BigRedX

"Iconic" and "great" are subjective terms. The song also comes from a time when the costs involved in recording and distributing "popular" music were an effective barrier to just anything getting released. So either the artist had to believe enough in a song to "put their money were their mouth was" or persuade someone else (a record label) to do it. Also the familiarity of time helps to make a song more popular. Are there any new songs recorded recorded in the last 10 years that you consider to be on a par with Hotel California? I think a better test of whether any of these songs are greatly objectively "great" will be if people still think so in another 50 years time.

And there's the problem. £1.00-£1.50 isn't really a lot, but if it was offered on a regular basis day it would soon add up. However if reducing your energy usage regularly also meant that your payments reduced over time, I can see there coming a point where the additional income become so negligible it is hardly worth the inconvenience. Of course if you simply wanted to save money on your energy bills you could turn off the gas and electricity at the main switches every time the house was empty.

I suppose you need to have smart meter take tac advantage of this offer? Is your payment in proportion to your reduction in electricity usage, or is it a fixed payment for just using less than normal? Also will the fact that you have reduced your electricity usage during this period affect the threshold for the next time you get this offer?

On serious note what does this actually entail? Not using any electricity at all? Other than turning everything off at the consumer unit how would you know you have successfully done this?

So please, for those of us who don't "get it" please explain exactly what makes Hotel California great in purely objective terms.

Getting back to the OP, other than the fact that GarageBand does not exist for Windows there is no correct answer to what is best. Different DAWs suit different people simply because of the way they work. These days nearly all DAWs have all the essential features required for recording and manipulating audio and MIDI and it is the workflow and fine details that set them apart. There are a couple a caveats to this: 1. If you collaborate with others there are definite advantages to everyone using the same DAW. While there are file transfer protocols that in theory allow you to move a project from one DAW to another none of them work as seamlessly as everyone having the same version of the same program. I'm a Logic user simply because when I bought my first DAW I was in a band with someone who already was using Logic. Not only was transferring song ideas and recordings between us easy, but I was able to get technical advice from his experience until I was fully up to speed with the process. On a couple of occasions I've done recording on other people's systems, and have struggled - not because there is anything bad about them but simply because the functions and features I am used to are either located in a different menu or work in a slightly different way to Logic. After 30 years of using one DAW there is no point for me to try and learn something else. 2. Free isn't always the best VfM. While there is no need to ever pay for Reaper, unless you intend to only ever use it to record audio, you'll soon find yourself wanting to buy extra plug-in instruments and effects. If you are not careful you can find that you have spent the kind of money that would have bought you something like Logic, Cubase or Performer all of which come with all the plug-in effects and instruments that you will ever need. To this end it may make sense for the OP to look at buying a second-hand Mac simply so they can run GarageBand (and maybe move on to Logic should they ever need something even more powerful).

If GarageBand does what you want, especially from a recording PoV stick with it. If you want more control at mixdown you can load your GarageBand project into Logic with all the tracks and regions maintained.

Ridiculous price. Also IIRC the green tinge to the colour is purely down to ageing, they were originally silver. These instruments are almost 50 years old now.

I get the point of genres, they have done wonders for attracting listeners to my most recent bands, but the more "specific" they become the less useful they are, and a lot of the time the subdivisions are fairly subjective anyway.

But I'm sure you know that's there's a massive difference between the kinds of low band-width data that 60s "computers" used which was written and retrieved by devices designed specifically for the purpose, and trying to cram 8 tracks of 16bit 48kHz digital audio onto a video cassette.

None of the "What Makes This Song Great" videos I have seen spend any significant time on the production. If they did I might still be watching them.

It had never occurred before because I was using Logic as the time code source and had set 0:0:0:00 as the first beat of the first bar which meant it was impossible to go "earlier" than that. Even when I was striping tape at home the code started at 0:0:0:00 and before that there would be no code to sync to. And the words "Digital" and "Tape" should never go together. All the disadvantages of tape with few of the benefits of digital.

I once spent half an hour in the Rough Trade shop in Ladbroke Grove trying to work out which micro-genres the CDs I wanted to buy would be in. In the end it was quicker to hand the person behind the counter a list of what I was after and let them look. It turned out they only had one out of the 10 CDs I wanted to buy and it was categorised in such a way I don't think I would have found it on my own. I really don't care about genre. AFAIAC there is just music I like and music I don't like. In the shop it's much easier to find it everything is simply arranged alphabetically by artist.

