GarethFlatlands

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1479657264' post='3178167'] Nahh, if anything I'd imagine it's a way to quickly age your strings a week or so. [/quote] So they only last 11 1/2 months instead of 12 In all seriousness, I do it out of habit from playing guitar when at takes about 4-5 rounds of stretching and retuning to get them stable but I've found it never takes more than a couple of rounds to get bass strings in tune, and I've never done it immediately before a gig anyway.

I once saw an advert for a Stagg Les Paul Custom selling for £300 with the ad stating they were £1,800 new! Seriously hope no-one fell for that one.

Adore Hounds of Love but the only other albums I own are Aerials and 50 Words for Snow which have some great tracks and some which I'm not into. Is the older stuff more like HoL?

Hey Dario, do you have a budget in mind? Might help narrow down the selection!

Bargain! Looks like a beauty too, congratulations.

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1478270098' post='3168075'] Claude Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' is the greatest piece of music ever written. [/quote] That one, Chopins 'Raindrop Prelude' and Rachmaninovs Paganini Variation 18 are my top 3 classical pieces. No idea of the time sigs of any of them though.

[quote name='Earbrass' timestamp='1478269949' post='3168073'] Possibly a little off-topic, but, partly inspired by this thread I had a play on my old Novation K-Station last night. For those not familiar, it's a rather nice little 3 oscillator Virtual-Analogue synth with lots of slideriness and knobbage. Not actually an analogue synth, before the purists jump down my throat, but behaves pretty much like one, with the added benefits of not having to warm up and (optional) polyphony. Anyway, the point of the post is that although I understand in principle what all the functions do, I frequently find that tweaking one knob or another produces totally unpredicted results, and one several occasions I found myself wondering "why is it doing that?" and progressively removing oscillators, modulations etc from the sound to try to discover what was causing the unexpected effect. So I thought I'd pose the question to all the synth users out there - how much of your knob-tweaking is part of a purposeful pursuit of a sound that you know how to produce, and how much is semi-random? Or to put it another way, when you find a sound you like, or will use, how often is that the result of conscious sound-design, and how often a serendipitous accident? [/quote] The only synth where I felt like I could actually dial in a sound I was after was a soft synth of the old Roland Juno. Everything else, I get hopelessly lost and can't nail down anything like I wanted. Synth 1 VST, actual Roland SH-101, never got anywhere close! Fortunately, there's a free VST of the Juno which sounds fantastic to me. Personal recommendation but I'd give that a try as it seems very user friendly. I can't guarantee what you pick up will translate over to other synths but it's a good starting place. Download here:- [url="https://tal-software.com/products/tal-u-no-62"]https://tal-software.com/products/tal-u-no-62[/url]

They look cool but they're pricey. I'll wait until they're released and check peoples opinions before I consider them any further. Trusty ER20's are doing the job fine for now.

3/4, seems nice and punchy and when I was in a fastish band, it was what I naturally ended up writing in most of the time. I love what other people do with 5/4 but I struggle with writing anything in it.

Line 6 M5? The other effects are hit and miss but the delays and verbs are largely great. Some element of control with an exp pedal if that's what you want.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1471608065' post='3114405'] I've managed to break every string on a 5-string bass at some point including the 130 low B. The low B was back in the 90s when I was struggling to find a string manufacturer capable of making a 36" scale one consistently good, consequently it used to stay on the bass longer than the others while the latest one went back to Rotosound to be replaced by one that didn't sound completely dead straight out of the packet. [/quote] Damn it, I thought I was going to be the first to say they'd broken a low B! First ever band, last song of the night always descended into noisey chaos and I thought it was a good idea to jump onto a speaker stack and slam my bass into the roof rafters. That's the only one I've ever broken, I'm not strong enough to break them through normal playing and I don't sweat too much so they tend to last for ages.

