BigRedX

Partly the screen -as an owner of a Helix Floor, I'd be reluctant to have another foot switch with a big screen on it. For me the layout is all wrong for a pedal that I would want to use at a gig. The top row of foot switches are all but useless since I won't be able to use them mid-song without worrying about inadvertently pressing the ones below. Even the ones at the side aren't particular well-placed for me. I have my Helix set up so the switches I use while I'm actually playing are all on the bottom row, and I only need to press any of the upper row of switches between songs when I can ensure I'm not pressing anything I shouldn't be. It's even got to the point where I am considering ordering my patches in reverse set order so that I've using the patch down pedal (on the bottom row) to select the patches for the next song. The only foot controllers I've had where I have been happy to use the upper row of switches were the Roland ones where the switches themselves are nice and big two rows are staggered. Everything else for me is a disaster waiting to happen. Also an external PSU with no means of locking the cable in place makes me nervous and want to put the device somewhere safe in a rack, where I can run it from rack mounted PSU and hot glue the power cables (and all the other connections) in place.

You do realise that this is just a controller pedal (albeit a very sophisticated one) but it doesn't actually do any audio manipulation itself? This is the sort of device I would have paid a lot of money for back in the early 2000s. These days I do everything that I would have done with it using a combination of my Mac and Helix. I would have also questioned the form-factor the need for foot switches on it since I would have been using it in conjunction with a standard MIDI foot controller that was a bit more gig-ready and robust, and would have wanted to be able to tuck this device safely away in a rack.

It's very difficult to cut vinyl when there is stereo movement of low frequencies. The groove on a record contains the left and right channel information on opposite "slopes" If the bass frequencies are centred the groove will be close to symmetrical on both sides. As you pan this information from side to side you end up with a groove that gets wider and narrower as the low frequency information moves from left to right and back again. The wider the groove the less likely the cutting lathe is going to be able to create it, and even if it could be cut most record decks wouldn't be able to play it. for this reason Its recommended that all frequencies under 300Hz are in mono. There are mastering plug-ins that will do this for you, so we can use one to listen and see how much of the bass panning effect is going to be lost should we decide to put this track on vinyl in the future. On the whole vinyl is a very poor delivery medium for modern music when compared with CD or better digital formats. Lots of stereo effects are simply not reproducible - certainly anything using phase changes to make the sound wider and bigger will cause problems. Also due to the nature of record and the way the stylus moves slower in relation to the groove as it reaches the centre of the disc have implications for the running order of an album. Ever wondered why all the noisy high energy tracks are at the start of each side and the last track is nearly always more quiet and laid back? That's why.

I'm actually in the middle of my first new recording since this thread started so here is the process so far. Program the drums in Logic using the Drum Kit Designer plug-in for the sounds. The drum patterns are based on what our ex-drummer played on the one rehearsal tape that exists for this song. This programming was done earlier this year and we've done 4 gigs playing this song with programmed drums and we're about 90% happy with the rhythms as they stand. For the recorded version I've removed some elements from the start of the song that we don't own the copyright for. We'll need to decide if these are going to be replaced with something else or simply left off. This week I recorded the Bass VI at home using my Helix as an audio interface. Since this song is quite slow and there's an E drone all through the verse and the main instrumental riff, I've done something interesting with the panning of the bass where the drone is centred and the other notes pan left and right. This was done playing the drone notes in one pass and the other notes in a second and then cutting the the second pass into individual notes so they could be placed on tracks panned left and right. That means that we probably won't be able to cut this to vinyl, but since the initial release will be as digital download single that won't matter at the moment. I've also added a low bass part underneath the high Bass VI parts in the "Middle 8" just to fill out the recorded sound. This may or may not remain on the final version depending on what synth parts get added. The Logic project has now been sent to our synth player who'll be adding his parts this weekend, before mixing it down into a handful of stems that we'll send to the studio where our singer will recording vocals next week. We learnt with our lockdown recording that the vocals really need to be done at a proper studio. I'll post more as the recording progresses. The next stage after the vocals have been laid down will be for me to have another look at the drum programming and make sure all the drum parts fit properly around the vocals.

