bobbass4k

[quote name='Starless' timestamp='1361127638' post='1981512'] I remember a time when album inner sleeves screamed at you, "Home taping is killing music". That was 40+ years ago, so exactly how much better would the last 40 years of popular music have been if us young scrotes hadn't swapped our cassettes around with our mates? Did the music actually die? [/quote] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xoJ3hRcc9M[/media]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1361114339' post='1981192'] Music and professional musicians existed before sound recording. Downloading doesn't infringe copyright, because the copying is done uploader end, so in this country, there isn't 'illegal downloading', its the difference between making a burned cd and being given one, making the copy is a different thing to receiving it. If you see proper articles on the subject its always filesharing and uploading that is the illegal thing, torrents come under this because they upload at the same time as downloading. Vast amounts of music out there is totally rubbish, no-one has an obligation to pay for rubbish work they don't want done, if you want to make money from something, you need to do it in such a way to make money, failing to do so is not something you can blame on anyone else. People will check out something that is free that they'd never pay for, so a free listening isn't a lost sale, its a sale opportunity. Digital media formats that can be copied are inherently limited to sound, physical formats aren't, so you can still produce a music product as a saleable item, and its much easier to do so now that it was before, the recording costs have dropped vastly since the music industry became established, so the space to invest in the product outside of the recorded stuff is there, and all the necessary contacts to make such things are easily available due to the digital communication medium, you don't need a labels worth of accumulated contacts any more, you can just ask on a forum and be sent to all of the necessary people to make a product. But making excuses and blaming technology is easier. [/quote] This. A thousand times this.

Ok, I expect to become a lightning rod of hate and vitriol, but I personally think these points are always worth making, so here goes. The argument of downloading music/films/etc. as theft is predicated on a few assumptions which are not always accurate, for the sake of clarity I will confine examples to music. First is the idea that downloading music is always theft. The anti-piracy campaigns always compare digital media piracy to physical property theft, which is inherently wrong. When you steal a car or an album from a shop, you are physically removing one of a finite number of items that belongs legally to someone else. If you steal a car, you are depriving the person who owns it of their car against their will, if you steal a CD from a shop, you are depriving the shop of a potential sale, as they only have a finite number of CD's to sell. When you download an album however, you are downloading a digital copy of the disc or files that has been willingly copied and shared by the owner of the physical disc, and actually by downloading it you are creating your own copy. So really there's very little similarity, it's not like stealing a CD from a shop, it's more like the shop pressing a new CD and giving it to you. It's not like stealing a car, it's more like someone leaving the blueprints and parts for an identical car next to theirs. Anti-piracy campaigns really heavily on the "illegal downloading is theft" angle because it stigmatizes and vilifies downloading, if you download something for free, you're no better than a car thief or someone who mugs an old lady. This type of emotive manipulation is deceitful and founded on nothing, "illegal downloading" is not covered under any sort of theft law, if you are unlucky enough to be prosecuted for illegally downloading something it will not be in even a remotely similar manner to a car thief or a mugger, yet these are the kind of comparisons constantly made. I don't want to get bogged down in semantics though, far more relevant is the issue of motive. The second assumption made in the view of downloading as theft is that of potential loss. The idea that downloading an album for free is wrong is predicated on the view that downloading is always used as a free alternative to paying for it, and that but downloading it for free you are depriving the artist of the money you would have paid for the album. This for me is the single biggest issue with downloading. Personally if I can afford the album/film/movie and want to support the artist then I purchase it and am happy to do so. But what if you had no intention of purchasing the album whatsoever? If you download an album that you wouldn't have purchased legally, who suffers? The artist doesn't suffer because they wouldn't have gotten any money from you anyway. A shop or downloading service doesn't suffer because they wouldn't have gotten their percentage either. In this scenario, nobody suffers at all, nobody loses any money and nobody's work is impacted. And the reality is that this scenario is a significant percentage of illegal downloads. Record companies/movie studios etc. view all illegal downloads as lost potential sales, and that simply isn't the case, I know from personal experience that a lot of people download things because they're not sure whether they'd want to buy it. If that option wasn't available then most of them simply wouldn't buy it, and the companies wouldn't regain a lot of sales because they weren't losing sales in the first place. After Christmas my mum gave me a lot of leftover food that she hadn't used. I went to Tesco's a few days later and saw they had Dorito's on offer, I was going to buy some but I remembered that there some Dorito's in the stuff she'd given me, so I didn't get them. Would anyone really say that I'd stolen those Dorito's from Tesco's? The argument is essentially the same. The issue has become especially murky recently as services like bandcamp allow you to stream the entire album for free, and now most bands put up full album streams before the official release date. So it's OK to listen to the album whenever you want through a browser for free, but the extra convenience of having the files so you can listen to it offline is a heinous act of theft? There are large parts of the downloading culture that I find unpleasant, the aforementioned Kimdotcom being one of them, and personally I've never supported the "record companies are all big and evil so it's OK" argument, because it's an implicit admission that downloading is wrong but selective targeting can justify it, which personally I don't believe. So, that's a little bit of my 2p, I am very happy to discuss and debate any of this stuff, hopefully we can keep it civil for a while.

