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[quote name='jwbassman' post='506256' date='Jun 5 2009, 12:11 PM']oh - go on then [/quote] See what an easy decision that was in the end.... Simples!

I like it. But only because of the god awful stink it will cause amongst the Ricky worshipers

Interesting stuff. I've used ER20s for a year or so now. They live on my key ring for those emergencies when the noise level goes through the roof (they're good while driving on the motorway too in my super noisy old Beemer). I find that giving yourself 10 mins to get used to them before the band starts is definitely the way to go - if you haven't done so before then do try this next gig - and there is nothing better than getting to the the end of the gig and popping those suckers out to have gloriously clear and precise hearing restored. As a result of wearing these ear plugs I find I get far less tired on a gig too. Which I didnt expect, amazing how a loud environment wears you out if you're an old fart. Now the downside: I find them immensely uncomfortable after about 45 minutes, they itch and my ears feel really hot and unpleasant. I may well invest in the ER15s if they stop this, when I'm feeling a bit flush. £160 is a huge amount more cash, but if they attenuate even more evenly, and dont feel so much like someone is busy sandpapering your ear canal then I may just have to bite the bullet.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='506130' date='Jun 5 2009, 09:44 AM']The pull off with the thumb is almost imperceptable (like a ghost note version of a thump) and you don't need to pull hard as much as 'brush past' the string with your thumb - just enough to make it click. The rest is about your sound and how balanced the various aspects of the technique are in teh overall effect.[/quote] +1 you see some guys doing this (Alain Caron and Michael Manring come to mind, but I may be wrong) and they are slapping right over the fretboard, several frets in, their return stroke seems to just clip the string such that it flicks back and strikes the frets just hard enough to give a nice ghost note. They are super smooth at it as a result. In fact Alain Caron's slap technique may well be the most refined out there, appears totally effortless compared to Vic even. I find the hardest aspect of this is consistently not digging in, but then I first saw this demonstrated on a Beaver Felton video and he whacked hell out of it, and that has led me down the wrong path a bit on this technique. [Note to self, sort that out Si!] For instance:-

Jazz or P are equally valid but you really just need a good solid punchy tone with a nice round bottom (dont we all - or am I confusing myself) Fretless would be stretching things a little, but I've heard a local band who play with a fretless bassist and since he doesnt slide a lot and has an action set for nil mwaaah he pretty much nails a very old school funk tone, think P with flats, and it works awesomely. I think it depends on how you approach it. Either way as everyone has said, no one will notice in the audience, but you need a jazz just cos you havent got one

Cameo Ugly Ego [url="http://open.spotify.com/album/0erIqNahSxxYu7Y00Kvn4X"]Spotify Track[/url]

I would suggest a Nemesis N8 practice amp. They sound the absolute canine undercarriage, take up virtually no space, will allow you to jam with friends on occasion (my son has gigged with one and it kept up with a drummer just!) and have a headphone out. All for around £100 Sorted!

[quote name='alexclaber' post='504864' date='Jun 3 2009, 05:18 PM']Has anyone else had that thing where you step in at a jam and because the amp is really weirdly EQ'd you can only groove a certain way? Years ago I found myself playing with a rig that had the bottom maxxed out and no mid or treble, so I ended up coming at it from a messed up reggae angle (was a big dual 4x10" stack so it could do the bottom well). Another time I was playing fretless through a Burman 2x12" guitar combo which had no bottom but did an amazing job of burpy growly somewhat overdriven 16th note anger. The joy of having the right rig is that it lets you play whatever you want because it's tonal breadth at the SPL you need is greater than your stylistic envelope. Alex[/quote] Yes absolutely, running with the available backline at a punk all-nighter years ago, zero soundcheck, previous bassist was into reggae/punk Clash stuff, I liked to knock down walls (still do ), found myself playing like plop until I got the 'dub-mud' out of his amp....

