Skinnyman

Exactly this. My key reason for buying and selling here is that the feedback system allows me - and my potential seller/customer - to determine a degree of trust between us that I could never get from FB marketplace or Fleabay. Every transaction is caveat emptor but BC gives me some confidence in the person I’m dealing with and, hopefully, gives them some reassurance about me.

Mike just bought my Korg SQ64. I only just realised that this is the second purchase he’s made from me over the years and the experience this time was just the same - a straightforward, easy transaction, just as it should be on BC.

After much agonising, poring over spec sheets and countless YT videos I spotted a used pair of SE7s (advertised on FB marketplace locally by, as it turned out, the drummer in my last band - small world!) and have bought them. He tells me he used them exactly once and they’ve been in their box ever since and, looking at them, I believe him. Bargain at well under a hundred quid. 😀

Aaargh, choices, choices!! The M5s and SE7s are both around the same price (£140) for a pair and I am struggling to choose between them - I suspect that this is one of those cases where there’s no wrong answer as both seem like they’ll do exactly what I need. SE7s have the low cut and pad switches but I have gain control and a low cut on my interface so I don’t need those features on the mics. But then again….

Hi Lefty, I did look at the Rodes but dropped them to 4th place behind the SEs, MXLs and Tbones based solely on reading the specs which didn’t seem quite as good for the M5s. Problem is, of course, that specs on paper don’t really tell you what your ears are going to experience which is why I’d like folks’ hands-on opinions. From the sound of things, the M5s might be worth another look - they’re certainly in the right price range. Off down the YT rabbit hole I go then 😁 Thanks!

After using a Behringer U-phoria 1820 for years, I just took delivery of a Solid State Logic SSL 2+ Mk2 and I am blown away. The Behringer has served me well for nearly a decade; totally reliable, well put together, the line inputs are decent, lots of connectivity and monitoring options and the headphone amps handle high impedance headphones easily. The only real downside is that it can be a bit noisy and that can be an issue with recording vocals and acoustic guitar (which I’m now doing more of). So I decided to treat myself to a new audio interface and narrowed down the choice to the Motu M2/M4 and the SSL. In the end, the SSL won out because GuitarGuitar had a decent price on it. It’s a different form factor to the Behringer so I’ve had to rearrange the desk a bit to accommodate it but that’s freed up space elsewhere and given me a bit more room overall. Construction is reassuringly solid with the exception of one of the low-cut buttons which wasn’t seated properly - a bit of jiggling has dropped it into place now and it works perfectly. Headphone amps are good and strong, as good or better than the Behringer, sound quality is excellent and the noise floor is virtually inaudible. I haven’t used it in anger yet but my quick tests have been very positive - the mix preamps in particular seem really good. There’s a “life” to the recordings that was missing from the Behringer and my acoustic guitar sounds fantastic. Well, up to the point where I try to play it. So, very happy….. …..and yet the GAS keeps coming I’m now after a matched pair of small diaphragm condenser mics specifically for recording acoustic guitar (and possibly as ambient mics for recording a choir). With a budget for the pair of £150 or less, I’ve narrowed it down to the SE Electronics SE7, MXL 603s or Thomann’s Tbone SC140. Does anyone have any hands-on experience of any of these? And, specifically, any issues I should be aware of? At £99 delivered, the Tbones are the cheapest and have excellent specs so I’m interested to know if there are any reasons to avoid them?

Yeah, but I bet you feel just a little bit dirty though, don’t you?

Assuming that everything else about the band is okay, I would join without a qualm. we live today in a series of echo chambers that reflect (and amplify) our own views. I’m not sure that society has improved as a consequence and I firmly believe that we only tackle extreme views on either side by talking to each other. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and even if they’re views that I find distasteful, so long as they’re not illegal, who am I to force everyone to think as I do? Bigotry exists on both the hard right and the hard left and it can only be challenged if we spend time in the same room. The world is polarised enough without me adding to it so, yes, I’d join the band. Unless it was jazz. There are limits….

This is a piano piece that my wife improvised one evening. It formed a great basis for me to practice with Spitfire Audio’s BBC SO package so here’s my first attempt at arranging for strings.

This journey, into bass playing? What made you pick up that first bass at the start of this long and winding road? When I was about 6 or 7 I heard Bert Kaempfert’s A Swingin’ Safari and Ladi Geisler’s bass just captivated me. From that day I wanted to play bass - wind forward forty years and my mid-life crisis finally gave me the impetus to actually learn… Do you still have the same fire and enthusiasm? Do you still love it? I still love it but the enthusiasm to play has been tempered by the realisation that I’m not actually very good and I now spread my lack of talent thinly across lots of instruments rather than just being poor at only one. What has changed along the way? Your taste in music, taste in basses? I used to be a bit of a music snob and wouldn’t listen to a lot of stuff. Learning to play and being in a few bands has widened my appreciation and there’s not very little I don’t like. What was the first bass? And what’s the latest? First bass was a Tanglewood that was quite decent to learn on. First “proper” bass was the Ric 4003 I’d always promised myself and which I got as soon as I knew I was going to stick with it. Since then dozens of basses have gone through my hands and all of them have now gone with the exception of that first Ric (which I will never sell) and a bitsa SG Nanyo Bass Collection that I’ve recently brought back from the brink and is now my go-to recording bass because it sounds so….fat-but-focused if that makes sense.

Great idea. Maybe we could video it and post the video online? 😂

I’m old and grumpy. Complaining about The World Today is a civic duty.

I don’t really have a problem with her - it’s his faux outrage that I find irritating. And increasingly common all over social media.

It seems like YT and Insta and all the others these days are just this incestuous circle of “influencers” calling each other out and getting artificially outraged for some perceived infraction or other. Grifters the lot of ‘em. People around the world are dying in conflicts, children are starving and none of this sh*t matters one iota. None of it is worth the server space it takes up.