BigRedX

IME the bigger the stage the less reliant I am on backline for monitoring. When I was playing with The Terrortones once we were on anything decent sized (Camden Underworld or bigger) the only time I could hear my bass from my rig when when I was stood directly in front of it. Anywhere else on stage I would be using the monitors to hear what I was playing.

It's difficult to tell with recording costs because every studio has a different hourly rate and bands record in different ways. I think our total cost for recording mixing and mastering were somewhere in the region of £1200 for 16 tracks (of which 13 made it onto the album) but that was a couple of years ago, as I said we got a special rate on the studio time and recorded most of it live. We did all the instruments and guide vocals in a weekend, and then spent another day recording vocals plus some guitar, theremin and percussion overdubs. Regarding getting a record label involved, it will depend entirely on what the deal is, but IME most small labels these days want a lot without offering very much in return, that couldn't be covered by a well organised band. If it was my band I'd be looking at getting any interested label to front the entire manufacturing cost of the album, and have a promotional budget or contacts that go beyond what the band itself could manage. I'd be very wary of any label asking for money for anything other than recording costs and perhaps the commissioning of sleeve artwork/design. If the label isn't prepared to put money to put out your record then they probably aren't worth bothering with. Also I'd want to retain the rights to any part of the project that the band paid for as opposed to the label - or at the very least have the rights revert back to the band after a few years.

Let's face it. Anyone in a band who isn't either The Singer, The Player of The Main Melodic Instrument (not necessarily the guitar) or The Main Songwriter, can be considered a 5th wheel.

Maybe because the Terrortones were a very visual band and we had a reputation for our packaging and promotional items. When we put out The MonsterPussy Sessions mini album on cassette we produced a special CD promo version for reviewers and then got a lot of complaints (including one in an actual print review) that we hadn't sent them a copy of the cassette to review. After that we made sure that the promotional copy was the same as the actual product.

9. IMO there is very little point of going for anything other than standard weight vinyl for your pressing. These days the quality of the vinyl used and the pressings themselves are excellent compared with the terrible pressings evident in the late 70s and early 80s. Heavy weight vinyl only impresses the vinyl snobs and does next to nothing to audio quality of the music on it. 10. When deciding on production quantities and final sales price, don't forget to factor in the cost of review copies, designing and printing your press release material, and the packaging and postage to send them out. You can send a CD in a Jiffy bag for under £2. To get a 12" album safely to its destination expect to pay at least £6 a copy for packaging and postage. If you are releasing you music on vinyl, reviewers and broadcasters are going to expect you to send them a copy on vinyl (as well as a copy on CD so they can actually listen to it!) The Terrortones were a fairly niche band and we did a highly targeted campaign of review copies (sending mostly to people who had given us favourable reviews in the past), and it was still getting on for 100 copies. For a band playing more mainstream music you might need to consider even more.

IIRC The Terrortones LP cost about £5000 for everything: That was 7 days in the studio - 3 for tracking, 4 for mixing. Separate mastering for vinyl, CD and downloads. 10 x Illustrations and a title "logo" for the packaging. Test pressings. 500 copies on standard weight 12" vinyl with full colour labels in black paper sleeves. 500 copies of packaging - clear plastic sleeves with the name of the band and the title of the album printed on it in a single colour. Five x 305mm square sheets printed full colour both sides which are arranged as 7 alternative front covers, a back cover and a double-sided lyric sheet. We saved quite a bit of money because we got a deal on the studio time, and because graphic design for print is my day job, I did all technical aspects of the design for free, and I was able to get a better price for the printing through my contacts that the bundle price the vinyl production brokers could offer. Also we did all the assembly of the various component items - records packaging, download code stickers/CDR versions ourselves. If we'd had to pay for all of that it would probably have added another £1000 to the overall price. On the other hand we could have saved money by having simpler packaging, but IMO that defeats a lot of the point of getting your music put on vinyl rather than just releasing it on CD or as a download.

8. On top of all the other compromises you have to make when cutting to vinyl, there is a trade off between audio quality and running time. IIRC it's about 3 minutes per side of a 7" single running at 45RPM and 12-13 minutes a side for a 12" LP at 33RPM. Once you go over these running times the cutting engineer will have to reduce the level of the audio which in turn increases the noise to signal ratio of the delivery medium. The decreased cutting/playing speed of 33RPM will also reduce the audio bandwidth. For ideal reproduction quality an LP should be delivered as 2 x 12" 45RPM discs with a running time of under 10 minutes per side.

