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BigRedX

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Everything posted by BigRedX

  1. It would probably be fair to say that just about every instrument on a pop/rock recording (and the vocals) has had compression applied to it, whether it be an actual compressor, something in the signal path with valves in it being driven hard, or tape saturation; or a combination of all three.
  2. One would hope that the original recordings were made at 24bit 44.1kHz. However Soundcloud streaming (which is how we are listening to them) is at best 128BR MP3 which IMO is too low resolution to allow any meaningful analysis of the recordings.
  3. Yes there's a difference, but to my ears it is so slight that its pretty much irrelevant although, it is a bit more pronounced on the slap sounds. And in the context of a band mix (which is where it really counts) I doubt anyone would be able to tell the two apart on any of the playing styles. And then there is the problem with the methodology of your test. 1. There are just two many variables in the construction of solid electric instruments. Every bit of wood is different. Even if the woods used in both instruments are the same species for each part, there will be differences between them, and that's before we even think about the differences in where and how they are joined. And what about the electronic components? Unless you are specifying very close tolerance items there will be at best a ±10% tolerance for every single component in the signal chain. How similar are the pickups in terms of resistance? Did you even measure them? 2. Then there's a sample size. I'm sorry but two instruments simply isn't enough. If you had 100 identical instruments (or as close as possible given point 1), 50 with Rosewood boards and 50 with ebony boards and you got constant difference between the two types and the overlap in between each type was negligible (i.e. the darkest of the brighter sounding wood was still brighter than the brightest of the darker sounding wood) then I might be able to start taking this tone wood stuff seriously when it comes to solid electric instruments. 3. And finally there is tester's bias. I'm sure you didn't mean to do it, but unless you were blindfolded and didn't know which bass was which, there will have been some variation in your playing style as you unconsciously tried to bring out the sonic characteristics you were expecting form each bass. And all this is why I think that trying to isolate the sonic characteristics imparted to a solid electric instrument by a single component is a fools errand. There are two many other variables that can't be ignored. And then you need to address the sample size of the tested instruments and get a consistency of result, for any of this to have any proper meaning. To me each instrument is the sum of all its various parts and you can break it down and sign a single characteristic to a single one of any of those parts. I treat each bass (or guitar) as a whole. And either as a whole it works or doesn't for me. And TBH from my PoV unless there is something very wrong with the instrument it will be possible to get a good usable sound out of it with a slight modification of my playing technique and EQ and effects settings that will result in a suitable bass sound for whatever song I am playing. BTW I didn't vote, because there wasn't an option for I could tell a difference between the examples but it didn't matter which was which, and I'd pick the bass that looked the best to me.
  4. Well according to this thread which was the one I was thinking of, so long as the OP doesn't need to trigger more than one sound simultaneously, then the JamMan should be exactly what he needs. However I should point out that while this is fine for one-shot or freeform background sounds, anything that needs to have more than its start point synchronised with the live band will require a proper backing with a click track for the drummer.
  5. Well the 1bn they might have raised from the shares might keep them going for the next year. I think unless there is some breakthrough working out a way for streaming to be profitable without alienating their customers as well as their content providers, then a lot of people are going to lose their money.
  6. Perhaps the real reason that rock music is becoming less relevant these days is because it is turning into classical music.
  7. Do you have a source for that? It is my understanding that Spotify has still to turn a profit and is only kept going by investment hoping that one day it might actually be worth something close to that figure. Personally ATM I can't see how that is possible. The infrastructure and bandwidth costs alone to support Spotify's user base must be huge, and I suspect that the vast majority of them are using the free service. The ads on the free service are poorly targeted, most of the ones I get are from Spotify trying to persuade me to upgrade to their paid service and all of the others are for music I have absolutely no interest in; and since I'm mostly using Spotify's own genre playlists, you would think that ads for music would reflect the genre being streamed? I see little point in paying for Spotify when their catalogue is so incomplete. Roughly one third of the tracks I have on CD or records are unavailable on Spotify and while I'm not exactly mainstream, my tastes aren't THAT obscure. AFAIK none of the streaming services actually make any money. Soundcloud was just about viable until they were told that they would have to pay royalties to the owners of their content. Since then they've stubbled from one financial crisis to another. Even YouTube only survives because it is being propped up by Google's more lucrative services. No one but Spotify's management and their anxious investors can believe that Spotify is worth anything close to the figure being quoted. Maybe if someone actually works out how to make music streaming services turn a profit then perhaps one of them could be worth that much. But until then dream on.
