51m0n

They arent going to either. This bloke is not prepared to compromise or learn anything new or different, he isnt ready in himself to gig, he just likes his social hour each week. Get another band. Now..... Let the band know exactly why you are looking for another band as well.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='467606' date='Apr 20 2009, 04:31 PM']In that case... Focusrite Compounder!![/quote] +1 Check my sig

[quote name='largo' post='467505' date='Apr 20 2009, 02:59 PM']Thanks for all the advice guys. Quick question, if I set my gain low then won't the sound guy just increase his line level to below clipping at the desk anyway. So no difference? I can slap fairly quiet, but popping ain't so easy. Maybe I should be more aggresive with my fingerstyle !!!![/quote] Well that is the problem - he doesnt know how to set gain. Sound engineering 101: gain stages. Gain MUST be set such that your loudest sound doesn't clip. If your level is then too low the rest of the time then you guys need a compressor somewhere. But if you're peaking that hard it may be a limiter that you really need, to catch the absolute leading edge of the transient.

[quote name='ezbass' post='467486' date='Apr 20 2009, 02:33 PM']By coincidence I played the actual bass this was originally recorded with today. It's a P bass with a J p/up so close to the bridge it's almost touching! Guess what I played?[/quote] Kazoo??? Banjo?? Sax??? Sorry you're going to have to give me a clue here......

Thats cracking stuff there sir! Right up my street. Shame you're in Edinburgh, I'd come and see that live in a heartbeat! If I had to by a critical git I'd say your singer could do with giving it a bit more welly a la Baby Charles' Dione Charles, although not too much, and you could go for a bigger sounding vocal again for a chorus hook (quad tracking and panning would do it, with some harmonies too). Oh, and sweet keys!

Your sound engineer doesnt know his stuff. He should have a compressor inline on your channel He should set your gain according to the loudest transient peak (in this case you slapping and popping) He should compress your signal (v. fast attack though to catch the transient) to bring up the non-slapping stuff, and to control that huge transient peak so that he can:- Bring up your level without it ever peaking or endangering his rig. If he isnt doing this get a better sound engineer, or be too quiet,. Last option, learn to slap quieter.....

In reality I think most producers don't know what sounds like what. They just know a P bass does that kind of music (if they are very well versed), they have no idea what else can do the same thing in a mix - why would they? When they say P, any decent neck pickup (OK best if its either a P or soapbar rather than a jazz pup IME) on a decent bass will cut it, roll off the treble to taste. Then its a question of picking the spot to pluck, for a truer P sound then over that neck pup, but I often find you get a tone that sits in the mix better if you have a bridge pup to pluck over, even when using the neck pup, its that bit tauter and punchier. Of course getting a producer/engineer to let you go through that couple of combinations rather than just taking a beaten up old P out of a bag is probably the diff between getting called again and not....