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1361026501' post='1979987'] bobbass4k - Great bit of tech metal but the fact it was all midi made it a bit odd to listen to. I'd love to hear it if you ever got it recorded with a live band (easier said than done I realise), maybe with another guitar line, vocals or something a little out of the ordinary. I only say this because I've got a bit of guitar fatigue at the moment. [/quote] Thanks man, I've never really thought of it as tech metal before, that's just how riffs come out of my head, 7/8 seems more natural to me than 4/4, maybe I'm just weird? I know what you mean about the MIDI, the drums are okay but the bass does sound weird, I have been considering redoing it because it's quite removed from my original idea, which had a a lot of whammy pedal abuse and a vocal line that I could probably move to synth, but I've never found the time. I've been trying to get a bass/drums duo, maybe with vocals together for ages to play this sort of stuff, but there seems to be a shortage of drummers into it.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1360967653' post='1979346'] It very good man, but I'm confused, what do you mean you didn't actually record it? What am I listening to? [/quote] Aah, I mean I didn't play it on an actual bass, it's all sample based VSTs. I was going to actually record it but I was happy with the VST sound so it seemed unnecessary, but now it sounds kinda thin to my ears.

Not my proudest achievement, but as a bass/drums thing it seems the most obvious choice: [url="https://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/a-vague-disclaimer-is-nobodys"]http://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/a-vague-disclaimer-is-nobodys[/url] I didn't actually record it, as I'd written it all out in Guitar Pro for ease of writing a drum part and I was happy with the tone so it seemed a lot easier to just use that, although now I'm really unhappy with the tone, but oh well. It started, unusually, with the intro, then the outro, then the riffs in between arrived fairly rapidly, and I just threw them together (and it shows). The half time bit in the middle I was unsure about but I think it works, there's actually a vocally melody for this but as I can't sing it went unrecorded.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1360953409' post='1979019'] BION, I have not heard Oceansize before, I have now, and I am digging it big! Excellent mate. Great bass lines and playing too. [/quote] They're the kind of technical I like, it's not 600 notes per minute in 23/16, but if you listen a few times and really think about it there's so many layers and weird tricks going on, like this track: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB0dEjr1tkg[/media] May not sound too complicated, but the keyboard in the intro is playing dotted eights, so rhythmically it's a complete headf**k, but you don't need to know that to appreciate the track. I'll stop now, as I could geek out about Oceansize all day. Back vaguely on topic, this is also one of my favourite basslines: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96O8SM20y7U[/media] The essence of simplicity, but it just works so well.

I may have some money to splash on a bass soon, and a $$ was on my list to check out. Unfortunately that video doesn't give me any idea of if a $$ is for me or not. To be fair, he doesn't claim to be demoing the bass, but then what's the point of the video?

