Wolfram

Interesting video, but the songs created there are soooo far off today's cutting edge. In particular, harking back to my previous post, the prompts are really vague and convey no information whatsoever about the song itself - what is it about? is it a male or female singer? any key words / phrases to use in the actual song? I spent some time working on how to get the best results from Suno v4, and it turns out that it responds pretty well to detail in the prompt, and especially if you include a phrase to build the song around (one of mine was "Throwing the dice, rolling a kiss.") Results do vary in quality, but around one in ten is of superb quality from the point of view of song and musical structure - v4 has really got musical variation working well and, I am ashamed to say it, comes up with more interesting musical variation than I would usually bring to my songs...

A couple of things I'd like to add. Firstly, and most importantly, the quality/suitability of output from any natural language AI system is largely dependent on the quality of the prompt provided. Rubbish in, rubbish out. But it's more nuanced than that - crafting prompts is a whole skill in itself, just like responses you might get from a child to a question will depend deeply upon how you ask the question. Expecting magical perfect responses from AI if you provide poorly thought-through prompts that lack detail and specificity is unrealistic, and it's in these types of situations that I see AI being quickly dismissed. I work with a number of businesses, all of which are now using AI in one form or another. At the moment, my own use of AI is for coding support - a job that it is doing with devastating ability and efficiency. I took the time to learn how to prompt for different types of support (everything from being a glorified search engine to producing whole boilerplate web services upon which I build specific functionality) and I estimate my productivity is two to three times what it was. In fact, it has given me the ability to start two new projects that had been on the back burner for several years due to lack of time and lack of certain skills and knowledge. It doesn't magically do everything but, for me at least, it has been responsible for me creating things that likely would never have happened. The second thing is that most people's experience of AI is Large Language Models. These are generalist (basically, they use the same algorithm that's used for predictive text messaging, just with many more levels of depth in the neural net), not specialist. This means you can talk to a LLM about literally anything and it will give you its best responses. Compare that to talking to a single human being about that wide range of subjects - e.g. coding, to English literature, to biology - and how many useful responses you'd get. Things will get even more interesting with more specialised AI's, trained in specific areas of expertise and for specific tasks. I'm already evaluating AI tools that won't just help with specific coding tasks, but will ingest an entire codebase and assist with making fundamental changes across the whole project. So far, not perfect, but a window on the futurre.

Ok... clearly very few people here (and not singling the Basschat community out - by extension, the general public) have the faintest idea what a VPN is. A Virtual Private Network is what just about every single mediium- to large-sized company in the world uses to allow employees to connect to their 'internal' networks from their laptops or phones when they are not physically in the office. That's it, nothing more sinister. A VPN is something you connect to from 'external' so that you appear 'internal'. Anyone, anywhere in the world can set up a VPN. It's not something that can be made illegal, any more than setting up your own Internet server; it is a networking tool used by millions of companies. It also has uses for individuals. There are commercial providers of VPNs which allow you to connect from one regional IP address (e.g. China) and connect to another (e.g. rest of world). These are used extensively by people (e.g. in China) to access information that would otherwise be censored. The UK has absolutely no jurisdiction over, say, a US company that provides a VPN solution in the USA that happens to be connected to by an individual in the UK in order to access US-based websites. The only way to ban that is to regulate all connections from UK citizens to websites outside of the UK.... like China does. It is also common for an individual usually gamers) to buy or rent their own server somewhere else in the world, install a free, open-source VPN, and be able to connect to it and appear to be connecting to any website from the VPN's 'home' location. We're on seriously slippery slopes if we're suggesting either that the government reviews any and all software installed on any server by a UK citizen, anywhere in the world, or that we ban encrypted web traffic outside of the UK. Even China doesn't go that far! The real problem here is 'protecting the children' will do no such thing. The only reason the big multinational providers are engaging with this is they can see it will decimate their competition in the UK and give them the true monopoly they want. And, truthfully, Ofcom want - they don't want to regulate a large industry; they're quite happy with that being pushed into illegality by obscurity, and to lawyer up with 4-5 multinational opponents who will have the resources to negotiate a resolution that suits them. Look at the Canadian ban on TikTok. They called the government's bluff, and ignored it. They're still happily operating there, and Canadians are still using it. Because they have billions in Chinese funding to keep it going.

