Tait

is that SUB blue or green?

what about this? [url="http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=574&ParentId=325"]BOSS BR1600[/url] my dad's got one of these, and i've recorded with it plenty of times before. i prefer reaper though, you can work in beats rather than seconds, you can snap to a grid that will make sure you click exactly on the beat, i can visualise a lot more easily which bit is which when editing and doing all the snipping and pasting etc. i basically just find reaper easier to use and more userfriendly. i'm sure you probably can do all this stuff with the boss, but i haven't worked it out yet and i'm happy with using reaper. however, yesterday me and my brother went into this and out through the line out, for two reasons. 1) there was an effect on the BOSS that we wanted to use, and we'd already got the drums and bass down on reaper, so going through the BOSS then back out into reaper made sense. 2) you can set the volume levels with the BOSS, and a lot of time we were peaking, even when we had the volume on our amps right down. this way, we could turn up the amps to get a nicer tone, and still not peak and therefore distort the recordings. i've got to say, it sounded noticably better. clearer, for a start. it just sounded more professional, like we'd taken the time to do it properly. it was just a better quality recording, what more can i say? anyway, theres two things about the BOSS i wanted to ask you all about. 1) the fact it sounded better going through the BOSS has left me a bit stuck for what to do. do i start using the BOSS to record again? this would mean losing everything i said i like about reaper, but would probably result in better quality recordings (although i haven't tried recording straight into the BOSS again, and it's been ages since i've done it). do i forget the BOSS and keep using reaper as i was before? do i record onto the BOSS and export the different tracks onto reaper where i can then sort them out and do all the editing on reaper? or do i go through the hassel of going into the BOSS then out again? going in then out is the path i'm liking most, but i thought i'd run it by you all anyway, to see what you think. we've also got the [url="http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=753&ParentId=325"]BR600[/url] lying around somewhere, which is a hell of a lot more portable, but hasn't got the same effects and as many options or anything as the BR1600. 2) since i used the BOSS again to get good results, i looked around it again, looked up the specs and stuff on the website, where i found this under the tab "SPECS" "[i][b]INTERFACE[/b] DIGITAL IN: S/PDIF 16-24 bit (coaxial type) DIGITAL OUT: S/PDIF 16-24 bit (coaxial type) USB connecter (B type)[/i]" i don't know what "S/PDIF 16-24bit (coxial type)" means, but it got me wondering whether the BOSS can be used as one of these audio interface things you said about? you said an audio interface converts an analouge signal into a digital signal, well does this mean that if i plug the mic into the BOSS and then go out through the DIGITAL OUT, the BOSS will have converted the analogue signal into a digital signal and then it will have worked as an interface? i may be completely off the mark here, i don't know, and i'm going on holiday tommorow so i haven't had time to check it out for myself and see if i can work out the answers for myself, so i could be completely wrong, but thats what it seems like to me? if you go on the BOSS BR1600 link i posted earlier, then click on images, the last picture is of the back panel, and you can zoom right in and clearly see all of the inputs, the line out i used yesterday for recording, and the DIGITAL IN and DIGITAL out i'm asking about. oh, by the way, thanks for all the advice so far, its been great and i've learnt loads.

do you ever randomly just go out to the pub to see a band you've never heard of and have nothing to do with? most people don't, therefore if you don't bring anyone along to watch you, you won't have an audience.

[quote name='budget bassist' post='558191' date='Aug 2 2009, 12:33 AM']is this guitar base nottingham? never bought from their website but been into their shop in west bridgford and their newer shop in the centre of nottingham and they're a sound bunch of blokes. Wouldn't hesitate to buy anything from them.[/quote] is that the one you were telling me about sam? thats recently opened on the lace market? i've not been it yet, every time i walk past it its been closed. i need to go earlier in the day i think :S

i don't think i've ever seen a drop D tuner at the bridge before, aren't they usually on the machine heads? thats a lovely looking bass by the way!

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='557391' date='Jul 31 2009, 07:56 PM']Yes. Basically, the analogue to digital converters tend to be a higher spec. Plus, you can use a balanced XLR cable from the mic, and that helps with quality too. You can take the line signal out of your electric keyboard and record it into the PC in the same way you're recording your bass - as an analogue electrical signal going down the wire. The sound and the performance are fixed recordings. If you hook up a Midi-capable keyboard (or other controller), the PC doesn't actually 'hear' a sound coming in. It directly captures data about which key was hit, how hard and for how long. The PC shoves this raw data through a bit of synth software which, in turn, converts the data into sounds, which you hear as you play. Change the synth programme - change the sound. And if you fancy expanding your sounds? You could go out and buy software written to model, say, an old Hammond B3, or a vintage Kurzweil, or whatever you like, and even apply to it to a previous performance. Loads of sounds out there. Another benefit is that you can go in later and edit the performance data manually, thus changing the actual performance if you want to. But that's all a bit tech-head for me. And I'm at the edge of my competence here, so for more on Midi, check out SOS mag or hope that someone more qualified than me shows up on this thread![/quote] oh right, i understand. i've done a bit of messing around with reapers virtual midi keyboard doing that sort of thing, but i've hardly done any at all, first of all because its not very smooth sounding when you can either use laptop keys or click on it with your mouse, and secondly cos i wouldn't ever have to use that with the sort of music i play.

