstly I'm not generally a Mac evangelist, but... You are wrong. Sorry, I've seen a £1600 specialty built PC running ProTools flounder where a G5 didnt. That was [b]this year[/b]! It is not a personal preference. It is not merely some speed issue - the platforms and thus hardware speeds are effectively the same. It is not even a DAW issue, many are available on both platforms. It is an OS design and implementation issue. It is a fact that the code behind the Mac OS is based upon Unix (a BSD I think) and has inherently better algorithms for memory management, thread management and process management. When you NEED a process to not be interrupted at kernel level then you better buy a Mac mate, cos a PC will always be hugely more likely to drop to the kernel and glitch your audio if you are running close to the machine's limit. Not to mention the fact that Vista is ridiculously resource hungry, so you have to use a 10 year old OS to hope to keep up. Nice! Unless you've compared two equally powerful machines one running MAC OS and one running Windows with the same DAW then you cant really comment. I have, and I know which I'd go for for high end recording. The OP was talking about home recording, and in that case I think a PC will do fine.

Learn to read dots and charts, so that it doesnt sound like you are reading at all. Learn to improvise through changes Learn to play in ALL styles, anyone set on a career as a session player can not limit themselves Learn upright, it will double your calls Get your name out by playing at local jams, in local bands. Join the local music service and prove to people that you can read, and be very professional, a word from a pro or better yet being put forward to dep by a teacher is the best intro you will get... Understand that you never ever know it all, behave accordingly. What grade are you currently?

not a sock! a stocking (or tights), a sock will kill your top end. take a wire coathanger, unravel it, make a 4" diameter spiral (ie 2 loops). put sotcking over it (this holds the two layers of the stocking apart, which makes it work a lot better) attach to mic stand about 3" in front of mic. THe right mic is the one that sounds best with that vocalist in that context, try all three (on each song if its close) and listen to the result....

Nice stuff. It looks very very big indeed! 3 second reverb trail sounds huge to match ( brilliant though, since you can dampen that down as much as you need), no flutter echo already is what you are spending the money on I guess, whatever reverb you set your absorbers up to produce will be lovely. Shame about the delay though, gutting!

C1000s is a perfectly good all round mic. Its not a vocal specialist mic I'll grant you, but if you want to go that route I would suggest saving up from a TLM103 or C414 and stop naffing about

If you are just getting into the idea you really do not need to invest in a mac. Later on if you want serious pro quality recording facility (think 40 odd channels with VSTs and VSTis all over them, then you need a big f off mac. Simple home recording is possible on an up to date PC running very cheap software (I recommend you try Reaper). A very good friend of mine ran his studio on PC for years, he seriously knows his stuff with PC building, and his networking skills are far greater than anyone on this forum (in all probability) since that is his profession and he is at the top of it. Getting a PC to run close to 40 tracks of audio with plentiful VSTs and no glitches on output proved beyond an absolutely money no object top of the range current PC hand built for that specific task. It could not reliably bounce to stereo, it just ran out of horsepower. A top spec G5 mac cruises through the same test without any issues at all, every single time. He now bores everyone evangelising macs You dont need that horsepower for simple home recording, I manage on an old HP business laptop running Reason. It ain't ideal, I have limits technically, but it does do the job, just. Get a good book on recording, get on a couple of recording forums, get a decent couple of mics (an SM57 and an AKG C1000s for instance) and get on with it

[quote name='soopercrip' post='520485' date='Jun 22 2009, 08:42 AM']Never heard of Michael Manring until this thread, and WOW! the man is awesome (although I think he could do with an extra hand for that hyperbass ) After a bit of research his album 'Thonk' keeps coming up (has The enormous room on it) so had a look to try and aquire it. HMV wha...? Amazon £70+ so without stealing it off the web, anybody point me in the right direction to get a copy? Cheers Andy Edit 4 spelin[/quote] His stuff is very hard to get hold of, I waited for about a year to pick up a CD copy of Drastic Measure for just £25 having worn out my previous copy. It's a real shame....

berg ae410, hs410 or nv610. Job done.

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='519670' date='Jun 20 2009, 10:39 PM']He's the most amazing player ever as far as I'm concerned. He's also coming to the UK later in the year, well Northern Ireland and Sligo in Eire.[/quote] WOW, when where??? I really really cant say how much I want to see him live!

