cheddatom

very true. I had terrible cymbals for ages. One night in London at a fancy hotel bar, I heard a drummer sounding amazing. My ears could hear hats, crash and ride. I turned to look and all he'd got were a pair of hats with a bit black K on them. I asked him in the break, turns out they're K Custom Session hats (Steve Gadd). I saved for 3 years until I finally bought them, and that was the start of it for me. The rest of my cymbals let the hats down and I just had to upgrade.

Cymbals. I'm really bad for it. I look at 2nd hand cymbal listings at least twice a week. I have to force myself to close the tabs. Sometimes I just can't resist. If you'd told me 10 years ago my main instrument would be drums, and I'd be taking £2K worth of cymbals to hit at every gig, I'd have laughed my derrière off

Yeh good to see you Paul, shame I missed your set. I could say more about this particular sound engineer but it would be better to say nothing at all

Our first gig back was Saturday 24th. I had my 2nd vaccine at 5pm and we were on stage at 9pm. I was nervous, which never used to happen, but I guess it was the combination of worrying about my arm failing, and te fact it'd been 16months since we've last played in front of an audience. Thankfully it was a small affair with a very friendly audience. Apparently no-one notices all of your disastrous mistakes if you're playing with full on enthusiasm. I got more compliments about my playing after that gig than I've had for years, and it was the worst I'd ever played!! Friday 30th was way better. Nah Then Festival in a big tent. The sound was absolutely terrible. Our guitarist uses a pod, so the only thing I was in my drum monitor is guitar. I usually hear the bass from the amp on my left, and the vocals just about from the wedges at the front. For the whole set, the drum monitor was either deadly silent, or pumping out deafening levels of guitar. I always wear ear plugs, so no actual damage, but every time the guitar kicked back in (especially electric guitar) it felt like a punch to the head. I tried to ask the sound tech to turn it off but he hadn't got a clue what I was on about. Anyway, despite that I actually played well, which is nice They had a queueing system at the bar with a marshal at the front guiding people to be served. I assume this was in the aid of social distancing - preventing crowding by the bar staff? Ironically, the marshal was getting very touchy-feely with me, wouldn't stop playing with my hair, and took a photo of me for her daughter - creepy AF! It's so good to be back at it

push on if it doesn't hurt. I have problems with my left wrist. I can't play a normal bass any more, I have to play short scale. I find a more upright position for the neck helps.

I do it in the studio just using EQ on 2 separate channels, never had phasing issues. On my old board I used two EQ pedals and never had issues. I'd never really considered the overlap you're referring to but I guess I'll know if I ever hear it!

Surely phase cancellation only happens in the same frequencies, so if you have high frequencies out of phase with low frequencies, no cancellation will occur?

if it's biamped it wouldn't matter if each channel was in phase? I used to blend two channels and use EQ pedals to make my crossover. I used a compressor on the low side, and all the weird effects on the high side. It sounded ace! Then just one channel out to the PA, no amp

A drummer in the studio once told me the metronome must be going out of time

One bassist I work with cannot play what he's trying to play, so every second he's playing is "cringe". The same guy loves to watch himself in the reflection of the studio glass while he's playing. I said to another bassist in the studio "Your guitarist is playing F#m, so you can't play the Bb, if you want to play the 3rd you have to play the A" and he just stared at me confused. This guy has been playing for over 40 years. I tried again "The chord is minor so you can't play the major 3rd over it, it clashes". He said, totally straight faced, "It doesn't make any difference!?". I laughed hard but I really shouldn't have - super cringe Kid says "I play a bit of guitar but bass is my main instrument. I hate it when guitarists think they can play bass, it's a totally different instrument" and then strums constant root notes for the whole song, no fills, not even a 5th.

Yeh I was expecting Rebellion as it's indoors. We have a few outdoor festivals over the summer, hopefully they're not cancelled, but if Cropredy and WOMAD can't do it...

I saw Martin Grech support Oceansize downstairs at Rock City. Martin Grech did 15 minutes of absolute adrenaline rush. I was transfixed. When he left the stage I was dazed, I couldn't believe what I'd just witnessed Then Oceansize came on and did a very average, very long 90 minutes. I probably would have loved it if it wasn't for Martin Grech stealing the show

Bass Direct say out of stock on their site. I'm not in a rush anyway. I hope the MKIII sounds as good as yours!

Is the Octabvre actually available to buy in the UK anywhere? I can't find one

interesting topic. In my opinion, if the bottom end drops out when the guitarist switches from rhythm to lead, then his rhythm sound had too much low end in it. Loads of rock songs will have a verse or a bridge where the guitarist doesn't play. This creates dynamics, giving the feel of a quieter section, but the bottom doesn't drop out, because that's the bass guitar and the bass drum

What I'm saying is that these people are trying to do pitch correction, not "as an effect", but they overcook it until it's too perfect and sounds horrible to me EG Michael Buble

what baffles me is that it's possible to use pitch correction and retain a "good sound", and a lot of these singers are actually very good, but this "plastic" sound is used anyway

Yeh, obviously it works for him and loads of others, I just really dislike it

Someone mentioned Michael Buble earlier. This is a great example of the sound I really don't like. I reckon the engineer doing this probably thinks "no-one will be able to tell" but it's so obvious. It's not done for effect, you can't hear any artefacts from snapping notes to the grid, however, the whole thing is so perfect it sounds "plastic" and really grates on my ears.

I use it loads in the studio. I'd rather get a powerful performance and tweak a couple of notes afterwards than try and drop in a word or two, as that always sounds unnatural to me It's a bit frustrating when people want that "perfect" modern vocal sound. If you've heard any country song made in the last 5 years you'll know what I mean. I have one guy who comes to me, a truly incredible singer, he's never out of tune, but he wants that sound. I have to go through straightening out any natural wobbles or unintended vibrato and it really sucks the life out of the performance. When it's used for effect it can be pretty cool, although that does seem a bit overdone in some of the recent rap tracks I've heard

I have a crap old encore P I tune down to low A with the bottom 4 of a 5 string set. I had to loosen the rod a bit to get the low A working properly, and the action is a bit high, but it's not unplayable and it sounds fine. Are the bottom two strings rattling/buzzing a lot?

Can't wait. I've seen them live a few times and they're brilliant

Best BC post of all time perhaps. The only one I can recall ever showing my mates, and they all laughed out loud

Nice one, thanks Lozz! The first mix had a proper grindy bass sound, not unlike yours with Knock Off, but our bassist did not like it at all!

Check it out. I play the drums and produce the music. Our guitarist did the video