Bilbo

For me the real beef is geography. People in larger population centres can get other players around them and make great music. When you live in the sticks, you can't play a lot of the music you woudl like to because the players are not htere. I work regularly in a duo with a Brazilian guy. We would love to put together something more substantial with full-on Brazilian percussionist but there just aren't any for hundreds of miles. Mostly the same with Jazz. One good drummer leaves the area and it immediately compromises everything you want to do. So move to the city? Yeah - and spend your whole life making the rent and living in s sh*tty area surrounded by concrete. Tough breaks and I live with the choices I have made but wouldn't it be nice if the people you wanted to play with were nearby?

These acts are generally embarassing and the only way it will stop is if people wake up to the fact and tell them. IN the meantime, money (or the lack of it) talks. It is interesing that 'Live' now means tapes and 'Bands' now means as many vocalists as you like but no-one that can actually play anything

Lowdown got my vote. Interesting ideas nicely articulated.

Thanks for the pointers, guys. Will check them out. Not heard of freezing tracks!!

I have this IT problem where the mix I finish in Cubase doesn't transfer in it's entirety when I do an audio mix. Some does but not all of it. So what you hear is an approximation of my mix

Here's mine for this month https://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/salome

Gotta be Pharrell.

I have learned a lot about the recording process this time. For instance, I had an awful crackling sound that I assumed was the PC no being able to handle the amount of processing required to allow for the number of VSTs I was using but, after some fiddling, I relaised that I was using the same VST effect on too many channels so, as soon as I turned them off, the noise stopped. I added them again one by one and then used alternatives to achieve the same reverb and echo effects and achieved my intended end without the noise. That is just one example. Got much better levels this time, learned a bit more about Miroslav Philharmonik etc. Brilliant fun. The composition is coming together ok but I always have this trouble with getting VSTs to sound organic and it all sounds a bit 'sequenced'. I guess that's the nature of it.

Totally agree. And not Sheehan chops, GROOVE chops!!

Biggin' up Mars who played with Tommy Aldrige and Pat Thrall in Pat Travers' Band. I am listening to their Crash and Burn album and loving the vibe. Great production from Travers and Dennis Mackay. Check it out if you get a chance.

Whenever I see a double bass for sale, I have a look just out of interest. WHat amuses me is that, whether the bass is £15K or £500, the photos as look the bleeding same to me

Jimmy Guiffre Trio - The Jimmy Guiffre Seven

Not the opening notes of Silly Putty? There are drums in there but the bass is very exposed.

I think I finished recording my piece last night. Now it is mixing and tweaking before submission.

At least I know now. What kind of gigs are you looking for on it?

Will try those ideas. Thank you.

I lived in Farnham for about 7 years and bought an SWR Baby Blue amp at the GV. It's a great shop but I cannot recall any basses when I was there (my amp was a second hand one someone had traded in). They must have had some but all I can remember is cheap sh*t, massive hollow body Jazz guitars for £5k and a British Racing Green Fender Strat for £20K+. I certainly never tried a bass out in there (but I hardly ever try basses out as I am never seeking actually to buy one )

Phew! I thought that damn penguin had done for me.

Added some ES175 lines last night and followed Dad's advice and moved the 'slow' instruments forward a tiny notch. Seems to have sorted the problem nicely. Lesson learned. I also copied some parts and double them up which filled things out nicely, as did chaning the Philharmonik string pads from 11 strings to 23. I have an irritatingly quiet flugelhorn/trumpet part that I need to change to something with more presence. May try oboe or clarinet or even English Horn. My composition has essentially based around three counterpoint lines (4 but one is minimal) that all need to be heard simulaneously. I am trying to find a way of bringing each line forward without creating a mush. It is all in the arrangement but this is compromised by the technology so I have to find an alternative means to get to my intended end.

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1408450958' post='2530238'] At least you didn't call me. Things weren't even close to desperate :-) [/quote] Double bass gig, Pete. I didn't think you played double bass?

Maybe it's just that, whereas we old folks used to wait for the latest stuff to appear, people now jump around the history of music to find interesting things. Like authors, we find one we like and then read all of their stuff; sometimes its a current book, sometimes a classic. I think young people do know the old stuff but also listen to the new. The field is so much alrger than it was in my day, although you wouldn't know it if you visted a high street record store. I guess this is why we saw the demise of such stores. The market is now SO diversified, the locals cannot possibly stock a sufficiently wide selection AND generate a profit. Interesting that we now see more second had record stores than new ones (the music industry equivalent of charity shops!!).

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1408466788' post='2530497'] 73 I saw myself on YouTube from a gig two weeks ago. Time to stop. I can still play, lift the cab, but.............time to stop. [/quote] We need the link!! We need the link!!

21 years ago!! That's amazing. A bit like Neil Peart being the new guy in Rush.

They said I was too old. Bastards.

I used to sing at school and won the local Eisteddfod year after year )(6 – 9 years old) until the inevitable happened (kerchuck). I remember seeing two films (actual reel to reel movies) in my first music lesson at the Comprehensive school; it was Peter and The Wolf and Ravel’s Bolero – both as a sort of guide to the orchestra. I ran home and told Mum and, lo and behold, she had the Ravel piece on a record!! I wore it out. I knew I wanted to play but my parents would not have had the money for lessons or an instrument. I asked in school if I could use one of theirs and they said no. Hated them ever since but, at around 12, I visited dome older cousins and one of them gave me a guitar. To say it was a piece of crap is an understatement but, if I tell you it had 2 nylon strings and 4 steel ones, you will get the idea. I cocked about with that until I left school and, on the day I started work (1980) I ordered a Hondo II Precision copy (black) and a Carlsboro Cobra combo. I am ready to roll!!. I learned at home and, the following December, I got an audition into a local NWOBHM band called No Quarter. Local heroes so you can imagine, I was sh***ing myself. I did the audition with my Hondo and Carlsboro and got the gig on the proviso that I got a bigger amp. Enter Sound City amp and custom 2x 18 cab I bought off the band’s ex-bass player followed by Frunt transistor amp (remember the – I bought it because Percy Jones endorsed them and I was already looking over the fence at fusion). We were in the studio within weeks and did a Friday Rock Show session early in 1982 (I think) before recording a track for the Heavy Metal Heroes Vol 1 LP. It’s been downhill ever since Then came an Aria SB700 before, in 1986, still in my Percy Jones pohase, I got my Wal Custom Fretless (£740). I have since had a Washburn Status headless (Jon Caulfield still has it, I think), a Status Energy 6 and 4 but they have all gone and it’s only the Wal now. Left No Quarter after 2 years because I wanted to play fusion and prog. Got into a band that rehearsed but never gigged and set up my own band that rehearsed and never gigged before joining Silent Partner in Chepstow with Grant Nicholas of Feeder fame and producer Brian Sperber). Did a couple of gigs and recordings but that petered out and, by this time, I was at last playing Jazz in Cardiff (getting on for 30 by now). Forward most of two decades and I start playing the double bass and running my own Jazz events. I wish I had done it years ago.