BigRedX

Some more observations that the OP might want to take not of... I'm assuming that both songs in this mash-up are covers? I'm familiar with Superstition, but not the other song. If that is the case, it may make it trickier to get the licences since not only will you have to get (and pay for) a licence for each song if any of the rights holders don't like how you've combined them, they might not allow to use their song in this way. Also I would recommend that for the moment you set your SoundCloud link for this track to private and get this thread moved to Off-Topic where it is not visible to Internet Search Engines. If any of the rights holders for these songs are a bit "iffy" about granting you a licence, the fact that you have essentially released the song before the fact might just make them say "no". Which brings me the crux of the matter... What do you hope to achieve with this track? Because you aren't likely to make any money off it. In fact it's probably going to cost you a lot more to put this out legally than you are ever likely to receive back in streaming or download sales. Cover versions rarely make the artists cover them any money unless they are massive hits.

As a general observation, getting the appropriate permissions for a cover song release these days is a lot harder than it used to be - especially since digital downloads don't have a finite quantity. In the past with vinyl or CD you simply told the MCPS how many copies you were pressing, what the retail price was and what proportion of the songs were covers to originals and they worked you out a price based on those figures. You paid and they issued a licence which allowed you to get your records or CDs manufactured. It was as quick as it could be given that everything took about 28 days by post. The rights holders of the song(s) you were covering were rarely bothered as they were getting their share of all the Mechanicals up front irrespective of how many copies actually sold. These days of digital downloads sales numbers are open-ended. You might sell 1 download to your mum. You might sell 10,000,000 all over the world. That means the Mechanicals have to be recorded individually for every sale and only come in as and when a download is actually sold. Also the rights holders can be a lot more precious about how the songs are used. They might also be worried that a cover may detract from sales or the "original" version. My experience of trying to get covers cleared and licensed for digital distribution, has been that on the whole it's simply not worth the time and expense required to get the permissions. At the moment, my 80s synth band have been toying with the idea of re-releasing our two cassette EPs along with some other demo recordings as a digital album. However one of the tracks in a cover. Trying to get permission to include it, has so far proved to be hard work. We'll probably end up having to leave it off.

That look pretty good. Is there an option to fit lighting to the top like a "Nimlok" stand?

PPL is yet another organisation you probably want to join, but completely separate and different to PRS/MCPS, As Steve Browning says, if you want an ISRC for your track which makes getting performance royalties much easier, then you will need to join. However there is absolutely no reason to pay for your ISRC. Join the PPL as a record company member as well as a musician member (they are separate applications so complete both), which cost nothing and you can generate as many ISRC as you need for free.

Get in touch with PRS/MCPS for the appropriate licence. That’s assuming you are in the UK. Otherwise you’ll need your national PRO.

No I’ve ordered a Mk4 version. From what they said it looks as though they just messed up my order.

If it’s just for a single (one track only) and you use CD Baby, they will handle the licensing application for you. Have a look in their FAQ all the details are there. However be aware that your application can be rejected depending on the owners of the rights to the song - writers, publishers and anyone else who has in interest.

If you just need the EQ sound for some songs (or parts of songs) and use the standard passive tone the rest of time, then an EQ pedal will probably be more useful in that it will have a bypass foontstwich, whereas most outboard preamps are designed to be permanently affecting your signal.

They were good enough to phone me up and apologise, but it was after 5 pm when they did, so too late for me to do anything constructive about re-arranging my time until next week. If it wasn't for the fact that they are significantly cheaper on this item than everyone else I would have probably cancelled my order.

Unfortunately the death of Rock n Roll has been slightly postponed. Having organised my week so I would be definitely working from home tomorrow when the RCF was due to be delivered, I've just received a call from Bax Shop telling me that due to an error my speaker won't be out for delivery tomorrow. Not happy...

I practice the songs I'm going to play, each in the key I am going to play them. The rest of the time I work on writing new songs. History and experience have shown me that the musicians who do well out of the music business are the ones with songwriting credits on popular songs. My songs might not be popular (yet) but I'm earning PRS royalties from stuff I wrote back in the early 80s. Because the songs and the recordings last long after the band that originally played them has ceased to exist, their earning potential goes on pretty much forever.

Many years ago (it was when Sound Control was still a going concern and before buying stuff on the internet had really taken off) I wanted to buy Herco Flex 75 picks in bulk. A friend who used to work there had been able to get me a box of 100 picks which worked out at well under half the price of buying them individually and at the rate I was using/losing them it made good sense. As I was nearing the end of my current stock I popped into the shop to enquire about getting another box of 100. After a lot of poring over stock catalogues, was told "we'll see what we can do". A couple of weeks later, I was told my picks were in stock and I turned up to be presented with a pack of 6. Me - "No that's no good - 6 will last me about a month if I'm careful. Can you get me a box of 100 like you did before?" Them - "It was supposed to be 100. We'll place the order again." So off I went. In the mean time I had a search on the internet. It turns out that Herco Flex 75 are still available in 100s but seemingly only in the US. Still I'm sure that Strings & Things will be able to sort me out. And so for another 6 months I was bounced between Sound Control, Strings & Things and Jim Dunlop (who own the Herco brand) in the US. Jim Dunlop would only deal with Strings & Things because they were the UK distributor. Strings & Things would only deal with Sound Control, because they didn't sell direct to the public, and it didn't seem to matter how often I went into the shop or phoned them about the progress of order, the box of 100 picks still hadn't arrived. The manager of the shop looked embarrassed to see me every Saturday, and he had no picks to sell me. Finally I tracked down a source in the US who would sell me 100 Herco picks and ship them to the UK, and I was just about to do the deal when Sound Control phoned to inform me that my picks had arrived. I ended up getting a second box of 100 for free for being so patient. I've almost used up all of these 200 picks, but luckily there are plenty of sources in the UK who will sell me 100 Herco Flex 75s at a sensible price.

