bobbass4k

Not surprised really, when you think of big bass distortion tones Nate Mendel's not really the first name that comes to my mind...

They may have swerved off the road a bit musically (or ploughed through the crash barrier) but I don't think they're capable of doing a bad gig.

Yup, just what it does, it can be tamed though, if you use fingers near the neck with just the neck pup it should behave. It doesn't track well on long sustained notes though, and you can forget anything below open A. It's a pedal that requires a certain way of playing, but it's well worth it, run it with a gated fuzz and a filter and there's no better bass synth sound as far as I'm concerned.

I've got my scribblings from when I figured it out, which are comprehensible to nobody but me unfortunately, I could write it up if you really want it but as Higgie said, there's nothing more rewarding than figuring it out yourself.

I always thought it was a Cort, but you can't really argue with that Fender Prophecy picture.

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1348181709' post='1810677'] Very nice! I'm all up for alternative stuff and this certainly floats my boat. I think you're being hard on yourself as the mix sounds fine to me (I'm listening on headphones - no monitors at the moment). Maybe loosen up a wee bit on the compression; especially around the 2 minute mark when the distorted guitar kicks in (sounds like it's 'flattening' the other instruments a little). No big deal. Generally the mix sounds nicely wide and 'sparkly' (that's the best technical term I can offer!). Anyway, nice work like I said. I particularly like the percussive/glitchy elements during the first half of the track - reminds me of early Aphex Twin (Ambient Works, etc). I'm guessing Ponizovje is a reference to Metal Gear Solid 3?? (yes, I have access to Google… and yes, I'm a games geek). [/quote] Aye, Ponizovje is an area in MGS3, which contains a crocodile infested Russian swamp, it's the first thing I thought of when I saw that picture, unfortunately google image search doesn't really correlate with my memories of it, but i still see that picture and think "better equip the croc cap". Looking forward to the voting, i've been confined to 3g since i posted mine so I haven't been able to listen to the new ones, but it should be a very interesting competition.

Reaper, it's what I use, it's essentially free, pretty lightweight specwise, and pretty easy to use. You could also use audacity, completely free, very lightweight, stupidly easy to use, and it's got all the essentials, eq, reverb and compressor.

[url="http://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/ponizovje"]http://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/ponizovje[/url] My entry. I know the mix is awful but I don't think I'm gonna get time to redo it. It ended up infinitely more complicated than I'd planned. Some advice, if you end up with 7 tracks labelled "glitchy texture", you should take a step back and ask yourself if maybe you've overdone things. I don't really expect anyone to like it, it's a little esoteric even for me, but I actually finished it which is a rarity for me, so i'm happy. Oh, and the tiltle is relevant, I'll be impressed if anyone gets the reference. I was going to put it in the original cyrillic for full pretentious points but it seemed a little inconsiderate.

Sounds really good, i think we're going to end up with a wide range of styles, I'd intended mine to be a pretty simple mostly improvised ambient thingy, but i've spent 2 days in ableton programming sampled drums and glitch tracks, so i've no idea what it's going to end up sounding like.

Sounds like a very cool idea , currently I'm thinking ambient guitar noodling with big nasty fuzzed out riff at the end, then again I'm always thinking that. Where do we stand on sampling? I like to use audio snippets from films and the like on my ambient stuff (because I'm a big pretentious hipster at heart). I'm not really up on the legality of it but as I recall it's fine as long as you credit it, but of course it's up to BC.

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1346000258' post='1783955'] There are certainly people who enjoy this kind of music,that's why there is a market for it. The thing with someone like Wooten,is that his chops are obvious and all over Youtube,so it's easy to comment on.Yet,if people dig deeper,they will hear some really nice melodies,both in his solo work and with the Flecktones (tunes like 'Reminiscence' or Ari's Eyes' spring to mind). Plus no one talks about his groove playing on albums by people like India Arie and Keller Williams. [/quote] That's kind of what I was getting at, to me most of the audience just seem to enjoy the technical ability and the "woah, I could never play that!" factor. I suppose it's a little subjective to say that that's not enjoying it, but that's not how I enjoy music, I enjoy complexity sure, but one of my favourite songs is just the C pentatonic scale for 3 minutes, because I think It's a beautiful song, I just don't have that kind of response with solo bass stuff. I honestly don't think I've ever come across a fan of a solo bass "virtuoso" who wasn't a bassist or a musician. I remember seeing a video of Manring at a bass clinic, and he started playing this pretty simple melody which I actually really liked, then he started doing all this fancy twiddly harmonic stuff and that's when everyone started clapping and cheering. I don't argue that players like Wooten can and do play some great grooves, but that's not what they're known for, and not why they're popular

