51m0n

Soak them in meths works a lot better than vinegary water and boiling, no heat cycle, no water trapped in there where you cant dry it out oxidising and weakening the metal. Thing is the frets knacker the strings so you can never get back what you've lost completely.

No five string sets from him though

A coloured tone amp usually can only produce that colouration, if you are getting louder, you just get more colouration, its never not got its tone stamped all over your sound. If all you music that you are goin gto play with that rig needs that particular colour then you are golden, right until you play something that it isnt at all musically appropriate for, then you're stuffed. I play relatively uncoloured gear by your standards (plenty of mojo and heft from my MB sa450 for me, and my Berg dishes it out in spades, but it isnt saturating at all), if I need colour I have fx that can add more colours than any amp can (other than that SWR oddity with all the fx built in that Michael Manring was pedalling for a while, or the MB multiamp I guess), so why would I need the amp to do that too? Having said that if I'm tracking or mixing a band then getting the right kind of saturation onto the bass (and everything else pretty much) is absolutely vital, even if its supposed to be dead clean a healthy dollop of tape or transformer style saturation at the right frequencies can lift an ostensibly clean sounding part right out of the track in a glorious way....

How much do those Cleartones cost, and where from Nige?

Voting thread is here:- http://basschat.co.uk/topic/218396-augustseptember-mix-competition-voting-thread/page__fromsearch__1 please give sme time listening to the efforts of those who took part, they've been attempting Kit Richardson's magnificent You Look So Good Tonight (thanks to Kit, and Nigel), and deserve to get some feedback from people for the work they've put in, there are some cracking mixes in there! Thanks!

I reckon voting closes on Monday 7th October...

Up to Master Of Puppets they were really in their own special place of absolute prefect thrash, and damn fine it was too. Had they stuck with the same production team ([url="http://www.michaelwagener.com/html/discography.html"]Michael Wagener people, is an absolute monster of great guitar tones[/url], and he understood that bass has a place in rock way before the Black album) for And Justice it would likely have been as good as Master, but frankly Ive recorded better sounding heavy stuff on a four track, it had less balls than a girl guide choir. Utterly awful, such a pity. The Black album just wasnt thrash any more, but the production was better.... Lars has always been a cocky little tw*t who spoke utter sh**e from dawn till dusk, and beyond though

I've already got down to one of two, just need a listen on some decent speakers to be sure....

Voting thread up! http://basschat.co.uk/topic/218396-augustseptember-mix-competition-voting-thread/page__fromsearch__1

First of all I'd like to thank Kit Richardson, and Nigel on behalf of everyone who has taken part in this mix competition for letting us have one of your lovely songs to play with. Secondly, I've not entered, it really wouldnt e fair to put a mix that I spent a very long time over against these mixes that have only had a few weeks of spare time sent on them. If you want to hear my mix, then by all means follow the link in my signature. Here's hoping it is your favourite if you do Right so the mixes are in, excellent and diverse efforts they are too. Here is the link to go and download or if you cant be bothered, then just listen to the mixes:- [url="https://soundcloud.com/bc-mix-competitions/sets/bc-august-september-mix/s-YT2sD"]https://soundcloud.c...ber-mix/s-YT2sD[/url] If you do want to download them they are very very high quality mp3s rather than wavs this time to make this rather less onerous on the dedicated few Once you've listened, chosen the one that sounds nicest to you then vote in the poll.... To all those who participated, once again we have wildly varying levels on the mixes sent to me, peak levels differeing by some 18dB between mixes. So some of you have really struggled to get the K12 mix thing. That being the case I loaded all the mixes into Reaper and set them to the correct level based upon the loudest part of the song and rendered each one to a 320kbps mp3. Although there is some difference in apparent level (always the case) the results are far closer than what I was sent. I am sure this process has not detracted from your efforts. If you feel it does, complain all you like, but I probably will ignore you [color=#ff0000][b]VOTING IS CLOSED[/b][/color] Right the results are in![list=1] [*]You Look So Good Tonight - Mix A (4 votes [30.77%]) : VasDim [*]You Look So Good Tonight - Mix B (0 votes [0.00%]) : xgsjx [*]You Look So Good Tonight - Mix C (0 votes [0.00%]) : Lurksalot [*]You Look So Good Tonight - Mix D (7 votes [53.85%]) : Ironside1966 [*]You Look So Good Tonight - Mix E (2 votes [15.38%]) : Dad3353 [*]You Look So Good Tonight - Mix F (0 votes [0.00%]) : Moonbass [/list] [size=5]Well done VasDim!![/size] Excellent mix well deserved win, you managed to tame Kits voice the best for me, and I also like your aggressive pruning of the arrangement and concentration on the backing vocals over the rest of the mix. Great stuff mate! I'll put out my notes on the mixes later when I get a minute, well done to all of you, I get the distinct impression this was the busiest piece a lot of you have ever attempted, it only gets harder the more tracks you have doesnt it