I suppose... However when I was getting into rock music and the instruments that it was played with in the early 70s, one of the things that made Rickenbacker basses stand out was the triangle inlays. In fact for a while I assumed that Rickenbacker must be the go-to bass guitar since so many of the bass players in my favourite bands used one, and I was quite surprised to find that they also made guitars!

The RCF 745 and the Line6 Helix (along with my Linn Adrenalinn) should cover all my bass and guitar tone-shaping and amplification needs and at worst when I sell my old bass and guitar rigs I'll make all the money I've just spent back.

Have a look at anything by Hughes and Kettner with valves in it. And to confirm what overs have said about output levels, I have a (now discontinued) Hughes & Kettner Tube 50 combo (50W) and have never used it without running into a Marshall PowerBrake on less than half volume. If I was looking at another all-valve guitar amp I probably wouldn't consider anything over 30W.

RCF 745 ordered!!

IMO (and especially on a guitar) cutaways should give easy access to ALL of the frets. Also I was meaning to ask on your last guitar build, when you essentially removed the heal and blended the neck into the body how does that affect the action of the truss rod? My understanding was that the truss rod acted on the neck between the nut/volute and where the neck thickens at the heal. If you remove the heal essentially making the neck longer do you need a longer truss rod?

Pitch to CV or MIDI for the bass guitar is just not feasible unless you have the world's cleanest and precise technique and are playing downtempo music. The laws of physics are always going to be against you. The theoretical minimum response time has going to be one complete wave cycle for the device to have a good guess at detecting the pitch. The open E on a bass is 41Hz, that means at the very, very best you are looking at 24ms between playing a note and the device working out what pitch it is. That's slap-back echo territory (i.e. noticeable), and in reality the actual response time is going to be closer to double that. Notice how in the demo in the OP you never get to hear the controlling signal in combination with the synth output except when it is making random glitching noises along with the drums. Also notice how the controlling signal is always something high-pitched like guitar or another keyboard. You can't blame the manufacturer for wanting to show their products in the best possible light, but I think a lot of purchasers are going to be very disappointed when they try and use these in a real world situation. There are various tricks that you can use to make the tracking quicker and more accurate but all of these take the expressiveness away from the controlling instrument, and IMO the whole point of using something like a guitar to control as synth is that you can make full use of that expressiveness. Otherwise you might as well use a keyboard and the standard synth performance controls. Also while in theory a monophonic device might be fine for bass parts, in practice one of things that makes the feel of a bass line played on bass guitar different from one played on a keyboard or other monophonic device is what happens when you play parts that swap between the strings. And once you've lost the feel of the bass part from that of playing on a bass guitar you might as well play it on a keyboard (or sequence it). There are players that can make pitch to CV or MIDI work for them. What you will find is that they are mostly guitarists and that they have spent years honing their technique and modifying their instruments to get around the inherent limitations of using pitch detection to control a synthetic waveform. I found very quickly that it was far easier for me to develop enough of a keyboard technique in a day or so that enabled me to play synth parts than it was to modify my guitar playing style to get the tracking to work well enough to satisfy my very basic requirements.

IMO it's one of the improvements of the new version of the site. It takes a couple of seconds to dismiss the pop up and having a look at the new posts before actually posting your own can be useful at times.

As someone who does quite a bit of design work for exhibitions, roller bands to me always look a bit crap, especially for bands. They always come across as something promoting a cheap and nasty fly-by night product, that will be history in year's time. Even on the very expensive versions the sides always start rolling over after they've been used a couple of times. Also I'm not entirely convinced about their robustness in a gigging environment. A couple of years back I was onto a nice earner replacing damaged banners for a medical supplies company who were using them at conferences and exhibitions, and were needing at least one of the 3 banners they had replacing every 4 or 5 weeks. Now I don't know exactly what was happening to them at these events but unless medical reps party extra hard, I would have thought that the average gig was far more demanding.

This. Or alternatively I'll put on a track from my latest CD or vinyl release and then try and flog them a copy.

Fender nicked it of Paul Bigsby, who nicked it of Martin who in turn nicked it off any number of 19th Century German luthiers.

Yes it has.

There's lots of luthiers who will build you a very nice bass guitar. However if you want a Warwick only Warwick will make you one.

Back when I had a lot of disposable cash, and the StarBass II have just come out I tried to get Warwick to build me a custom version. I filled in all the details on their custom enquiry form on the web site and waited... Nothing. So I had another go, and waited... Nothing again. So I had yet another go... And still no reply from Warwick. Eventually I was able to get a MiK StarBass from Thomann when they were EoL'ing them, and at a much cheaper price than my Custom version from Warwick would have been.