BassTractor

Oh, there's also a phenomenon I can't explain, but I believe it's real enough. When I listen to my crappy tv speakers, while browsing BassChat on my laptop for example, I often look up in surprise, as, when someone in a film plays music over their Hi-Fi, it's easy to hear whether their Hi-Fi is any good. I often comment-in-my-head: "Oh, that's a good system .... but how the Hull can I hear that?" Good+crappy > crappy+crappy, and markedly so.

That, and all the other known stuff, and also someting I see mentioned few times: people's ears and pre-conceptions. The shop I worked in was up-market. We once organised a day of listening, and twas done so the listeners didn't get to know which gear they heard (dark stage, thin veil between gear and audience - lit from audience's side). People started bickering as they all heard different, often opposed, things. - "Way too scooped sound!" - "You're crazy! Way too little bass and treble!" - "Way to open! Tiring! It's that demn veil!" - "Way too compressed! It's that demn veil!" You get the drill. Twas the last day I was a fanatic. It's easy to point at a weakness the CS 505 has: it's harder to tweak than most more expensive decks. There's also the point that with a cheap Dual like that, there are more measurable differences between individual units. (We had a system for that, Ortofon perhaps, which tested the unit and printed a report.) Point remains: Put an Ortofon MC30 on the Dual and also on an SME on the GyroDec, and, to our ears, one could live very happily with the modest Dual. Oh, another story. We were to start selling Cabasse speakers. Listened to their most expensive model and were seriously underwhelmed. However, me listening concentrated, with closed eyes, I suddenly startled at a certain sound, and opened my eyes as I thought the importer was joking with us by playing a real instrument in the room. Of course the importer wasn't, and that "real instrument in the room" was actually the sound from those Cabasse speakers. Whoa! Also, during the 1812 Overture, I was obviously sitting in the wrong chair: the cannon shot right through my chest and I died on the spot. That's Hi-Fi! 😉

Maybe I should've worded more carefully. I do not know how it would rate compared to newer players like the Projects. All I know is that in the eighties, when I worked in a Hi-Fi shop, we compared it with expensive players like the Michell GyroDec, and the differences were minimal. From that perspective, I see no reason to ditch a 505 in 2025; one wouldn't ditch a GyroDec either, I presume.

Whatever you choose, @bass_dinger, do not underestimate the modest CS505. It's both a magnificent player and a keeper. Mine's from 1982 or so, and probably needs a new belt now. Different models exist with different heads, and I can't be very specific, but if yours is the model with the dedicated cartridges under a non-standard head, it's relatively easy to change the head so it can take standard cartridges. Me, I eventually went for a moving coil (and the arm in that case needed some extra counter-weight), and also exchanged the rubber platter cover with a thicker, softer one.

... and a very prog Xmas to you! (Yeah, that thing's a classic already, and the thread title did indeed nearly give it away. A prog Xmas can only be this or Rick Wakeman in Santa's cape, and I prefer this.)

Just ordered an MPC Key 37, and I blame you guys. Demn you all. I had no idea about this type of product, but I get the idea there's a lot of fun built into that thing, and that it integrates well with a DAW. Also, with limited width and weight, for travelling, right now it looks handier than my four-octave keyboard + desktop synth. Now wary of the above mentioned paralysis and unintuitivity, but I'll try and treat those as much needed training for the grey cell. Thanks, guys! Bert

Demn you, @Leonard Smalls! I'm too poor to read your posts!

Yes: The Fish My life ain't complete without it, and no list of bass instrumentals is either. 🙂

I seemed to remember playing through an Ohm with two footswitches in a plastic housing, but I needed Google to help me. Here's what its AI Overview opined: "One user on an online forum did recall a specific, otherwise generic-looking bass amp that inexplicably had a built-in flanger, which might be the one you are thinking of." Righto! We have our answer!

Yeah, for me too, but I do get worn out teaching 50,000 members all day.

Someone, don't remember who, explained this a few weeks ago: on people's profile page, there's a field for sending them a public message. I gather people have no idea whatsoever that this means the message becomes a status update (it doesn't say that it does), and that they also do not contemplate the meaning of the word "public".