I've done loads of CDs both for the various bands I've been in over the last 30 years and as part of a service I used to offer along with my graphic design skills to bands who wanted to get their music out cheaply and with the least amount of hassle to themselves. When it comes to CDs the important words to look for a "Duplication" and "Replication". Duplication means CDRs and used to be the cost-effective option for runs under 300 copies. However it comes with all the standard down-sides of CDRs in that your CD probably won't be playable in 15 years time. Replication is "proper" CD manufacturing with glass mastering etc and therefore a longer-lasting end product, but you used to need to order at least 500 to make it worth while. You'll need to look at the exact current figures but last time I looked once you got to about 300 copies on duplicated CDRs it was then cheaper to go for a run of 500 replicated CDs. I've used the following in the past: Disc Wizards used be by far the cheapest option for CDs but all their packaging templates were completely different to every other manufacturer, so if you'd already created the Sleeve/Inlay/Wallet/J-Card/Digipak artwork the chances are you'd have to do it all over again, which could be problematic depending on the design. However, last time I looked they weren't very much cheaper than the competition. Media Hut good quality, much the same price as everyone else but they had the advantage for me of being local (well their office was). Mobineko I've not used them for CDs but their vinyl production has been excellent. However I believe that they offer proper CD replication even on short production runs, so if not having CDRs is important to you then they are definitely worth looking at. A word of warning. All of the above used to be able to offer good quality and low prices by farming out production to various companies elsewhere in the EU. Since the UK's exit from this they may not be as cheap as they used to be. Certainly pre 2019 any company who did all their CD production in the UK were considerably more expensive. Regarding copyright, you'll need an MCPS (not PRS) licence if you are including any copyright material on your CD. Whoever is producing the CDs should be able to sort this out for you. IIRC you pay up front depending on the number of copyright songs and the production run of the CD. If the music is all out of copyright, or the producer of the CD owns the copyright then you normally just have to sign a waiver stating this when you pay to have the CDs produced. HTH.

I use whatever is the best bass to suit the sound and looks of the band.

If you go and see a band who don't already have at least an album's worth of material available to the public, and they get an encore, unless you've been a regular at their gigs, it's likely to be something you don't know. IMO so long as the song is good and it fits the criteria for an encore (either a rousing anthem or chill-out vibe) it really doesn't matter if the audience is massively familiar with it. I've been in bands where we have used to encore as means of trying out a new song that we aren't ready to include in the proper set. Personally I hate the modern encore which seems to be all the band's popular songs and will often be 20% of the gig, and it is accepted by both the audience and the band that they will be back to do an encore. Traditionally an encore is a thank you from the band to an appreciative audience, and has to be earned by both the band and the audience. If a band really wants to play a song, it should be in the set, and they should only be back for an encore if the audience absolutely demand it. Then it should be one song and only a second if after they have gone off stage after the first one there is danger of there being a riot otherwise.

Far better to have an ugly bass than a boring one.

I tried this but I couldn't get on with the sound and feel of the high C string on a 34" scale bass. IMO the same notes played 5 frets up on the G string always sounded better with more body to them. Everything on the high C sounded like bad jazz guitar. I think it's partly a scale-length thing because high C (and high E) on all my Bass VIs sound great, but I do treat them like a guitar rather than a bass and switch to a more "driven" sound when playing those strings.

There are two possible causes here: 1. For the most part the low B in a standard 5-string set is far too low in tension. I wouldn't consider anything less than a 130 for B to complement a 40-100 set and ideally even a bit heavier. You might be able to improve matters by picking a B which is taper-wound at the ball end, but it will depend on other factors on the bass, mostly the break-angle over the saddle. 2. There is more to a 5-string bass than simply taking a 4-string and putting a wider neck on it. To get the best out of a low B the neck needs to be stiffer than normal and the joint between the neck and the body has to rock-solid. IME bolt-on necks only cut it on very expensive instruments, where the fit of the heel in the pocket is perfect. IME cheap 5-string basses simply aren't worth the money. They're not well enough made to get the best out of the low B-string and all they do is put people off 5-string basses.

If this about compression on the bass or compression in general? If you think you don't like compression on the bass either you have the best playing technique in the world or you are doing it wrong. All compression should be doing is changing the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of the signal. If it's doing anything else that's another process and not actual compression. Also there are plenty of things that will add compression to your sound even if you you don't actually have a "compressor" in your signal chain. For a start anything with valves in it will be compressing the signal to some extent - it's part of that "warmth" as will any device producing "overdrive" or "distortion". If you're going through the PA the engineer will probably have added a compressor to your channel, and if not and they are dedicated, they'll be riding the fader which is essentially the same thing (but in most cases not as good). Similarly in the studio. You could automate all the level changes required in your DAW, but a well set up compressor will do the job quicker and more accurately. And don't forget that once the music gets above a certain volume all the audience's ears will be adding their own compression. You can't do anything about that (except play very quietly).

In my record collection all the best bass lines are played on synthesisers.

I used to have a Peterson Strobo Rack and while it looked great in the rack, it never seemed to be any more accurate than the tuner built-in to my Bass Pod. When I upgraded my rig to a Helix I sold the Peterson. I'm currently using the Helix tuner in Strobe mode.