Cheers chaps, thought that some of you guys might like this, my "worm is turning", track Well I think the guitarist will feel this is like passing a gallstone. Similar to how I've felt with the last couple of tracks they came up with! He's well up for the challenge though, keeps asking me what he should play, so far I've said what he does to me - listen to such and such, let that inspire you. I pointed him to the Craig Charles funk show, told him to a listen to a couple of shows from start to finish, he'll be able to pick out something he likes and do his take on it. I know he can play funky when he's in the mood - he just doesn't unless we're jamming. Yes I do reckon theres room for him, I intended the overdubs in the chorus to be replaced, just leaving the deep bass, for instance, they are supposed to suggest ideas of where I'd like the guitar and keys to go. Trouble is I cant help but really like what they sound like I'm not averse to dropping out some of the fills too if he comes up with something tasty to put in there. This is very much the starter for ten, as such there is way too much bass on there, but until we run it through live its going to be tricky working out how much of it I wont be playing. I'm not changing that middle 8 though, it sounds pretty easy, but its pretty tricky to nail (took an evening to write it and then get that take!) and I really enjoy playing it (plus I love trying to do melodic slap stuff because its pretty unusual, my all time favourite slap line is probably Forget-me-knots). My drummer is going through a huge Steve Gadd phase at the moment, although not in the songs they've been writing, so this will definitely give him a chance to give it some, again he really cant wait! The different tones are all achieved with the onboard preamp. Absolutely no eq anywhere in post tracking mixing, no compression or other fx whilst tracking, as raw as I can get it. So we have:- 1) Verse: 100% neck pup, all eq flat, plenty of compression after the fact on mixdown though! 2) Chorus deep fingerstyle: 100% neck, eq flat, plucking over bridge pup (dont get carried away or you lose some bottom end and smoothness) 3) Chorus slapping (fakeclav): 100% bridge pup, -100% bottom on eq (rolled off so as not to crowd the deep bass) 4) Chorus env filter: 100% bridge pup (I think), bass rolled off about 50%, env filter is a classic env filter vst (which is free) 5) Stabs, various overdubs at different pitches, some bridge pup, some neck pup, some fingerstyle some slapped - I got well into it - sorry! 6) Middle 8: Slapped, 5% favouring the bridge pup, just enough to bet that slight nasal quality, eq flat. All the bass tracks are grouped and going through a fairly mildly set broadcast compressor to help squish them into one nice overall sound. Mainly though its the sound of a Roscoe Century 5 with stock d'Addarrio strings (pretty much killed them in the time it took to get this down unfortunately). Its a sweet sounding bass though, which is why I ended up put so much of it down, really enjoyed finding all the tonal variations on this! Thanks for commenting chaps!

Wow - not a lot then!

I cant even talk and play.... And no I dont look at the fretboard (well maybe more with the 5 at the mo, and the fretless is lined so I find myslf cheating on that too - shhhh!)

[quote name='escholl' post='465367' date='Apr 17 2009, 06:48 PM']i just want to add to this that output xformers distort signals in the time domain as well as the frequency domain (it's inevitable) -- so reading on the site where it says "[using transformers in the output section] is done to achieve the warmth and presence of a tube amp while maintaining the clarity and fast attack of a solid state design" it was a case of palm-->face for me. other than that though, everything he says about the amp design is spot on.[/quote] Hey I never said I agreed with him - personally I think the idea sounds like rot, and another thing to go wrong, and extra weight to carry; but if you dig it, can afford it and lift it, and it sounds like your dream rig, then good luck to you, and I'm really pleased for the OP that he got his dream rig, I know what that feels like!

You mean you cant transpose on the fly.......... Tough break there, good luck!

[quote name='mike257' post='464879' date='Apr 17 2009, 12:11 PM']The comparison between Oasis and Extreme is a perfect case in point. I'm not a massive fan of either band, but I can respect both of them. Certainly nobody in Oasis is half as capable on their instrument as Nuno and co, but you won't see 60,000 people in a field singing their hearts out because they feel so uplifted by 'Get The Funk Out'.[/quote] Actually in Japan you would....... They were huge there!

[quote name='Linus27' post='460940' date='Apr 13 2009, 01:19 AM']I can't turn the amp up. This is at home and so this is playing softly for me. If anything, I need to turn it down :)[/quote] You are missing the point!!!! Turn the amp up twice as loud, now play 1/4 as hard: result, half the volume and almost zero effort.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='465152' date='Apr 17 2009, 03:43 PM']It's certainly a very appealing preamp! Unfortunately adding all that EQ whilst maintaining signal integrity is very expensive, hence the vast price difference between it and the U5 (and similarly between the U5 and Avalon's other preamps). I'm unfamiliar with the effects of output transformers on tone - I'm just aware that if they're not large enough they can form a bottleneck due to the magnetic fields from the two coils failing to couple fully at high power - and that with the high output impedance of a valve amp you have to have an output transformer to shift over to the low voltage high current drive that a speaker needs. But when you have a solidstate power stage you already have the right output impedance so Jonas must prefer what an output transformer does to the tone. I notice the amps are relatively low power (compared to other standalone power amps, they're not much different to typical bass heads) and thus wonder if he likes the sound of a transformer coupled solidstate power amp running beyond its linear zone? Alex[/quote] What I heard was that he believes that the output transformer does more to get 'that' tube sound than the tubes themselves in a power stage. Lots of arguments follow as to the validity of this idea, and being something of a tubeophobe its not a quest I've ever really been on.... Having said that I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at a rig like that! Its really beautiful, who put that grinning buffoon in the picture though?