Let me know if you want some sound clips sending over.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1477247266' post='3160852'] I thought you only transposed the Trombone when written in treble clef (tone up), like British Brass Bands do? Otherwise it's all Bass clef and not transposed? Or have I got that wrong? [/quote] Well that's even more confusing... so it's probably correct! There seems to be a lot of brass playing that's pointlessly complicated. I can only go on my experience with trumpet so the only transposing I needed was upping everything 2 semitones to be in line with everyone else. Edit - Back on topic, I'd strongly advise learning some theory, even if it's just basic scales and how to construct chords. Don't be afraid to keep playing by ear as it'll stop you getting too hung up on what should sound right but knowing your onions is a good starting place and I wish I'd bothered to learn earlier.

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1477222967' post='3160622'] I'm a bit puzzled by this. A "C" major minor scale, or chord is the same, no matter what instrument you play. [/quote] Well the trombone is pitched to Bb so you're playing a Bb when the sheet music tells you it's a C. I never got why brass instruments did that, used to drive me nuts when I played trumpet.

Sorry, I'd completely forgotten about this! The controls are:- Speed (0.10 to 15hz or by note value which can be set by tap tempo) Freq - Selects between the preset patterns. I can't count them but I'd guess at around 32? Maybe completely wrong there. Q control Step number - (2 to 9) And a mix control All have their own knob control for adjustments. If you have an expression pedal, you can go between 2 presets with that. Might be worth reading around as some people have mentioned a clicking which some like and others don't. I assumed it was part of the effect and gave it a nice percussive quality.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1476048899' post='3150885'] Can I help him? [/quote] Possibly, he's asked me to check which city you're in to see if he's anywhere near you? He's an internet friend which is why I don't know these things! He's also a streamer on Twitch so is a bit wary about giving any of his contact details out on there.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1477040095' post='3159368'] Well, it's two whole months until the end of the year... I'm not surprised the band is looking to have more gigs in that period, you can't blame them for that. I presume you'll have a say before the dates are confirmed, but I understand you don't want to be the one putting the brakes on... Still, before the band, I'd be more concerned about your health. That is more important than any band. I hope you're going to your doctor and figure out what's wrong. I hope you get better soon! [/quote] Yeah, I actually really enjoy the playing but the travel and moving gear wipes me out for half the next day. Thanks for this and the similar messages, I've been to the doctors for a blood test and I'm just waiting for the results to come back. My sister got in touch to say there's pernicious anaemia in the family so I'm on the iron/B12 tablets in the meantime.

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1476972308' post='3158923'] +1 The live clip of Hardwired, released at the same time - awesome. The guitars are far, far heavier. [/quote] The short "making of" video had me interested but listening to the actual track, it all sounds a bit puny which is a massive shame. Fingers crossed they can fix it before the album release.

It's a group chat so it's to check if everyone can do it. I don't want to be the one to say no without a valid excuse as our singer works a bunch of part time jobs, one of which was working in a bar which has just closed down so he could use the extra money. We're a 6 piece so there's usually someone else who has other commitments so we may end up playing none of them anyway!

Been suffering from permanent exhaustion coupled with unexplained weight loss for the last few months. After a busy year, the last gig we did was our last one lined up for the year which was a welcome relief. 2 days later they're on Whatsapp canvassing 3 possible dates between now and Christmas, including a corporate do with a finish time of 3am

EQ for the room, however the guitarist is sounding that day and so I can hear myself and forget it. I'm in a Bowie covers band these days so I can't even fathom how I'd try and cover all the bass tones he's had over the years.

[quote name='Byo' timestamp='1476066236' post='3150956'] if I have decent monitors available [/quote] Big "if" though! I've thought the same but have always found monitors in small venues to be lacking so am stuck with lugging an amp around for the time being. One of these into some in ear monitors would suit me down to the ground but the cost is holding me back.

[quote name='paul h' timestamp='1476089265' post='3151038'] I remember the old Marshall Valvestate gear sounding pretty terrible. [/quote] I used to own one of the original Valvestates and used to get complements on my clean tone fairly regularly. Same generation VS15R's are supposed to be very well thought of for high gain home recording to the extent there's 4 on Ebay ranging from £60 to £195 which isn't bad considering I paid a little over £100 for mine brand new back in about 1998. The next generation had a load of built in effects and I thought they were awful though.

I can't think of any. There's a few I've tried and dismissed for using in my own playing but I've heard others use them with good results. There's a time and place for pretty much all of them and restraint usually plays some part in that for the more out there effects.