Nicko

Air Xpand!2 includes a Jupiter 8 preset, but although I got this free but not sure if it still is. You could probably create the sound you want in Dexed (a free Yamaha DX7 emulator) but it's hugely complex and you might never work out how to get what you are after. Alternatively TAL make a number of Roland emulators - some are available free.

Here is my entry for this month. I'm going for my Covid jab this afternoon and if I don't feel too bad after I might tweak it a bit. The inspiration for this is fairly straightforward - live for the moment and wait for it all to go wrong. I started with the lyrics and they more or less dictated an 80s AC/DC style song. Unfortunately I can't sing like Brian and I can't play like Angus but in parts it's what I wanted. As usual recorded in Cubase. The guitars are an Epiphone ES339 chosen as it is a close to a PAF as I have, and the bass is a Squier 70s CV PB - all through Amplitube. The vocals are a single recording duplicated on two channels panned L and R with different EQ to see if I could fill out my dodgy voice a bit.

The email specifically states that any purchases already made will be compatible with A5 so I'm surprised that your purchased A3 items failed to work.🤔 As I said I'm considering buying some guitar amps. The SVT bass bundle was a freebie and is good but the free guitar amps are a bit fizzy.

Has anyone upgraded from Amplitube 4 to 5? I got an email saying that they were stopping support for 4 so I should upgrade - but should I leave it as long as possible or just get on with it? I only use the free stuff at the moment which includes the SVT bass bundle but was considering a guitar amp or two from the custom shop.

Can I just pop in the man that is Chris Wolstenholme, bass player of what some believe to be the best live band on the planet*. All he does is shuffle back and forth and nod his head. *personally I thought they were weren't that great live when I saw them. Matt Bellamy has stage presence, but the music sounded like it was prerecorded.

As long as he wanted. Probably THE most important classical guitarist in history and if it's tedious it's because you don't appreciate classical guitar rather than because he has no stage presence. I suppose you would prefer it if he was more like Bobby Crush?

The only song I remember by Herbie Hancock is Rockit - scratchy 80s EDM. Most of his stuff (to me) is dreadful jazz.

Bjork, It's Oh So Quiet is only representative of an eclectic style and great voice. Van Halen's Jump is on the poppy side of their output and apart from the solo isn't a guitar based song

Sometimes quite the opposite, genres that I quite like often morph into something that I don't like occasionally they'll suddenly morph again into something listenable. 60s R&B (OK) and Jazz (not OK) > funk (OK) > disco (not OK) > Hip Hop (OK), add some dubstep (OK) and contemporary R&B and come up with drum and bass (no thanks). Obviously this is a little more simplistic than the roots of the genres but I think you'll get my drift.

I actually meant the original recording includes variations on a theme in each verse and chorus but I'm sure when he plays it live he probably just makes it up as he goes along too.

Unless its a tribute band there's little point in trying to play an identical bass line. The singer won't sound like the original singer, the live performance will probably be quite different to the studio produced original. Ultimately if someone says "that's not how the bass line goes" the answer is "it's how it goes when I play it". There's bits you have to play almost identically, there's bits you won't have the skills to play, and there's bits where you'll get bored playing the original. Playing the essence of teh song and getting it right is more important than playing note for note badly. An example: When playing something like Scar Tissue by RHCP not only does Flea play a different variation each time. Through lack of time to learn each variation I gigged it a few times playing a reduced number of variations - some in the wrong place and some that I made up, then through laziness I didn't bother trying to learn the rest of them. The studio version includes more than one bass track anyway so it wasn't like I could do note for note.

Ironic that the guy in the video seemed to have absolutely no charisma at all. I try not to be boring but jumping around like a loon would make me look ridiculous, and I think boring is slightly preferable to ridiculous.

I think we'll have Peter Crouch up front. He claims to have no musical talent but that never stopped me calling myself a bass player. Crouch the Bassist?