[quote name='4000' post='557905' date='Aug 1 2009, 04:56 PM']Depends what you mean by slimmer. I don't think Jazz bass necks are at all slim; in fact one of the things I don't generally like about Jazzes is the necks, which I consider uncomfortable and usually quite big (in fact I actually find P Bass necks generally more comfortable.). Jazzes are slim at the nut, but I don't spend that much time down there so that makes little difference to me. I think most Ric necks are much slimmer, because they're the same width all the way up, give or take. [i]That's[/i] what I consider slim, because I do a lot more playing from the fifth fret up than the fifth fret down. So first I think you have to define what you mean by slim. Slim necks, I think a typical Ric 4000 series (excepting some of the 4003s with the bigger necks which feel more P Bass like), Alembic, Ibanez SR, Pedulla, stuff like that, although I'm aware that others think the Jazz is the epitome of slim (nothing above the fifth fret ). My old Warwick Dolphin Pro II bolt-on had a very slim neck, as does my current Sei 4. I'd try a few basses and see what you think, as it's all down to personal perception. FWIW, my mate has a Stingray and the neck, although quite hefty, is very comfortable. You will probably find individual examples of many basses (historically at least) vary both in neck size and in weight. My Ric 4001 is 8.5lbs, so not heavy at all, but my first CS weighed about 11. Same goes for Stingrays, my mate's is about 9lbs, but I've played much heavier ones.[/quote] +1 i love the neck on my SR500 (definatly the slimmest i've ever played) so its not that i don't like slim necks, but i hate jazz necks because they start off thin and get fat fast. i don't like that at all. i like precision necks, fairly fat all along, or necks like my SR500 that are slim all the way.

