Leonard Smalls

I'm fighting against my old BBC training, where 1KHz reference tone on a digital recording was set at -18dBU... So I tend to record all instruments at peak of around -6, then smear a bit of neutron 3 on it so RMS level is between -15 and -10. Then at the master I use either a Shadow Hills Compressor plus Waves limiter set at absolute peak of -0.5, or recently I've been using Ozone 9 with a Greg Colibri preset such as "high detail wide", then turn down compression slightly as this would otherwise give a dynamic range of only about 3dB! However, when producing a masterpiece such as this month's CompoCompo piece you want it to be as loud and unpleasant as possible - mainly to benefit those of us of a more delicate persuasion (eh Doug? 😁)

I got "coupon usage limit has been reached"...

Apart from the large chunk Big Tony Fisher's got!

The Antidote are pretty good in a jazz-but-funky sort of way...

Arguably! One man's Good Stuff is another's screaming nightmare from hell... If a gig contains Rule Britannia, That Hornpipe and/or Jerusalem, then that, for me, is a bit like that bit in The Exorcist where her head starts spinning and she's bouncing off the ceiling.

Indeed... Cos it's 4 or 5 basses all played only once without any plan (never!), and with all the other tracks apart from click (not that you'd guess!) turned off. I could send you tabs for it though if you're keen 😁 And I have no idea how you managed to play it through twice without murdering someone...

Of course it is! Not like prog... And all those 70s fretw@nk rock guitarists were just keepin' it simple. And that bloody Liszt and his would-be mate, Paganini! Though personally, I love a bit of self-indulgence and subscribe via Eurosport to both types of pissing contest - high wee and long piddle.

For those that like it a bit more Out There, here's Ornette with Jamaaladeen and a pink Kubicki (is it?)

I personally find the JBerlin and the Michael Camillo stuff all that bit wet, beautifully played as it all is. I'm actually the anti-Doug, while he wants all music to tend gently and tunefully toward Jefferson Airplane, I want it to veer wildly off-course, bumping into Suicidal Tendencies, Bootsy and Primus before crashing into Ronald Shannon Jackson and John Zorn...

Be afraid! But I'm actually able to listen all the way through without vomiting now...

Where? Sounds like a nice mellow jazzy thang to me! Here's an example of building jazz carnage...

This month I done a song about Infinite Regress, which is where in an infinite series of entities, each entity depends entirely on the existence of the previous entity. This is often illustrated by the idea that the world is supported on a turtle, which is in turn supported by another turtle. So how far do these turtles go? All the way down. But every fool knows it's hippos, not turtles! Hence, we have this achingly beautiful melody: (good luck ☠️) For those that need to know, apart from drums programmed in EZ drummer, everything else is a Wal bass through various Line6 Helix FX. Obviously not the train and the robin; train was from Freesound, robin was in my garden just itchin' to be a rockstar.

I had the same from See Tickets for the cancelled Primus gig. What was particularly galling was the fact they wouldn't even refund the £4.80 cancellation insurance! The add-ons worked out around 25%, there weren't even printed tickets!

For recording, an '83 Wal. And live, an ACG Recurve. Or a Lightwave Sabre if I feel a bit fretless. Or a Parker PB51 for wild'n'crazy. Or a Sandberg Basic if a little more staid.

And something a bit newer!

Arf McSnigger-Chuckle!

I saw 'em in the 80s... He never said owt daft, but his band were absolutely kicking! Great gig.

Usually it's Bootsy. But as someone has already mentioned the funkiest mutha ever, I'll go for Mr Trujillo - especially in Suicidals and Infectious Grooves days:

Annoyances for me are: -folks who noddle away loudly at rehearsals, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the band are actually trying to work out the song structure - guitarists who can only get "their sound" by having their distortion pedals set to full gain on everything, so when they aren't playing the amplified system-noise is almost as loud as when they are! Our guitarist does this, and now the whole band turn to him and say "this wouldn't happen if you had a Helix!". And the guitar man would usually say "I can't get my sound with one of them, it's digital" (he hadn't tried one). So at our album recording recently the engineer mentioned his noisy pedals, so we tried my Helix which gave him better tones with absolute silence in between. Hopefully he'll buy one!

I remember seeing an early Coldplay supporting Muse at London Astoria (shows how long ago it was). They were a complete snoozefest! Still, each to their own!

Always a floorfiller when I was one of them DJs...

You know how it is when you nip off to the bathroom to drop the kids off at the pool? Then no-one apart from you can go back in there because of the stench of death? Well I've rolled mine in both glitter and hundreds and thousands plus 3 coats of varnish and 1 of clear resin, and I can still barely listen to the whole thing! You guys are going to enjoy this!

Or joint 5th, depending on how you count it 😝 Still, I'm aiming for nul points next time at best, or at worst, instant disqualification and a lifetime ban 🤘

You should never have given me hippos. You knows how dangerous they are!!! All I'm saying is, Be Afraid... Be Very Afraid!