[quote name='alexclaber' post='504874' date='Jun 3 2009, 05:23 PM']If I may say so I thought my advice was rather good! Alex[/quote] Alex, your advice was spot on, but very few people understand a word you say after the "If I were you I'd" bit To be honest I would do exactly what Alex suggested, way back when I used to run a monsterously loud rig by having a veritable wall of speakers running off a few hundred watts (2x410s and 2x115s running off a Laney G300 and Crown DC300 lab amp). It wasnt pretty it weighed a tonne but it moved massive amounts of air Coped with two obnoxiously loud drummers and two obnoxiously loud guitarists handsomely. Actually it completely drowned the lot of them out if I got carried away "There is no replacement for displacement"

Just so everyone knows, I said the ae410 is my favourite cab of all time, but if I weren't playing the ae410 I'd be playing a BigOne. I also told him to try the ae410 at bass direct, and if it didnt completely fit the bill then get a BigOne (14 days to figure out if its right for you is enough for anyone!)

Yup saw Monsters vs Aliens with my 4 yr old with 'em, couldnt tell who got more ice cream down himself as a result of said glasses/3d perspective issues between spoon and face

I wonder if I can wangle a weekend off to come up and join the fun....

Heh, now what I find really interesting here is that the roof follows similar angles to the barn conversion live room I mentioned earlier in the thread, and that was one of the nicest sounding rooms I'ver ever used. We got a staggering (and I mean truly eye popping) drum sound by micing a kit with a single U87 about 6" off the ceiling right over the kit and compressing the absolute bejesus out of it, then mixing it in with everything else.... Really fascinating and informative photo journal. Should give the home recording crowd real pause for thought about the usual, "These days you don't need a studio" claims. May be you don't [i]need[/i] one, but great live rooms are nothing like normal room construction, and as such you can not compete in a home studio IMO. Unless the engineer is a moron of course

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='504579' date='Jun 3 2009, 12:10 PM']The playing of the thing is important and the points raised are valid but. for me, after playing fretless almost entirely for 23 years (on the full range of the neck - no dusty bits here!!), I find that the most important things to ensure good intonation are the sound you have at any given time and your ability to hear and listen to that sound on stage. Your muscle memory is important but your EARS are what tell you when you are or are not in tune. If you can't hear yourself, you may be in big trouble, even if you don't know it. I would practice intially in a quiet space so you can get used to developing reference points for your tuning (open strings, octaves and harmonics) and can relate your intontation to other sources such as other players or recordings. As you get more confident in your intonation, you can get out there and play - its may takes hours, days or weeks; that is a matter for you. Your commitment to effective intonation will, however, remain your priority forever as, without attention, it can easily slip, even after decades.[/quote] Totally agree Bilbo, the only reason I was at all comfy in the studio was tha I had headphones and a dedicated mix, with really really loud bass in it , that and being in an overdub/no pressure situation.....

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='504512' date='Jun 3 2009, 10:40 AM']Same here. I've had my VMJ fretless for a couple of weeks now, and I feel pretty comfortable on it. My intonation's by no means perfect, but it's generally "good enough", especially lower down the board. There's a lot of wiggle-room down where the frets are well-spaced, so you can be... ahem... "good enough for jazz" without too much trouble. Actually, "good enough for metal" might be more accurate. Depending on what the rest of the band's doing, it might not be that noticeable if you're a bit off. All that's said with a lined board, of course. It might be a different story for me without. Having said that, I used to play the violin pretty well, and that's an unlined fretless with a 12.8" scale length. It just takes a lot of practice, and the ability to make tiny adjustments very quickly on the hoof.[/quote] [quote name='BottomEndian' post='504542' date='Jun 3 2009, 11:13 AM']+1. I'm in the unenviable situation of frequently swapping between my Ibanez (35" scale, 5-string, wide flat neck) and my Squier fretless (34" scale, 4-string, narrow neck). It can get quite frustrating when I overreach on the fretless after an hour or two on the Ibanez. And when I go for that imaginary B-string. Gary Willis recommends setting up the intonation so you're playing behind the line as you would with frets: see [url="http://garywillis.com/pages/bass/bassmanual/intonation3.html"]his site on bass setup[/url]. It means you have less cognitive dissonance when you swap between fretted and fretless. Just play exactly as you would with frets. It does generally mean, however, that you'll have to finger roughly [i]on[/i] the lines at the low end, and noticeably [i]behind[/i] the lines as you drift further up, unless the bass has been specifically lined for the technique of playing behind the lines. As ever, YMMV. [size=1]Edited to complete a sentence I left dangling. [/size][/quote] +1 to all the above, eally mirrors my experience with my VMJ and Roscoe. Still I recorded with the VMJ a week after getting it with no problems, they are pretty forgiving down low, the band certainly seemed to like it anyways!

