Earbrass

[quote name='sarah thomas' timestamp='1353491526' post='1875071'] Given that Bilbo's post now runs to 31 pages and is running strong, could we have jazz bass as a sub-forum so that it's easy to find? Maybe on January 10 2013 as a special five year tribute to the strength and abiding interest of the original post? [/quote] Probably best to call it something other than "Jazz Bass", though, or it'll soon be filled with Fender-related posts (and demands for a "Precision Bass" sub-forum).

Kimbara Jazz Bass copy - bought 1978, sold early 80's - end of my bass-playing for a few decades. Good but heavy. [b]Peavey Milestone III (red)[/b] - bought 2004?? s/h for £50. Fender Aerodyne Jazz - decided I was ready for a "good" bass. Realised it wasn't significantly better than the Peavey, and sold it again. Peavey Milestone III (sunburst) - bought s/h for £45. Replaced the Aerodyne: used as backup/spare when I was in a band. Kept afterwards in Suffolk for playing with my Dad. Given away after he died last year. Peavey Zodiac - fancied the P/J layout - intended to replace 2nd Milestone - lovely bass but a bit too heavy for me, so sold it again and kept the 2nd Milestone.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1352459932' post='1863298'] Get a decent interface that allows for all the ins and outs you require. If you arent recording full bands you probably need no more than 2 ins, and 4 outs (2 for headphones). Go for quality, I would recommend an RME Babyface as a great sounding interface with absolutely bulletproof drivers. Seriously good quality. Personally I'm about to pull the trigger on an RME UCX, because I can expand it easily up to a full 14 mic inputs, which is enough to record a full band, I can also get some [url="http://www.seventhcircleaudio.com/"]real quality mic pres[/url] later to plug in to it for some flavour. Added to that the lowest latency in class and the RME reputation I just cant control the GAS on this device [/quote] Got to stop reading your posts, Simon - they always end up costing me money . (Line Audio CM3 mic due for delivery today!)

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1352458842' post='1863272'] The Latin Percussion expansion pack is very useful. You can use individual elements in non Latin tracks. The midi files [And there are loads of them] have a nice swing about them. [/quote] Hmmm....tempting.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1352397703' post='1862588'] I found these short tutorials very useful initially. This is part one of four. They will show you pretty much everything you need to know to make a decision mate. [/quote] Thanks Nigel.

I was wondering about EZ drummer. Drums are the part I struggle with most. I already have loads of drum [i]sounds[/i] in EmulatorX, DimensionPro and an external MIDI module. Given that the music I work on tends not to use traditional rock/pop drum patterns and fills, is there anything that EZ drummer provides that I might find useful?

I'm all in favour of reading - a very useful skill for all the reasons already mentioned. But here's an additional thought: Learn a tune from TAB and you know how to play it one way on one instrument Learn a tune in terms of dots / note names and you know how to play it on any instrument that you play, but only in the written key Learn a tune in terms of intervals and degrees of the scale, and you can transpose it into any key on any instrument that you play Actually, it's not so much how you [i]learn[/i] the tune, but how you 'think' of it / remember it once learned.

If only one of the audience had decided that sitting still and listening was too "boring" a way of experiencing a lecture, and had instead opted for shoving a huge custard pie into the speaker's pretentious smug face.

You're new around here, aren't you? OK everybody, tin hats on; you know the drill.

[quote name='Evil Undead' timestamp='1351671643' post='1853885'] My preference would be the bright yellow, with a rosewood board and a black pg. No matching headstock. [/quote] +1

I wouldn't go for the controller keyboard + computer option - I think it would be a pain to have to boot up a computer every time you just want to play the piano, and you'd probably end up playing it less as a result. There are so many variables here it's hard to know what to advise; personally, I have a very old Yamaha electric piano (bought second-hand in the late 1980's) which has a lovely weighted keyboard, but crap sounds and which weighs a ton, plus a cheap secondhand MIDI module for the bread and butter sounds, and a computer DAW for recording/sequencing. This means when I just want to sit and play I just turn on the piano and module, but I have more sounds available in the computer for when I'm composing/arranging/recording. The module cost me about £150 on ebay, and I think I'd struggle to give the piano away, so maybe you could pick up something similar cheap. Do you want to keep open the option of playing keys in a band? If so, consider portability and weight - properly weighted keyboards are much heavier, and a full 88 note board can be awkward to fit into cars (76 notes is a good compromise). Are you a piano player or more into synth and organ sounds? For serious piano playing, weighted keys give a much better feel - but for organ/synth playing it can be a disadvantage. [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1351635666' post='1853644'] There's only guitarists in Perth, no musicians available at all. [/quote]