I think for solid electric instruments too much emphasis is placed on the qualities of wood, when at best it is unquantifiable and most likely has negligible impact on the overall sound of the instrument compared with the electronics. IME what a solid electric instrument is made out of is irrelevant so lang as it plays, feels, looks and sounds like you want it.

Last time I looked Mobineko were doing the best deals for short runs of vinyl. However there are a whole load of things you should be aware of when releasing your music on vinyl. 1. The lead times are getting stupidly long. CDs can be manufactured in less than a couple of weeks from receipt of master recordings and artwork. For vinyl unless you want to pay a premium your are generally looking at 8 weeks minimum (and that's on top of the time it takes to produce and approve test pressings). Luckily Record Store Day is just over, as the run up to that generally shuts out any small run releases as the majors book up all the pressing plants. 2. It's expensive. For the cost of pressing 500 copies of the Terrortones LP we could have had at least 2000 CDs. Although Mobineko will do runs of 100, to be able to sell you finished product at a sensible price you really need to be looking at 300 as a minimum and ideally 500 copies. 3. You will need to offer an alternative format alongside the vinyl. Either a free download code or include a CD copy in with the record. If you distribute your records through Bandcamp you can get free download codes at a rate of 100 a month. If you go for CD copies that's added expense. Burning and printing CDR copies yourself will spread the load of the additional cost, but will ultimately be more expensive that getting the CD versions properly manufactured in the first place. 4. You will need to get your music mastered specifically for vinyl. And if you are also doing downloads and/or CDs you will need a separate master for those formats too. Each delivery format has it's own specific requirements and IME they are not really interchangeable. There are lots of fancy production tricks that are fine for digital formats, but on vinyl at best will render it unplayable on many systems and at worst will prevent the music from being cut to disc in the first place. 5. GET A TEST PRESSING DONE. And listen to it on as many systems as you can before approving it. The cutting requirements for vinyl may require additional processing to your masters. It's best to find out about them at the test pressing stage when things can still be altered relatively cheaply and not once you have received 500 production copies. It will be an added expense and probably add 2 weeks onto the production time, but it is indispensable IMO. 6. For me, the main attraction of vinyl is increased size of the cover for the graphics. So make sure that your packaging design is stunning. Because the music won't sound as good as the CD or uncompressed download version, you need to presentation to look fantastic to make up for that. Unless one of your band (or one of your friends) is a graphic designer who knows about designing for print, pay someone to make the cover of your record look awesome. As a minimum for an LP I'd be looking at a full colour sleeve with either a double-sided insert or printed inner sleeve. Ideally I'd probably want to have a gatefold sleeve. 7. Once you've sold initial copies to your family and friends, 95% of your sales will be at gigs. Make sure that you have an attractive display to use at your merch stand and someone who is not a band member be there all the time at the gig. Also make sure that your records are properly protected for transportation to and from gigs. The cardboard shipping boxes that they come in from the pressing plant are completely inadequate for this job - intactIME they barely survive the journey from the pressing plant to initial delivery address. That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of more later on.

They love it, since it's far smaller than my previous rigs and takes up less space in the band van. It sounded great at the first rehearsal and the sound has been getting even better with every tweak I make to the various patches. These days I'm playing what could be best described as post-punk/gothic music which is a modern take on 80s influences, so unconventional is the order of the day. TBH (apart from short stint playing covers) The Terrortones are by far the most conventional band I've ever been in and they would have probably been OK with this too. I got a few worried looks from the bass player of the band that supported us at the last gig, but I plugged him into the Helix and was about to run through some of my patches to find a suitable sound, but he thought the first patch was fantastic and that was that.

Certainly on the originals circuit there are very few venues where you are reliant on your bass rig having to provide the FoH bass sound. My experience of using the RCF745 is that the dispersion characteristic are far superior to any of my previous bass rigs. That means I can run it quieter on stage, and not have any of the band ask for extra bass guitar in the monitors in order for them to get a balanced sound.