Cubase site recommends i5 or faster processor, with 8GB RAM operating 64 bit windows 10. However the i5 in a laptop is normally considerably slower and more expensive than an equivalent desktop. You also need to make sure the laptop has sufficient USB ports for interface, keyboard etc. I run Cubase 7 LE and Ableton Livelite 10 on an all in one i5 desktop and haven't had any significant problems with latency or processor power. However a newer i5 laptop can't cope with Ableton running a complex multitimbral synth as the processor gets overloaded and the latency is dreadful. Check the actual chip performance carefully - some i5s are slow and others aren't and multicore with turboboost makes things more complicated. If it absolutely has to be a laptop spend more or be disappointed.

I honestly don't think that even if I had tens of millions I'd go out and spend a few thousand on a bass, I wouldn't go out and spend £1500 on a pair of jeans and I couldn't see myself drinking £500 bottles of wine*. * maybe one - as I have one that was a gift.

You overestimate the size of the portions. I always decline the waffer theeen mint.

I'm glad you got what you wanted. As I posted earlier, I have an issue with paying more for something that doesn't offer me more. Others will see value where I don't - not a criticism just an observation. I'm sure people would balk at what I spend on fine dining once in a while when I could go to a local bistro and fill my belly. Ultimately I end up with nothing but a memory from that experience.

Possibly. If the Fodera is the only instrument that makes you feel that way when you play it, or makes the sounds you want. I'm firmly of the opinion that sometimes you pick up an instrument and it feels and sounds right so you buy it. I'm not quite sure how I'd fall in love with an instrument before it's built for me.

Well, I confess I've never driven either a BMW or a Laguna, but all of the Renaults I have driven have been vastly different driving experiences from the Mercedes cars I've driven. A friend of mine once remarked as we drove out of Paris in a Renault that the most frustrating job in the world must be a designer for Renault. You spend your life coming up with ideas for fabulous cars and then the company makes something completely different. The Laguna does the same job of converting fuel into forward motion and transporting you in a box on wheels from one place to another. The way it does it makes you feel vastly different from the way some other cars do the same job. It will suit some and not others. I don't drive a top spec BMW or Merc. btw. When I bought my last car I walked into the dealership with a list of things I wanted some of which were a little niche. They sold me a Golf Estate.

I agree. The question of budget is an interesting one. Whilst I could go out and spend £3000 on a bass without making too many sacrifices elsewhere something in my psyche tells me "this does everything you need it to do" and I just can't see the point in paying more. If it makes me feel more special picking it up, or is more comfortable, or sounds better I might pay a bit more but not because it has a "MIA" sticker on it.

I think you'll find they were called the Fab Four because there were four of them.😀

Judging by the fact that it's only a 1 year course I take it they weren't that influential? In ll honestly I'd have thought if you want to be that focused you'd do it as a pHD.

It seems to me that musical instruments are one of the few items where we judge quality and relative price on the country of manufacture. Do we necessarily think and Audi TT should be cheap relative to a VW Golf because one is built in Hungary and one is built in Germany, or that vodka made in the UK should be more expensive than vodka made in Poland?

Well, you can get a Spector Coda series PB style bass with a bolt on neck for less than a Fender Custom Shop Pino signature. In fact you could add an optional burl cap and ebony fingerboard and still be less than the Pino.

I'm astounded that Fender are able to charge the money they charge for their standard MIA kit. It's production line and scale production which should make it cheap. The whole concept developed by Fender was to make instruments from easily manufactured parts put together in the simplest way possible. Comparing standard American Pro Precision at £1700 to a Spector Euro 5er out of the Czech republic at £1800 for example: Fender body is alder, Spector is maple with a maple cap. Fender neck is maple with reinforcement and a RW or maple FB. The Spector is a laminated 3 piece maple through neck with RW. Fender has a single passive P/U mounted on the scratchplate, Spector has P/J config active body mounted. Oh, and you get gold plated hardware on the Spector - personally that would put me off. The Spector is clearly more complex to make, and it's not like it's being made in a sweatshop.