This thread needs more youtube examples! This is one of my favourite basslines: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQnDH9SQ6Sc[/media] He doubles the guitar when that's what's required, and does his own thing when that's what required. Playing something unique with 3 guitars, vocals and a uniquely melodic drummer without it sounding cluttered is an achievement, but he always pulls it off. This another favourite bassline of his for the same reasons: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSrLxpUHUJQ[/media] To me, those two bass lines are better than most of the virtuoso stuff.

Not that I know of, using the volume knob is so simple I doubt there's much demand for it. I assume the idea of the afterburner is to replace an OD pedal, making your setup simpler, reducing cost, and transferring more control to the guitar, an auto-fade in thing would be adding cost and gear to do something you can already do easily on the guitar.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a820Xo4XdB8[/media]

Only been once, I had some time to kill before an early doors gig in Camden so I figured I'd go and look at all the pretty. Have to say I do prefer not being pestered, I find that if an assistant asks me if I need help with anything and I say I'm just browsing, they tend to get a little disgruntled. I can't remember who was there when I went but I was the only one in for the 10 minutes or so I was in there and the guy was behind the counter and didn't say a word to me, which personally I liked. I was just there to look, and had he been actively trying to get me to try or look at things I'd have felt bad, but he left me to my ogling and was there if I had had any questions. Contrast that to one time I was in the Bass Cellar, the guy at the counter was having a loud conversation with his friend and I wanted to ask if they had a specific set of strings, i got a very annoyed "what?" an unhelpful "I don't think so", and a "what a prick" to his friend on the way out.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1360587675' post='1972723'] Oh gyod, yeah I hate that. I hate the class system and class-based us-and-them music usually pisses me off. [/quote] This is definitely worth a read then: [url="http://thequietus.com/articles/08813-the-enemy-streets-in-the-sky-review"]http://thequietus.co...-the-sky-review[/url] And this one probably makes a better point, but is less entertaining: [url="http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17021/reviews/4145008"]http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17021/reviews/4145008[/url]

Not that I'm aware of, there's a lot of young indie bands doing the faux working class schtick, which is at best annoying, and at worst insulting and patronizing.

Surely it's always been the same though, every generation takes inspiration from and builds on what's gone before. Modern bands might be borrowing a lot form Led Zep but didn't Led Zep borrow a lot from American Blues artists? And those American blues artists borrowed a lot from traditional folk songs, and you can probably go on and on until you end up with a monkey hitting a rock with a stick, and even he was probably just copying another monkey.

[quote name='urb' timestamp='1360484964' post='1970957'] OK here's mine - I took inspiration from my trips to Norway in recent years - especially in the middle of winter, when it gets insanely cold - when the beauty of the snow and ice give way to some serious partyng (drinking) as it's the only way to keep warm at -12! Hope you enjoy it - love to hear your comments on it - let me know what you think.... [url="https://soundcloud.com/munkio/trippy-tundra-oslo-nights"]https://soundcloud.c...dra-oslo-nights[/url] [/quote] That's pretty great, nice melding of the crazy synth stuff and the more restrained jazzy stuff. I need some assistance with mine, annoyingly my right ear has decided to get bunged up so everything's a lot quieter in the right ear and high freqs are a lot woolier. This makes mixing a little arduous to say the least, especially as my usual method is just to pan stuff hard left and right then adjust the levels till it sounds good. I think I've found a workaround, but I'd appreciate comments on the balance in this rough mix of the first section: [url="https://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/feb-comp-intro-test"]https://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/feb-comp-intro-test[/url]

I've got one playalong vid on youtube, recorded at the request of a potential band and only put on youtube as a convenient way of sharing it. I got a comment from a guy: "Stop showing off. No one cares." It surprised me mainly as the song is child's play compared to most of the show off pieces on youtube. The real kicker was I replied saying it was recorded for a band and he apologized and then deleted the comment. I just find it odd that some people judge this stuff entirely on motive, when really any musician who performs at all is showing off in a sense.

How many bananas can you hang from the tuning pegs before they start turning?