Of course forums won't disappear - this is only UK legislation - people in the US, EU and rest of world are not affected by this nonsense. But the post from the owner of thefretboard.co.uk is absolutely right: under the current proposed legislation, it will become almost impossible to run any kind of online forum from the UK, and international forums will just block all IP addresses from the UK. The risks are just too severe - a fine of up to £18 million and a criminal conviction for the owner / managers. The legislation was drafted with only large, commercial, multinational companies like Facebook, X etc. in mind; if the legislation is enforced as it stands, those will be our only option in the UK for any kind of online discussion, unless we use VPNs to access international forums based abroad... which we all will... which will make the legislation utterly pointless, apart from having destroyed a large number of UK businesses.

Glad you got it out! I've had a 1/4" jack stuck in the left output of my old Korg D1600 multitrack recorder for years now. It will be difficult to get to (socket soldered onto a PCB, requiring a complete dismantling of the machine... so I've left it. But lesson learned; no more cheap cables for me!

Ok, this is faaaaar from finished - work has been insane this month - but I managed to carve out a couple of hours this evening to throw something together. An ethereal soundtrack-style musing on the serpent, the fruit and temptation. The tech: all of the synth, bass and vocal sounds are all from Zero-G Ethera Gold 2.5, except the massive drum from EastWest Stormdrum 2. The guitar is the first outing for my new (to me) PRS Singlecut 245, played though my Line6 Helix. Glue reverb is Relab LX480, delay from the magnificent Mountain Road DSP Lumina, and there's a sprinkling of Ozone for good measure.

Great advice here. In particular I would say: Tune up. Be as rehearsed as you can be. Play the bass(es) you know you're comfortable with - I would not advise getting a setup or new strings right before the session, unless you're used to that way of working (e.g. I know acoustic guitarists who put on a fresh set of strings before every gig). If your strings are cruddy, changer them well before the session, then see point 2 again. And don't turn up with a special instrument just because it's 'better' than what you normally play. It won't be. Enjoy yourself! Tune up. A story: I recorded my late father playing his acoustic guitar about 15 years ago now. He was an awesome player, but was very lackadaisical about tuning the instrument. Somehow it wasn't so noticeable when he was playing in the room, but listening back to that recording.... argh. Alas, I can't do it again now. Keep your instrument in tune!

Sorry for any misunderstanding; all good.

This is a dig at my September entry; I'll bite. Here's a screenshot of part of my "Telegraph Hill" Cubase project - each part was created and arranged separately, with sampler tracks used to re-pitch elements. The workflow was pretty much the same as musicians who use loops and samples to create music, but I used elements created using AI with input prompts that I crafted myself; is that any more or less 'composition' than using loops or samples created by a complete stranger with absolutely no input from myself? I'm sure the debate will rage on...

I go by many names 😆

Thank you! It was great to be back in the competition and I had a lot of fun with this one.

It doesn't matter if you're travelling with it or not, and there is no particular concession for musical instruments. You have an allowance of £390 worth of goods (other than alcohol, cigarettes); legally, if the total value of goods you are importing (i.e. purchased abroad and are bringing back to the UK) then you must declare it at customs and pay the duty and VAT. If you don't declare, legally it is smuggling. Obviously, items that you already own can be carried with you to and from another country freely; that's different. The info is all here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fe05e488fa8f5148f633267/6.7005__SE_CUS_v3.pdf Now of course I'm sure many people chance it and do not declare everything or would argue they've had the guitar for years and years, and you may be lucky, but think the burden of proof would be on you - returning from Germany with a brand-new German-made Warwick might land you in hot water!

The £135 threshold applies only to duty; 20% VAT applies to everything (unless it's a gift worth less than £39). It's on that website- in the VAT section: It's a real pain... especially as VAT is charged on the value of the item + the shipping cost + any duty due.

Ok, after a long absence I actually managed to rush something together for this month's competition. "This road's seen joy, this road has killed. Telegraph Hill haunts me still." The tech stuff: this was a bit of an experiment. I created every individual element using AI tools - there are no "real" instruments or human voices in this track; vocals, guitar, bass and drum sections were all created using AI prompts and lyric sections I wrote. I wanted to try using AI in the same way many of us use more conventional tools like ezDrummer, ezBass, ezKeys, UJAM Virtual Guitarist and other such tools to provide us with drum, guitar, keyboard parts etc., with a nod to the sampling scene and workflows of yore. I arranged and sequenced all the elements conventionally in Cubase, mostly using Sampler Tracks. I'm working abroad at the moment so didn't have my studio machine or any plugins except what comes with Cubase, so there's just a bit of compression, eq, delay and reverb to glue it together, and it's squeezed through Cubase's brickwall limiter.

Hah, I was about to re-post that myself! Not really my cup of tea, but if I was after a Jazz that's the one I would buy right now. Every Sei bass I've played has been exceptional, and I've been hankering after one for a while now - but it will be a headless Flamboyant sixer.