Top stuff!

I've a tonne of ideas for the Recording Blog, but the blog just disappeared one day a while back, if we could at least get the BLog info up as stickies (particularly the compression one!!)..... Not just the sort of 'How the big boys do it with unlimited budget' stuff you find in tape-op and mixmag ionline (and SoS to a degree); much more things like, how to record your band in a room so well with just a few mics that it sounds like a 'proper recording', which leads to mic types, why they work like they do and discussions on their placement. Simple room acoustic improvements (this would be very simplistic, and also a few 'cheats' to get by if you are trying to turn the front room into a vocal booth for an overdub or whatever. Strategies for recording your music when you ahve limited kit. Why you will only save money if you save up for certain really good bits of kit rather than getting a cheap alternative now, and how to keep recording with very little until you have what you need. All that kind of guff This reminds me I need to get the Kit Richardson mixes up, snowed at the moment with work in the day and mixing (very very) late into the night on an interesting project at the moment (metal meets symphonic, always tricky )

The Audient ID22 has a pair of the same Audient mic-pres that are in its big flagship console, and the ASP-008. They are excelletn mic pres, however expect it to run pretty warm, since they are true class A design, unlike pretty much all the other mic pres in interfaces out there. They recommend leaving one or two spaces above an ASP008 in a rack to keep it cool!

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1380284832' post='2223255'] My dad once knew a percussionist who was a 'triangle specialist', I must admit my knee jerk reaction was "I bet he's not a rich man" but having heard him play, I can honestly say I was staggered by what it is possible to do with such a mundane instrument. [/quote] Our percussionist is a specialist in a particular form of deep Turkish tambourine, he makes it sound like everything from congas and timbale to splash cymbals, and the rhythms he can produce and evenly maintain for minutes at a time make my jaw drop....

Better nail evreything down in the room before you give it the beans or it will knock stuff over

Oh wow.... That going to take me months to wade through, and I'll probably only understand bits of it, but still what a humongous resource! [quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1379965426' post='2218910'] The humble triangle is often under-estimated in its emotive power and ability to 'drive' a full orchestral piece to frenzy. Well-arranged, such choice parts are reserved for the more experienced percussionists. I often weep just at the thought... [/quote] Triangle played well (with full use of choking and all that gubbins) is a brilliant sound in my band, our percussionist is adept at taking his triangle and using it to lay a really neat pulse across 'darker' dynamic sections, totally brilliant, and lets the drummer ease right back on his kit and just accent things. I guess we arent the average funk band playing Play That Funky Music mind

I think pretty much any really good cab will tend to show up deficiencies in what goes into it more than a less good cab. My Berg forced me to go back to the drawing board I can assure you !

