BassTractor

If their original Dutch site is anything to go by, I'd say: buy with confidence. I've nothing but praise for Bax-shop in their Dutch guise, and prefer them above Thomann as they have been clearly better with pre-order communication, are stellarly quick, and are great with aftersales service like warranties and returns, whilst maintaining good prices. However, as I communicated with both Thomann and Bax-shop in Dutch, the whole experience might be slightly different for Brits communicating in English with both. IME, the Dutch department of Thomann often do not understand the same question that Bax-shop understand immediately, and also, Bax-shop have been far better at returning with the info the customer needs rather than the answer that saves them some time. Highly recommended.

Bloody bad advice! My new band Rickenbacker 4003 immediately received less-than-agreeable e-mails. Don't do this, people! (Other than that: pure genius! )

[quote name='sykilz' timestamp='1437121593' post='2823694'] Steven Wilson performing The Raven That Refused To Sing. [/quote] Thanks for posting that. I enjoyed it a lot. Also nice that you wrote something about the song and your experiences with it. I think I need to edit my post.

Too many to mention, but I share Bilbo's reaction to Ravel's Bolero. Among other pieces it was istrumental in me becoming a musician. Others: Focus: "Sylvia" Yes: "Roundabout" Scritti Politti: "The Word Girl" Living Colour: "Type" as well as ... drum roll ... Mantovani: "Charmaine", some kind of 20s ballroom melody in so-called "cascading strings" wrapping. I'd never heard part of the orchestra playing the previous note(s) so as to create an orchestrated echo/reverb effect. Also, the melody itself invoked Beethoven feelings with me, which was a good thing in my young book: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tm_j8FPl0[/media]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1436206898' post='2816010'] [i]Jeg er enig i at omgivelsene er en god egg, med rette stor tillit og talent i bøtter og spann; nok til å risikere utredning, og så kan børste av noen snidy vittigheter med letthet. Han er usannsynlig å vinne en "volum krig", selv om ..![/i] It may have lost something in translation, but I wouldn't know..! Yes, basically just confirming that ambient is OK. [/quote] I don't suppose it lost [b]anything[/b] in translation, as it means: "[i]I agree that surroundings are a good knife's edge, rightfully big trust and talent in buckets and nine kilograms; enough to risk thorough survey, and so can brush off some[/i] ... [snidy] ... [i]sally. He is unlikely to win a "volume war", even though..![/i]"

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1436197558' post='2815862'] (assuming you weren't 'trying' to be sarcastic..? ) [/quote] LOL. No, no attempts at sarcasm here. Just trying to be serious, open and direct - - whilst knowing full well that some people might assume I'm posteriorlicking instead. My limited English sadly makes I don't understand the rest of your post, but I gather it's all good.

Well, I for one am relieved it isn't me. I really am that funny, and only _think_ I'm being sarcastic. But on a serious note I'll say this: Dad, I hope you weren't being serious in checking whether it was you. I'm sure you've been nothing but extremely nice and helpful, especially as ambient is one of the people on BC who've had the balls to show also their weak sides.

[quote name='M@23' timestamp='1436132742' post='2815306'] You're obviously qualified to, if you can hear it. [/quote] Ain't that the truth. The Bible does not state: "In the beginning God created the Big Bang and He saw it just wasn't good enough, so then He also created music theory". It's musical ears that created music theory - - as a reflection of our shared musical experiences. The qualification is in the ears. The old joke of "just call it Jazz" does reflect that one can often not be entirely sure, but as I said above, the vast body of music listeners is well qualified to hear the bum notes in improvs in regular settings.

I think the guitarist does have a point. Sadly though it's a bum point. Then again, I'm not a pointillist, so I'm not qualified to comment. So I won't. Seriously though, if we may take your description of the music and the bum notes for granted, he's simply wrong. The vast body of music enjoyers are adequately equipped to hear bum notes like the ones you describe. Being a musician does not come into the picture at all. Musicality does of course come in all kinds of varieties, as does formal music education, but higher levels of both only mean one can judge more advanced types of music with more confidence. It does not even mean one is right (though chances of that do grow IME). As a point in case, I've been discussing pop and rock music with some of the great composers of new classical music. How they missed the boat (IMHO of course), as they only saw popular music's formal simplicity, and seemed unable to grasp that there's more to it than being advanced on paper.