I've always been suspicious of "virtuosos", does anyone actually [i]enjoy [/i]solo virtuoso bass and drum music? It seems to me most people are just impressed with the ability and technicallity. Whenever I see or hear comments on the playing of people like Wooten it's always "wow he's amazing, that double thumbing is so fast!" not "wow, that melody is so beautiful". And if you bring up this point with these people, it's always the same response of "you're just jealous because he's so much better than you", it seems like a weird kind of hero worship to me. Most performing musicians are motivated by ego, but solo virtuosos seem to be in a field all of their own.

Neil Mahony Jesse F. Keeler Jeff Caxide Scott Reeder Steven Hodson Troy Sanders Cliff Burton Dominic Aitchison Chris Wolstenholme Justin Chancellor I wanted to put JPJ and Geezer on but I figured they're recognised enough, these are all bassisys whose playing I think is not neccaserrily virtuosic, but unique and inspired, and a huge influence on me.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1345657579' post='1780170'] Hmm... Anyone near York with one of these slim necks? [/quote] So YOU'RE the Micklegate strangler!

Love my thru-neck NS2000, I've never played anything that sounds better to my ears, it's just perfect for everything.

P bass into cranked SVT, simple as that, only pedal I ever saw him use was a volume pedal for muting between songs.

It depends, I'm not a fan of basing an entire song around a sample, like black eyed peas did with misirlou, to me that's a cover, no matter how originally you interpret it, it's a cover. But sampling can be used very artistically, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing was made using entirely sampled sounds (and in fact was the first album to do so) He arranged and manipulated dozens of samples to create a unique song. Personally I don't see much difference between that and "regular" musicians choosing which notes to play in which order. Any guitarist can play F, A#, G#, and C# power chords, but only Kurt Cobain could make them into Smells Like Teen Spirit. Same with sampling, tell me this is just uncreative plagiarism: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32X-ieCav-M[/media]

[url="http://britishtheatre.bandcamp.com/releases"]http://britishtheatre.bandcamp.com/releases[/url] Like having your ears washed out by beautiful, naked, tatoeed angels. Or another less weird image.

[quote name='Jack Cahalane' timestamp='1345426711' post='1777433'] Looks like she came back to bump you off [/quote] Luckily no, that was due to my complete lack of hand-eye coordination and accidentally hitting enter. We were all looking over our shoulders for a few days though, none of us had the nerve to tell her in person, we wussed out and sent her an email. She was seriously crazy, not charming "you're wearing a top hat and carrying a cane, that's so kooky!" crazy, more "what smells weir...OH GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT CHEESE?!?!" sort of crazy.

I've found one good singer in 8 years of looking, and she was completely insane, we had to kick her out after she brought a dead squirrel to a practice. She could sing though, man and those legs! I fear I'm getting sidetracked. I think singers need natural talent more than any other instrument, there's no safety net. We have frets (except fretless, obviously), so as long it's tuned properly, we know we're hitting the right notes, singers have to hit notes with just their ears to guide them.

[quote name='Ancient Mariner' timestamp='1344862312' post='1770217'] snipped for neatness [/quote] Some awesome suggestions there thanks, exaclty what I was after, I'd have probably completely overlooked godins, but that leaf top looks very sexy. I know there's delay on that guitar part (I do actually have the delay pedal he uses) but the actual tone is just his guitar (no doubt with a touch of reverb, but still), trouble is he plays a home made SG with hand wound pickups, so kind of hard to emulate. I'm not wedded to twin humbuckers it's just what I know, is there another pickuip setup that's likely to get me a better tone? I've always found stock strats to be very twangy personally. A tele is probably closer to the tone I'm after but they just don't like value for money to me. Keep em coming