The only time I've ever recorded bass separately to (real) drums was when I was asked to replace a bass part that had been recorded by my predecessor in the band as the singer and guitarist preferred my less busy part. The reason it was less busy was because I had had time to learn all the intricacies of the original, but I never told them that!

How long did you spend mixing them?

That's pretty much doubled in price in the last 10 years. I had 100 done last time and it was only slightly more than £300. However every T-shirt run I've done in the past has more than paid for itself despite having loads of S and M sizes left. Our next design will have front and back prints which will double the print price. I am hoping it will still be possible to sell them for £10 and make a profit.

Because I have a long history of doing my own home recording I have fairly clear ideas about what I want and what I don't want when I'm paying money to go and record in a studio. I've discovered the hard (and expensive) way that I'm not a very good engineer, so what I want is to feel comfortable playing in the studio in order to get the best musical performance and let the studio owner/engineer/producer deal with the technical aspects so I don't need to worry about them at at all. So I expect all the equipment in the studio to work properly and when it doesn't for the engineer to come up with a quick fix. I once wasted a whole morning in a studio that I booked because their ProTools rig kept crashing when synchronised to my Mac running Logic. Only after it had occurred numerous times in succession, with long waits while everything rebooted and re-sync'd did the engineer think to look on line to see if it was a known problem and when they did it was fixed in seconds - it turned out that Pro-Tools didn't like the SMPTE start time of 0:0:0:00 and once that had been changed in Logic to 1:0:0:00 everything ran fine for the rest of the day. TBH the whole session was less than brilliant - we were fobbed off with a trainee engineer and despite the fact that we had laid down drums, bass and guitar for 4 songs I ended up only using the recorded high hats and some bass guitar and the rest was redone at home with programmed kick, snare and toms and new recorded guitar and bass. We didn't even consider going back into the studio to record the vocals. I also expect the engineer to accommodate slight compromises in the technical aspects of the sound in order to get a better performance from the musicians. In the 80s I did a session for a local radio station with my synth band where we were forbidden to use our taped backing because it was deemed to be of insufficient quality for broadcast (without it even being listened to) and therefore the contents had to be re-created in their studio. As a result instead of recording 5 songs which all the other bands did, we only had time to do 3 and even then there were problems with the vocals that we didn't have time to fix. I doubt, when it was broadcast, anyone would have noticed the extra crispness and clarity of the drum and sequencer sounds, but they most definitely would have spotted that a couple of high notes on one of the vocals were out of tune. Most of the time I'm happy to use my own instruments, effects and amplification. I know how they work and have spent time before I set foot in the studio sorting out the right sounds for the songs that I am recording. I'll try something else provided that either there is an immediate improvement in the sound or my ability to play the part, or if I'm not actually paying for the time wasted experimenting with something new. Spending time on experimentation is fine if someone else is paying for me to spend a couple of weeks in the studio making an album, but normally I'm only there for a couple of days to record 2 or 3 songs. A guitarist for a band I used to be in was subtly pressured by the engineer into playing through the studio's vintage Marshall amp rather than the very good modern amp she had been using for the last 6 months for rehearsing and gigging. TBH I couldn't really hear any improvement in the sound and I could tell that she was struggling with it being too loud (we'd booked this particular studio so that we could record the whole band live without using headphones) once it had been set with the right level of drive. With it being my first time back in a studio that I was paying for in 15 years I kept quiet, but on reflection I should have politely suggested that she try her usual amp to see if it was better. And finally I don't want to be lied to. If the engineer has made mistake with the routing which means that they have inadvertently recorded drums as well as bass on the bass guitar track, don't try and blame the fault on the pickups in my bass. Admit to the mistake, after all everyone makes them from time to time, and give the band all the free studio time required to fix it without quibble.

Up to just before the age of 11 I had pretty much zero interest in music. My parents were both quite musical (my mum has sung in several well known choirs and even now in her 90s plays in a Ukulele orchestra that probably does more gigs a year than I do) although at the time I'd never have known it as there was rarely music on in the house. However in 1971 I went on a Scout summer camp where Radio 1 was on all day every day and I came home obsessed with pop music, in particular the emerging Glam Rock movement. Like @NancyJohnson the band that I favoured was The Sweet who had the right combination of pop catchiness with their A-sides and heavy rock on the B-sides of the singles. The first record I bought was Hellraiser. My parents were not at all keen on my new-found interest and it took me another 2 years to actually start learning how to play the guitar, and I didn't get seriously involved with bass playing until I bought my first bass using my student grant money at the beginning of 1981. It wasn't until the bass guitar became more prominent in Post-Punk music, in particular Joy Division and The Comsat Angels that I took more of an interest in playing it. I've always been interested in playing in order to be able to write/compose so I've never felt any particular affiliation to a single instrument. The more instruments I can play the better I can understand how they work together in a band. I bought my first synth in 1982 again with grant money, and have spent significant times in bands playing guitar and/or synth as well as bass.

