BigRedX

Everything else being equal (the fretted and fretless versions are identical other than the absence or presence of frets), for me it would come down to two things: 1. Potential damage to the fingerboard from removing the frets vs cutting the slots for the lines accurately. 2. Where you want the side dots? - on the fretted version they will be between the frets, whereas on the fretless version they would probably be at the position the fret would have been. If you want to move them how much extra work would it be?

Is the program data for the Future Impact in MIDI system exclusive format? If so the interface might be filtering it out. Many are set to do this by default as SysEx tends to clog up the MIDI data stream and affect note on and off timings. Check with the MIDI interface editor application to see what MIDI messages are being filtered at the MIDI in and outs and use it to enable SysEx.

I think you also need to get clarification from the courier as to what they consider to be sufficient packaging for an item of this size and weight.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1493123394' post='3285775'][list] [*]Near total silence - 0 dB [*]A whisper - 15 dB [*]Normal conversation - 60 dB [*]A lawnmower - 90 dB [*]A car horn - 110 dB [*]A rock concert or a jet engine - 120 dB [*]A gunshot or firecracker - 140 dB [/list] Now they do. [/quote] Another meaningless statistic. Are those figures average or peak level? And do they take into account the duration of the sound?

No more than 30 minutes unless you have a decent back catalogue of well known songs.

I've not bought any downloads only from Bandcamp. Is there some way that you can keep track of what you have purchased just in case you have a problem with your computer at some point in the future and you need to download them again? This one of the things that worries me most about downloaded music. It's keeping track of what I have bought and where I have bought it from. My current CD and Vinyl collection is over 2000 albums and singles. Should anything happen to the hard disk that they have been ripped to (and it's back-ups) I know that I can always go back to the originals as a last resort. What I don't know about are the few tracks that I have downloaded from various suppliers. I believe that anything I got from iTunes can be downloaded again, but not everything has come from such a mainstream source, and some of the downloads that I bought directly from bands in the early days of on-line distribution might not even be available any more.

Record Store Day was a good idea when it first started, but these days has been hi-jacked by bands and labels that most definitely don't need to publicity. Also a lot of modern music (by which I mean anything recorded since the mid 90s) isn't suited to being cut to vinyl for all sorts of technical reasons. Also could you imagine getting "Dummy" by Portishead on vinyl? How would you know which pops and clicks were from the original recording and which had been acquired by your personal copy of the record? And finally from the PoV of trying to persuade record stores to take my band's offerings, we've had to give up since the kind of markup the stores want to add to our records means that even if we only take enough to just break even on a sale they are still priced higher than someone could buy direct from our band's web site including postage.

If yo are planning on using the speaker output of your amp as the DI source and still have your cab(s) connected, then don't buy anything without having a look and listen to the [url=http://www.emosystems.co.uk/Products/Passive_Direct_Injection_Boxes.html]EMO range of DI boxes[/url]. They have separate inputs and outputs for instrument, line and speaker levels, and all are transformer isolated from the DI XLR connection. However before buying any speaker level DI box, check that it is happy with the kind of currents a bass amp will be outputting from it's speaker sockets. IME most of these devices are aimed at guitarists and tend to top out at 100W maximum.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1492772843' post='3283079'] I never buy CDs etc I dont even use iTunes anymore and just stream everything from Spotify or check stuff out on soundcloud / YouTube. I don't like CDs / DVDs etc I find they just clutter up the place. I'd far rather access media in a streamable format which means I don't have to physically store something. [/quote] But are you happy with the choice on Spotify? For me there's too many important artists and songs missing for it to be a replacement for my CD and record collection.

I had the stop myself from switching off when he starts wibbling on about "honesty" right at the beginning off the video... There's nothing wrong with recording like this, I've done it many times, and the results if you have the right environment and are suitably well-enough rehearsed can be great. But it's just another way of recording, no better or worse or more "honest" than any other, just different. If it suits your band then by all means go ahead and record like this, but just bear in mind that recording studios in the 50s only operated like this because there was no other way of recording, and just about everyone embraced multi-track as soon as it became available and affordable.

