radiophonic

[quote name='perrybassbp' timestamp='1484732655' post='3217810'] I'm not sure exactly what a phase 90 sound like because I've never owned one but I recently got a earthquakes devices grand orbiter and it's awesome on bass it can do really slow sweeps and it's quite tweekable so I'm pretty sure you could get the sound you wanted, easily the best phaser I've had or tried! [/quote] I took a listen on youtube but it doesn't sound like what I'm after - although inevitably demos seem to fixate on the most extreme / novel sounds. What I'm after is superficially very simple, but has to be perfectly implemented. I suspect that I just need a Phase 90 and will have to live with the slight limitations (and possibly lose the Tuner from my pedal board).

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1484729414' post='3217769'] MXR Phase 95 - choose between Phase 90 and more subtle Phase 95 sounds, tiny pedal board footprint, and the 9V socket is on the top, not the side. Also has Script button for further variation. [/quote] I did look at the 95 (visual only). My understanding was that the difference between the 45 and 90 was only the number of stages (effectively the phase angle shift). I might be wrong, but I did compare the 2 and 4 stage phasing on the Boss and the difference didn't give a perception of slower sweep - it's just a shorter sweep isn't it? Pity, because the top mounted power socket would make it a shoe-in otherwise.

I want a phaser. I've tried out a few (MXR Phase 90, Boss PH3, EH Bad Stone) and I've decided that the sound of the MXR P90 is exactly what I want. However there are problems. First, having the power inlet on the side is a real problem for my pedal board. I don't want to have to change a load of other things just to accommodate a phaser. More substantively, I'm after a long slow sweep and the rate setting on the Phase 90 has to be turned to it's absolute minimum to get the rate I need. So. What I want is something that sounds like a Phase 90 and is as transparent, but has a greater range of adjustment and possibly some control over intensity. Does such an item exist? Based on what I've managed to try so far, the Boss could sort of fake it using the 4 stage setting, but sounded less transparent to me and the Bad Stone just sounded horrible - very dark and muddy. I'm not after squelchy envelope sounds - just a really smooth sweeping phase change to help carry slow lines. Any options?

[quote name='la bam' timestamp='1484582681' post='3216483'] My take on it is: You have to be loud enough to be able to create good dynamics and a good sound. Many guitarists cant get a good sound quietly because their amp is too powerful and at normal volume they are just not driving it at all. 15-30w is fine for a valve amp, not 100w! We always try to rehearse as its a gig. Nice and tight, but good stage volume, but balanced. Good eq and frequency coverage means you don't have to go too loud. If we are comfortable there, we should be fine at almost any backline area. Everything apart from that can go out the front. I also have split our backline, so we all have a speaker for each instrument at each side of the drums. Not in the monitors, but as backline. This means we all dont have to be blisteringly loud to be heard and theres no interference in the monitors for the singer. It also gives an even spread out front for intimate gigs. [/quote] Good point about too loud guitar amps. Our guitarist sold his blackstar 100w head and bought a 30 watt combo instead. I'm sure it's about psychology- he's a total prog metal guy and a big valve head is what you have to have right? But he could hardly turn the thing on. He can - and does -crank the combo. There is some loss of dispersion, but good FOH and monitors make up for it. I've played in bands where the lead guitarist used a Fender Champ! With good monitors and a PA, it was fine to audiences of a couple of hundred.

We like to keep things under control - not having a kit based drummer gives us more flexibility too. It's much easier for the singer to pitch herself when she can hear clearly. We only play loud if we have to, and that's always down to poor monitors in venues or a bad monitor mix that we have to compensate for. I guess it's a different equation if you are relying on stage amps for FOH though.

[quote name='fleabag' timestamp='1484574055' post='3216401'] Unlike Bandmix [/quote] and musicians in your city. They have a band login, which means I'm still getting spam that I can't stop from an ad placed by a band I'm no longer a member of. Irritating.

As others have said, sites like 'join my band' can useful. It's free and they don't spam you. The last couple of bands I joined had ads on there. It might be harder meeting compatible individual players though. Be prepared to made through a lot of metal bands. Even if you play metal.

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1484405794' post='3215256'] Chuckles [/quote] If you read 'Playing the bass with three left hands', it turns out you can play a gig without being plugged in and not notice it yourself!

No problem. This has been a really useful conversation. Not sure I've got to the bottom of it but I know more than I did. Plus I now have some very funny recordings of my 4 year old son singing improvised songs, as test recordings!