[quote name='JackLondon' post='503945' date='Jun 2 2009, 04:24 PM']Here you go, sorry for the crappy quality but the work scanner is not the best thang out there[/quote] Oooh Alex, nothing like the start of the media circus, hope your chippy isnt after a holiday anytime soon When are they going to do you a full review then???

One thing to remember, bass never sounded bad (especially live) for being simpler. The likes of Meshel Ndegeocello state this in interview: OK so she goes on to play monstrous lines live, but that doesnt change the validity of the statement. Whatever you do dont overstretch yourself during the gigs and rehearsals, lay it down, groove hard and try really really hard to relax by playing within your ability. Learn the material as well as possible. Run the set twice daily, once straight through, and then again after a break taking notes on what you find really tricky, then after the whole set is done twice, work on just those tricky bits, and if its just not happening, simplify it until it does. No one will give you a hard time in the band as long as you are grooving. Away from your bass learn the song structures by heart so that you really know them. Think your way through the set. You can do this anywhere (other than driving the car), concentrate on the songs you like the least first. Try and mix the set up as much as possible. You as the bass player will be noticed in a bad way when you make a mistake. In your position the best thing to do is to not be noticed, then people will think you've done a great job! Be prepared for changes to happen to the song structures in rehearsal. Be prepared for the key to change too, it may happen! Remember everyone makes mistakes live, dont grimace, dont laugh, dont draw attention to it when you do (cos you will), just keep on grooving. The less you draw attention to yourself the less obvious your mistakes will be. Enjoy it!

Top stuff! Its very cool when you realise that you can just make music happen isnt it. Enjoy the course, how long is it?

This will help you a lot:- [url="http://www.ovnilab.com/faq.shtml"]Ovnilab "How to use a compressor" page[/url]

[quote name='Rimskidog' post='503301' date='Jun 1 2009, 08:58 PM']I wish I knew! Live room should be done in about a month but I'm working on an album in the US all summer so unlikely to open much before September. Control room build will start toward the end of the year with a similar build time. Might be completely finished this time next year I guess??[/quote] Oh mate, hellishly long time frame! Still means we get to see luverly piccies for a year

[quote name='Rimskidog' post='503298' date='Jun 1 2009, 08:54 PM']It may just be that I'm aiming at a different market. Given the demise of the big studio (Townhouse, Olympic, Michelangelo etc etc which often get turned into apartments) I think there is a market for a high end room but without the cost base of the old standards. There are very few acoustically awesome rooms in the UK anyway. I'm certainly not in competition with the Birmingham crowd. Imagine one of the best sounding rooms in the country for 30% of the cost of the competition? We're also gonna have one of the only API consoles in the country. Put together the room, the console, me and my contact book and you have the business plan. Make sense?[/quote] Nice plan, really hope it pulls together in order book terms as well. Really nice to see someone putting a room together in a big way, sounds like you're going into a really interesting little big studio market. I've said before on this forum that all studios will have over home recording soon is the proffesional expertise, ultimate sound quality gear and a properly great live room. Looks like you feel the same way too Best live room I ever worked in was a converted barn, the acoustic was pretty much the natural room, it just happened to be exceptional...

Too heavy for me

In that they don't do grind or compression they are tonally limited, the eq is massively powerful and so are the filters however. To me an amp should take what you put in to it and make it louder. It shouldn't have a tonal character really in my book. My bass played with my hands has the character I want not the amp. If I pick up a different bass or someone else plays my bass through my rig the output changes noticeably - really noticeably. If it didn't the rig would fail my number 1 criteria. I recently posted how awesome my rig sounded when I got to use it loud recently, what I didn't say (IIRC) was that it sounded exactly like the bass does recorded direct. I really mean that, just so much louder. Thats perfect for me.... That is the opposite to what a lot of people feel I know, and probably where this all comes from. If I want tubey grind I'll get a tubey grind stomp box (the VT jobbie looks good). Its not something I need an amp to do really though, I certainly wouldn't want that tone always, and if I cant turn it on and off with my foot its no good to me anyway. I've never heard a comp on a head that did what I wanted quite anyway (too many compromises), so I have the daddy of all reasonably priced comps in my rack ta very much.