[quote name='Graham' timestamp='1492754806' post='3282851'] I had a quick look, all the Japanese bands I know (Sigh, Church Of Misery, Coffins, Gallhammer) are on there, as are the Taiwanese Cthonic and Singaporean Wormrot. I guess it comes down to which labels have wanted to deal with company, perhaps the business model doesn't make sense for Electronica and J-pop artists. [/quote] My Japanese tastes are much more mainstream expect for the Pico-Pop artists who all seem to be on small labels. It's interesting to see who is on Spotify and who isn't. Shena Ringo is, although for some reason Spotify will only find her as Ringo Sheena - a westernised spelling I'd never come across before. Only one Polysics album (of 19 including compilations) is on there. One single by Cocco. Two tracks by Pizzicato Five. Nothing at all by Supercar or any of their post break-up off-shoots (Miki Furukawa, iLL) Nothing by Quruli or Fra-Foa. These bands are all on major labels in Japan. I assume none of the labels want to deal with Spotify? The Pico-Pop artists are much better represented after 2010, but hardly anything before that. Plus-Tech Squeeze Box who are probably the best known of these outside of Japan have a single track available. From what I've seen the Spotify Catalogue is very hit and miss. Even artists who appear to be well represented don't have their entire catalogue available. For me there is simply too much music that would want to listen to missing to make it a substitute for my record and CD collection.

[quote name='Graham' timestamp='1492709531' post='3282641'] I find Spotify fine for the genres I listen to - some of it fairly obscure black metal and doom, be it new or old. The only bands I've had trouble with are small UK and Icelandic black metal acts and the occcasional older artist like Hellhammer. For the most part, almost anything I'm after is on there, I've had more trouble with some big name pop for dep gigs - Taylor Swift, Emile Sande than more obscure stuff. [/quote] For the last 20 years or so I've been making compilations of my favourite tracks for each year, which I give to my musically inclined friends. I've just tried making Spotify playlists of some of them, and at least one quarter of the songs are missing from Spotify. Ignoring the fact that almost all the Japanese artists who aren't signed to a UK or US label are completely absent, it does get better from 2010 onwards in terms of coverage, but there are still a lot of what I would consider fairly mainstream artists who appear to be unrepresented. I certainly couldn't rely on Spotify for all my listening needs.

[quote name='JohnR' timestamp='1492710407' post='3282645'] I have. Especially if they can offer 24/96 flac files. I have no interest in MP3. [/quote] [quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1492719938' post='3282752'] I buy FLAC from Bandcamp regularly, in fact I can't remember the last time I bought music from anywhere else! [/quote] Doc you choose to buy just the downloads deliberately, or is it that the artists don't have CDs or Records available?

[quote name='wingnutkj' timestamp='1492696872' post='3282449'] However, I rarely play records these days, because it's easier to just play the download. Maybe bands are going about it the wrong way - get a load of download codes, record sleeves and label stickers printed out, then raid junk shops for the cheapest records they can find and bung them in the sleeves. Anyone complains, well it must have been a pressing error, right? And you've got the download code anyway. [/quote] I like your thinking sir! Do you know of anyone selling second-hand vinyl by the yard?

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1492700558' post='3282519'] We always sell all the CDs and vinyl we can take to gigs. Due to weight we don't take many - most of our gigs are fly aways on Easyjet/Ryan Air. We sell lots of t-shirts too but the punters always seem to want the sizes we have least of! [/quote] What I've discovered is that it doesn't seem to matter how much of your audience is made up of skinny hipsters, only L, XL and XXL people seem to buy band T-shirts!