I've made usable recordings with a Soundblaster. It just wasnt as easy to get [s]great[/s] usable sounds, be confident in tracking more than a couple of tracks, be able to get a low enough latency monitor to feel really comfortable overdubbing etc etc. Like I said you can make good recordings of music with these devices, just bear in mind that given they are built to cost there are definite shortcomings somewhere. Until you've used RME kit, for instance, you haven't used the most stable driver package on a USB interface available today. This is partly because RME are the only manufacturer to roll their own USB chips, so their driver and hardware are more tightly aligned than anyone else. Small wonder its so damned stable and fast even under Windows then. Until you've played with Apogee you haven't seen how tightly its possible to integrate an interface into the Mac OSX either, although I'd hardly say RME are struggling in this regard, again their hardware advantage is very evident in the UCX's sub 2ms latency times on a Mac. And Audient are a small British company who've a reputation for excellent mic-pres that go in their big desk, 8 channel mic pre and their brand new interface (which reviewers are saying is a better bang for your buck than the Apogee DUet 2, which is high praise indeed). Steinberg make some fantastic kit, their UR824 is particularly well regarded, 8 channels of very usable mic pres and an interface all in one, for £650-ish, ace! Focusrite's consumer kit is fine, but its not going to come close to the better stuff, a lot of people reckon they've taken a dip into the economy bucket since the series 1 octopre, although their upper range stuff is still excellent. Recording kit is like bass kit x1000, yes you can play a decent song well on a starters bass, more than ever these days (Squire stuff is fab, as are the Ibanez SR series for instance) but ti wont sound as good, or play as well as a really good instrument, and that really good instrument makes it easier to play the same song. Just saying...

[quote name='skychaserhigh' timestamp='1380234309' post='2222778'] Well , talking about Barefaced in any way other than high praise certainly gets some people stirred up doesn't it ?? I seem to have broken some sort of Basschat golden rule there , don't worry , I won't do it again ...!! Enjoy. [/quote] Well have you ever used one in anger? Yes they are capable of truly surprising volume, as a result of which you could probably get away with a smaller cab than you are used to (although you may need a more powerful amp to drive it - less so with the larger cabs, less so again with the latest generation cabs, which are very efficient IMO). I think each generation I've heard has been tonally better than the previous effort, they are a product line that is improving in all respects, they sound better, they are lighter, they are more efficient, they are srtonger than ever. If you havent actually used one at least in a rehearsal space with a band then you cant comment on the tone really, however if you've had the pleasure of just playing at bedroom volumes you would be hard pushed to be hugely disappointed with the tone of all the range, something there will be close to what you want, and with some eq almost certainly meet your needs in a band setting I would think. They do sound good....

Thought I saw a poster, on a lamp post by what used to be The Richmond pub (later the Pressure Point, now a Yoof Hostel I think) it was, all soggy and sad looking, but I thought it was your lot. I would have come along but certain events completely outside of my control, adn the SE Bass Bash meant it couldnt happen I'm afraid. Sorry mate

This is not the Brighton I know of

Theres a bunch of consumer grade kit out there that will make a stab at the job you require in that price range. No one would suggest any of them had all of the "decent mic pre's, decent clean headroom, decent MIDI, decent ADC/DAC, decent drivers, cross-platform ability and decent software" ability that you really want, they [i]all[/i] fall well short in at least one area, the trick is to find something that falls short in an area you dont care about.... You are looking more in the region of £500 to £600 to get in the interface area where the devices are really getting pretty darned good at everything you could hope for in truth (talking about RME, Apogee, Audient units in that price range). And thats for ickle two input interfaces. I'm not being negative about your desire, I'm just trying to suggest that you keep your expectations sensible given the outlay you are looking to make. I've made perfectly reasnable recordings on very average kit, by working within its limitations and dealing with its frustrations....

Oh you are going to enjoy that on a gig

[quote name='richardd' timestamp='1380184921' post='2221867'] Whils't you are all singing the praises of The BF cabs , nobody seems to mention the poor materials used in there construction. I think if you hit a door frame carrying one it through the cab would fall to pieces ,IMO, [/quote] Thats a pretty uninformed description. Possibly worse than uninformed actually... These things are tough as boots, I know I've actually bashed a studio door frame with one (accidentally) when A/B'ing a series 1 BigOne and Compact with my Berg. By all accounts Alex tests his designs to destruction, by throwing a cab out of a 1st floor window onto concrete, they dont break in one go.....

Nah DI and a Mic works great DI for the sub, up to lowest mids and sparkly top, Mic for mids if the player has some grit in tgeir sound. This will convey 'their sound' better than a VST whilst leaving you max control in the mix IME...