Bass cabs add a massive amount of colour to your sound. Try running your amp into different cabs and you'll find it sounds different each time. Cabs from different manufacturers will sound different to each other even though they might have the same number and size of drivers inside. Which is why I'm always surprised when people ask for cab recommendations based on driver size and numbers, because IME these are the least important factors in how a cab is going to sound. And guitar cabs take this to a completely different level. Unless you are a fan of super-clean guitar sounds the whole point of a guitar speaker is to colour the sound in a way that guitarists have come to find pleasing through familiarity.

The RCF745 is lighter than the 735, although it does cost more. My Helix and RCF745 is replacing BassPod XT Pro, Peterson Stroborack, SFX MicroThumpinator, Tech SoundSystems Black Cat Amp, EBS Proline 210 and 410 cabs all of which combined cost me a lot more even taking into account that some of it was at second-hand prices. In fact when I factor in my guitar rig unless I'm very unlucky, I should make back enough money from selling my old gear to more than cover the cost of the new rig. I can't see myself going back to a "conventional" bass rig. At a push a could carry everything plus one bass in a single short journey. I can't even lift the EBS 410 cab on my own!

The great thing with using an electronically generated click is that you can have any sound you want. While we mostly use a standard click sound with an accent on the ONE, there are occasional other audio cues on the click track for things like time signature changes which use different sounds.

What in your opinion makes the use of a metronome different to the use of a click track? One of my current bands uses a click track. Only the drummer gets the click (in his headphones) and the rest of the band play to to the drummer. We use it to keep in sync with the pre-recorded keyboards, sound effects and backing vocals. As part of The Terrortones preparation for going into the studio to record we would practice all the tracks with and without a click. Those that required a constant steady tempo would be recorded to a click track, those that sounded wrong when regimented in this way and relied on tempo fluctuations to maintain the correct feel would be done without.

I know your comment wasn't completely serious, but in 40+ years of playing in bands I've never once come across this attitude outside of this forum (i.e. in real life).

The great thing about the Helix > FRFR set up is that it can be as much or as little as the band/song requires. Because of the way the Helix works only those modules that are in the signal chain and actually switched on have any effect on the sound. I have one patch that is essentially just a volume control and nothing else. On that one apart from the A to D and D to A conversion at the input and output, there is no signal processing going on at all - not even the baked in sound that all bass amps have. And price isn't everything. The list price of the amp it replaced in my old rig was double that of the Helix.

Absolutely not. Apart form Public Image it's been the best track on this playlist so far.

Actually I'm only using an amp sim on two of my patches and then it's as an "effect". I haven't found the need for any of the cab sims yet.

A Sad Lovers And Giants track came up on my Spotify recommended for me playlist today!

I've gone for a simple setup too. Bass > Line6 Helix > RCF745 FRFR. Job done.

Does a bass cab really go lower than a good quality FRFR? It might look like it on paper, but you have to remember that most of what we perceive below 40Hz is implied by the harmonics being generated and not by the fundamental itself because most cabs simply aren't cable of reproducing these frequencies at any great volume. My Line6 Helix into a single RCF745 has replaced the huge Tech Soundsystems and EBS rig that I was previously using. With the RCF745 set up as a wedge the opportunities for positioning and dispersion on stage are superior to what I was getting previously which means lower on-stage volumes; and the new set up occupies about a quarter of the van space.

I must be lucky as I've never experienced anything remotely like the scenarios described here. I played with some "interesting" people in my early bands, but back then I was barely competent on any of the instruments I played, so I wasn't really in a position to criticise anyone else's shortcomings in terms of musicality or personality. Besides it was era of punk and post-punk and having characters in your band was almost a requirement. It certainly didn't hurt the chances of my first two bands both of which managed to do pretty well with limited ability and to a certain extent limited ambition. Since then I've been careful about which ads I answer and how I describe myself when advertising, and have only had positive experiences. The Terrortones had a couple of less than appropriate drummers audition but that was mostly due to our original drummer being one of those extremely talented musicians who made everything he played look easy even when it wasn't, and the fact that we thought the auditioning drummers were just being overly modest about their abilities (they weren't).

I wouldn't touch any software that needs iLok with a bargepole.