BassTractor

[quote name='ped' timestamp='1479204791' post='3174675'] Amazing. I'm going to damage my eyesight today so I can get some too [/quote] Great OTB thinking! Wasn't thinking of this, but since you've opened my eyes so to speak, I command you to source one of those Citroën C6 cars that go so well with these specs. Yes, I'm aware you miss your C6. You need a new one. [quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1479206694' post='3174702'] Love the glasses. Your discription paints a great picture and something of interest to me. Seems like you can still peer over the top for a 'Selfie' as well. [/quote] The brand is Theo Eyewear, and the model is named Bi-Cycle. They're still available. Theo had a smilar model earlier, but those were square, and the frame looked like two "H" letters. Fugly IMHO. Peering: yup, the glasses are normally being worn slightly lower than the same shape with just two lenses in them.

[quote name='josie' timestamp='1479161280' post='3174483'] If you're nice to her she might let you play me [/quote]

OMG. That was very sad news. He seemed to be such a great bloke, and I felt he was a real credit to BassChat. I liked him a lot and am saddened by this.

[quote name='josie' timestamp='1478987170' post='3173213'] [attachment=231956:MMW_SL.jpg] [/quote] Yesss! Finally! You're the answer to my dreams, desires and lusts! Let's meet soon, baby! BTW, the person holding you isn't too shabby either! I like her.

[quote name='Oopsdabassist' timestamp='1478970372' post='3173065'] Interesting pic! And a wonderful pair of specs! Is that bar across the middle not distracting? [/quote] I'll let the artist know. Thanks! I love them for many reasons. No trouble with the bar. The upper lenses are distance lenses and thus the "main" glasses. One looks "through the middle" of these lenses, and the bar becomes just like the frame of other glasses: it lets you know where the effect of the lenses stops. The lower lenses are "reading" lenses, but the ultra-genius is they're adapted to objects farther away than a book - more like a laptop screen or, importantly, the car dashboard. Absolutely brilliant. So with these, without nodding or adapting one's eyes, one can keep track of the traffic as well as the dashboard, or watch tv whilst posting nonsense on BC. At the same time one saves money, as no expensive bi-focal or vari-focal lenses are needed, and one pays for one frame only. Plus, one doesn't need to carry reading glasses when leaving the house, as the dashboard/laptop lenses are good enough for that. Absolutely bloody brilliant specs in every respect, and highly recommended.

Time for an update, as I've grown very old. My luvverly little friend and surrogate grandchild, the 6-year-old from next door, was supposed to play Sudoku on my 15 years old Nokia. Instead, she quickly ran through the menus and took pics of everything she saw - - mainly of my dog of course, but also this one of me. [url="http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/basstractor1/media/Bert%202016%20-%20512x596_zpsfj1kxhgf.jpg.html"][/url]

SSoSFAGTiaCaGWaP of course!

With female singer, we did: Dalbello: Gonna Get Close to You Dalbello: Animal Dalbello: Black on Black Mother's Finest: Baby Love Mother's Finest: Mickey's Monkey as well as some songs by the earlier mentioned Heart.

[quote name='hairychris' timestamp='1478688075' post='3170887'] Is it weird to say that I never get sounds in my head - I have to start somewhere/anywhere physically and hone in from there? It's the same with writing music. Am I a freak, being a musician who can't actually create without hearing it? [/quote] I do not have the answer to this, but now you ask, I do remember that in music college there were enough of people who could not invent new music or new sounds in their heads. I have no idea whether they were just untrained or whether they lacked some basic ability, but in general a lot of stuff can be learned - even when people think they can't learn it. As to synths and acquiring the ability to imagine a sound and build it, I think one is helped a lot by traditional subtractive synthesis and knobby hardware and [b]a lot of time[/b] playing and experimenting, consciously looking for the answer to the eternal question "why the Hull does it sound like that". The MiniBrute is a great example for this, as it has many knobs and sliders for such a tiny synth, and a relaxing lack of bewildering routing switches. Later, one can use its connectivity and get to the wilder stuff.

[quote name='Earbrass' timestamp='1478269949' post='3168073'] how much of your knob-tweaking is part of a purposeful pursuit of a sound that you know how to produce, and how much is semi-random? [/quote] Let's just call it 50-50 to keep it simple. Just turning and switching every little bit I see on the panel - without thinking - is a lot of fun, and I like scratching my head asking myself what in the name of Pete just happened. It's also fun to tweak that random result to get a result that can be used in the musical setting that is at hand. For the synthesis methods I've officially learned and taught I don't have much fun designing a sound in my head and then building it in the hardware afterwards, but I've done it a lot. It's just work. That said, intermediate results while tweaking can be fun and inspiring. Therefore, I've often changed the order of the tweaking, or started with random settings also when knowing exactly which sound I wanted and how to get there. This brings us to presets as in that you store the results of your tweaking (as opposed to the presets the synth ships with). In the old days I always wished for synths that could store my results, but when I finally got synths like that in the 80s, I learned that I used the stored sounds too much and that part of the fun vanished. I had to have a hard look at my discipline. That said, programming a 1,000-parameter digital synth does require storage. Once, I used eight working days for one complex sound. These days, I'm not preoccupied with storing my results even though 2 of my synths have 500 and 1,000 memory slots, and I've even invested in memory-less synths again. These are simpler synths like the Odyssey.