Shame it didn't have (delete as appropriate): (1/2/7.4) (more/less) (strings/pickups/necks/severed whale penises superglued to it) or I'd have (bitten/sawed) your (arm/face/coffee table) (off/in half)

That was very impressive, I wonder how many takes it took it though, he looks very glad to have gotten the slide on in time for that black crowes riff and I think that's the speediest drop tuning I've ever seen. Pretty decent riff choices too, surprised there was no Kyuss or QOTSA though, and Hysteria was a pretty odd Muse choice for guitar, but it was great to finish on Cruel, St. Vincent is a very under-appreciated guitarist.

Can anyone recommend a good free Harp VST, or harp containing orchestra VST? My simple post-metal track has taken an unexpected turn...

[quote name='Antiloco' timestamp='1360226345' post='1966876'] Totally agreed, thank you. At last someone with brains thats doesnt need to rely on the "arrogance" or "troll" card to defend their insecurities and lack of understanding. Shame on the rest of you. [/quote] Did you believe my description of your tone as arrogant to be a defence of my insecurities and lack of understanding? If so, what exactly do you believe my insecurity to be, and what don't I understand?

[quote name='Antiloco' timestamp='1360222270' post='1966794'] What you say sounds pretty fair except for the simple fact that the meaning of words is not subjective. "Entertainment is something that holds the attention and interest of an audience, or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention." -Wiki [/quote] First of all, I don't fully agree with that definition,and the fact I can disagree with it kind of proves it's subjectivity. Secondly, if Wikipedia is the arbiter of all absolute truth in the Universe then we are all in very deep trouble. Wiktionary has a similar definition, and cites a few examples, including opera. But that definition does not exclude art from being entertainment. I think the crux of the conflict is illustrated by your comment: [quote]So you should ask yourself: How pure is something that's made with the sole purpose of satisfying an audience?[/quote] Most entertainment is not made solely to satisfy an audience. In fact in my opinion, entertainment that is made specifically to pander to certain audiences is almost exclusively bad, but that doesn't rob it of it's artistic nature. Art can be bad. Art can be made with a pure artistic intent, and then experienced by others without stripping it of it's artistic soul. Indeed, music is usually made to be heard. I will almost guarantee that John Coltrane wrote Naima with the knowledge that he would perform it live, for an audience, and record it, to be heard by an audience. All of the films and video games and albums that I love and consider to be great works of art, were made to be experienced by an audience. My favourite album of all time and one of the greatest works of art I have ever experienced was recorded in a studio, using money from a record company, so that record company could sell it to people. And if you consider any album to be a great work of art, then the same is true to you. A work of art being available to an audience does not mean that it was specifically created for that audience. Do you consider your YouTube videos to be art or entertainment? You did record them specifically to be seen by an audience, after all.

[quote name='Antiloco' timestamp='1360220659' post='1966780] Am I really that wrong? [/quote] No, because NO ONE IS WRONG OR RIGHT on this entirely SUBJECTIVE issue. Phrases like: [quote]You need to learn the real meaning of words[/quote] Give the unmistakeable impression that you think your definitions are the absolutely correct ones. I, and most of the people here are more than happy to discuss this point with you, exchange ideas and compare views. But you have to enter such a discussion with your views malleable, or at least accepting of the validity of other views. There is no one true definition of art and entertainment. I listen to a lot of music that most musicians would dismiss as random noise, but I consider it art. I consider many video games to be works of art, other people consider them to be a vacuous medium devoid of any artistry whatsoever. Neither of us is wrong, my hope is that I can put forth a well reasoned argument for why I consider video games to be art that makes others re-evaluate their views. So if you're willing to discuss the topic, put forth your views in a coherent, logical, mature way, and consider the views and rebuttals of others, with an overriding principle of respect maturity, then welcome, you'll love it here. But if you're going to continue slinging arrogant, snide and elitist jibes around the place then you'll probably find it very frustrating here. Not least because I'll probably feel compelled to repeat this same long-winded speech every time.