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1492697298' post='3282451'] When I buy music from independent artists I prefer a hard copy if at all possible, but I will download if that's not available. Though having said that, the band I play guitar in have had a surprising number of younger people come up to us at gigs, look at the CD's and pronounce that there's not much point since they don't have anything to play it on. That always makes me feel old, and I'm only 36! Typically we shift more t-shirts than CDs at gigs... [/quote] We haven't sold anything like as many T-Shirts as we have CDs and records, but our T-Shirts sales have made a profit for both designs unlike the music which has yet to sell enough to cover the recording, and production costs for any of the 4 releases. It always seems strange to me that people will happily pay £10 for a T-Shirt that probably cost less than £3 to produce, but aren't so keen to spend the same on an album whose unit cost will be considerably higher.

[quote name='MartinB' timestamp='1492693819' post='3282408'] I've bought Terrortones releases from Bandcamp Spotify's great for checking out artists at minimal cost, but if I decide I like them, I'll always support them by buying the album - on CD if possible, otherwise lossless digital is ok. CDs offer the best combination of reliability, flexibility and sound quality... plus they look good on my shelf! For singles/EPs I generally prefer lossless, because (1) I don't have enough space to store them, and (2) almost no-one releases them on CD anyway. It winds me up when the only options for singles are vinyl or lossy digital - why wouldn't you want me to listen to your music as close to the recorded quality as possible? It's like painting a masterpiece and then only letting people look at polaroids of it. I wouldn't consider streaming any good for long-term usage, as there's no guarantee that a song will still be available the next time I want to listen to it (plus the obvious issues with releases being fragmented across different services). [/quote] Thank you! I'm glad someone else feels this way about the streaming services. I was beginning to think that I was on my own in this opinion.

Does anyone buy anything from record shops these days? We have a Rough Trade here in Nottingham, but the selection is pitiful. For a name that was associated with all that was cutting edge in music in the late 70s the current incarnation is depressingly mainstream. For Spotify users do you not find the catalogue too incomplete? I suppose it very much depends on your taste in music, but when I was asked by the Death Notes (the band I've joined recently) to contribute a Spotify playlist or two to their Facebook page along with the other members, I found that in the two genres I wanted to highlight - J-Pop and Post-Punk Electronica were severely limited and many of the tracks that I considered essential listening simply weren't available. Spotify seems to be fine for anything released in the UK and US since 2010 (if you release your music through an aggregator you'll be on Spotify by default), but once you start looking for older tracks by non-mainstream or artists who aren't UK or US there are massive gaps in the catalogue.

Following on from a couple of recent discussions about music formats and digital aggregators, I was looking into how sales for the different formats of The Terrortones music broke down. I'd always known that we sold a lot more physical product than downloads, but what I didn't expect was just how much it was skewed towards the physical product, no matter whether you look at income or the number of songs sold. We weren't very good at keeping actual sales figures for the physical product, but looking at what I have left of each release and taking into account how many we gave away as promo copies, I can estimate that over 5 years we made around £2500 - about 600 actual items sold, split over the 4 releases. That's from selling CDs, records and cassettes mostly at gigs and the rest mail-order through our web site and Bandcamp. In the same time period we made $200 from downloads and streaming from CD Baby, and £80 from downloads on Bandcamp - roughly 10% of our total sales. Of all those sales streaming only accounts for about 15% (that's less than 2% of the total sales by value). Looking at the actual sales numbers for downloads it was 138 tracks from Bandcamp, 137 tracks from iTunes, 14 tracks from Amazon and 7 tracks from eMusic. Interestingly by far our most popular release on download was "The MonsterPussy Sessions" which was otherwise only available as a cassette, which probably goes to show that although our audience prefers physical product to downloads they also prefer downloads to cassettes! For The Terrortones audience at least (and we did have a good spread of ages across our audience), physical product is far more popular than downloads, although they will buy downloads (in limited numbers) if there is no corresponding physical product, or if it is on a less popular format like cassette. Geographical location doesn't seem to be a problem. We sell a large number of our CDs and records to addresses outside of the UK, so AFAICS our audience isn't choosing to buy downloads because it is easier and cheaper than getting the physical product shipped to them. This tallies with my experience as an audience member. I have to admit that I am biased towards CDs, but I find that I buy most of my new music from bands at gigs. It goes a bit like this: I've enjoyed the band, had a couple of beers and there's money still in my pocket. If the band has CDs for sale I'll buy one (maybe even 2). The next day when I listen to them sometimes they are great, sometimes they are disappointing compared with my memory of the gig, and sometimes after a couple of listens a disappointing CD will start to grow on me. However if the band only has downloads available they are at a distinct disadvantage. Even if they have a card with the web address on it, there's a good chance I'll have lost it by the time I remember to check out their music, I might not even remember who the band were by then. That's a sale definitely lost. Also the next day when the buzz of the gig has worn off, I might not be quite so enamoured with the music when I check it out on iTunes before spending my money. A CD available at the gig is a definite sale. A download in the cold light of the following day... probably not. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Also (probably because of my age) I can't help but feel that a band who have gone to the trouble and expense to put their music on CD or Vinyl take themselves a bit more seriously. And I'll take them more seriously too. After all anyone with recording and $50 can get their music up on iTunes etc. It's hardly a big deal any more. So are there any musicians on here who are selling more downloads than CDs and records? And how do you feel as an audience member. Does anyone buy a download after a gig? Would you rather be buying physical product?