Clicking the date or the "x replies" works for me in Chrome on Win 11, and in Chrome on an Android 16, so I guess it normally works.

Just reviving this necro-thread for a luvverly off-topic one: Mum: "John, soon you're gonna have a little brother, and you'll be his big brother!" John: "I dont want a little brother! I want a big brother!" Mum: "I understand, dear, but the baby can never be bigger than you." John: "We can abort him! From Africa!"

Yeah, ain't those things weird? I do those things too, to the point of playing tracks again and again in search of that element ... which then isn't there. On another note (no pun intended), to me, the essence of the theme is the tension created by the heavy chord under the syncopated high G. Tmight be totally different for other people, Idunno.

That's nothing! I even did play it through. My problem (apart from not remembering the track) was me being old and slow ... and taking the 180 tempo to mean something like 117. 😄

Yup, kicking BassTractor as we speak. 🙂 (Still dislike that theme, but do like the track.)

I hope they do and that you'll kick nekomatic. 🙂 Sticking me neck out here, but the tune doesn't give me any impression of having been written by one of the greats. Though maybe it's the development of the piece that does the trick ... and I'll have to kick BassTractor.

Don't recognise it, sorry. I tried Musipedia to not avail; have you tried any other online resources? I'm not knowledgeable about these sites, but do know one such site exists that lets you hum the tune.

Yup, though it might depend on the platform. In my laptop browser, I just go to the Feedback in Marketplace, and do a search for that someone's log-in name in the Search field in the top right. That has worked perfectly for me lately, without a need for specifying that the search must only be in thread titles. On my phone, in the Feedback, I have to click the magnifying glass (top right too) to get a search page, and on that page can specify to search in thread titles only. Dunno whether the latter bit is necessary, but it hardly hurts.

Bloody amateur! I bought a bloody white Van Halen bass from the off! 😁

This is what I would do: go one album forward and two albums backward at a time, and see where it ends. Now, I haven't listened to the albums today to check my impressions of them, but I think you can do worse than following this proposal. So first: - "Oranges & Lemons" for much of the same, and it's arguably a demn fine album in its own right - "Mummer" for a softer or mellower, maybe even slightly contemplative approach. If both are to your liking, you can then safely invest in "The Big Express" and start listening to: - "Nonsuch", which to me seems a bit like a more developed, less '60s Beat, continuation from "Oranges & Lemons" - either "Black Sea" or "Drums and Wires". Can't tell right now. What I can tell right now though is that D&W contains glorious and single-worthy, more poppy songs like "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Life Begins at the Hop" as well as the quite less poppy "Roads Girdle the Globe" and "Complicated Game". Whilst I love "Black Sea", it seems a bit less pronounced to me, and it has fewer Coiin Moulding songs, which normally complement Andy Partridge's ones. If you like "Nonsuch" muchly, then I think "Apple Venus" and "Wasp Star" are very safe, and I believe they are great. The ones I'd be most wary about from your experience are "White Music" and Go 2", as they are the earliest and most new wave ones. Now I love them, but I gather not everybody does. All IMHO of course, and from hazy memory.

IMHO, XTC are a fantastic band, and I'd expect you (with your Schubert and Magma sensitivities, a.o.) to to be more positive. 'That said, Roads Girdle the Globe', with its angularity and dissonance, may not be the best first song to hear - what do I know. How about a prettier song like 'The Loving' off 'Oranges & Lemons', which is a later album? or 'River of Orchids' off one of their last albums, 'Apple Venus Volume 1' ?

Aren't the stolen bits just the originals, then, run through some electronics? To which he mimics - sometimes badly? Must admit I haven't listened closely at all, but that was my initial impression.

In Holland they have or had a cultural heritage project in which they digitise(d) people's rare vinyl and up(ped) the quality through several processes and also through combining the best bits from different copies if available. You'd order a CD-R of a rare album, and would then receive their latest, best version. Methinks that if a tiny country can do it, so can a commonwealth.