pantherairsoft

Too many bassists with taste in the same place!

Just home to Nottingham. Long day. Longer day for Mark who was driving Great to put so many faces outside of Nottingham to names. Was well worth the trip. Awesome to put faces to Hamster & Sibob after so much chat in the mod area. I'd say the same abou ped, but his ugly mug is all over the forum already Enjoyed all the talks. Glad 51m0n didn't ask for my take on recording bass amps in phase as that would of gone so off topic! Some lovely basses I had chance to tinker with... Thankfully nothing I'm left with GAS for. Left me with a lust to sort out my current cab setup. Most frustrating was how good Sibobs Dubstep set up sounds with 4 pedals, when I go out gigging this stuff with a pedalboard over 6ft wide! I'm doing something wrong lol Thanks to everyone involved in setting the day up. Roll on the next one. Shep

[quote name='bassist_lewis' timestamp='1316726308' post='1382115']I'm talking mainly about covers and general pop music (where the money is). [/quote] Despite my lengthy reply above, the answer to this statement is probably not. But if you can fit them in I don't think it's going to hurt - just don't expect the average gig-go'er to notice them a great deal.

Yours is my fav'! Bang on.

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1316800526' post='1383220'] One thing i don't understand is spending a small fortune on a bass and then putting it through a chain of effects so that it sounds nothing like its meant to. [/quote] I couldn't disagree more. The sound you 'start' with makes a MASSIVE difference - depending on what you are trying to achieve of course. If you are a covers band and just want a generic fuzz sound for the average non-musican punter to hear in a pub, then 'maybe' your point above stands. If you make electronic music (I don't use a clean tone anywhere!) then having a an instrument with strong response to certain frequencies and a truely 'even tone' across all strings is an absolute vital part of it. I've been doing what I do for a while, and can honestly say that until I had my Roscoes I suffered triggering issues with complex effects, Octave sounds that would only trigger at certain points of the fretboard where a mid-hump was present, fuzz that lacked in definition and synth tones with little top end bite. Having a £3000 bass that was built to exploit specific frequencies and carry the same tonal properties from the B string to the C (which many fretless basses do not - many have a low-mid 'hump' on the E and A strings) has changed what I can do as a musician. [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1316809000' post='1383337'] I think it really depends on what type of music you're playing. If it's general rock/pop then you could probably gig away without any effects, but if you're playing DnB, Dubstep or Breakbeat then effects are a part of the sound. [/quote] Not part of the sound - all of the sound! [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1316809000' post='1383337'] Have a listen to Pantherairsoft's band Our Helical Mind (or go listen to some Miloopa or Nerve) & tell me it's not worth putting a good bass through an effects chain. If you start with a crappy bass sound as a base then all your effects are gonna sound crappy (canny polish a jobby). [/quote] What do you mean - I hate effects on bass! Oh... wait a minute.

Really looking forward to this and to finally meeting plenty of folk!

Yeah, Max @ SFX could likely build you one easy. The other one that comes to mind is the old Guyatone VT-3 Tremolo in the little enclosures, pretty rare now but crop up on eBay now and then

Yeah, I'm not sure there is much - MidiMurf is the way. The Murf & BassMurf were fundamentally flawed without midi anyway - after all they are a sequencer/sequencer add-on at heart.

The 1st EP was done different to the 2nd. On Subscapes we played the tracks over and over, then selected the best sections for the final cut. So you had certain bits with a 'verse' from one take and a 'chorus' from another. Also, due to the effect changes between sections, to keep it tight it was not possible to go straight from A to B, where as I can get away with it live. This time we wanted to do it like you hear it - we played through it once to get a structural guide track, then Tom played the track over and over until we got a single track that he's happy with start to finish, without the need to cut out sections etc. Then, this time I did the same with bass until we get a take we like. It's hard work doing it without drop-ins, but as there are only 2 of us we use the time you'd do guitar and vocal takes to really hammer it live. The drums took a while, but getting a single, solid take feels more natural and ultimately just sounds better. I spend LOTS of time leading up to recording in my studio tweaking sounds and EQ's so my tones are very complex and sound 'full' as a single track of bass, then record that. Therefore, with the analogftw recording, what you are hearing is a single track of bass, recorded in one take per track - the sounds can be reproduced exactly the same live. Fuzz, Harmonics, Sub - all done together. The way we 'beef' up the complexity of the recorded sound is to use 3 mics on the cab (2 at different distances from the speaker and one on the tweeter) and a DI on the amp, then use a blend of all 4 for the final result. Each mic has slightly different characteristics so the texture works well, but they are all recording the same sound. I prefer this method, and sound, to having a clean take recorded, an octave take etc etc then blending them together at the mix stage. Shep

Glad you like it dude, and thanks for the nod regarding the venue! As for the bass sound and 'fatness', I agree and disagree. The bassist in me thinks the fatter the better - and when we play live I tend to beef up the OD a little more. It's quite hard to accurately reproduce what you hear live in a studio though as every amp and pair of speakers sound very different, so I tend to stick to a 'good' sounding medium. I like to keep my 'fatness' as a clean octave sound and my fuzzy/distortion tones quite high. More importantly though, where the recording is concerned I'm trying to NOT sound like a fat live bass, rather a synthesised bass-sound. After all we are trying to make programmed music - made live. A few tracks step out of this mould, but as a rule I try and keep the distorted/fuzz tones to be more biting/synthesised/bit crushy etc etc. If you ever get to see us live you'll see I use much more ZVEX Mastotron and less FreqBox though. That said, I am looking to pick up a fat overdrive to beef up a few sections for when we don't have an MC with us, and to be honest, for what I'm doing the old Boss ODB-3 seems and sounds most suitable due to the massive amount of bass you can add.