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='556745' date='Jul 31 2009, 01:58 AM']Crudely speaking, it's a box you plug your mic or bass into. It's got stuff inside that converts your sound to digital, then shoves the digital up either a USB or a firewire cable into your PC / Mac. Quality's generally much better than the mic-in socket on your PC. Some are USB powered, some run off a wall-wart. Usually has one, two or more inputs that accept a line, standard instrument cable or an xlr from your mic. Some have 48v switches which let you run a condenser mic - better quality for vocals, acoustic guitar etc than a dynamic mic. Usually have a couple of line outs so you can run it into a monitoring amp / speakers, plus headphone out. Some also have midi in / out, which means you can shove a keyboard controller into it and run software synths, etc - useful if your bro plays keys. If his electronic kit has a midi out, you could also control software drum sounds. If you're going to get some decent mics, etc, you might as well get one of these interfaces. Basic ones start at £50-60, better ones at £100+. I got a nice emu 0404 usb for £130. The other thing to do is look at your room acoustics. There are some cheap and simple things that can help improve the sound of stuff coming through mics. Check out Sound on Sound magazine's site and forum. Also tweakheadz.com - Lots of good stuff about all of this. As for Reaper - IMHO, much better spec'd than garageband and even some of the big boys, (but more of a brainf**k to learn and can be processor intensive if you're running lots of plug-ins). If you've got this far with it, I'd personally stick with it.[/quote] thanks, that makes sense. so what are the advantages of an audio interface? i guess it just makes the quality better if its a digital signal? you said being able to plug a keyboard controller into it is useful if my brother plays keys, why? is there any difference between that and just using a line out from my electric piano? or am i completely misuderstanding you? [quote name='51m0n' post='557176' date='Jul 31 2009, 03:25 PM']First of all - considering your level of knowledge and kit thats a great effort - and a really nice song, well done!! Reaper is a fantastically powerful tool, you wont need more software for a very long time! Listening to this you need the following kit:- Decent audio interface Decent mic for vox/general Decent preamp (good idea if it takes line level as well as mic) Decent need not cost the earth!!!! Read a lot of reviews and check back with us first before buying. OK in terms of the mix, you need to look at the Reacomp effect. Its a fantastic compressor that used properly will really control those dips in the vocal volume etc Sound on SOund have an online review/guide to it, but read up on how to use compressors first, they are tricky to get your head round, but vital pieces of kit. You also could learn a bit more about using EQand frequency mixing to be honest. Another must have is reverbate, which is a good reverb. Finally did you know that Reaper has a superb inbuilt auto tuner? Look up Reatune in the manual. I'm not saying you need it or not, but its nice to know its there! Also look downloading other good free vsts - there are huge numbers out there! (my favourite soft filters are free for instance) If you send me the wavs/mp3s I'll do a Reaper mix for you and send it back. That way you can see what I've done with the effects to make it sound like it does. Hopefully I'll be able to give you some pointers. PM me if you want.... Track 1 on my myspace was recorded in Reaper with a drum kit VSTi called mydrumset which (used to be) free (might not be now).[/quote] reacomp, i'm guessing thats an effect on reaper? oh yeah, i've just had a look, i see it. i'll have to have a look at how to use a compressor because i have no idea what any of those buttons do. then i'll check out sound on sound's guide to it like you said. what do you mean by frequency mixing? and as for EQ, any tips/advice please? especially for EQing my guitar, particularly an overdriven sound, which i don't think i use in this song, but i have in others. i can get a nice enough live sound on guitar, but on a recording it always sounds too fuzzy and too overdriven, and when i turn the gain down and volume up, it doesn't sound dirty and growly enough if you get what i mean? its something i meant to ask about in the original post but forgot, how to get a nice overdriven tone on a guitar when recording. both my guitars have seymour duncan s8 invader pickups (dual humbuckers) and i use a marshall guv'nor pedal for the overdrive. one of my guitars also has coil tap. reverbate? do you mean ReaVerbate, the one on reaper, or something else? i'll have a mess around with reaverbate for now, get used to how it works and stuff. i'll look up reatune, but atm i've got an electric tuner and i also use the one built into guitar pro. is there much point in me learning to use reatune or not? whats a vst? and any suggestions for good ones that i ought to download? although the song i posted a link to is completely different, with my band i play a mix of punk and sort of classic rock, lots of solos and tiwddly bits, but the basic songs tend to be quite punk. i've not got any of them recorded, but thats what i'll be recording with my band. do you want a wav/mp3 of each track? i'm not sure how to send them through basschat, but if you PM me your email adress i'll send them to you. hearing a mix by someone who knows a bit about recording would be great, i'd really appreciate it. is it the track what it is that was recorded on reaper? i can already hear that sounds a hell of a lot more "professional" than my recording. also thats some great bass playing.

[quote name='7string' post='556717' date='Jul 31 2009, 12:24 AM']I think Warmoth ship from the USA. Seen a few Warmoth builds (some on here) and they always look great. I priced up a 5 string J-bass a while ago and the parts came to £700 or so. That was with a grand spec as well! If you can do you're own painting/finishing the price comes down a bit. Luthier-wise, Shuker, Sei and now RIM offer J's and then there's Sadowsky Metro's. The only thing I could think of which counts against Warmoth is that you might not get your money back if you decided to sell.[/quote] +1 for the own finishing, if i ever do a warmoth build, i'll definatly finish it myself, it saves a lot of money.

[quote name='butlerk02' post='555670' date='Jul 29 2009, 10:18 PM']If you haven't got any spare money, why don't you see if there are any local colleges that offer part time music production courses, or contact a few local studios and ask if you can do some work experience. This way you get to learn new recording techniques on better equipment. It will also give you an idea of how you want to record and what equipment you might want to buy in the future.[/quote] [quote name='cheddatom' post='555899' date='Jul 30 2009, 09:50 AM']I was in the same position as you when I was 16. In retrospect, I should have gone to college and done a Btech in recording.[/quote] i'm going to college next year and part of me was considering taking music tech, they've got a massive studio with loads of great equipment. sadly i can't see myself ever doing a job involving music tech, so i'm taking more acedemic subjects. [quote name='ped' post='556075' date='Jul 30 2009, 12:33 PM']Good tune - it feels a bit 'rushed' in terms of tempo, would like to hear it kicked back a tad. Nicely sums up my feelings about my ex though, so well done. Great effort, keep it coming. ped[/quote] i can't really take credit for the song, my brother wrote the lyrics and sat down at a piano and wrote the main chords. i swapped a few chords to ones that sounded better, and just sort of added my own suggestions, but its his song really anyway, thanks for the input guys, i realise acoustic recording is quite hard, tbh whenever we record we put the mic wherever, we don't really think about its placement at all. i'll have a loo into that. cheddatom said something about an audio interface, i've heard of these but have no idea what they are. can anyone explain please?