  8. The last time this very question was asked the general consensus was that the Digitech JamMan was what you needed.
  9. I couldn't agree more regarding the neck width of Bass VI instruments. I have a Squier Bass VI and the neck is narrow even by guitar standards (it's certainly narrower than all the guitars I own) and that's the main reason why it doesn't get very much use. I had a look at the Music Man Silhouette Bass (it's not a very exciting looking instrument IMO) and according to the specs the neck is 44.5mm at the nut - where did you get the 47mm figure from? Also it seems to be marketed as a Baritone Guitar rather than a Bass VI, even though at just under 30" the scale length is about right for E - E stringing. However with 2 humbuckers rather than 3 single coils it appears to be voiced more in the Baritone range and it probably won't sound much like a Fender/Squier Bass VI, or your Revelation Bass VI. And so is it worth getting a custom Bass VI made to your specifications? Well given that a new Music Man is going to set you back around £1,700, probably yes. Where about in the world are you? Here in the UK there are several custom builders who would be able to make something suitable for you. It is important to find a luthier that you get on with and who you can trust to make those decisions that you know little about, in order to get the right instrument for you. My normal advice when picking a luthier for a custom instrument is to find someone who is already making something very similar to what you want. However in this case I think you may have to be even more trusting of your chosen luthier than usual. There are a couple of things that you should be aware of. Firstly any commercial custom luthier who is any good will be busy and you are probably looking at a build time in excess of 12 months. Secondly with a 52 width at the nut you are most likely going to need custom pickups to accommodate the extra wide string spacing and a custom bridge as well. That will all add to the cost and build time. There is one other route you could consider. Here on Basschat we have several talented people building their own instruments and sometimes instruments for other people. I would check out the work of Andyjr1515 in the Build Diaries section. Finally I don't think that this section is the best place for your question. I'd have asked it in either General Discussion or Bass Guitars. If you want to get the thread moved, click on "Report" on your OP and ask a moderator to move it for you. HTH
  10. "Valve Watts" tend to sound louder because when you start to work them, valves compress the signal in a musically pleasing way, which means that the bits in-between the peaks are louder. So even though the peaks are no louder than a SS or Class D amp the average signal level is higher in a valve amp meaning that it sounds louder.
  11. Festivals should be fun in the sun. Unfortunately here in the UK summer is the season when the rain is slightly less cold than at other times of the year. I think I mentioned in a previous thread of yours about festivals that my band did a whole bunch of them a couple of years ago. The only one where it didn't rain was the one where we played indoors in a hall (to almost no audience as they were all outside enjoying the sun). The only good thing about rain at UK festivals is that if you happen to be a relatively unknown band playing in a tent rather than on the main stage you can count on a considerably larger audience if the weather is inclement!
  12. the efficiency of your cabs will probably make more difference than the amp wattage. I used to run one of two rigs both class D - one 300W and the other 1kW. With the input gain set so that I'm just below the point where the overload light comes on when I play my hardest, with PA support I've never had to have the master volume above 10 o'clock on either amp. The only time I've had to go above 12 o'clock on the master volume is when I used one of my amps in combination with someone else's inefficient cabs at an equipment share gig.
  13. At a lot of places where I have worked there is essentially nothing to do during your lunch break other than eat your lunch which takes all of 10 minutes. Because of where the workplace was, if you did decide to go out somewhere worthwhile it generally took so long to get there that you would only have a few minutes to do whatever it was you were going to do. For me lunchtime if I wasn't actually busy with work was wasted time. Personally I'd far rather work through my "lunch break" and leave an hour earlier. In effect what usually happened was that I would be so busy that working through lunch meant I could leave at 6.30 rather than 7.30 in the evening. Luckily I was on paid overtime so working through my lunch was another hour at time and a quarter. The best place I worked at was less than 5 minutes walk from where I lived so I would go home at lunchtime and catch up on TV I had recorded the previous evening.
