Leonard Smalls

As recommended by Jamaaladeen himself...

Funnily enough, nor is mine!

Having looked into this recently (see thread!) I'd recommend a refurbished machine as you won't find anything new with anything like the spec you'll need. Google refurbished Mac Pro, or refurbished HP Z640. At that price you might just get an Intel Xeon dual processor 32Gb machine - the Xeons are more robust with bigger L3 cache than i7 so will work better for especially CAD stuff..

If it hadn't been for you pesky kids I'd'a got away with it etc! Anyway, well done Mr Bleat...

I've just sent mine off to the maker - thought it was probably worth £60 for them to take it to bits and test it. They said if it's the mother board that would be another £97... Should find out in 7-10 days.

This is what I was worried about... Knowing very little about recent macs not sure which OS to go for! The pro i was looking at had el crapi and couldn't go any later than that... The HP z640 I was also looking at also had Xeon dual processors, 48Gb RAM but had the option of Windows 10 pro which means support but also a means of deferring updates until they (hopefully) work!

I've had a look at 2nd hand machines... I could get a refurished 2008 Mac Pro with 32Gb RAM and 3.33GHz 6 core processor for £495 with OS of anything up to El Crapitan - food for thought! Not being that familiar with Macs makes me lean toward PC more, but I used to use a MacPro back in the late 90s so it might come back. It is, however, 10 years old. I've also looked at 2nd hand business machines - servers, Avid workstations and the like. I can get a 5 year old refurb HP Z640 with choice of Windows 7 or 10 and 48Gb (!) DDR3 RAM for the same, or an actual Dell Avid with 64Gb RAM and Xeon octacore processor for £695... Problem with the internet is there's so many choices!

A 2013 15" with an i7 processor and 16Gb RAM would cost about £850... That's a 5 year old laptop... I could get a brand new laptop with the same spec and a 3 year warranty for about £900! Or I could buy an Asus z370 TUF motherboard with i7 7800X 6 core processor and 4GHz speed, plus Coolermaster Hypercool fan, 2x8Gb corsair RAM and a 500Gb Samsung SSD for £869 from Scan. Then I'd just need 20 minutes to slot it into the case!

I've actually got an old Apevia case with room for full size motherboard, 4 dvd drives and 3 SATA drives... I could then re-use the laptop 1Tb hybrid drive, plus the 500Gb Samsung that's already in the case, plus new 500Gb SSD, as well as the Asus 24/96 sound card. I'd only need 2 8Gb DDR4 RAM, as there's 2 in the laptop already, just need to buy Corsair Vengeance to match, plus maybe ditch the existing 450W power supply for something a bit bigger. There's already 2 case fans, so one more on the front plus the cpu cooler should do it. I expect a build time of 20 minutes. 😁

I've got a PC with a 2x500Gb SSD RAID array and that boots in about 5 seconds - and it's got 32Gb of RAM with i7 8700 6 core processor! Unfortunately I can't nick that for music as it's also running our shop's EPOS system as well as being our home PC! With the possible new one I'd be tempted to go for about 500Gb SSD for boot and DAW duties, plus large 3Tb off board hard drive which currently has all my music library on it

It won't boot... Just power light and occasionally blinking hard disc light. It was taking ages to boot - this eventually became an hour so I thought about recovery options, did a chkdsk c:/r/x which showed no problems, did startup recovery, no probs, then thought about re-installing windows so got recovery to try starting from usb then it wouldn't boot at all. So I reseated the RAM, tried start up from either RAM, re-set the cmos battery and checked for power at motherboard - all fine but still no boot, even using a 2nd screen to check it wasn't just the integrated screen. So I came to the conclusion it was either the on-board graphics, or basically the motherboard, or perhaps the processor. Final option before binning is to speak to the makers - luckily I've rescued the HD contents.

Looks like my laptop may have bitten the dust - after 5 years it appears to be unbootable due to knacked motherboard or processor. So what do y'all recommend as a replacement? Might be tempted by desktop as I haven't used it live for 3 years and seems unlikely I'll do any more in the foreseeable. I'm running Ableton Live 9, currently with only a Scarlett 2i2 as usb input but might be tempted to up that, possibly with firewire unless usb 3.0 is enough, and with plenty of vsts. I rarely go any more than 16 tracks, but want minimum latency. And I don't want to spend any money at all if poss, so Apple is probably out. But we're probably talking i7 at least 6 core, at least 16Gb RAM, preferably with some SSD capacity for fast boot - that was the spec of my laptop which worked well until it didn't any more.

He's sending me some "ideas" with keyboard bass and drums on... Hopefully he'll be happy when I liberally smear my attempt at his bass-line with envelope filter, bass synth and bass whammy, and play it all in a P-Funk style in straight 4:4 On The One. Perhaps I'll take my platform boots to the next jamhearsal!

What I've done so far is lock into a groove with my own time which is hopefully the same as his! I've found this to be much easier with fast stuff than slow where I'm much more visible...

I've been fiddling a bit - breaking the time sig down helps a lot! Problem is it's like a rock version of this - luckily the guitar player is the chap who just left my other band so I've played with him for a year:

Problem is the drum pattern is so complex I can't see the groove in it - following the hi hat so far seems easiest as he's doing rolling and shuffle patterns on toms and snare...

I was hoping someone could recommend a bit of software I could load directly into my brain! But I suspect that's not an option... The problem isn't so much playing straight 5:4 or 7:8, it's more playing a groove within those sigs that doesn't start on the first note and doesn't follow an obvious groove pattern - I suppose it's a question of practice, and learning to play more melodic lines than I'm used to. I've always played straight riffs that repeat or get developed...

I've just joined yet another band, this time with a seriously good drummer. I mean world-class-good, played with Free Improv types like Evan Parker; problem is I'm well-used to playing standard funk or rock grooves but mainly in 3 or 4 time. So has anybody got any tips on coping with weird rhythms/time sigs etc? Any exercises, books, YouTube tutorials? We're doing crazy, semi-improvised jazz-rock and so far I've managed to busk it by watching his hi-hat like a hawk and dropping notes where appropriate, but it would be nice to find a way to work with strange grooves as well as also being On The One!

It's obvious the boy's very talented. But also quite staid, despite wishing to appear the opposite. He's trying very hard to be different, but only manages to be a tiny bit different. His piano playing, while very good, is not in the same league as other precocious talents such as Hiromi Uehara either in melody, rhythm or inventiveness. Did anybody say Bobby Crush? 😁 Still, I'd much rather him than much wetter dinner jazz, or The Smiths!

Take your pick!

I think that unlikely... Mainly because: a) he's no longer with us b) his idea of musical heaven was Chris Barber, or Sidney Bechet

Less of your Radical Silentist talk!

Now you're getting into zerotonal territory...

It's very like Bill Laswell's "Baselines" album, though Mr Neon has elevated it by the addition of a sock. Also a hint a Squarepusher... Genius!

Out of tune is a relative term... If we were only talking about our standard western system of 8 note scales within a 12 tone octave, fair enough. If you listened to Schoenberg, he'd be making music where all 12 tones are equal - that sounds "out of tune" and dissonant if you're only used to the 8 notes we usually use. However, if you use an interval between notes that isn't an Equal Temperament such as the Chinese tuning, that also sounds "out of tune" to us. Then you can use notes that are between our 12 tones - like somewhere between E and F - which would be microtones as used by Mr Fuze above, not easy on a guitar without it being fretless! But more notes means more possibilities, I'm sure we'll soon hear songs in the charts composed using the Bohlen Pierce scale, like this 😁