[quote name='Zach' post='519679' date='Jun 20 2009, 10:51 PM']I'd quite like to hear any stuff he's done with other people, either as lead or support. As brilliant as I think his music is, I'm aware that only bassists listen to bassists (did that make sense?), so would like to hear any group stuff he's done.[/quote] He was the Windham Hill house bassist for years and years, he played on just about everything released by them (lots of Paul McAndless stuff, and yeah I probably did get that name wrong ) He grooves superbly, walks superbly, solos superbly - whats not to hate?

Several: Not working hard at reading when at music college, if I'd got reading and charts down I'd have been set to get work as a jobbing bassist. (that one _really_ bugs me) Starting and then stopping a Biology degree course straight from school, because it meant I then couldnt fund the pop. music and recording degree course I got onto at Salford. Then not going back and doing the jazz course at the college I left instead (which I could have wangled on the jam roll). Then giving up bass in all but name for about 4 or 5 years. At one point my technique was really really good, and I could play all day long at full tilt and not be fatigued, currently the amount of practicing I'm doing means my hands are utterly knackered :/ .

[quote name='davidmpires' post='519668' date='Jun 20 2009, 10:35 PM']or this... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvBtX_omY4o"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvBtX_omY4o[/url][/quote] That is very tasty, and its surprisingly easy to get that pop--LHThump-RHThump triplet thing down too... ...not to detract from the extreme tastiness on display throughout all of that of course....

He is the most inspiring and interesting bassist on the planet IMO. I've said it before but I'll say it again, how many of us have seen guys (or ourselves) mangin to rip Wooten's technical slappity poppity double thumping at least to a certian degree? I know I've seen tonnes. I have never seen anyone even attempt a Manring thing, not with the detuning too, that is just above and beyond what normal people can achieve, even with a lot of work. The closest I've ever got is Girl With... on my myspace page, and its not even close (standard tuning and no harmonics for a start ) in fact its super lame compared to MM, and it took me years to get close to right! It was very much inspired by listening to Drastic Measures, but is clearly not in the same league. Plus his fretless tone is the absolute definition of perfection for what he does, its so ethereal. I agree about the Jaco tip, he was taught by Jaco, and in interview said they mainly spent time looking at how music works, solos work, compositions work etc, not strictly bass related all, its brilliant to watch how far this genius can take our instrument.

Thats proper metronome practice that is! chuffing hard to do esp that 5 bit at the end!

In fairness to sound guys the world over, festivals are the worst, you are a million miles from stage, you can only do fairly rudimentary planning compared to a tour, and it takes one mic monkey to put the wrong mic up and all your plans hit the fan while you try and figure out which mic dig get put where. Nightmare! This is very different from bad venues, and bad tour sound for underling bands, both of which are shockingly vile ways to ruin performances for the audience and performers IMO.

Actually reminds me of early Fuzzbox (the good stuff, Rules and Regulations etc) Bostin Steve Austin was a fantastic album - those were the days, when Indie was just that, and you could make a video on super8 for a tenner and get it on national tv on the Chart Show...... I quite like this EDIT: Actually the bass and drums are almost a direct rip of Rules and Regulations (ha ha!)

Their oak kitchen worktops are good, and cheaper than anywhere else (well they were a couple of years ago)

If you have the shell of the room finished like this - ie so its its own great big f off diffuser, what does it sound like in there at the mo, I know its not finished by any means, but I'm fascinated to know! You know how if you clap you hands in an empty room with bare plaster walls you get masses of flutter echo off the parallel walls, I would imagine its even in this state a far shorter and smoother reverb in there (though still very bright) - or am I talking complete plop? So record a clap for us

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='518145' date='Jun 19 2009, 10:14 AM']If you have your band name and/or links to your band in your avatar then there’s every chance that this thread might pop up in a Google search carried out by venues that might be looking to offer you a gig… If someone searched “The+Beautiful+Sound+Ipswich” then they might be linked to this thread, which will become more likely with BassChat's ever increasing popularity. [b] It can be good to share this kind of info, but maybe do it in the Off Topic forum that doesn’t show up on Google…[/b][/quote] +1 Oooooh sneakey-beakey!!!