  14. Until you need to change a string in a hurry at gig, when you'll find that it keeps popping out of the slot all the time before you can get it up to enough tension to stay in place.
  15. If you are close-mic'ing pick the driver furthest from any ports. If both drivers are the same distance then off-axis mic as far away from the ports as possible.
  16. Is there enough room? I recently went on holiday by coach and despite the fact that we travelled in relative comfort, there wasn't that much room in front of me when seated. I certainly wouldn't want spend any more than an hour with a bass guitar travelling this way. Has the OP said where he is coming from?
  17. Personally I wouldn't bother. I've not been to the LBGS but I've been to several other music shows both trade-only and open to the general public, as well as Manchester Bass Day (which was much the same thing but on a smaller scale to LBGS) and every time the overall amount of noise being generated was such that it was (for me at least) completely impossible to make any useful observations about the sound of any of the gear I was trying out. Also it doesn't matter what arrangement you come to with the driver, if the space is required for a paying customer, your bass will be going in the luggage hold. Or you'll be getting off the coach. For a popular destination like London, I wouldn't risk it.
  18. From three sessions of playing with mine the amp model I like the best is the Roland Jazz Chorus! I also don't see any reason why you need to use an amp and cab models. After all an amp is just an EQ circuit bolted onto something to amplify the signal enough to drive the loudspeakers. For many years my bass rig was a Peavey multi-effects unit going into a power amp.
  19. I think it's more that the cab is producing the actual sound of the basses including frequencies that would normally be attenuated in a traditional bass amp and cab.
  20. Have you actually played one? Of the two I've owned the XKB-10 did have a tendency to neck-dive, but that was down to the body shape are than the neck, it would have been no better with a conventional wooden neck. The 450B was fine and weight-wise considerably lighter than the majority of Fender bases being produced at the same time. I've never had a problem myself from the temperature of the neck either in feel or tuning stability. Most of the back of the neck was taken up with wooden inserts and whole neck was lacquered.
  21. Nothing wrong with a good Kramer aluminium-necked guitar or bass. I've owned two and the only reason I don't have them anymore is because I don't play 4-string basses enough to justify keeping them.
  22. Yes. It looks like a DMZ4001.
  23. Gibson even took the actual Les Paul model out of production from 1961 to 1967, at it was only with the rise in popularity of "rock" music and the fact that many of it's prominent guitarists were sporting Les Paul Guitars that persuaded Gibson to start making them again.
  24. Some more seemingly random observations that are actually interlinked. Whatever you end up getting, make sure it is capable of running whatever is the latest version of Mac OS at the time you buy it. Right now that's High Sierra. The thing that makes Macs obsolete more than anything these days is when they can no longer run the latest OS and then by extension the latest software. Another reason not to buy a second-hand copy of Logic. Because the latest version is a App Store only purchase and tied to the purchasers Apple ID there are no legitimate copies for sale second hand. That means the only legal copies of Logic that you can get are Logic 9 and earlier. Of these only Logic 9 will run on the most recent versions of Mac OS (and personally I would bother with anything earlier than El Capitan for a new machine) and even then getting to install and run is a bit of a faff and not something I would want to inflict anyone who isn't well versed in Mac troubleshooting.
  25. It's arrived - a bit bigger and heavier than I was expecting - especially in the box. I've only had one chance to use it with my Helix so far, and initial impressions are good although there is some excessive top-end zing. I believe there was a post in the Helix thread about using the LPF on the cab model setting to sort this out, but I haven't had time to go and look for the specific information. Hopefully work won't be quite so busy next week and I'll have at least half a day to sit down and get a basic sound sorted out. One of my bands have some high-profile supports coming up in April and May and I'd like to have everything ready for then.
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