51m0n

Span the desk across the corner making a triangle behind it (optionally a basstrap in that space is a great idea) That is your only option in a corner for getting the output of both speakers to be the same. You cant fix this with eq, or port stuffing (bass is omnidirectional) or any other solution at all.

Pro players want money first if you are only interested in telling them what to do. Give them creative input into a project they really like the idea of and their requirement for hard cash up front can diminish at a very rapid rate IME...

If anyone ever suggested I [i]should[/i] play for free, I always come back with the fact that its only fair I 'break even' for time, effort and equiptment expenditure to be there. This usually works with bar manager types, because you can word this riposte in a very similar way to the expectations of, say, a tradesman that they might hire to fix some issue at the premises. At this point the conversation becomes more along the lines of what that cost to me actually is. Then I break down my costs, and my hourly fee (ie that of the entire band) and what the expected draw is for them, and the coup de grace is to point out I am offering them the special low low rate of [font=lucida sans unicode,lucida grande,sans-serif]<[/font][font=lucida sans unicode,lucida grande,sans-serif]££££ [/font][font=lucida sans unicode,lucida grande,sans-serif]insert what you wanted in the first place here ££££>[/font]. If you do this right you can tuly make them realise what asking you to play for peanuts actually means. Its never failed me yet... Of course these days I play for wanton pleasure of the One, so its a moot point, but like I said before, we've always managed to break even

I earn cash at work five days a week. I compose, rehearse and play music with my very original funk band. We play 'real' funk originals with a cinematic twist. If we break even I am in equal parts amazed, surprised and overjoyed. So far we have always managed that! I love rehearsal time as much as gig time, since it is a highly creative endeavour. I have played covers fir cash and it bored me senseless.....

I don't mind any impromptu questions on recording, mixing and mastering. Anything from how best to record rehearsals to what should I expect from a professional mastering job.....

Sounds ace to me matey!

Reaper is the best bang for the buck.....

+1 to Red5Audio.....

Loving those Andy Irvine videos!

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1377779987' post='2191674'] Thanks all. I feel that I have some feel, but there's a big gap between me and the pros. And this is really the thing that I want to push. Part of my practice routine is a collection of riffs, and the riff from Herbie Hancock's Headhunters is part of that. It includes the staccato notes mentioned. I've found if I play, for example, the introduction to the [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox-DmJ9H3ng"]Barney Miller[/url] theme by itself, then it sounds reasonably like the original (not super smooth or funky but better than me), except at the moment I have a trade off (starting from an F) where the C to A transition is difficult for me and I either make it a bit wonky or get an overlap between those notes which sounds wrong. However, if I use the drum patterns in my Zoom B2 as a metronome, I find it tends to straighten out my timing even more, and it sounds a bit robotic then. [/quote] Take the 8th notes out of the drum machine, never allow anything other than straight quarter notes, anything else is going to remove your ability to groove. WOrk with a handclap sound, its more natural than a BIP or click. Set it to quarter notes, play your groove. Now half the speed and play the groove the same first with the metronome on 1 and 3, then far more importatnly with it on 2 and 4. Thats where the funk is. Right there. You are the master of the [b]ONE[/b], not the machine, you accent one real hard, and swing through the beats, dont let them be straight ever, slide that time around - if it isnt making you walk like a pimp it isnt the funk Remember its about not playing more than playing in classic funk too. [quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1377779987' post='2191674'] [b]It would help if people could recommend individual songs where there is simple, but well-timed, playing. Amazon MP3 purchase account and time-stretching software are both ready and waiting.[/b] [/quote] See above for starters

Everything there is to know about funk in one video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4uO1aH-iFA

Bootsy giving you the simplest groove ever that really exposes this [i]long/short-accented[/i] groove thing perfectly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTkVOmSpwyQ Learn this, its about 5 notes FFS! Play it exactly like Bootsy, really pay attention to the end of the notes, when they stop, where they are accented within the main line. Its funk gold...

Hey Redstriper mate, funk is just reggae but faster , I've heard your stuff, its got a fantastic feel that certainly grooves like a train. Seriously though there is a lot of correlation between the feels IME, there is that sense of pushing the first half of the subdivision longer, and accenting the second half. The difference is the size of the subdivisions, with a lot of funk being very much about the 16th note thing, and reggae being more about a very swung eight note feel. Scott's lesson is great (as always), but the feel in it is exactly what I was trying to explain. How many old school funk lines go something like :- ______DUP ||: berrrrrrrr DUP berrrrrrrr___ _____DUP_____DUP | _____ ___ _____ ___ _____ ___ _____ DUP :|| for instance? Note the clear gap between every note, in funk every note is a little short so that the next note is punchier, running notes to gether really leagato is harder to make sound funky. If you play [s]four[/s] and ||: one and two[s] and three[/s] and [s]fou[/s]r and | [s]one and two and three and four[/s] and :|| Dead straight it just isnt at all funky.

