All Activity

I've been very quiet on here recently, for various reasons, but the main one is that I've been building, and learning to run a music venue! I run a recording studio, and my mate runs rehearsal rooms, all from one building in Stoke. We've built up a decent reputation over the years. There was one bit of the building we didn't have, and that was a garage, but last year the mechanic upped and left, and the landlord offered it to us. We spent countless hours turning a dirty old garage into a spanking new venue and I'm super proud of it. Please check it out if you're looking for live music in Stoke or The Midlands, and obviously get in touch if you'd like to play! www.rifffactory.co.uk https://www.instagram.com/rifffactoryuk/ The bar: Opening week: The garage:

Nine Types of Industrial Pollution - Zappa

Industrial Disease - Dire Straits

Wow, thank you so much, this is amazing and plenty to go by. Super excited to start listening.

Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? — Frank Zappa

That's amazing thank you, I had no idea it existed.

Interesting what you say about notes sounding out of tune! I had exactly that a few weeks back when multiple notes sounded off (yes I had checked the tuning twice!) - so much so that I had to play from looking at the fret position to be confident I was playing the right notes ! (yeah intonation was spot on too when checking at home!)

Recently posted in another thread. Check out the pups on Tina Weymouth's Mustang.

Bass Police are coming for you.

Looks like the perfect venue for a Christmas concert... must feel odd having anything else there!

Oh, nearly forgot to mention, the NG2's aggressive tone is great for low tuning, even if you don't go specifcally for a "Nolly" tone. Coincidentally, my own pickup choices aren't a million miles away from Nolly's to gain the same results. Bite when needed but enough "punch" in the low end without becoming pillowy and unstable.

That would look great. I did look at anodising some telescope parts years ago, the theory looks quite easy, its the practise that worries me...

I never noticed that before! Going to have to refresh my memory of it, it's a delight to play. Haven't played it live for 35 years... Also... I know Tina Weymouth is a Mustsng player but check out those pickups.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but, my advice is to not concentrate on the lows or sub frequencies any lower than a good B (i.e. don't boost 30hz willy-nilly). In fact, on stage, it clears the mix up if they aren't there (or are carefully controlled if they need to be). Yes, it is true that most on-stage speaker systems can't handle the fundamentals anyway, so why put them through the stress of trying. The funny thing about frequencies is what we believe to be there when they are not - and to take advantage of that. Case in point, We have all enjoyed monsterously chunky guitar riffs that sound deeper than satan's codpiece - but, when solo'd in the mix, the low end is often shaved off 100hz or higher purposely. For us bassists tuning low (I've tuned to E0, my 7 string is currently tuned to F#) , I have had no issues with using standard backline taking in to consideration the above. TL/DR:- Know that there is more weight - or 'girth' as folk like to call it in the 80-160hz region for bass guitar - for obvious reasons and that's where I start carving my bass tone. You don't need a 24dB/Oct High Pass Filter on the lows if you are careful, but it can help. Start at 30hz and work up until the beef tightens up a bit. Next, there's a balance between what your bass needs to sound full and what the mix dictates. I wouldn't want a wimpy bass tone, but, we can't all fight for the same area of the frequency spectrum in the mix (and this is also where the decision is made about who gets the the higher crossover point, or sitting forward in the mix - the guitarists shaving away their lows to make way for a fatter bass tone, or, the guitars taking the lion's share and the bass is relegated to unison lines and a more underpinning role. Think Karnivool versus Alterbridge as examples. Back to bass again - and, remember the mids! I'd use band-pass distortion to add energy and life to the midrange to cut through where needed and, as I have said a million times before, I am a huge fan of parallel compression, more specifically upward compression to create a big 'bed' of sound that kinda acts like the smoothing compressive qualities of distorted guitars. (to help them blend) - If you have access to Parallax by Neural DSP, it uses a well known studio method for bass that entails compressing the low frequencies and treating the higher (driven) frequencies separately. Coincidentally a video from either Produce Like A Pro (Warren Huart) or one of the online academies came up on my feed again discussing this very method recently. - You can either go in hard on the QC with this or leave it to front of house. Funnily, even though Billy Sheehan doesn't tune low, his method of splitting the bass signal in to 3 isn't far off this idea, but many other bassists have split their signal between different amps for example to straddle the low end support and still being able to be heard in the mix. Duff McKagan has recorded using both a bass amp and plugging in to a guitar amp for the mid range and top end bite. Dug Pinnick's tone is another option. There's lots of low end in there, but his more aggressive top end (easily attainable with the Tech21 DP pedal) will help your pitch clarity come through. I'm also thinking about awesome bands like Vola or Gojira for their bass tones here too. Anyway, as you have one, the great thing about the QC is that you can do this virtually with almost limitless amp combinations! Finally, I suppose another /TLDR is that a down-tuned instrument sounds down-tuned. Doesn't it? Drop D on a bass just has a different tone. It still sounds drop tuned on an iPhone speaker, and given the amount of people who can't tell there's nothing below 100hz coming out of one of those... /sorry if this is a ramble, I'm half asleep still..

I think I need to get new foam tips too. My right ear one keeps coming off... inside my ear. Had to a while to get it out again last week...very slowly and gently! Anyway all to say, I am very interested in what replacement ones people use! I too use the Linsoul KZ ZS10 PRO's, and they are good for the price. But with a full band going, they can not handle certain bass frequencies meaning your high F#'s do sound a little out of tune. I have tried two different pairs and its the same. For that reason I am thinking about getting a more expensive pair with better bass drivers, but not in a rush to spend money.

Imagine anodising it 😍

A few weeks back we happened into a pub in Didsbury, not that far from us, and found it full of flyers for a forthcoming Jazz Jam - which isn't something you see that often. So on the day of the Jazz Jam I turned up and found an excellent young guitar-led trio going by the name of Fisherman Dice, and… no jammers except me! But they were dead friendly and let me sit in for three tunes, and mentioned that they run a bi-weekly jam over in Chorlton, of which I got the impression that it was well attended, and last night I went along to that and found the same bassist and drummer but a different guitarist and… no jammers except me. But they were dead friendly and let me sit in for three tunes Anyway the Didsbury one was a new venture by the manager of the pub, which changed hands not long ago, and despite the low attendance he said he was keen to repeat it, and I've let the Fisherman Dice guys know that if he does and they can bring a keyboard next time (which the Didsbury venue has space for but the Chorlton one absolutely doesn't) then I can pretty much guarantee a couple of pianists who go to the other jam I've been going to, and possibly some soloists too. So it would be nice if that could become a thing. But my ulterior motive of finding a drummer who'd be interested in getting together with one of the aforementioned pianists to do some occasional trio stuff is no further forward…

I met one of Free's roadies, just after a tour of the USA (1971 or 1972?). He was bemoaning the fact that they insisted on using their Marshall stacks rather than lightweight Fender combos. At that time, I was an amateur guitarist and studying Electronics at college and in the in-house training school at EMI. I tried to explain that they could not sound like Free through Fender Combos, but he rolled his eyes and moved on to the next victim. At that time there was no PA support apart from vocals.