BigRedX

It's a great idea to try and discuss these things with the engineer that will be recording you. If you want your "live" sound in the studio then it is best to use your rig and insist that it is mic'd up, or that the engineer can quickly demonstrate that they can replicate this sound to your and the band's satisfaction from a DI source. IMO DI should always comes second to the sound of the bass rig mic'd up and is used only if the mic'd sound requires a bit of extra weight, or as a safety track that can be re-amped should the overall sound of the song change so much at the mixing stage that your original bass sound is no longer appropriate. The other thing to avoid IMO is the temptation to try instruments and amps in the studio that you are not familiar with. This fine if you have unlimited time and budget for the recording, but that's very rarely the case, so stick with what you know and like.

[quote name='AndyTravis' timestamp='1459939375' post='3021016'] Don't all guitar synth pedals sound a bit like that? Just listened through some decent headphones - sounds good. The only issue I have with my BSW is that if the note you play hasn't got a smooth decay it either warbles awfully or cuts off, seems the processor in this unit is a lot more powerful and actually does something with it. BRX I don't use my BSW to replace a keys player, it's for snippets in songs. I had a Korg G5 for a good while and we used to do "Freak Like Me" by the sugarbabes (sample of Are Friends Electric...) and the G5 was ideal - just a pain to use. This looks like a good compromise between the two - as without a hex pickup or even an actual synth it's always a compromise. [/quote] I went back and had another listen running the sound through my studio monitors, and it doesn't sound quite so awful. But... I think it was a mistake to make a demo of a song with such distinctive synth sounds and not really get very close to the original. The part where they play what is very obviously a guitar part on the recording using the pedal sound is just hilarious! I've been interested in trying to use guitars (and basses) to control synths since before the technology was available and have been following (and trying where ever possible) what has been available from the first proper guitar-controlled units from Roland, ARP and Hagstrom in the 70s onwards. Unfortunately pitch detection is never going to be the solution since the laws of physics are always going to be against you. Having spent a good deal of the 80s trying to make synths sound like guitars and then much of the 90s making guitars and basses sound like synths, I know that while it is possible, it is neither easy or particularly satisfying to do - other than as an exercise to show it can be done after a fashion. Ultimately I found it far easier to develop some rudimentary keyboard chops that allow me to play synth parts quicker and more accurately then wasting hours modifying my guitar technique to do the same thing, but with less consistent results.

Are we watching the same video? All I hear is a way of making a couple of decent guitars sound like a Casiotone put through a cheap fuzz box.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1459894415' post='3020722'] Don't they still make these? [/quote] Warwick make a more modern version.

Yes the bass (just like every other instrument) has to serve the track. However sorting out the "band sound" is surely one of the things that you've already done in the rehearsal room when you wrote and arranged the songs. IMO I'll allow the engineer/producer to override the band preferences for sound only if they are a big name producer with a proven track record who has been specifically hired to create an awesome sounding recording that will make us all rich and famous, in which case they can do what the hell they want. Otherwise I'm paying them and they can knuckle down and sort out the getting the band to sound how we want and not what makes life easy for them.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1459883518' post='3020609'] This is curious if you ask me. Styling isn't at its finest though. [/quote] Liking the styling has a lot to do with familiarity. I'm sure if the Fender Precision hadn't turned out to be so popular, we'd all be laughing at its clunkiness every time an example popped up on eBay.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1459878993' post='3020558'] That's a good point. You can put it through an octave such as an OC2/3 with no dry sound & then some dirt & filters & you'll have yourself synthy goodness. [/quote] Or far more conveniently you could just buy yourself a cheap synth.

[quote name='AndyTravis' timestamp='1459873305' post='3020480'] Fair play. Go on then [/quote] If someone was to supply me with the original high resolution photographs of the bass and pay me $50 I would most definitely do it. ;-)

It's based on Yamaha's [url=http://www.vocaloid.com/en/]Vocaloid[/url] technology and it's a little bit more involved than just a formant filter.

[quote name='AndyTravis' timestamp='1459870710' post='3020435'] Is it something you could improve upon? Genuine question. Not being facetious in the least. [/quote] Absolutely - it's my day job which is why I feel so strongly about it.

[quote name='AndyTravis' timestamp='1459864064' post='3020340'] Doubt they had a huge spend for an April fools? [/quote] It's all about image and marketing even if it is only an April Fools post on Facebook. And for a company like Fodera that pride themselves on the quality of their instruments and attention to detail, if a job is worth doing then it should be worth doing properly. Besides if they spent even a little time on it they would have been able to find plenty of Photoshop artists willing to to a completely realistic looking job for under $50.