IME listen to a tonne of groove playing first. But listen fo rthe right thing about that playing. While you listen concentrate really hard on the way these guys are subdividing the beat. It is never, ever straight, they always push the first half of the subdivision a little longer than the second half, however often this is backed up by accenting the second half of the beat subdivision a little to make it punch through. There is a subtle berrrrrrDUP to each pair of subdivisions. If they dont play the first note in the paiir they still infer the extra time so you get ______DUP, and if they dont play the second note you get berrrrr__, the timing is always bang on. Especially in fills and fancy stuff, in fact they make simple things sound flashier just because they maintain this feel when playing simple stuff so well. This creates a 'skip' to their playing, its all about how you accent subdivisions and where you exactly you put that subdivision. Vic Wooten has an astounding groove to his less flashy playing, and if you listen to him grooving he makes this so much a part of his sound. If you dont do this naturally then you are going to spend a long time working on it. Take a track you love listening to that really shows this kind of thing off. Play along and really really pay attention to where your notes end and where they start within a beat. Now set up a metronome to quarter notes and play the groove to the metronome and absolutely nail its swing/skip/feel (insert whichever sounds right toy ou ). The notes dont matter, the feel does, in fact just play the rhythm on one note and nail it for the track. No one cares about the notes anyway , you cant hold no groove if you aint got no pocket!

T-Rex Chameleon has been someting of a let down for me

You should try putting a funk band together, its taken bloody years to find people!

A limiter also tends to be very interested in the shortest over possible (we are talking nano seconds), whereas many compressors are uninterested in the fastest peaks and actually effectively measure RMS over a small period of time rather than peak level.

Wow, already had 1 entry in, remember we wont be looking for a drop dead date until nearer the end of September so plenty of time left to squeeze every last ounce of fabulous out of your mixes

Looking more likely that I will be able to get there - woot!

Is the data from the old blog going to be in the new blog?

Just tried pointing someone at the recording blog and its not there any more... Sad now

Rack compressors are the canine undercarriage, there are very very very few pedal compressor that come close to the ease of use, metering and flexibility of a full featured rack compressor. I run a Focusrite Compounder, and I love it, its set up to be generally very transparent, but the limiter is set such that if I get too agressive with something it just holds the transient at bay a tad, so I can get that lovely compressed leading edge to a heavily accented pop, but all the time I'm playing it is adding a little beef, and smoothing everything out, glueing me into a mix nicely. At the same time it certainly has no detrimental affects on dymanics, I can play as quite as a mouse when I want to. This whole thing about compressors removing your ability to be dynamic is utter tosh, you never hear anyone saying a big tube amp prevents them playing with dynamics and its doing the same thing when you run it into driving. What is true is that people are used to using compressor pedals with no or utterly inadequate metering, and so over compress the nuts out of their signal - ie they can hear it clearly at work, and then wonder why its harder to play any louder than they are. [url="http://blog.basschat.co.uk/setting-up-a-compressor/"]You could do worse than reading my blog on setting up a compressor[/url] but the blog seems to be down right now ...

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1377077840' post='2182951'] Pre-rendering can even help with a single track..! I discovered the 'Performance' tool in Reaper, which shows the CPU usage, track by track. I had heavily treated one of the tracks, which only plays for about 20 seconds. This track, despite being short, was alone taking up over 10% of the CPU, due to the fx treatment. I rendered the track and gained an instant 10%..! Win..! Following the above advice, I also created a sub-folder for bv's, and applied fx to the folder, rather than to the individual tracks (this implies, of course, wishing the exact same fx on all tracks, which is my case...). This too freed up enormous resources, as well as simplifying and making 'neater' the interface. Given another few decades, I may even become rather good at this lark (modestly, of course...)..! Great tips, anyway; thanks to all. Keep 'em coming... [/quote] Absolutely! You can also route fx sends through the folder by adding channels to the folder and then each indivdual track within the folder can have more or less of an effect as you see fit. This is what I meant by taking it further, it offers absolutely the best 'bang for the buck' in terms of groups for ease of use and track specific fx sends, since you can have for instance a single reverb that everything sends to via its folder tracks which means if youturn down the folder you also turn down the fx send of every track in that folder. Bit of a headache to set up but absolutely brilliant once its working, and the absolute best way I havefound for get the most out of my mix lappie's hardware (yes I mixed this on a laptop, and I didnt need any track/folder rendering, largely because of how I set these things up).

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1377077548' post='2182943'] Simon - That's exactly what I want to do in Logic, but as far as I've gotten with the idea is to place things under groups Although my mixer is looking very tidy and organised this month. I have each part of the mixer assigned for different instruments, which all go into one group (Like drums). The worst part is when you decided that maybe only one little track needs to be turned down a little bit, and have to ungroup it, make the adjustment and regroup it. [/quote] Surely Logic has a concept of submix tracks/folders rather than you having to group tracks together for volume? This is not some new idea its exactly what a real mixer does, you send tracks to a group buss rather than the main stereo buss and can still affect the levels within the group by playing with faders. I havent used Logic in anger for well over ten years though....

Another way of setting up submixes and aux sends is detailed here:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-oA-B1YzEE