Bilbo

I have always mixed through headphones but want to get some small desk top monitors. A simple question. How do they connect to your PC? My 5:1 surround sound connects to the back of the PC tower using three mini-jacks whilst my headphone amp links via the audio interface. How do these desk top monitors connect? Is it through one of these connections?

Nailed it at last. It was a hardware fault not a software one. I won't waste anyone's time with details but it was essentially a gain thing. My monitoring signal chain had three gains in it (pc, audio interface and headphone amp). By setting these up properly, I increased the originating signal so was able to turn it down through the others and bobs your uncle. Very happy bunny! As for my Rode NT1A, I think it's a deader. I recorded using an SM58 tonight and it worked better than the Rode ever did!!

[quote name='phil.c60' timestamp='1426085688' post='2714191'] but was told that the difference in technique meant that initially my electric bass technique wold suffer especially regarding the 3rd finger on my fretting hand. Any thoughts, Bilbo? [/quote] They are different instruments. Treat them as such. Use double bass technique on the double bass and electric bass technique on the electric. I don't play electric for weeks and months at a time, only playing double bass, and it has no effect on my electric technique at all. I am not sure what your teacher was getting at. You can play 80% of the double bass repertoire with just your index finger. It won't make any difference to your electric.

A couple of thoughts. Giving the audience present 'what they want' is only one approach. A room with 20 people in it who are loving your Free medley is great but you may also want to consider why there are only 20 in there. Could it be because the 60 other potential audience members who COULD have been there are at home because thay have heard it all before? When presenting Jazz events, I have found that a band playing standards in a very bland way will 'entertain' those present (background music) but will not attract additional people. If you want to create a stir, you need more than the same old same old. Another thing that has seemed apparent to me over the years is the willingness of a section of the audience to 'suspend disbelief' when watching a live band, as if they are psychologically talking themself into liking the bucket of s*** that is our version of 'Ticket To Ride'? In short, they want to dance and they like (feel safe in) this pub so they will dance in this pub, whatever bag of B******s is on stage

Remember the bass player's mantra [b][size=4]'Nobody notices the bass player unless he catches fire'.[/size][/b]

Prompted by Nicko's 'Bad Band great bass player' thread, I wanted to raise something I have been ruminating over for some time (years, in fact). When I started on electric bass (1980), I spent the first few years trying to get better and better, transcribing stuff, reading up on who the big guns were etc and trying to get my head around all the different techniques. I started as a rocker and it was Chris Squire, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee etc who initially floated my boat but, as time passed and music changed, guys like Stu Hamm appeared and I felt I had to explore two-handed tapping. I also heard some funk guys (proably Mark King but not exclusively) and felt that, in order to be a rounded player, I need to 'deal with' 'slap and pop' as it was called in those days. 35 years later, I play almost exclusively double bass (no electric bass gigs so far this year and only about three last year) but I still find my self talk occasionally turns my head towards slap. I hear guys play that stuff and think, albeit briefly, that I should 'deal with' it. know I can do it (I learned Jeff Berlin's 5G intro when I was younger without any problem as well as Stu Hamm's 'Country' thing) but time prevents any serious exploration of these techniques. Going back to Nicko's thread, however, the simple fact is that the techniques I am weak on (through lack of investment not lack of ability) are basically things I won't be using because, clever as they are, I don't like the music that is played using them. I am reluctant to buy a CD if the bass player plays electric; if he slaps, it can stay in the shop. I guess I am saying that, when I started, I wanted to play everything that every bass player ever played; Teen Town, Silly Putty, Schooldays, Donna Lee, Portrait of Tracy, Joe Frazier, Hot Water etc etc. Now, I just want to be able to play bass at standard where I can do my thing within a Jazz setting. A lot of time could be wasted learning things that, for me personally, amount to little more than party tricks.

Your are correct. The book you are looking for does not exist. You could, of course, write it. The Chuck Sher real books have some bass parts in them but they are rarely complete and of limited value (unless you live near a Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea or are in a Tribal Tech tribute band!).

I am not, by nature, very techy although I am also not imtimidated by technology but I see a real flaw in this 'tool' in terms of application. From what I can see, if you cannot play, say, a harp, this thing lets you play the sounds of a harp and so on through all sorts of intruments. Fine, I get that. It may be a midi usb interface thingy, i don't really care. What interests me is HOW DO YOU LEARN HOW TO PLAY IT?!! A couple of the players in the video were obvioulsy used to playing guitars ane had formed guitar chords with their left hands and were arpeggiating with their right. So, if I am interpreting that correctly, if you can play guitar, you can play guitar on it. Is there any point to that? If you want to learn how to play a convincing violin, vibrato soaked part on it using an iphone, I would respectfully suggest that this would take weeks, months and years to perfect, just as it would a real violin. If you patch it into a PC and want to play The Flight Of The Bumble Bee or Giant Steps or Comfortably Numb etc etc, you ain't going to get there any quicker than you would on a 'real' instrument. In addition to all of the above, it still sounds like a synth which, with all its wonders, cannot seriously replicate an acoustic instrument. OK if synthy things are your bag but, if not, they will more likely irritate than inspire. It's probably more than a 'toy' but I guarantee that most musicians who buy one will play with it for a couple of hours and then lean it up in the corner of the room where it will remain for years as they take out their real instrument of choice. A comparison, for me, would be the Roland HPD15 handsonic percussion pad. Thousands of sounds, touch sensitivity, lots of techy potential but you almost NEVER see one being used by any percussionist. They are fun, they are useful tools for sketching the studio but, in real life, their uses are limited. As or fun; more likely time thief. I will not be buying one.

