BigRedX

This is a creeping problem that I alluded to in my last post on the amps as stage props thread - that of mixing by numbers and with your eyes rather than your ears. It's completely down to the strength of the individual voices, what mics are being used and what the overall effect should be. There is no one size fits all solution. Mix with your ears and set the levels (and EQ) appropriately.

Is there a dedicated socket for such a footswitch? If not you'll probably have to use MIDI. You will need to check the manual's MIDI implementation chart (usually somewhere near the back) to find what parameters can be controlled by MIDI and what MIDI messages are required.

It's very difficult to comment when it's only part of the mix especially when the vocals and drums which are going to be important features of the track are still to be added. However there are a few things that would be worth looking at, once you start the full mix. 1. All the synths except the bass line sound a bit full and all dominating the same mid range that might clash with the vocals. I'd start by quite aggressively HP filtering them and also notching out any frequencies that clash with the vocals. Then add back the missing frequency ranges until just before you can hear them interfering with the bass and vocals. 2. Get a single solid bass sound. You have some moments where the bass sound does some interesting things tonally, but it is at the expense of the bottom end. Do these separately again with a HPF so that the sonic interest is overlayed on a solid bass sound. When you come to do the complete mix, start with just the drums and vocals and get the track sounding good with just those. Then add the bass and finally the other synths. Hopefully then you'll get a sense of space back in the track but it will still kick which is what you want for something dance-floor friendly.

I'd definitely dob them in to the fire service and the environmental health department of the relevant local authority.

I don't know if bands are getting quieter. The quality of live sound is vastly improved from the 70s and 80s, but clearer does not necessarily mean quieter.

For multi-band gigs the amount of backline on-stage can sometimes be over-excessive. Therefore the band with no backline can be at an advantage. Not only does my band plus all our gear, merch and roadie/merch seller fit comfortably into a single estate car, but we also fit comfortably on smaller stages where the headlining band have already used most of the space with their drum kit and amps. I've yet to come across the SE who insists on trying to make my bass indistinguishable mush. However my current bug-bear is with the SE who IMO wastes time trying to get the perfect gain structure on every channel on the PA for 3-4 entirely different bands. We're not trying to remake "Frampton Comes Alive" or even "The Who Live At Leeds" and need the highest signal to noise ratio possible. It's a gig in a small club with probably 200 people in the audience maximum. So long as nothing is overloading the channel input, it will be fine, and if it is they can always adjust the gain setting during the set and turn up the channel fader to compensate, It will all be over in less than 40 minutes and no-one on stage or FoH is going to be bothered with a tiny amount of extra hiss (if there even is any with todays modern digital desks and D-class PA amps) because the input gain was set a bit too low on a couple of channels. Edit: And it appears that a lot of these SEs are listening with their eyes on the mixer meters and displays rather than with their ears. Earlier this year I played a gig where the drum monitor started to fart out on certain bass notes mid-way through my band's set. It was obvious on stage and also apparently obvious in the audience too based on comments we got afterwards, but nothing was done about it while we played. Personally I don't like to mention things like this during the set as IMO it makes the band look diva-ish and unprofessional. We don't have a drummer, it was just a slight annoyance rather than a major problem, plus this particular gig was being very tightly run from a timing PoV and any additional mucking about by the SE would have eaten into our set time, so we just carried on. Any SE paying proper attention to the SOUND would have heard this and attempted to rectify it as we played. Obviously since it didn't show up as an overload on the mixer they didn't know what to do about it.

Do your due diligence when selecting somewhere to live. When I was looking to buy my first house in the early 90s, I had found somewhere suitably interesting and convenient for work and the city centre. However it was only a couple of doors down from a pub. So before making a decision on whether to put in an offer I spent a Saturday evening in the pub to see what it would be like. Based on my experience I decided that I would become very unhappy about the noise quite quickly and therefore decided to look elsewhere. IMO that was the sensible course of action. It doesn't take much time and effort to do the research and anyone who doesn't only has themselves to blame.

For me the whole potential attraction of using a guitar (or bass) to control a synthesiser would be that I can use ALL of the various playing techniques and expressiveness of a guitar (or bass). If I have to change how I play then it's pointless. I might as well use a keyboard or enter the notes into my DAW with a mouse.

Hurtsfall played the Nottingham Pride event yesterday on the Gladrags stage at Rough Trade. Second time we've played at Rough Trade in less than a month and once again it was joy to be performing in an air-conditioned venue when it was uncomfortably hot outside. Once again excellent sound on stage and FoH. Due to time constraints we did the shortest set ever - under 25 minutes comprising just 5 songs. However we managed to pack the gig space at the end of the bar with plenty of people dancing and cheering as well as picking up a load on new fans, if our Facebook profile is anything to go by. Early finish and back home before 6.00 in the evening! Here we are giving it some at the end of our last song: "12 Long Years": Next gig is Twisted Firestarter which is the Infest Festival warm-up party at Rebellion in Manchester on 14th August.