As many other bands, Yes now is corporate bizniz - - a bizniz that will try to survive and will try and maximise profit. If my impression is correct that it was mainly Chris Squire who couldn't muster Jon Anderson anymore, I think there's no chance at all that the others are not thinking that they must at least do their very best to try and incorporate Jon Anderson again. Nobody knows if that will happen, of course, but my bet in that case is they will at least have talks with him, and I do feel we'll see "with special guest star" concerts rather soon.

Same story here: my very first regular wages went to "Fragile", and I was floored both by the music and by the bass parts and bass sound. "Close to the Edge" kinda repeated that feat, and especially the bass part of "Total Mass Retain" was a personal eyeopener to me as to what was possible in popular music. I see Chris Squire as a visionary bass player within rock music, and I understand he had a great influence on other bass players. Thanks, Chris! R.I.P. Here's the "Total Mass Retain" part from the "Close to the Edge" track: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Z3IKLl3cE[/media]

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1435478009' post='2809041'] on the subject of correct intonation, I do think it's the most overrated aspect of music. [/quote] That explains a lot. . . . . Sorry, I just could not resist. In real life, I do love Spoombung's stuff.

I never knew Cliff died in a plane accident, and that he was found whilst his bass or even the Orion plane itself was not. I'm happy Metallica's Orion with Cliff's bass have turned up again, but I do feel stupid for having believed those stories about the bus accident in Sweden. The plane was just rented probably? Just like Maiden's?

She's obviously a shallow one, she. I think the best thing to do is not responding directly, but to just continue your little inbetween-songs banter about the development of Weltschmerz as a direct result of Sturm und Drang thinking, and Kierkegaard's criticism of it all. Enlightened, she'll turn around! I'm sure.

Thanks for this thread. JG is one of the guys who pulled me towards the bass, and you guys inspired me to pull out Stormwatch again after a long hiatus. "Hunting Girl", yes! Also "Songs from the Wood" is a personal fave. Luvverly song AND bass playing. Me too, I'm grateful I caught him live twice. The first time I was unaware of him, and disappointed Jeffrey H. wasn't there, but JG quickly won me over. Dunno if it was mentioned yet, but apart from his parts and his playing prowess, for me personally the SOUND of it all was something unheardly new and hugely inspiring. RIP

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1434886348' post='2803548'] A quick Google tells me that formant relates to human speech. [/quote] Not exclusively, and at any rate it doesn't detract from my point that an instrument has a physical DNA: the part that does not change on a per note basis, whilst timbre simply is about the resulting sound you get when combining the instrument's "formant" (or what one calls it) with one's playing and with all the settings etc. Though not strictly true scientifically, I think one can well say that the formant is those capacities of the instrument that make that one can recognise a Precision or a StingRay even when played with different techniques and different equipment settings. [quote name='TimR' timestamp='1434886348' post='2803548'] I think an instrument's timbre is what differentiates a piano from a trumpet etc. [/quote] Yes, but since "timbre" is about the resulting sound, many tones emitted from that trumpet will have wildly different timbres as well. In some cases different instrument tones are so similar in timbre that one is hard pressed to decide which instrument is responsible, like the famed voice-like qualities of the cello. E.g. a slightly smaller violin with thinner walls probably has a different formant than a slightly larger one with thicker walls, and most of the time one might be able to hear which of them is being played. The moment however they emit tones with identical timbre, the human ears stops being able to differentiate those two violins.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1434868633' post='2803354'] That's timbre. [...] The fingers won't affect the timbre. [/quote] I'm not sure, but I think you're talking about formant - the instrument's physical DNA as it were. Timbre is the sounding result, and very much so affected by the fingers.