When guys like Gallagher slag off things like he does Jazz, he isn't posing a legitimate critique of the genre, he is having a go the way most of us do down the pub, having a dig, taking the piss. It isn't there to be analysed or agonised over but to be laughed at, ignored and forgotten as soon as it is spoken. I had a blind friend once (he has since passed away) who remembered everything you ever said. He was a pain in the arse! I think NG comes across as a sound bloke and as grounded as rock star celebrities get.

He is an ordinary git who, because he is famous, is expected to have insight. He just likes what he likes and takes the pish out of everything else. It's what most people do. He's alright (even though he doesn't 'get' Jazz)

More Giblin yumminess! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSV2qdD-nDk

I am on Cubase Pliocene......

It's a start. How do I create and audio file out of a midi one?

I always wonder about people like Christopher Cross (great voice, not a pretty man), Ozzy Osbourne (charismatic in every way except reality), John Denver (great voice but a bit nerdy) etc; they wouldn't get a look in today but, in their day, the video side of things was much less important. As I said, it has to be the whole package nowadays..

PS look up Charice Pempengco on youtube singing All By Myself and tell me that talent shows can't recognise talent (she was discovered via a talent show in the Philipines).

I may be in a minority here but I cannot see the problem with these shows (the Voice or The X Factor). They are about the full package; voice, looks, dancing, body image, presence etc. So what? THAT is what the world of pop music is about and anyone who thinks it is about integrity or pure artistry is kidding themselves. If Waynetta Slob got up there and sang like a God, there would be a discussion about whether or not she could be cleaned up and rendered presentable. If not, end of story. There are dozens of old artist of yesteryear who were great singers but who, for all sorts of reasons, never made it 'big' in any mainstream sense; instead they had long careers as 'B-listers', cabaret acts, musical theatre or in other marginalised genres. For someone to make it in the [b]mainstream[/b] music industry, they have to have the whole package. It is not really that different in Jazz (the source of all purity). Every Jazz festival is nowadays headlined by what I call 'nearly Jazz'; Gregory Porter, Jools Holland, Van Morrison, Jamie Cullem etc etc - if you take a genius musician like, say, Kenny Wheeler, you cannot expect the kids who love to look at and dance to Justin Beiber to sit there, stroking their chins, watching a portly 70+ year old in a cord suit and loafers, standing there playing his horn, even if it IS magic. Same with Rock. Imagine a man with Albert Tatlock's looks and Graham Bonnet's voice? Would he be selected to front a reformed Journey? Of course not. In a world of visual imagery, the look is part of the deal. These shows are looking for mainstream artists and there are lots of different formulas for what that looks like (that is the art of it) but, to me, the approach as some integrity in it's own field of operation (those battles in The Voice last week, for instance. I knew who won every time because, prejudices aside and with a small degree of subjectivity, the better singers came out on top). For those who pass through and who 'lose', there is still an industry that can accommodate them e.g. Jonathan Antoine as a classical tenor, Rhydian Roberts in musical theatre, Susan Boyle in her field etc. These people are all perfectly credible and certainly have as much right to be out there as I do but they are unlikely to be on MTV any time soon. More to the point, lots of the winners have disappeared into obscurity for the same reasons. Voice aside, they could not cut it..

Mine's gone awry. It started with the image in mind but ended up somewhere else entirely. No time to start over so it will be submitted but the only Inspired by' bit is the fact that it started there!!

All of them!!

I mentioned this before in another thread but I am struggling with some annoying traits with my VSTs. If I set up a VST and it seems fine when I play it back. I then stop the track and, when I play it again, I have click on each midi track to start them playing again. This means I cannot record against any midi track that starts at beat one of the first bar. Also, whatever level I set it at, it always plays back at some sort of default volume. What am I missing, guys?

My point wasn't to make you like them,mate, but to show where Snorker Poppy comes from conceptually. Nuffink new under the sun.

Tribal Tech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzkDbBljZWU Steve Coleman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOs1keTcGo4

Return To Forever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apq1A7bnrKI Weather Report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwywj2y9s8g

It's great that everybody loves these guys and they are highly competent but I think they are pretty unremarkable (I got 2.23 in). Tight but it's all very Weather Report/Zawinul Sindicate and just another in a string on techno-fusion/funk clever barstewards. Weather Report/Mahavishnu/Retrun To Forever followed by Tribal Tech/Al diMeola/Frank Gambale followed by Steve Coleman's Five Elements etc etc. Similar issues to Dirty Loops. It gets harder and harder but not necessarily better and better. Doesn't do it for me; lost of musicians but not that much music I'll go back occasionally and maybe a light will go on one day but, in the meantime, nah.

Mmmmm. 3.5 hours is a meeting or a gig or a flight or any one of a thousand other legitimate things that could make responding on Basschat potentially problematic. Not much sympathy, I am afraid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk_CghlLAr4