[quote name='Bottle' timestamp='1478176433' post='3167273'] Module GAS is hell. [/quote] Even on the MuffWiggler forum they agree with this. At the opposite side of the scale, I invested a mere two yearly incomes on bass gear, which is [b]a lot[/b] cheaper. I'm sure that for that money in the synth world I'd only get a MicroBrute...

[quote name='bartelby' timestamp='1460552067' post='3026716'] [url="http://soundcloud.com/warm_leatherette/audio-1"]http://soundcloud.co...herette/audio-1[/url] [/quote] I hate you so much right now! You totally won me over, and I'm on the verge of ordering one, despite my wallet's despicable opinions. Thanks for posting, and congrats with your new Brute! Enjoy!

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1477711450' post='3163995'] A chum of mine used to play organ at a church I went to and would improvise around a classical piece for the collection. After the service when we were having coffee I would be challenged to identify the "classic" on which his variation might be based... "Money makes the world go round", "Money, Money, Money", "Ain't too proud to beg", "Money" (Pink Floyd or Flying Lizards versions), "Ain't nothin going on but the rent"... convinced no one else in the congregation sussed. [/quote] Hehe. I used to hide well-known tunes in my collection improvs when working as a church organist. The vicar asked me twice to stop doing that, but I just (thought I) hid them better, and only really stopped doing it after the loud and clear voice of a little child sang along with my very slow pedal part: "Early in the morning, just as day is dawning, he picks up all the postbags in his van...".

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1477114169' post='3159916'] Maybe it's your memory; you posted the exact same thing two hours earlier [/quote] That's Ubit's split personality for you. He's both Michelle and Melania. He'll be back to his normal self on November 9th.

[quote name='Painy' timestamp='1476881405' post='3158048'] Could still be a drummer though . [/quote] I really hate this kind of narrowminded remark! Don't you know he could be a classical soprano as well?

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1476833326' post='3157729'] The beauty is, you can find many boards with different actions... there's bound to be something to tickle your fancy. Mind you, with regards to keyboard actions, I don't think I have played two Rhodes that feel identical...! [/quote] Aye. My personal project right now is to get Hammond action keys in addition to the fully weighted, semi-weighted and synth action boards I already have. After that; medium heavy fully weighted and light fully weighted boards. I'm sooo looking into Keyscape! IMS the Rhodes changes its action over time, so I can see that point. My hard-to-play Yamaha KX88 does the same, but it fits certain pieces that mine is still heavy.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1476782515' post='3157117'] Why would you take out the real thing when the emulation sounds better than what you'd be able to achieve with the real thing? [/quote] Agreed. The only reason I'd do it for would be the physicality of the keys and their response to my playing. Twould never be for the sound. For example: My real Rhodes with my amp and my speakers (hugely expensive stuff) did not sound as good as my electronic Rhodes emulation with built in Janus amped speakers emulation - through that same amp and speakers. However, the MIDI keyboard did not play as luvverly buttery as the real Rhodes keyboard did, I had no money to add a real Janus to my real Rhodes, and after long, careful consideration, the emulation stayed and the real Rhodes went. I also saved some backs by this.

As a bassist (this meaning "some guy holding a bass"), I've just gigged twice, and that was 25 years before I bought my first bass. After having bought that first one, I bought 15 more basses, and have been a living room warrior ever since, with no definite plans to ever gig; (semicolon!) in fact I think I'll never gig. What I get out of it? I just love everything bass. I MUST feel and hear what different gear is about. I tend to dive deeply in any subject matter I have the time for, and bass is amongst those things. As a keyboard player (classical organ and jazz piano, organ and synth) I had almost a decade of intense gigging, and I don't wish to go back to that. I love gigging, mind, but I hate, hate, HATE the many hours of disconnecting all the gear and putting it into protective cases and the like, and knowing you have to to that kind of work four times for one gig (me never having had the money for a home rig as well as a gig rig). Of course we're talking 200 lb. organs here, plus electric and electronic pianos and a plethora of synths, and I'm aware that a bass, a class D and two lightweight 112s can be brought to the venue in one walk from the car.