Yup! Got my postcard this morning! He's earning a lot of money and wants to share with me, asking for my bank details 'n' stuff. I'm looking forward to writing in the boys toys thread.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1433503903' post='2791627'] People on here talk about TONE a lot, probably because their basses have "tone" controls Tone meaning something frequency-related isn't common in the UK, although it appears in terms like "tritone". More usually we'll talk about NOTEs (e.g. C, implicitly any C) and PITCHes (e.g. Middle C, a specific instance of a note). [/quote] Thanks again, Ras, and a general mea culpa sorry for the thread derailment. Tone controls! Why didn't I think of that? BTW; also in Dutch we can use the word tone for timbre++, as in an instrument or a player having a great tone. Great example with the tritone. Another thing I hadn't thought about. Then again, I'd forgotten about the word "pitch" too. [quote name='ras52' timestamp='1433503903' post='2791627'] but D##-E as a "diminished second" is a purely theoretical concept (with equal temperament): it would be a "zero interval" between identical frequencies. [/quote] Aye, but don't let that sound as something negative. It's not more theoretical than calling a C-C interval a "first" (which we do in Dutch calling it a prime), especially when talking about two different voices. It's just a tool to describe what we find. But yes, composers are divided, and whilst some would write down the D double-sharp as a D double-sharp indeed, on the basis of the formal construction of the piece, others would just not care on that nerd/geek level, and write it as an E. Anyway, thanks again.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1433456566' post='2791326'] In [i]equal temperament[/i], D double-sharp and E are alternative "spellings" of the same note. [/quote] Thanks for trying, Ras. As indicated in other words in my question, I'm aware of them giving the same frequency in equal temperament, and that is not what I'm asking about. I remember a BassChat post where a Brit stated that people use the word TONE when in reality they mean TIMBRE. So my guess was that the word TONE does exist is the meaning I tried to describe, and that that is what should have been used in the quiz. Not sure though - - hence the question.

14/15 because of the up bow/down bow thing - - something I've consistently erred on for decades. But I've got a nerdy/geeky question, and I don't know whether the answer lies in the language department or in the realm of musical styles or even in changes within theory. See, when I got my education, a D double sharp and and E are (in Dutch) not the same NOTE even if they give the same TONE on many instruments ("tone" here not meaning timbre but more like say frequency). IMS, in Dutch classical music in the seventies/eighties, we'd call the interval a diminished second (D - E would be a large second, D sharp - E would be a little second). In the quiz, I opted for "they're the same notes", not even looking at the other options, guessing this is what they wanted, and also guessing that in English this is a usual (and possibly even theoretically correct) way of looking at it. How say you? Is the quiz correct in its answer? Does it differ per musical style?

[quote name='tom skool' timestamp='1431367148' post='2770585'] you should have told them it wasnt there when you got home [/quote] I feel pretty certain the driver thought of this possibility, and produced hard evidence - - by filming the whole thing of faking the signature and tossing the box over the gate.

Congrats on the Miniak! I hope it serves you well. If you get annoyed with the display view angle, you may wish to look up a simple prism/mirror solution that is published on the web somewhere, which you can easily build yourself, and the dimensions of which are chosen exactly for the Miniak. PM me if you can't find it. I'm sure I have the instructions in an inbox somewhere.

It would surprise me mucho if you wouldn't be satisfied with the MicroKorg, both because it's a good machine and a lot for the money, and because many or most synths will do a rather good job in the bass range. A fantastic (IMO) dark horse in the field is the Akai Miniak, I think. Its 1,000 or so presets are better than the presets of its almost identical sibling Alesis Micron, and it comes with three mod wheels and three programmable mod knobs as well as the microphone for the vocoder. Annoying to program without a pc editor (three different ones exist), but very flexible and deep if one needs to go beyond the presets. If you decide for a keyless one, then a second hand Waldorf Blofeld IMO is virtually unsurpassable as to sound and programming depth. However it is unashamedly digital, and far from the travel through the history of synths that the Miniak is.