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1484306921' post='3214497'] get it in the right place and mono should be fine I wonder whether it's just the laptop running out of power? On Cubase there's a meter that shows CPU and Disc usage. Is there anything like this on Audacity? [/quote] No - although I can monitor power draw and CPU use elsewhere. It happens when powered from the PSU though, so unlikely to be that IMO. My guess is some combination of memory, buffer and noisy PSU. There pretty clear notches out of the wave-forms, implying missed or wrongly interpolated samples.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1484302666' post='3214441'] Have you tried it with a bigger buffer? Can you hear these artefacts when you monitor from the interface? [/quote] The buffer is set to 256 (default). I don't usually monitor on phones whilst recording - it's usually a case of set the levels and let it roll, because I'm playing and that's enough to worry about. I cant recall ever having heard artefacts beyond the low level hash that I can I definitely attribute to the laptop PSU though. Another variable I hadn't considered is that I've never had this problem when making 'new idea' recordings - for which I usually use a Mac Mini with much more memory installed (and obviously no nasty PSU either). I can try raising the buffer to 512. The problem with running the laptop off battery is that it isn't a very long lasting one at this point (old laptop too). For the next rehearsal, I think I'm going to use the Mini + a single large diaphragm condenser rather than the 2 dynamics / XY approach. It means sacrificing stereo, but the inherent noise floor will be far lower and it is much less prone to interference by design. It's probably a more robust recording method overall - I just wish I could afford two of em!

It looks like it's more than one thing. Thee is a low level hash associated with the PSU definitely. Running the laptop on battery gets rid of this. However, that sound is only picked up if using dynamic mics. If I plug a condenser in, it's quiet as a mouse. The major issue isn't PSU related though. Looking at the waveforms close up, tee look to be tiny notches out of them - and it's not a clipping issue. As low as -50 dB there are bits chopped out of the waveform. This seems to be intermittent. I managed to reproduce it with my son singing his made-up songs into a mic (4 year olds are pretty narcissistic fortunately and nowhere near as loud as a band) but I couldn't associate it with being too close to the mic or overdriving the inputs. I'm planning on taping the whole set on saturday and I think I'll use a different machine and try both Audacity and Logic to see if I can narrow things down further. TDK C60s never gave me this trouble!

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1484234151' post='3213804'] ...even when you play them on other devices? Sorry, probably seems like a stupid question but it's worth asking I'm not familiar with Audacity but I guess you can access the original audio files? Do they contain glitches? It's a Mac so I don't think the drivers would be out... I can't find a Presonus "Audiophile" online. Is it an "Audiobox"? I just wanted to check if it's powered via USB or an external PSU [/quote] Yes - Sorry my typo. Audiobox (I have an M-Audio Audiophile Firewire box as well, hence the confusion). One of these: https://www.presonus.com/products/audiobox-usb and Yes it's USB powered rather than PSU. I've used these boxes a lot at work in the past, but not via the internal Mic preamps and I don't recall Audacity giving me any problems on either Mac or PC (several different examples of both) - plus it was for auditory perception experiments so I was paying a lot of attention to avoid even very minor artefacts. The major differences between then and now were 1. Laptop PSU 2. Lots of other audio gear in the room, some of it probably not shielded very well 3. Using the mic preamps rather than the line inputs + outboard pre-amp.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1484213006' post='3213510'] I think it's an ace venue!! But it is pot-luck with the sound guys. One of them is very moody and got pretty abusive when we asked him to change things - on 2 separate gigs! [/quote] Well the headliner's bass player was using a G&L 2000 with 18V output and his bass sound was absolutely deafening. I mean horrifyingly loud. Both me and the other bassist (2 supports) used the headliners gear to make the sound guy's job easier - the headliner offered and even bailed me out with a patch cable when my pedal board failed, so a nice guy! From what I heard of the other band, the engineer had made zero adjustment to the bass at all, so his P-bass was way too quiet with the same PA settings, but the band were still too loud overall. Headliner's bass player reported our sound was pretty mushy and you couldn't really hear any details at all, just a general impression of the songs. There is no way a Stingray playing over a box-drum should sound mushy! That said, the PA does look pretty trashed to me and I didn't get a look at the board. The way the venue is set up though, is great and when we headline we will at least have a modicum of control.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1484211269' post='3213486'] try running off battery, but also try increasing your buffer size. Are the noises there when you export your mixes? [/quote] Yes - it's there in the exports

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1484209451' post='3213469'] I think the problem may lie with Audacity. If I record to Audacity on my iMac I sometimes get clicks like that, especially when the signal approaches 0dB. Try the same setup but recording into GarageBand. [/quote] Thanks - that's interesting. I actually have Logic too. I was trying to keep things simple and save some HDD space.