I f you don't mind me asking how much was this? Also what sizes did you go for? I've always found that no matter what size your typical audience member is, only L and bigger tend to buy band T-Shirts. I know it's quick and easy to call, but it would be more efficient to get a rough idea of the price from the web site first.

Looking at the OP the the bass is 25% less on-line. That's a big difference and more than the typical customer would expect to get off the price by haggling. Plus the two prices are either side of the magical £1k mark. I suspect that anyone looking for a bass under £1k would immediately dismiss it at the price shown in the store and not even bother to ask if there was a deal to be done.

Following on from supporting B-Movie at their sold out gig last weekend, Sunday 3rd December sees us in Gateshead at The Doll at the Black Bull This is an late afternoon/early evening gig starting at 5.00, with In Isolation on just after 6.00 Tickets are £6 in advance

Once again, sloppy journalism, that doesn't properly explain who owns what. AFAIK Northern Songs only own the Publishing of The Beatles songs. Now what percentage this actually is will depend on what was actually signed at various points in The Beatles' careers but it is unlikely to be more than 50% of the total, and is more likely to be around 33.3% (the traditional split was three equal ways for the composer, writer and publisher from the days when the music and words to a song were usually written by different people and without a publisher no-one was likely to ever hear your song in the first place). Anyone who is a PRS member could potentially look up to see what the various splits for a selection of Beatles songs is in actual fact. Publishing covers actual performance royalties of the songs, so there are still the mechanical royalties which are split between the band (and their descendants) and the Record Company. Again what the percentages are will depend on what sort of deal was signed. Publishing, especially when The Beatles were a band should have come with an advance (unless they were very badly advised when they signed their various deals) which is paid to the song writers for the express purposes of being able to concentrate on writing songs, so it's not as though they were "written for nothing", and I'm sure what percentage Mr McCartney actually still owns of performance royalties, but it's enough to give him a more than decent income. Yes he was stupid not to have bought back the Publishing when it became available, and he must have been very badly advised if he thought that they were ever being over-valued.

So long as the application runs and the computer can cope with recording 15 tracks simultaneously, stick with what you know. What OS do you use on your desktop machine? Your biggest problem may be that the computer simply isn't up to the task no matter what software you want to use for the recording. You will probably need to configure your installation of Windows so that nothing unnecessary is running in the background. That means disabling WiFi, Bluetooth, and network capability other than what is required for the computer to "see" XR18. You'll need to turn off any anti-virus software and disable all those unwanted background processes that Windows insists on running.

What makes a track/song great is essentially entirely subjective, and for me it rarely has anything to to with the technical ability of the musicians involved. For me the best music is where the clever or complex features aren't signposted in the sorts of ways that the majority of examples here show, but where you don't notice until you have to deconstruct the song in order to learn it. Subtlety is always best IMO.

It's about 15 years ago now, so I don't remember exactly what I wrote in my original email to Ashdown, but I sure it was polite, especially considering that at the time it was a known problem (high pitched noise coming from the amp) and well documented on TalkBass and whatever version of Basschat was going at the time. I was told that the problem wasn't fixable but for what I considered an unreasonably high price Ashdown would take a look at it. Shortly after this the amp developed an additional fault where it wouldn't power-up reliably and I went and bought something else to replace it. Considering that I'd owned the amp from new for just over 12 months and had only used it for home practice and a few rehearsals, had the shop I bought it from still been in business, I would have taken it back and demanded a refund under Trading Standards regulations. I ended up selling it for spares or repair on eBay for a fraction of the price I paid for it. I would have left it at that except that IIRC @TheGreek had bought the same model second hand with exactly the same problem and posted on here how Ashdown had fixed the amp for free for him. When I mentioned this to the Ashdown rep who was posting on here they were rude and sarcastic. I have no more time for the company other than to remind people that they are not always as brilliant as is made out, and I think you'll find that I am not the only person who has been treated this way by Ashdown.