By replacing them with new ones. Many years ago when I had almost no money I did experiment with cleaning strings. I found the process was long and laborious, the results were disappointing, and at least one string would break on the second attempt to clean them. These days I've found that Warwick Red Label string suit my main basses. They are relatively cheap by bass string standards, so I don't feel any need to waste my time and effort in order to try and make the strings last another couple of weeks.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1492612619' post='3281640'] Where did you find that if you don't mind me asking? [/quote] On eBay. I did have to wait for a couple of weeks for a suitably priced one to come up, and the cheap price was partly due to the fact that the casing had suffered some cosmetic damage, but the internals work fine. The 2008 models ought to be even cheaper now that they no longer support the latest Mac OS (Sierra) - I bought mine when El Capitan was still the most recent. And if you are prepared to travel to pick one up in person you should be able to get an even better bargain.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1492612230' post='3281636'] Why do cars have left hand threaded hub nuts do you think? [/quote] So if you ran a car only in reverse would the wheels eventually come off?

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1492596004' post='3281444'] I think it will be a toss up between CD baby or Soundrop, depends whether we think it's worth paying the upfront fee, I think they all take the first few quid (£10?) before they start paying you [/quote] Expect it to take up to 6 months from your first download sale before you see any money. The main download sites iTunes and Amazon take 3 months to pay the aggregator who then take at least another month to pass the money on to you. For example: our first release for download was made available in September 2011, our first sale was in November and our first payment was in February of the following year.

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1492591311' post='3281375'] guitarists and drummers are replaceable as I have found out, with good frontmen and singers it can be impossible [/quote] Especially when your band is named after the singer! The final line-up of The Terrortones was guitarist number 8 and drummer number 5. Anyway back to the OP have you decided on an aggregator then? The Terrortones used CD Baby, and I've used Catapult Distribution in the past. Both have been perfectly good, although it does take a long time for your first payment to come through.

Thanks! My time with The Terrortones was not only musically rewarding, but also the most fun I've ever had in a band. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm ever in that situation again. It's a pity it's over, but IME nothing lasts for ever and while from a song writing PoV we still had plenty of new ideas, had the band carried on we would have been looking for yet another guitarist and drummer. The most disappointing thing about the end of the band was the fact that we had just taken delivery of our first proper full-length album which was getting a lot of interest, but in the absence of any gig activity, few reviewers or publications were prepared to give it any real exposure, which means that I have a load of boxes full of unsold records and CDs.