I've been using a PreSonus Audiophile box and a laptop to make simple stereo recordings of my band for analysing arrangements prior to formal recording. However, I'm getting what sounds like digital noise on the recordings. It takes the form of random HF clicks, unrelated to any dynamic changes in the music and I'm getting it even at low recording levels (although it does become very bad when levels are high - leading me to conclude that it originates in the A/D converter after the mic pre-amp). Has anyone encountered this kind of problem and if so what did you do? I did wonder whether the laptop PSU might be a cuplrit and I'm going to try running off batteries next time (risky). Obviously there are 101 possible sources of RF in the room, but it's not white noise, it's random spikes. Any guesses? Signal chain is as follows: 2 x Dynamic Mic (XY pair) > XLR cables > PreSonus Audiophile USB > MacBook Pro (Running Audacity)

I'm not sure you need a lot of gear. I used to go and see a 2 piece band in Leeds called 'That F***ing Tank' and their bass/baritone player used a switch box box and Big Muff to feed either clean or distorted signal to either or both of a guitar or bass stack. He got quite remarkable results stamping out rhythms on the switch box to give the impression of a guitar coming in and out over continuous bass. I seem to remember his gear layout was printed on the sleeve of their first CD. I know it's Baritone and not bass, but it was tuned ADGADG, so it was only missing the lowest few notes. I never saw him blow an amp up and it sounded enormous.

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1484131830' post='3212856'] Lemonrock is very localised. It started in the St Albans area and linked up with a site down in Devon so it is very strong down there. On good weeks I can get 50 or more gigs within a driveable distance. If we do a gig it emails 500 people or so to tell them about our gigs. When I was doing the booking for our band most of my new leads came through Lemonrock. I'd get about ten approaches a year from pubs who had found us on Lemonrock. I play with an old University mate as a duo and he lives in Burghfield and we are often looking for something to do in Reading. It's pretty hard finding anything going on in Reading via the web, most of the pubs websites aren't maintained and the wannabe gig guides don't have gigs in most nights. I'm sure Reading has to be livelier than Somerset but you wouldn't know it. It's all a symptom of one of the things wrong with live music, not spending 2 mins entering your gigs into your own website makes no sense at all. 20 mins promoting it on the free gig guides might bring some people in Any tips of where to look for music would be great. I'm also looking for places with regular open mics up there. [/quote] This +1. I'd never heard of Lemonrock until I joined this site. There are only 6 bands listed for Nottinghamshire! Doesn't seem very likely does it? I'm the new guy in the band , so I've inherited all their existing bookings and I've been pretty aghast at the lack of basic promotion by pub venues. Many of them don't seem to even maintain their own Facebook 'Events' pages or even put posters up in advance. They seem to assume that the band will do it all and bring a crowd with them even if it's out of town. The band do what they can but surely it's in everyone's interest to get people through the door and sell them beer? Then again, we played what was really just an open mic in Matlock Bath on a Sunday night. They don't usually put bands on, but the promoter wanted us to play. I expected tumbleweeds, but encountered an enthusiastic live music crowd and a decent sound engineer who made it clear that he wasn't going to blast the punters - because they are there to drink and talk too. We got an excellent sound and a great reception. It can work, but some effort is involved.

[quote name='chrisanthony1211' timestamp='1484129596' post='3212840'] Played at the Maze for their Christmas masquerade ball, cracking live venue. [/quote] ..apart from the live sound both on and off stage! Our singer was very unhappy with the monitoring - the perils of playing with someone who has had formal training and expects to hit every note, every time. We're playing there again next month, but headlining this time so I hope we have a bit more control. The concept is great though, right down to having a separate bar away from the bands.

[quote name='chrisanthony1211' timestamp='1484121074' post='3212769'] Where in Nottingham were you playing? [/quote] The Maze (Mansfield Road)

I'm just back from playing a gig in a pub with a stage / venue room on the side. Tuesday night in Nottingham and there were people out. Not a bad turnout. I was more than twice the age of most of them, of course but there were young and enthusiastic people playing too. The downside was that everything was waaaay too loud. Stage volume and FOH. We usually control our own FOH but the sound guy was in some sort of arms race. If this is normal, I'm not surprised casual punters are in short supply.

I recently sold a Boss CS2 - lousy for bass / great on a telecaster - and used the cash towards a BC1-X. I haven't really fiddled with it too much, but straight out of the box, with everything defaulted to about 10 o'clock except for threshold (1 o'clock), it does the job. I got it for harmonics, but I think the main issue there is a loud saturated Les Paul blasting in my left ear rather than the inherent dynamics of my bass rig. I have Joe Meek VC6 too, which is a super squishy onto-comp. Not foot switchable though.