[quote name='CokeyW' timestamp='1475441180' post='3145979'] Sorry for pointing this out but it may help you when you're wondering why your stuff doesn't sell. [/quote] But how about the inconceivable notion that they might just have a brain and might just have thought through this even before placing the ad, and that they are not wondering at all? Myself, I've recently sold hundreds of items. Most items would be sent, whilst others would not. For example, I'd send every bass I had the original box for, but did not send basses where I'd have to track down packaging material, buy that packaging material for real money, and construct a box out of it. In other cases, I would simply refuse to go through the work when people could buy a £250 combo for just £30. Also, for large, heavy items, the post office won't take them, whilst UPS won't fetch as I live in a "remote area" (not true, but it means my area is slightly less profitable). Other reasons exist. Fun fact: in my ads listing all items, a few items (very few) were clearly marked if they were not going to be sent. Still, some people demanded that I send them.

In our family, support was a mightily mixed bag. On one hand, both our parents came from musical families as in that there always was singing and instrument playing going on. This was highly related to them being traditional Netherlands Reformed Church-goers, and granddad being the usher (access to the pipe organ!) Then when my parents got kids, they would buy an electronic organ, and would force us to practise. My mom was a hardliner with zeal in this, and these days, neither KGB nor CIA frighten me. They even wound up buying a 12K £ electronic organ... twice, BUT: The moment me or my sister wanted to do something musical, like playing live, buying a guitar or a flute, or getting tuition in another municipality, all brakes were used, and all techniques of convincing, threatening or manipulating were allowed. Everything to stop us from following our own paths and to possibly burst my mom's little life's bubble.

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1475097520' post='3143110'] Funny, the soundclip they provided was a bit without the near Latin rhythm going on so I thought it was something else. [/quote] Aye. The timing in this clip is quite something, and that's why I'm guessing it's probably the orchestra L'Arpeggiata that's playing it, though they're not unique in this approach. If the same piece was performed by some other orchestras, it would seem like your everyday early Baroque. I'm saying this coz if you or anyone else by any chance want to order this music, then you can't just order any version. They're wildly different.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1475054797' post='3142590'] Your parents let you drive their car when you were eleven ? Top parents !! [/quote] My dad did exactly that. Not that we were allowed to drive the car freely, but he did argue that one never knows what circumstances might suddenly demand that one of the kids took over the steering wheel. As a result, both me and my sister were taught to drive when we were eleven years old, and thus learnt to drive before our mother did (she went to an official driving school later). Our abilities were also used every time we had to tow the car. Oh, and dad of course was a village bobby...

http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/RoyalMail_2016_Prices.pdf

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1474824976' post='3140832'] Just found a new musical style tat I really like, but having looked it up I'm now confused! Improvised Continuo anyone? All I can find is stuff about Basso Continuo, and nothing that really relates to what they are talking about 13 minutes in. [/quote] Assuming you mean the part where he says the improvising continuo groups of the baroque are the predecessors, etc. : These are Basso Continuo groups who "improvised" their parts, as was the way it was done in those days, meaning these instruments (often a cello and a harpsichord only, but more or different instruments could be in the group) would typically get a sheet with the notation consisting of a bass note and some numbers, and they would then know what to do. So it's not free form jazz exactly, but the group did only get the harmonic foundation, and would or could decide their exact parts on the spot - depending on allowed preparation time and other circumstances. This would often be very easy (I've personally gone straight to recording without any preparation at all) or difficult enough that the BC group would need to have meetings to decide on how to divide the roles and fill in the details. You may not understand this, but the very worst a cellist knows is when the harpsichordist's left hand is stirring in the cello frequency range! The music you hear when he tells this is a song from "L'Ormindo", a relatively early baroque opera by Francesco Cavalli, probably as sung by Nuria Rial. This highlights how crazy this BC group (basso continuo group!) could go with improvisation. Luvverly stuff! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH8RLaWuLis

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1474455623' post='3138110'] Sorry - I didn't read the very first post properly. I thought some was just asking for opinions of each amp [/quote] Ah! You need new glasses too! Then just sell your Jule and Demeter. [quote name='karlfer' timestamp='1474456588' post='3138128'] Streamliner imo is a superb amp, but yes, cabs make a huge difference. Just as a short point; with B/F Super Twelve, bass rotary back to 9 o'clock, low mids boosted with Scroeder 2 x 12 (tweeter off), bass rotary at 1 o/clock, low mids cut That to get a tone as close as I can get to JPJ on Zepp 11 [/quote] Zepp went to eleven? I always thought they just went to nine! Thanks, Karl! [quote name='bassmachine2112' timestamp='1474475563' post='3138298'] Terror does 500 into 8 ohm as well,kinda think that is a cool feature that more amp makers could consider. [/quote] Aye. I read an article once explaining something about how that should be the case for all output transistor based amps, and why it nevertheless is not. Forgot the technical intricacies though.