EliasMooseblaster

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1363085311' post='2008023'] I don't think Fender are too bothered about what we think of them. They're obviously a 'Marmite' company. Personally I love 'em. In fact I love 'em so much I even had a replica Fender P built... PS: I do eat real Marmite, though. [/quote] Yeah, I bought my Schecter because it was basically a P-bass (extra J-pickup not withstanding), but better than a MIM Fender for the money. But having tried a MIA Fender I realise I'm possibly missing out. A bit like that time when money was particularly tight and I decided to buy Vegemite because it was cheaper than 'real' Marmite...

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1362068269' post='1995288'] Ok, so what kind of sandwich? My vote goes for the most rock and roll sandwich ever, the deep-fried peanut butter and cheese as designed by Elvis. [/quote] I thought it was peanut butter and bacon?

I'm led to believe you can record just about anything with a Shure SM57! I have also had reasonable results from pointing a bass drum mic at a cab. Not really had enough experience to suggest which would work better though.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1361877159' post='1992183'] It's going to end up looking like this isn't it [/quote] Haha! Just because it can, doesn't mean it should! Perhaps Dom of Somerset fame would do well to pose the next question, to run in parallel. Otherwise I can see this becoming a day's worth of people yelling "4!", "No, 5!" "Some of us manage perfectly well with 4!" "What kind of neanderthal hasn't graduated to 5?" "Well I think there should be 15 LOLZ0rs" at each other. (And god knows we get enough of that whenever some innocent soul asks whether they should buy a 5-string...)

I'm going to vote for 4, purely for selfish reasons. Well, that and once you've established a decent four-string design, most manufacturers find it easy enough to adapt it to a 5-string model.

Sometimes you need a break from things...sometimes you just "grow out" of them. I went through a long stretch in my teenage years thinking Nirvana and Green Day were wonderful. Then I gradually lost interest...and nowadays I wonder what on earth I saw in most of their stuff. But the other one, I think, is probably Led Zeppelin. I've not had the same change of heart I did with the above two - I still like Zeppelin - I just think they're overrated.

[quote name='longtimefred' timestamp='1360278664' post='1968151'] I don't mean to de rail the thread or anything but I have an opinion of Facebook band pages that might be worth discussion. If a mod feels this might be a better thing to do separately then cool. I remember a time before social media when bands used to have to set up their own pages online. I liked this as when looking at how it was designed, the artwork that has been used on it and the overall feel of the site kind of displayed how the band want to be portrayed (if that makes sense). You could delve into the world of that band as it used to be cool to have as much info about them as possible for people to get their chops into. From what gear they use to photos, videos, discographies, lyrics, forums etc etc. Then MySpace came along as the new way of connecting fans/industry/venues etc directly to the band all in one place. Again I thought this was cool as you could re design your page to how you like it ( I had my bands one set up exactly the same as our full proper site so it was like an extension). Then Facebook appeared, slaughtering MySpace and now all bands seem to be on there instead. Here comes my issue (finally). I really dislike Facebook for basically turning all our bands into a catalog of bland looking pages that all look the same, and gives no feel of the bands image in the way of the old independent sites did. You have to put your band's info in all the same places as everyone else and nothing looks different from one page to the next bar the photograph. Has it now come to a time where your entire band presence has to fit one tiny page on the Internet? Do people loose interest if its over that amount as that's what Facebook are telling you that's all you need? Am I just out of fashion? Does anyone care? Lol I find it quite sad if this is the case as I used to love going into these band 'worlds' and spend time geeking out on what they have to offer. Even now major pro bands are starting to just have a nice fancy landing page when you on their .com site and all it does is link you to a bloomin Facebook! I hope it's not just me that finds this annoying. [/quote] Nope, me too. I'm on FB these days, but I did perfectly well without it for years. I only joined when a couple of other musicians pointed out that it was a good way to keep in touch with the myriad other musicians that I was meeting at the time - a little less "forward" than giving someone a business card or a phone number, if you will. The fact remains, you may be reassured to know, that most bands realise their own website is the way to go. Their own little space with which they can do what they please, and design to reflect the band's character. Increasingly, with the way FB is restricting your band's ability to share information unless you pay them, the FB pages are becoming more a way for the band to show off to their friends. The one key use it still has is for people to look up your band, get a bit of general info and maybe follow it if they're interested. A bit less forward than signing up to your band's mailing list, if you will.

Oh go on then, you twisted my arm: https://www.facebook.com/cherrywhitemusic Have just gone on a serial 'liking' rampage. Think my favourite name so far is "And The Horse You Rode In On." With Dick Venom a close second.