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1459863665' post='3020337'] Appart from that being posted on April 1st the "relic" job is photoshopped. It's easy to notice if you have the picture big enough. Here are the most notorious tells: In this pic, the worn on the body on the arm rest not only removed the clear coat but it also removed the hole top wood leaving it with something with a different grain.... Even though the neck is worn and descoloured it still can shine a flash like a mirror??? It's obvious that Fodera wouldn't ruin a $$$$ bass just for an April's foul joke, it's cheaper to pay for photoshop but they could have paid a bit more for a more beliavable job. [/quote] If they paid anything for that Photoshop work then they were done!

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1459857498' post='3020268'] But... some genres of music do benefit from harder compression, bordering on brick wall limiting. [/quote] Have you heard the Sleigh Bells album "Treats"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iI606ERE6Y

But tone is entirely personal too. Especially judging by the number of threads I see on here purporting to show off killer tone, most of which leave me thinking that if I sounded like that I would be seriously re-evaluating my playing technique and choice of equipment. And a good tone IMO very much dependent upon the type of music you play and how the other instruments in the band sound - what works with one type of music and musicians doesn't automatically work with others.

I don't understand the question. Having grown up in the 70s with basses (and guitars) that only just qualified as musical instruments in terms or sound and playability, my experience is that just about every single modern bass performs perfectly adequately in a band context on both counts. And judging by what others say about playability and tone, both attributes are entirely subjective.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1459787532' post='3019631'] This is what I see when I log on to my Soundcloud page. [attachment=216199:IMG_0694 (1).JPG] [/quote] The "Upload" is right there next to the search. What is the problem?

According to the OP he's on a Mac Mini so AFAIK there shouldn't be any "app" and certainly nothing using iOS. OT. IME unless it has been designed first and foremost to run under iOS I find the browser version on a proper computer to be superior to the "app" version for pretty much everything.

[quote name='RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE' timestamp='1459762374' post='3019209'] Will let you know later. The soundcloud app is rubbish also IMHO . Looking for the upload section is difficult , when before it was was easy . [/quote] What's this "SoundCloud App" you are talking about? Are you not accessing SoundCloud through your normal web browser?

Sometimes bands can take a long time to get going. I've been in a couple that were over a year from inception to first proper gig, but in those it took a long time to get a complete and stable line up and in both cases the music relied heavily on pre-programmed backing which takes a lot longer to arrange than simply getting a bunch of musicians together in a room and jamming them out. Also these bands existed at a time when to do what we wanted we were really pushing the technology that was cheaply and easily available to the limits of what it was capable of.

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1459758674' post='3019161'] all but one of my start up bands have played shows, one in fact had a full set written, cd recorded and gig performed in the space of 2 months... does this make me some miracle worker? [/quote] Easily do-able if the band members are all sufficiently motivated. The Terrortones went from being just an idea of Mr Venom's to playing our first gig with a set of new songs written specifically for the band in 8 weeks. We had a demo of 7 songs recorded the following month, and a few weeks after that we were supporting The Meteors.

If money was no object, then I wouldn't be looking at a single multi-effects unit, but range of units - some multi some single effect pedals, all fitted into a large rack case and controlled via a custom MIDI router.

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1459584826' post='3017795'] Correct. I was there. And I knew Jim Burns. Oh and I briefly owned a Sonic bass and an Artist guitar from the very early days. AND a Fenton-Weill bass from around the time Jim started getting involved... [/quote] I really like my sonic bass - it was my first bass and saw me through all of the 80s. I'd probably be quite happy with a 1960 Artist bass. Is there any way of accurately dating them? The books don't give any indication that there is for the early models, and my Sonic had already been so heavily modified by the time I got it, if there had been a serial number or date sticker, it was long gone.

If you are buying "off-the-peg" then you can't go far wrong with a Pedulla Pentabuzz. The only improvement you can make to it is to replace the supplied pre-amp with an ACG EQ01.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1459507228' post='3017189'] I asked Sheldon about the headstock and he replied that it needs to be so small to avoid the dreaded T-bird neck dive. Not a hint of neck dive here... [/quote] True. But he is wearing it about 18" higher than he should!

Wow! Back from the dead... I exchanged several emails with Bas Extravaganza, as I was looking for a luthier to build me my ultimate fretless bass and I liked a lot of his designs. One thing that became very clear during this was that his basses were all pretty much one-offs and he wasn't very interested in revisiting an idea once he'd done it. I would imagine that even if he was still making basses, the chances of getting him to make another Jigsaw would have been pretty minimal, so even then your only opportunity to own one would have been to buy the one he'd already made. Do you know who owns it now? Some of his other basses are (or have been) owned by Basschat members (IIRC the single sting bass and Punk Rock bass). BTW the massive list of links to other luthiers that was on his site went a long way to providing the source material for this thread.