Blimey, I am really NOT a Smiths person, but thats the best thing I've heard by them, and I really like the b-line too (I can live with out the oh so tremelo guitar nonsense mind! )

So me and me band have been having a bit of a difference of opinion musically. Mainly the drummer and guitarist start all the songs off, drummer comes up with lyrics often and then they come up with most of the rest between them, I get called in to create a b-line after the fact. Trouble is they are 50 odd miles away from me location-wise and have a tendency to always rock out, bless em. Much talk is made of a desire to get more groovey, even funky, and yet left to their own devices it always ends up being a rockfest. Nothing desperately wrong with that, but thats not really where my strengths lie (cos I get a bit bored, and tend to think more syncopated as a rule). Anyway the last couple of songs they rejected my proposed b-lines repeatedly until I went a bit mental. You know the sort of thing, 'This isnt my bag, and I'm fed up with not playing anything I like :('. Seems I threw a bit of a gauntlet down, since the reply was, here's some lyrics, lets see what you can come up with....... So I locked myself away with my Roscoe 5 (first real chance to record something I want with it) and came up with something. The nice thing is that the bass sounds pretty lush to me, and thats with very little post processing, just some tasty compression (other than that accident with the envelope filter in the chorus). The scary bit is this is 11 tracks of bass, but thats cos I want to be a horn section too Drums are MyDrumKit vsti, f you're interested. So here it is, what do you lot think???

Well I just got a 2nd hand fretless VMJ from Uzzell and its the nicest Fender/Squier I've ever had the pleasure to play. I'm no Fender fanboy or expert, but I am staggered at the quality and feel of this instrument for the price. They are VERY low output though (even for a passive bass I think)

[quote name='Rich' post='463901' date='Apr 16 2009, 01:23 PM']that TLA 5051... *drool*[/quote] They're pretty fine arent they, get to play with the TLA stereo tube comp a lot in my drummers studio, do like them!

Yes I've suffered this exact same thing. Was/is really brought on by being lazy about stretching (including back/shoulders/neck all your upper body, arms, forearms, fingers) lightly but thoroughly (full 15 seconds per stretch twice). Followed by some gentle warm ups. I would [b]highly [/b]recommend you get a copy of Michael Manrings video (the one where he plays Watson & Crick at the end, black cover with a picture of the big nosed godlike bassist on the front, picture of him doing something improbable with two basses on the back). He goes into a great deal of detail about a really good warm up routine, economic use of finger strength etc etc. These warm ups definitely help me... Lastly if you use a computer or something similar then check out your posture during use, this can really cause issues since any tension/strain gained during the day job only makes things worse when you pick up the bass. Watch this VERY carefully, I had to lay off for a couple of months at one point!

[quote name='steve-soar' post='464597' date='Apr 17 2009, 12:22 AM']When string are dead, guess what? they're dead. THEY CAN'T BE BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD. [/quote] Well maybe not, but using the old meths tube solution has allowed me to use two sets of DR Lo-Riders for well over a year now on my 4 string, just by alternating them in the tube. The trick is to never let them quite get to absolute death before they get a dipping..... Two days in the pot with a shake of the pot once a day works miracles!

Yeah congrats Alex, well deserved too mate!

The seperation between big business media and 'real' music is in stark contrast here IMO. On the one hand the packaging is everything (that includes videos,hos,bros and $$$$) the music is very much second fiddle (whatever the 'artist' thinks) - its all about product as a whole, sales figures bean counters and ironically has no soul - regardless of the fact so much of it is purported to be soul music. On the other hand is people like most on this forum, who love music. Not the packaging, although that can be great, not the videos, we cant afford to make videos so much, not the lifestyle, cos we dont make any real money at this stuff. Just the music. Either our own or anyone else's that does it for us. The two sides of this will never ever meet IMO. They used to be a bit closer, but now they are getting further apart.

Its a killer for me. I love em but there are 5 basses in the house now....