Yeah cool The Slicer thing is easy. Just any other modulation effect. The sounds at the start of Neon Tangerine are a little more difficult (and a little bit different everytime). That's all the fun though

[quote name='waynepunkdude' timestamp='1316717544' post='1381974']My good lady is coming with me if that's OK?[/quote] As long as she's not a guitarist

Just realised I don't actually know what song your asking about! Lol. My answer above is for Barcode Babble, the other track that has whistles (and whale noises) is 'Neon Tangerine' - for that one I'm controlling the resonance of my LPF with a triangle wave as I open the cutoff, then pulling back quick. The delay catches the notes and creates some interesting noises. ALL the bass is live. All tue drums are live other than reverb added to the intro of 'Get Money!', sample applied to the Bass Drum on the 'jungle' section of 'Face 4 Radio' and 2 snare strikes in 'BigDug' have delay applied. That's it.

The sound is from the Boss Slicer, tap tempo'd to 80BPM, it's a pattern tremolo and some patterns have little extra beeps etc like harmonics. This is actually the only track I use the slicer for and I've now removed it from the board. I do similar now by feeding my Low Pass Filter with a Sample + Hold wave and very high resonance, but for the recording it's all Slicer. I use it on that groove throughout the track. There are no tricks - it really is live Both 3 track EP's are available here - www.ourhelicalmind.bandcamp.com

Cheers Chris, appreciate it.

Cheers dude. Ironically it prob uses the least number of pedals of any of the tracks we do! lol

Just ordered my copy - The physical one as I want the comic! BOOM! Shep

Back to the recording... lol... Here is a link to the Instrumental version of The Threat Of Reason so you can hear the tones I'm using. It all kicks in with the parallel effects after the drum break... If you're listening through laptop speakers or similar then you won't hear it as its too low lol [url="http://soundcloud.com/ourhelicalmind/the-threat-of-reason-1"]http://soundcloud.co...eat-of-reason-1[/url] This track is basically Moogerfooger heaven.

Would be great if you can get along. Dan Owens (fellow Basschatter) band 'The Broken Door' are playing also - Another fantastic live Drum & Bass group!

Cheers Si It may be that it's just the way the pedal is - I guess most folks wouldn't switch between settings during a song! But I'm awkward like that. If it's just the way it is, then I'll either deal with it, or look to invest in a better unit, maybe look at sfx to make something

Will do - We are currently looking to get out more and are interested in playing pretty much anywhere, we only ask that we cover out costs of travel (happy to not come out with any profit, just to get the material out there). If you know people putting on popular nights that cover HipHop/Drum & Bass/Dubstep etc then hook us up! Shep

Art. Yeah that'll do To be honest - the Roscoe makes a huge differenece. Most fretless basses I've played do not have an even tone across the whole range and the treble section suffers. I often find that the B & E strings are great along with the G & C, but many have something lacking in the middle strings regardless of what you do with EQ and pickup height. For me, this led to issues with Octave tracking as it would always glitch out when using those strings, but also with Fuzz pedals and certain notes having a huge leap in sound as the frequencies cut through better. The Roscoe's are very very even and have solved all my pedal triggering problems and offer me a super consistent sound

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1316697226' post='1381616'] Wow! That is a fantastic sound you have there... I'm amazed that you did it with no overdubs, etc. Really impressive stuff. I need to get my head around creating this sort of music in a live environment, but I need to invest in some more kit before I do so (an excuse for GAS if ever there was one!). Let me know if you're ever gigging in or around Manchester, as I'm guessing you guys are **** hot live. [/quote] Thanks dude. We are playing in Bolton next friday and Duke01 (vocals on Barcode Babble and the 2nd half of The Threat Of Reason) is coming with us as well as a local MC called 'Karizma' (who frankly, is amazing)... which will be awesome. It's tough with out overdubs. I was going to do the last part to 'Threat' as 2 tracks (bit with the tremolo) as you have the fat clean sub underneath and the trem on top and the change over is quick. Basically I have the length of the drum break that leads into that section to change the setting on my Line Selector, change the patch on my MP-201, start the LFO exactly on the beat and change the frequency of the FreqBox. It took a few attempts, but now I can do it all live in about 5-6 seconds! That track sounds sooooooooo different without vocals when you can hear all the bass sounds. I tried to upload the instrumental version to the Dubstep thread but the forums uploader is still struggling with large files since the forum move. [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1316700608' post='1381675'] Schmmgrooowwwsshhhzzhhhbppppphhhhhkkktzzz Yup, thats the sound of Roscoe goodness baby Love it mate, more more schhrwwoooowwwwwgghhhttzzz I say, more! Lovely kit recording as well, great kick sound. [/quote] I have no idea what 'Schmmgrooowwwsshhhzzhhhbppppphhhhhkkktzzz' means, but with your permission that will be a track name on the next EP!!!! Yeah, Tom's drum sound is lovely. We tune the kick drum up in pitch so it doesn't interfere with the bass or sub - effectively is fills more of the mid range in the absence of guitars and keys. The Roscoe's natural growl really helps beef up the Octave tones and fuzz as well - The love fuzz pedals!