Pitch to MIDI for the bass is a complete non-starter. The very best systems combined with the cleanest playing technique require a MINIMUM one and a half cycles to detect the pitch of the note played. That means that any note lower than E on the 9th fret of the G string on a bass will take at least 10ms to detect, 10ms being generally the point at which most musicians start to find latency intrusive and off-putting. And this is under perfect conditions using the best pitch detection systems and an exceptionally clean playing technique. Most older and budget systems (like the G2M) are much worse for latency. On top of that you can add another couple of milliseconds for that pitch to be processed and turned into MIDI information. Even with a piccolo set of strings it rules out anything below the 7th fret of the A string. You either need an instrument that uses fret sensing to detect the pitch or something like the Roland V-bass system to uses modelling to modify the waveforms produced by the strings if you want to use synth sounds from a stringed instrument in a live situation. If you want something for programming your DAW you are better off using a keyboard. If you want to retain the feel you get from playing the part on a bass or guitar, program the line into your DAW and then record the audio from your bass and use a beat slicing tool to make a groove template for the quantisation.

It's a problem because although the "choose files…" is underlined to indicate it is a link, clicking anywhere on the whole line from the D of "Drag files" up to the left edge of the Other Media button will bring up the dialog box even though the cursor only turns into the pointy hand on the underlined text. Either make just the underlined text the link or make the cursor change to the pointy hand everywhere that will bring up the dialog box.

Agreed. I'm doing this all the time.

Those 107 instruments do pose the question: What makes a Telecaster a Telecaster? Is it the shape, the construction or the pick-up configuration? Or just the fact that Fender says it is a Telecaster.

Be aware that most of the budget IR loaders add quite a bit of latency to the signal, some of them approach unacceptable amounts. IME adding cab models always seems to make my bass sound worse. I just use the EQ until I get a sound I like.

IME you need the on-line version to promote sales of physical media. I buy CDs (and vinyl if there is no alternative) because I like physical media and because it supports the bands who produce it. I'll use a streaming service to check out new bands but if I like what I hear I'll buy a CD. The sort of person who is happy with streaming is unlikely to shell out for a CD or other physical media because if your album isn't on their favoured streaming service they will just make do without listening to it.

It allows the valves and other parts of 1940s/50s amp designs that get hot to hang down into the speaker compartment where they can dissipate the heat more easily.

IME it is always easier to hear myself if at least one of the speakers is pointing at my ears rather than my knees or my groin. That means either mounting the combo on a tilt-back stand or putting at least one other cab underneath it. Both of those things place top mounted controls (for me at least) in a position that is both difficult to see and reach. The original reasoning behind top-mounted controls is that the amps would be placed on the floor in front of the musicians. Not only were the controls on top but labels were orientated so that they read the right way up when viewed from the back. Since this placement hasn't been regularly used since the early 50s it makes little sense to continue building amps this way.

Why do amp manufacturers still put the controls on the top of combos? It's not the 50 and 60s any more. No-one (not even tribute bands of artists from that era) puts their amps on the floor and then stands behind them. The position of the controls should reflect how the amps are used in the real world today (on stands and normally angled upwards) and not reflect some bygone era that is now irrelevant.

I don't think anyone who uses tab doesn't also have a recording of the song(s) in question from which they can get the rhythm. I'm of an age when very little pop or rock music was written down in any format and if it was, it was normally wrong. Therefore I'll usually work things out by ear as I always have done. IMO if a band wanted me to play a baseline exactly as it has been recorded then they also need to supply me with tab, notation or a recording of just the bass line. Otherwise they will have to make do with my interpretation of the part, which will be close but might not be 100% accurate.

Ovation.

I would have thought so considering a stacked pot counts as two.

Eastwood Hooky Number of strings: 6 Number of frets: 24 Scale length: 30" Number of pickups: 1 Number of controls (switches/knobs): 3

Update to the Pride gig on Saturday 26th July: We're now on at 3.30pm.

The way I look at it is that any band that expects me to have a bass with a Fender logo on it, obviously isn't the right band for me.

On the other hand if you can't "see" how much you are out if you think that you'd nailed it you probably had well enough for to serve the song. In the days before DAWs all you had were your ears to know if your performance was tight enough. These days I'll only look at the screen if I don't like what I hear on playback, and much of the time it's simpler just to have another go, then starting moving individual notes about.