Wolfram

*ducks* Lots of guitars in their cases count, right? 😊

It may be worth auditioning the Mackie XR824 and MR824 monitors too - I don't have any direct experience with them but they seem to be well-regarded. I used the Presonus Eris E8 for many years - they're ok, kinda got the job done, but were quite warm and 'hi-fi' sounding, so didn't really have that clinical detail I like for mixing and translating to other systems, so don't think I could recommend those over any of the other monitors discussed here. I was finally able to upgrade to a pair of Focal Solo ST6 last year and absolutely love them - different league entirely! (unfortunately a different budget entirely also...) @BigRedX is absolutely right - whatever monitors you're using you need to get to know them and the room acoustic. Most of us are restricted to untreated/lightly-treated rooms so have to compensate: listen to lots of reference tracks.

... + unlined 🤣

They are a rare beast, but absolutely no technical reason they can't be made. Kiesel's Vader Bass ticks all the boxes with the right configuration, and if you go custom built then Sei and Shuker definitely make them, as I'm sure could many other luthiers.

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I thought better of posting...

Start at the source: get your mic (recorder) placement right- it'll make everything else so much easier. Do some quick test recordings with different placements - it'll be fairly obvious on a quick listen back on headphones which sound better. Listen for overall sound quality, amount of 'room sound' and balance between the different instruments. You will need to find a balance between the amount of room sound you capture (roughly correlated with the distance of the mics from the source) and the ability to get your desired balance between the instruments (usually easier with a more distant mic position). Get this right though, and you're 99% of the way there already. If you can, keep the recorder off flat surfaces, especially hard ones - a small tripod might be a good investment, but at least try to make sure there is nothing directly under the mics (e.g. place the recorder on the edge of a table with the mics in free space). From my own experience, my Dad recorded some final songs (just vocals and acoustic guitar) on a Zoom H4n in the months before he passed away. We didn't hear them until afterwards. They are beautiful performances, but unfortunately he set the Zoom down on a glass coffee table to record, and the reflections from that surface really messed with the recorded sound (phase cancellation artefacts). I spent hours doing my best to clean them up with a range of tools. Wish we could re-record those songs... But back to mastering - that is so much down to personal taste and what you want to do with it. I tend to like preserving dynamics so use compressors sparingly if at all. I would start with a subtle EQ (just for overall tonal balance, nothing surgical) and a maximiser for the overall level - that might be all you need.

Wow, thanks guys - I wasn't expecting that! It was a really fun one to work on, and I enjoyed listening to all the entries this month. Hopefully it won't be another year before I manage to take part again... @Chiliwailer if you're happy for me to take this one I'll get an image over to @lurksalot shortly.

I don't have any experience with the SE7 or any of the other mics you are considering so can't make a comparison, but for what it's worth my Rode M5s have done everything I've asked of them brilliantly, so a thumbs up from me. They're simple, feel solid and well-made, and sound transparent and detailed to my ears. I think I've had them eight or nine years now, and they're my only small-diaphragm mics - to be honest I've never felt I needed anything better - my micing technique is probably the limiting factor!

I can't believe it's eleven months since I've been able to get something together for the competition - just managed to rush something for this month. The photo reminds me of driving out into the countryside with my daughter earlier this year at midnight to see if we could glimpse the Northern Lights and encountering a long line of cars parked up on a verge and lots of people gawping up into a weirdly-lit orange sky... Only trouble is, the light was from the east! It was quite foggy, so probably a floodlit venue or industrial centre.🤣 In keeping with trying something different for every entry, I'm going spiritual and ethereal this time, and I present my first choir composition and arrangement, Aurora Caelestis. On the tech front, very simple this time: Cubase 14, Spitfire's Eric Whitacre choir and Steinberg's REVerence loaded with a church IR.

Great choice! - I have the smaller M2 which I take when travelling to use with a laptop. It's performed flawlessly. I really like MOTU's products and have owned several over the years. The MIDI Express 128 running the synths in my studio is nearly 20 years old, and hasn't skipped a beat.

I bought a 'real' BBD delay years ago because I thought I should have one it for the 'authentic' sound. A Moog MF-104m. Yes, it sounds superb for what it does. In the end I got frustrated with the lack of versatility - you can change settings between songs / mid-song if you hook it up with MIDI but you are stuck with that sound - sometimes I wanted cleaner / longer delays. I later got a Line6 HX Effects and haven't looked back - it sounds great and I love the total recall of presets. The Moog is sitting in its box. Happily, a cruise on eBay suggests it's worth nearly three times what I paid for it, so when I get my act together I will probably move it on. Oh... And a fretless bass.... One day I will learn how to play it!

Ok, just for fun, building on the other Basschat Top Trumps thread, put your best bass forward! Number of strings: Number of frets *1: Scale length *2: Number of pickups: Number of controls (switches/knobs) *3: *1 - for fretless, number of 'frets' playable on the fingerboard; give yourself a bonus of +2 if it's unlined with dots, and +4 if completely unmarked! *2 - longest scale if multiscale *3 - count stacked pots as 2

Year started playing: 1993 Number of basses: 5 Music theory: 8 Technique: 5 Groove: 5

Yes but then you lose the preamp and tone stack colour.