[quote name='mrcrow' post='556592' date='Jul 30 2009, 09:16 PM']you could go to a luthier who teaches how to make a bass in his workshop...but you make it there is one in sheffield england[/quote] i know the chap theres a few threads in the build diaries section of people who have done the course, but here's a link to [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=15736&hl=shuker+course"]my build thread[/url]. if you don't want to do the shuker course, i'd go for warmoth, i've always quite fancied doing a warmoth build but the only time i've had the cash i went for the shuker course. that spanish site seems quite expensive tbh, i know probably less expensive than warmoth or a shuker course, but you have lots of options with them.

the 5 string version is better looking than the ray 5, too.

someones posted a question about this on the ebay page. according to the potential buyer its had a refin, but the seller doesn't know.

i use reaper, that does basically the same job as audacity and garageband doesn't it?

hi, i've dabbled in recording a bit before, but never taken it really seriously. anyway, atm, basically when i record i plug my bass/guitar into my amp and whatever pedals i plan on using, then straight into my laptop which has reaper installed on it. for drums, my brother will use a line out from his electric drum kit straight into the laptop. for vocals, we plug the mic straight into the laptop. we record drums first with a click track. then bass, either with or without a click track depending on what i feel like doing and what i'm better with. then we record guitars, then any other instrument we may use, then finally vocals. after that, we cover up any mistakes, either record over them or copy that bar in another verse or whatever and drop it in in stead of the bar with a mistake. then we use the effects on reaper to get it sounding better, usally we just use the one calls ReaEQ which is just an EQ screen to get the sound we like. this part is usually the quickest and easiest, because we've gone through amps when recording the track, so we're already close to what we want. finally i mix the seperate tracks to what sounds good with me, and i show it to the others and they decide if thats ok or if they think anything else needs changing. i'm just wondering what else you think is necessary, my bass teacher does a lot of recording and he has these huge desks and stuff, and obviously i can't afford them (i'm a 16 year old with a lot of free time and very little money ), but do i need anything like that to get it sounding better? are they necessary? is there anything else that would really make a difference to the quality of my recordings, even if its just a piece of advice, rather than equipment? if it is equipment, i'm seriously low on cash so how much of a difference will it make, and are there any cheap but decent ones out there? basically i'm just looking for general recording advice. here's a song me and my brother wrote and recorded a while ago, like i said i've never taken recording too seriously before, so i probably didn't spend long editing and stuff with this, and sorry about the rubbish guitar solo, i'm a good rythm guitarist but soloing isn't my forte but it gives you a sort of idea of what our recordings sound like and the quality atm. [attachment=29905:01_9_Till_5_Bore.mp3] thanks!

[quote name='Davemarks' post='554235' date='Jul 28 2009, 06:03 PM']I'm interested in what kind of things people would like to be able to buy DVDs on... I'm thinking 01 - A solid approach to bass techinque: Exploring hand and body positioning, finger technique and exercises to build robust, solid fundamentals for fingerstyle, pick and slap playing. 02 - The minor pentatonic in 5 positions for bass guitar - an approach to the fingerboard that will revolutionise how you play, regardless of style. Any thoughts? d[/quote] i don't know anything about this sort of stuff, but if you're doing the 5 minor pentatonic positions maybe you could build on that and talk about the different modes? its the same sort of thing, the same scale, in a different position, started at a different note, just a more complex scale and more positions. just an idea.

[quote name='BarnacleBob' post='554441' date='Jul 28 2009, 09:13 PM']I never understood the star thing.[/quote] i think i read somewhere that when fender first made the mike dirnt precision every signature bass had the players name/signature on it somewhere. mike dirnt didn't want this, but he had a tattoo of a star somewhere (i think on his wrist) so they used that instead. eventually they got rid of it (i think its still the only signature bass without the name/signature of the player anywhere on the bass), but mike dirnt still has it on most of the ones he plays. so i guess they just decided to bring it back in on the squiers. btw what i just said may all be complete nonsense, but i think i read it somewhere.

and black pickup covers. its just a shame about the star, i'd probably have a squier mike dirnt already if it wasnt for that star.

i played one at the london guitar show or music live or something like that a couple of years ago. like geoffbyrne said, it was awful. horrible neck, sounded rubbish, and IIRC was very heavy. if i were you, i'd definatly play one before you buy.

in all fairness to the band, doing it face to face isn't always practicle. i mean, do they wait for you to arrive for rehersals and then tell you, so you end up going straight home? that doesn't seem fair on you, youve just made the journey for nothing. wait until after the rehersal? thats just a waste of your time and theirs. the only logical thing to do is tell you before the rehersal, and that means it cant be face to face, unless one of the other members only lives down the road and will go to your house to tell you.