The relevant Allen keys are metric 4.0, 4.5, 5.0 and Imperial 5/32 and 3/16. If you have all of those one of them should fit. If not make sure you at lease have the all the metric ones.

My mum who plays in an oldies ukulele orchestra (and probably does more gigs a year than me) has a pretty good Kala model, but the <£30 ukulele she had before that was perfectly acceptable from a playability PoV. Whatever size you decide to get, make sure you use the same tuning as your students which is most likely gCEA as anything else will be confusing for them. In my limited experience of playing one the trick is to NOT make everything sound like George Formby!

A decent set of metric and imperial Allen keys should cost less than £10. Then you'll never need to ask this question again.

The instrumental parts of side 2 of Rattus Norvegicus could be passed off as unreleased Yes tracks to anyone who wasn't familiar with The Stranglers.

Not aimed at you personally but at the "boutique" pedal market in general. I posted these in another thread: How to make a "boutique" pedal. 1. Find a design from the 60s or 70s and copy it. Make sure that your version uses at least one germanium transistor even if the original pedal didn't have any. 2. Make sure that one of the controls and one socket is in a completely ridiculous place. Say they need to be there in order to improve signal cross-talk from the original design. 3. Give the pedal a name that only a 13 year old boy will find amusing - ideally some kind of knob joke. 4. Give all the controls unintuitive descriptions like "spatter" or "fragrance" and write them on in a barely legible scrawl. Do not put any other markings on the controls, and if you're not using chicken head knobs then have ones without any position markers on them. 5. Pedals with three or fewer controls on them should be in huge chunky metal cases, with the controls positioned at random and in an order not consistent with the signal flow. Pedals with lots of controls should be in a case so tiny that it is virtually impossible to adjust one without inadvertently moving at least one other (also see point 2). 6. Get a five year old to do the graphics. Ideally every pedal should have a different "graphical design" even though the electronics inside are identical. 7. Charge at least £200 for it even though the parts and labour cost to make them is a fraction of that. 8. It should also include one additional control which supposedly allows the pedal to sound both like the original version and any other variations on that design that existed during the production runs. In reality this control either only has one useful position (the others all producing a horrible unmusical racket) or the variations are so subtle that no-one can really hear any difference between them.

I used to have a pair of 1960s Tannoy Golds with 10" dual concentric drivers. They had a nasty upper-mid range hump which over-accentuated our female singer's vocals no matter which settings of the "treble" controls on the back were applied. Also the pair didn't sound quite the same, something that was very obvious when using them as studio monitors and panning a synth sound from left to right. Fine for flattering records made in the 60s and early 70s but not much use for anything else.

Something I'd written myself. The first band I played in were pretty well established by the time I switched from guitar to bass as my main instrument.

The only word of caution I would add is that even electronic drum kits can generate quite a lot of acoustic noise. The mesh heads are quieter than the older "rubber" ones, but the biggest problem will be the kick drum pedal which if she is living anywhere other than on the ground floor will sound like she is constantly stamping on the floor to anyone living below her. I've had to build a floating "podium" to allow our drummer to play electronic drums in my studio without disturbing anyone in the rooms below.

However most of these bands don't have a whole set's worth of hits. At the very best there will be a handful of popular singles, some good album-only songs and still about 25% filler. So why not have some new songs? They can't be any worse than the filler from 30 years ago that they are still playing.

At least the Boss pedals are ergonomically sound and don't look as though they have been designed by a 5-year old from both an aesthetic and practical PoV.

Off the back of DSotM and WYWH I would have thought that Pink Floyd were one of the most influential bands in the world and could have done pretty much what they wanted. After all, wasn't Animals the album that started off life being made entirely out of sampled sounds in the days when doing such a thing would have involved hundreds if not thousands of hours of tape manipulation and editing? Given that the 2 1/2 year gap between DSotM and WYWH didn't do the latter any harm, they could have spent a bit more time on the mixes? Of course it could also be argued that there's nothing like a deadline to focus the mind and the mix. I've certainly been guilty myself of spending too long agonising over recordings simply because I could, and ultimately the additional months spent didn't make a significant improvement. The later mixes were different but not necessarily "better". And finally is there any guarantee that what is being put out now is what the band would have wanted to release back in 1977 (or 1978 if the mixes had taken that long to get right)? After all they've had another 45 years to think about it. I'm not a Pink Floyd fan so I couldn't comment specifically, but IME the versions of albums that I like are the ones that I am most familiar with. Personally I'd rather bands concentrated on writing another album's worth of great new songs than fiddling about with their back catalogue. To me it always seems as though it's an admission of a lack of creativity. (see the other thread on old bands)

So what's wrong with the original version, and why didn't Pink Floyd put it right at the time? I mean it's not as if they were strapped for cash to pay for the studio time.