There comes a time when every band must venture beyond its home town and play in other towns and cities, in the hope of expanding its audience. This time has now come to my own band. (In fact, we should have got it sorted months ago, but for various reasons we haven't!) The band is called Cherry White, and we need somewhere to play that isn't London. http://www.cherrywhite.bandcamp.com So if you've got a gig coming up and could do with a support band, have a listen and get in touch. If you're running a night and need another band to fill up the bill, we'd love to hear from you. If you run a venue somewhere and have a night that needs filling, give us a shout. Or, if you're another band based in London and in much the same boat, drop me a line and perhaps we can try and organise something between us. (We can bring our own gear as necessary, and between our own material and a covers set we can play for as much of the evening as you want us to.)

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1357912165' post='1930453'] I play really hard stuff to show everybody what a badass I am. I do it every weekend because showing everybody what a badass I am is the most important part of my involvement in music. [/quote] Haha! So YOU'RE the 14-year old kid who goes into the music shop and harasses the staff to let him try (show off on) the vintage Rickenbackers... But yes, I'm much the same as Jellyfish; my default setting seems to be to dance up and down the neck in a pentatonic scale. Or a minor if I'm feeling flash. (Though if anyone else is trying a bass at the same time I have been known to get childish and wheel out the Bach or the Grieg.)

What a coincidence, just a couple of hours ago I was in a waiting room reading an article in the dire rag that is The Metro debating whether social networking is a waste of time. They obviously should have consulted this chap, it would have made a far more entertaining read.

First off: great riff! I've got to be honest, I've never been fond of hip-hop or rap/rock, and this is probably a bit heavier than I'd normally go plump for myself. That aside, your vocalist might sit better in the mix with a little more reverb - more so on the rappy bits than the shouty bits. The band does come across really well; there's certainly no shortage of energy. Makes me think you guys must be good live! Right, someone else's turn: [url="http://cherrywhite.bandcamp.com"]http://cherrywhite.bandcamp.com[/url] Edit for the wary: lively, melodic rock and roll with a hint of the blues. If you're into that kind of thing.

[quote name='drTStingray' timestamp='1356784180' post='1913532'] It boils down to froth v substance - unfortunately there's a certain amount of froth around amongst the music scene. [/quote] The problem in a nutshell! Ok, ok, I have been known, in the past, to watch bands where the bassist looked completely incompetent on his 5-string and snarkily remark to my bandmates, "well, some of us manage with only four...", but that was just sarcasm. I fail to see what's wrong with preferring 5, 6 or even 7-string basses, and, as someone bringing his red SG bass (4-string) to gigs with increasing frequency, there's nowt wrong with a bass that raises a couple of eyebrows. Rest assured, it's not just us: the guitarist in my blues trio once borrowed by guitar (a cheap SG copy) for a gig while his was away for a setup. Some guy talking to him afterwards was clearly quite impressed with his playing, but apparently looked disgusted when my guitarist told him he normally plays a Fender Strat!

I've just been through this thread and looked at where you're all based - I'd been kidding myself that this was just a problem in central London. But I don't know, do these sorts of gigs dominate the scene where you are? I agree entirely, it sucks all the life and soul out of a gig when the band before you files in five minutes before they're due on, with all their friends in tow, then vanish out the door the moment they've put their guitars away, taking said friends with them. They must realise it's self-defeating: sure, you may have dragged lots of friends along, but they're not going to [i]keep[/i] coming to see you. Why not chat to some of the other people in the audience, and engage with them? Oh wait, you can't, because the band before you did exactly the same thing.

[quote name='lowdowner' timestamp='1355235626' post='1895721'] A weekend or so ago I put on a record on my turntable (classical as it happened, but probably not very relevant) and the people in the room said 'If i heard music of that quality at home i'd listen to music more - it's amazing'). They listen to mp3's through a computer feed into an amplifier and speakers in their own home. [/quote] This is the other question though - do they have a second-rate sound card in their computer, and the cheap pair of speakers that were shipped with the thing? Your turntable is probably a far better setup than their computers. I can remember upgrading the sound card in my old computer - for three years I'd been hearing strange phase effects in any mp3 or (shudder) wma that I listened to, and I blamed the file compression. These effects just disappeared once I had the new soundcard in. Though ironically I never got round to upgrading the speakers...

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1355228679' post='1895565'] Where do I get this fairy dust, and is it expensive? [/quote] Come to my shop - we've got it in the back room, right next to the snake oil.

