scalpy

Now late for work, cheers!

Unfortunately the drummer thing has some substance in my view. The old adage 'You're only as good as your drummer' will probably be my choice of epitaph! The evidence is clearly on display this week, the pit band play for another company with a different, pro drummer, will band call West Side Story in three hours for example and hit every tempo correctly for the entire week. This week the resident drummer is in- sounds like a gorilla building a shed after 4 cans of red bull.

Funny this topic should come up this week as I’m doing a show week (I do about 8 or 9 am drama ones a year with a team of uni/ conservatoire trainer musos) At the dress rehearsal I asked the piano player to turn down- no problem. The trumpet player asked the French horn player to swop places as those things are the Marshall stack of the orchestra, no problem. The guitarist asked the drummer to take it easy- no chance, coincidentally the drummer is crap. Anytime I work with really good musicians, they play for the room. I did a restaurant gig with a London session drummer once, he played kick, snare and hats only, twigs for sticks and I swear it was one of the deepest grooves I have ever played to. Wish he was on this weeks gig!

I've posted it here before and I'm doing it again- fills the criteria above, Meters and Toussaint.

He says it’s pino in the first line. I think.

At work there’s 3 acoustics, acoustic bass, an electric, a trumpet, a keyboard, Marshall half stack and hartke bass rig- plus I get to play whatever music I like loudly at whoever’s in the room. But I’m a music teacher, perk of the job.

Exactly, plus he’s a pro musician with kids, who knows what the circumstances are, dropping the kids off somewhere perhaps before going off to whatever session etc. I always leave putting the bass in the car to last but sometimes it just can’t be avoided. One thing I have done is made sure the car has black upholstery, and bought a seat cover/ bag to protect the interior from cases and lighting rigs etc. I can put the bass behind the front seats and cover it and from the outside it’s practically invisible. Wouldn’t stop the most determined thief but certainly helps.

That would be the dream- I normally end up dribbling considering the Monique.

Thank you, I shall investigate- again there’s plenty of applications post session. Do you have one by the way, please?

You been talking to my wife?!!!!! Sage advice, that should probably be heeded. The studio does have that breed of kit. http://www.rockfieldmusicgroup.com/default.asp?contentID=559

Do you know about availability and price please? A turbo search didn’t reveal much but that certainly looks like a great option. I’ve realised after this thread that there’s no point in going for super pure, the studio has always done that for me. Ideally I want something that has really good quality signal but some flavour to it, that I can get in time- hence no noble, they don’t seem to come up for sale! So JHS colour box has come up a few times, that certainly gives lots of applications post session as well as being sufficiently interesting. Certainly sounds great in YT videos and comes highly recommended.

No engineer would use kit I had made, as it wouldn’t work for starters. This engineer isn’t a brand snob though- we once double tracked a guitar with a 62 vox AC30 on one side and a £15 smokey cigarette pack guitar amp on the other!

If you pitch walking basslines to a student correctly you can cover a lot of ground very quickly, particularly if you comp along on guitar or piano. Then keep bolting on the next baby step- they’ll feel like they’re doing the job for real, upping their motivation.

Thanks jensenmann, that’s very useful. The Avalon hasn’t really piqued my interest, so that was a no, but I’ve been plenty of gigs/ sessions now where the bss has been used. The diy job, that will be of a similar spec to the house Di.s, as I alluded to earlier, the studio is very well specced indeed. So, tonehammer is on the wish list unless I can find something a bit more esoteric (but maybe not the price tag of the gyraf- ouch!)

How do you mic a contrabassoon? That sounds like the start of a joke but I’m genuinely interested!

That’s interesting to know, I tried a tone hammer 500 recently and liked the ags sound, just didn’t go for it as I couldn’t change sounds quick enough (a lot of my gigs are pretty frenetic or I can’t reach the amp). The pedal therefore might be a good ploy, thank you.

I can certainly see your logic, and I’m confusing myself with options as this thread goes on (!) but the old school combo thing and me doesn’t gel, I’ve played through John Giblin’s B15 and it was well rough and the b15 that used to reside at AIR Montserrat, and that broke.... At the moment the ZOD has the cache but the vintage deluxe micro tubes might have the most applications after the session.

Uh-oh, that looks perfect.

The material is pretty poppy, and the engineer is expert at getting a great organic sound. I’m going to approach most tunes with the lb-100 p with flats, the ASAT with rounds will feature on the louder stuff and there will some fake synth stuff as well!

Neve looks great, and would fit right in as the studio is peppered with mk1 stuff built by the man himself. Definitely on the maybe list.

I think you maybe right! Although typing I think I need more personality in the sound in my last post did make me realise I need to get a Darkglass or tone hammer, something along those lines. Cheers for the help though!

Thanks for that, but I was thinking more about something with a bit of personality. The studio has some hand built boxes done the old engineer, so I think ‘super accurate neutral’ is covered- should’ve made that clearer in the original post.

Hi all. I’ve got a nice session coming up with a team I’ve worked with before. It’s a social as much as a job and part of the tradition is surprising each other with a new bit of kit. Despite being on basschat I don’t really covet much but was thinking about something along the lines of Reddi or the Demeter on here at the moment. Normally my signal path is DI out the amp (markbass) and a large mic on the cab (U67?!?). Would I or the engineer gain that much from a decent DI signal? I’d ask the engineer but it’s him who likes the surprises!

My tactic- Marry the singer.

John Giblin?