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1351529925' post='1852239'] Looking forward to the rehearsal, but hope Vox and Guitar don't start bickering as usual. [/quote] I feel for you. That was a big problem in my last band. Guitar and Vox were a couple, and rehearsals pretty much always descended into a nasty row. Sometimes bands are like abusive relationships - once you're well out of it, and into something better, you wonder why you put up with all the cr*p for so long.

Spent all day in the office with a light workload - hence plenty of time on basschat. My bass is sat at home on its stand, all plugged in and waiting for me to come home and record some bass parts for the track I am working on (only for the best part of a year so far, so quite rapid progress for me). Whether I will still have the energy and enthusiasm to do said recording once I've watched University Challenge and Only Connect remains to be seen. Can't do it before, as that's my slot for practising the squeezebox ready for a Halloween gig tomorrow night.

With digital pianos, I think it comes down to the feel of the keyboard more than anything else; the piano sounds are all pretty good these days, and you always have the option of using other sounds via MIDI. Feel is a very personal matter, so I would urge you to try and get to play a few keyboards from the leading brands and see which suits you best.

Wow, that sounds really cool. I love magic tricks. I had a mate who was seriously into it who taught me a couple of simple things once, but as you say you have to spend a lot of time practising to get good. It must be a real buzz to be able to do it well and be appreciated for it.

I voted a while back. I think Bilbo deserves a separate award for the best title. What is it with jazzers and weak puns? I recall an album by my erstwhile jazz-piano teacher Janette Mason called "[url="http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/artist_id_611/cd_id_493"]Din and Tonic[/url]", which seems to be part of the same tradition. Hats off to everyone who got it together to produce something. I find my main musical projects take all my spare time - if I tried to join in with this too, everything else would grind to a halt!

[quote name='oggiesnr' timestamp='1351281369' post='1849779'] When it works like that it's great isn't it? All these people who would run a mile at the thought of "Morris Dancing" actually watching and enjoying it. At a recent Freaks danceout we ended up at the same pub as the local football team and persuaded some of them to have a go. Steve [/quote] Yeah, it's weird - as a nation we love to mock our own traditions, and few people will admit to being interested in the Morris, but we find that if you go out and do it, people gather and watch, and are interested and ask questions: we're very rarely short of an audience. Such a change from being in an originals band and begging your mates to come to every gig (we weren't very good)! Perhaps it's because it's one of the very few traditional English pastimes that doesn't involve persecuting wildlife . Good luck with the RackaBack. Hope to see you at a festival someday.