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1355226785' post='1895518'] If i had a lottery win I'd be upping sticks to Islay, buying a wrecked croft & doing it up & spending ridiculous amounts of ££'s on a system that would be souind-proofed from the sheep, eagles & hee'land coos outside by two foot thick walls...... with no neighbours to winge about it either. [/quote] I would have thought if I'd gone all the way to Islay, my first task would be to pay each distillery on the island to take it in turns to deliver a bottle to me once a week. Possibly twice a week, I hear it gets cold up there...

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1355226673' post='1895513'] On the basis of the ear's frequency response, I seriously doubt it. On the basis that digital versions of original analogue recordings have been remastered, with all that entails, then I can entirely believe it. [/quote] Maybe it can't, I'm really just parroting the science behind the two different sampling methods - technically a '70s album contains more "information" than the same recording burned straight to CD; this doesn't account for remastering or other trickery. What I haven't been able to do, obviously, is set up identical CD and vinyl copies of a piece played into analogue recording devices and try to play them through the same hi-fi setup. Though even then you could put any difference down to the quality of the turntable or CD player in that chain!

The conversation above between Big_Stu and 51m0n covers most of the technical detail that's needed to settle this argument. But there is one other key point about the difference: It depends when the album was recorded. Or rather, what was used to record it in the first place. If the album was recorded on analogue equipment, then everything the mics picked up was squeezed through the mixing desk and written onto that magnetic master tape. Nothing was "lost" in the chain. A little would have been lost in the process of pressing to vinyl, but not much. If this album was later reissued onto CD, the music would have been digitised, so more information would have been lost. By digitising music, you have discretise your previously continuous waveforms into 0s and 1s. As 51m0n points out, if you go for the highest sampling and bitrate, you can get such a close approximation to that waveform that the human ear can no longer resolve the difference. However, most CDs are sampled at 44.1 KHz, rather than 96 KHz (I think that's still true...?), and as such your ear can pick up on a subtle difference between the analogue (vinyl) and digitised (CD) versions. [i]Conversely[/i] - [i]and this is the important difference[/i] - if the album was recorded on digital equipment, you gain absolutely bugger all by pressing it onto vinyl. So most vinyl albums from the '90s, where the recording was increasingly done on computers and digital mixers, will not sound any better on vinyl than they will on CD. The extra information 'in between' the discretised points on the waveform was never recorded in the first place, and so there's nothing to 'fill in' those gaps when you convert it back to analogue. In short: there is a reason why my father's vinyl copy of [i]Dark Side of the Moon[/i] sounds better than my CD copy, which I think is quite an early re-issue, possibly pre-remastering and sounds a bit harsh and sterile. On the other hand, I'd probably be wasting my money investing in a vinyl copy of [i]Pulse[/i], as it likely won't sound any better than my CD.

I'm glad you started this topic because I find myself in this same quandary! My own band's been trying to get the word out about our EP before we record our album next year. Still, to answer a couple of your questions, it's actually surprisingly easy to sell your recordings as a freelance musician. Obviously for a small fee you can get digital copies up on iTunes, Amazon and all the rest, but one of the best sites at the moment appears to be Bandcamp: they give you space to upload your music, customise your page and charge as much or as little as you want, only taking a cut of (usually) 15%. Better still, it's easy to integrate the page into your band's website. Here's my band's page by way of example: [url="http://cherrywhite.bandcamp.com/"]http://cherrywhite.bandcamp.com/[/url] Sending free copies out for review seems to be a useful tactic; certainly better than spamming your friends on facebook. Approaching smaller music blogs or online journals gives you a better chance of getting a reply quickly, but if you can get in with bigger websites you may benefit from their larger readership. Your best bet is to try both and see who replies - the worst they can do is say no! Edit: forgot to say, there's no need to register the band as a company initially. If you get lucky, and start selling enough copies that the taxman's likely to notice, then you probably will want to register...I've usually been pointed in the direction of the MU when I've asked about that topic!

If you've already got a nice valve amp, then an Ibanez Bass Tubescreamer might work perfectly . I managed to get my hands on one a few months ago - a bugger to track down, I can tell you, but definitely worth the effort. I haven't had a chance to try it through a valve amp, but even through a SS it's perfect for soloing; if you play with the settings it can do some fairly serious dirt as well. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgaoodi33mg[/media]

Well, I had my GAS sated for a little while after I finally gave in and bought my Schecter Model T. But you know, that was at least a month ago now...and I have just found out that Epiphone do make a neck-through version of their Thunderbird copy after all...