I’ve been meaning to start this thread for a while, as non-bass gigs are the only kind I am doing at the moment. On Saturday, the [url="http://www.wildhunt.org.uk/"]Wild Hunt Bedlam Morris[/url] performed at Cecil Sharp House (the English Folk Dance and Song Society's HQ in Camden) as part of their “Dance Around The World” festival, which involves performances and workshops from folk-dance troupes from, errrm, around the world. It’s a nice venue to perform in, and there was a decent crowd as we performed our three dances in the early afternoon. The band consisted of two box players and two drummers, which is our standard “core” configuration. Damned hot in there, though – we wear masks as well as tattered coats, and by the third dance I was struggling to see what was going on through steamed-up glasses. I don’t know how the dancers coped. About 40 minutes later, after a couple of large teas to replace the lost fluids, we held our workshop, which involved teaching a version of one of our dances to anyone (including some small children) who wanted a go. That all went well, and that would have been the end of a pleasant and successful day had not one of our number arranged with a local pub to go on there afterwards and have a bit of a dance outside. We set off in a ragged group for The Engineer, just a couple of hundred yards away up Gloucester Avenue, with some of the dancers still wearing their bells. As we approached the bridge over the Regent’s Canal, we were hailed by a chap on the other side of the road asking us whether we’d just finished or were just about to start performing. When we told him we would shortly be dancing just a few yards away, he replied that he was just waiting to see a steam train, and then would come and watch. “Steam train???” several of us replied as one. Where Gloucester Ave crosses the canal it runs next to the railway bridge carrying the main line over the same canal, affording good views of the line. A steam-hauled special was apparently due to leave Euston very shortly, and would pass right in front of us. Some of us decided to wait. Within ten minutes we were rewarded with the sight of the [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1tSZhUI1qU"]Duchess of Sutherland[/url] blasting away up the incline hauling a long rake of sixties(?) maroon coaching stock. Fabulous sight and sound. And so to the pub. Half the band had to go home straight after our workshop, so we were down to me on box and one drummer. After a quick drink we went out into the street and began. It wasn’t a promising looking spot – there was nowhere obvious to dance; the pub is on a corner, and we ended up with the band, such as it was, on the pavement and the dancers in the side street. There was nobody about when we started, apart from the steam-train chap, but by the time we finished our first dance there were a dozen or so spectators, and we got a good round of applause. A couple of cars had to wait for a dance to finish before getting out of the side road, but they didn’t seem to mind- they just filmed us on their phones. Cars on Gloucester Ave stopped, and again the occupants began to film us on their phones. People in flats overlooking the street opened their windows wide and looked out – and more phone filming. I muffed a couple of tunes a bit, but it didn’t matter, and I didn’t let it put me off. The crowd grew little by little. We did four dances in all – about 20-25 minutes performing. At the end, people cheered, people came up to thank us, and ask us about what we do – we handed out quite a few of our leaflets. One lady asked “so, it’s a bit like morris then?” and we explained that it was morris, just not the “whites and hankies” kind that most people know. Another lady thrust a five pound note into the hand of the guy doing our announcing – we weren’t collecting, but it was a nice gesture. All in all we felt thoroughly appreciated, and what had been planned as a bit of an after thought turned out to be the best part of the day. I left the rest of them to continue investigating the local pubs, and got the tube and train home (one small squeezebox and a small bag for ‘kit’ makes for easy transport). Back home with my feet up by the fire by 6.30pm. Bloomin’ marvellous.

[quote name='Huge Hands' timestamp='1350400549' post='1838296'] About a year ago, I left my double bass in the dining room with my 2 year old son......the neck is no longer attached to the body.... [/quote] Harsh but fair. ...oh, you mean the [b]bass[/b]'s neck...

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1350475152' post='1839320'] ..and the little gems tend to be the best kept secret to the few.... [/quote] .. shhh!... don't tell everyone, they'll all want some. [attachment=121373:lettuce.jpg]

Same for me. After years of being a soundtrack-composer working on my own with a stack of MIDI synths, sequencers and wot-not, I returned to the bass precisely because I wanted to get out and play with other people again. Bass is a great instrument for that.

Not sure how "nasty" the room is - but the player is very good and she has some nice instruments, so if it comes out sounding horrid it's going to be all my fault. If it doesn't work out, I've still got the options to go into a local studio for a half-day, or as a last resort use the fake MIDI recorder sound that is currently acting as a "place-holder" (actually it's not at all bad - but the real thing would be better if I can capture it successfully). A new mic is a possibility - I was looking at the Shure SM81, but the CM3 is certainly much cheaper, though supply seems to be intermittent.

Wow. Thanks so much for all of that guys, very helpful.

Hi all, I need to record a friend playing the recorder (soprano and tenor) for a piece I'm working on. I don't have a lot of experience mic'ing acoustic instruments, and any advice from more experienced basschatters would be appreciated as to mic position etc. I have 2 AKG C1000s at my disposal, though I'd only expect to use one. The recordings will form part of a wind quartet section, probably with a fair amount of reverb on, so I'm not too fussed about picking up room ambience. Any thoughts?

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1350043182' post='1833883'] That's just his opinion. You can feel free to disagree, but when you start making rude statements, you lower the general tone and do yourself down. [/quote] I find the suggestions that I should feel guilty for playing for free, or that playing for free means I don't value myself, both of which have been made in this thread, to be rude and patronising, so I don't think I started any downward trend in this thread, I have merely responded to being lectured to and insulted. [quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1350043945' post='1833909'] See, he's nice really. [/quote] I'm sure we all are.....really.