51m0n

I don't need to shout him down, or be a better bass player or educator than him to hold a different opinion.

I would think it fairly possible that I might be a better sound engineer than him though...

Which is perhaps more relevant.

No one needs a compressor.

You have asserted repeatedly that you can't hear the difference live. Ergo they are useless.

That's a classic logical fallacy first of all.

Secondly it completely disregards those who can hear and or feel the difference, and arguing that compressors on pedalboards are useless is therefore ridiculous.

And there you go. 

Dynamic control is not the only job of a compressor.

Its also a timbre control, and a transient control, and a means of making space in a mix.

Even on a pedalboard.

15 minutes ago, BadHands said:

Let's discuss which amount of knobs on a compressor is best?

Threshold

Ratio

Attack

Release

Makeup gain

At the very least, wet/dry mix is extremely useful too, as is a side chain filter.

Anything less and you aren't really in control anymore.

And at least a 6 LED gain reduction meter.

9 minutes ago, BadHands said:

You jest, but this thread kind of proves my point

 

I'm not sure I am entirely joking....

For what it's worth a compressor is definitely not a good first effect candidate in my opinion.

I think you should have a license before you can buy one to prove you have an idea what to do with the bloody thing before you can walk out of the shop with it.

Save everyone a load of hassle that would...

40 minutes ago, BadHands said:

I think you're confusing Al's point with my eye rolling at people getting suggested compressors as their first effect. 

Nope, Al wants people to send in live clips where for some reason the comp on the bass player's pedal board is turned on and off so he can listen and say "That's doing nothing".

I am pointing out that to most audience members you can apply the same thing to almost all fx in a mix. In fact I would go as far as to say, at gig volume, no effect is more important than playing tightly as a band. A badly played rendition of Sledgehammer with Tony Levin's own octaver, chorus and compressor set up exactly how he had them is going to sound worse than a well played version with none of those effects to every single member of an audience. The audience will get more out of the well played version and consider it better. They wont really be able to say why though. But they will dance to the well played one and look askance at the badly played sonic masterpiece.

So Al's point is actually moot, unless Al cares to demonstrate beyond proof that I am wrong in my counter assertion...

22 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Going by the frequency I read of BC bassists using a 210 or a couple of 110's or a single 112 or 115 I feel the average UK pub band is a bit more under control than you make out.

Mine isn't, must be all the compression 🤪

Surely there's a real logical fallacy that needs pointing out regarding @Al Krow's request for compression efficacy live?

In order to attempt to show that a good compressor set up well is worth less than other FX on bass he needs to provide evidence that those other FX, at unity gain to them not being on, have a greater affect on audience enjoyment.

Good luck with that, I've never met a punter who was enjoying a band who could differentiate between what a bass guitar and a keyboard players left hand added to the mix, let alone the importance of fuzz over overdriven over clean or a bit of chorus or an octave or, well any of it.

So the assertion that compression is of less use in a pub band setting is rather difficult to prove without a more detailed scientific experiment.

The irony being that compression was popularised by the loudness war between Motown and the Beatles in the mid 60's, given Al's preferred era to bang out down the dog and duck...

8 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Haha, very good. 

Been too busy fending off requests from my esteemed comp fan boy BCers to borrow my Becos Stella, now that it's been off boarded ahead of band rehearsals starting up again. 

That and looking down the back of the sofa for some more old 50p coins. 

Isn't it about time you laid into one knob compressors with no metering as being the spawn of the devil? 😉

I don't need to, it is legend on here....

1 minute ago, Al Krow said:

And still it goes on, and on, and on... 

Must have been one of those old 50p coins ..😂

Haven't you got some sound engineering homework to be getting on with?

Can't believe I missed all the fun of this thread 😆

Oh hold on, that's right, it's threads like these rehashing the same old stinky poo from the same entrenched positions that keep me off basschat.

So, Al, do everyone and yourself a favour and go do a sound engineering course. Seriously. Learn to mix. Learn how to use compression for real.

Until you do that you haven't got a hope in hell of keeping up with the "compression fanboys" (seriously condescending term, like bass playing troglodytes or technophobic under achievers).

You rehash your argument over and over again. But it's clearly absurd.

Are you saying that compression can't change the sound of a bass in a mix enough to warrant it at a gig? Seriously? Because we've gone over that enough times, people have demonstrated before. You just keep coming back to compression as some peculiar bug bear.

I tell you this, compression will make a bigger difference than neck through construction or tone woods in a mix. Not pick up choice though in my experience. Can a punter hear it. No. Can they perhaps better experience the mix because of it? I reckon so.

But, and this is a killer, you need to understand how to use it and to get it right you do need to learn effective ways to set it up. So go do that.

I do bugger all gigs to not many people. So obviously I know naff all about compression, am some lunatic swivel eyed fanboy and can be effectively dismissed as such regardless of over thirty years being fascinated in sound engineering starting out in studios where your 24 track machine was your got to compressor and saturation plug in.

@Happy Jack is about the only BCer who has seen my band in play, ask him if we sounded ok as we happily spent an evening making music for a paltry audience in a tiny pub for the joy of playing music we like, and almost only we like 😆

On 10/05/2021 at 16:03, nilebodgers said:

The irony of all this is the FOH engineer at a decent size gig would completely ignore a pedal compressor anyway. The channel strip compression facilities on any decent digital desk runs rings round any of these pedals.

Not my Becos Twain. By a significant margin it outperforms digital desk compression in my experience.

I think the neighbours may have gone off me - turns out they aren't very keen on Sledgehammer (probably fairly badly) through a Barefaced BigTwin until the windows rattle...

Oops

Received today, from Bassdirect, my 50th birthday present, a tad late (I'm 51 next month!) because Bartolini have been stuffed by Covid. Mark has kept me up to date all the way through the process though, and I had a few offers of alternatives through the process. Just really wanted Barts in it.


Here are the specs:-

Century 5 + Fretless
•Spanish Cedar Body,
•Flamed Koa top
•Finish - Natural satin finish
•Three piece Maple neck with contrasting stringers
•Fingerboard - Lined Black Diamondwood (resin,
pressure impregnated wood)
•Graphtech nut
•35" Scale - 2 octave
•Bartolini 3-band pre amp with volume, pan, treble/bass
stack, mid/mid freq select push/pull (250/800hz)
•Bartolini JJ Pickup in the JB position
•Black ultralight Gotoh tuners
•Black Hipshot B style bridge in Aluminium

Sounds absolutely fantastic! Feels incredible to play, silky smooth neck. A tiny bit heavier than my Century Standard fretted, but in the same ballpark.

Love how it looks though!

Colour me chuffed

 

Old thread, I know, and Mick Kahn has had a couple of mentions already, but this track is so good I thought I'd point it out:-

https://youtu.be/Wf_g9bvCO44

23 hours ago, WinterMute said:

The only issue I've found with referencing mixes in mono is that you can overdo the separation in the EQ a little bit and end up with your instruments not meshing together and blending to form the overall mix.

Frequency masking is a problem, but EQ isn't the only way to deal with it, panning works well, which you can't do in a mono mix obvs..!

I prefer mixes to be dense and integrated, and I'll sacrifice a bit of separation to get that integration if I have to particularly in the low mid area.

Some good advice though, and great delivery.

The whole point of this video is that panning doesnt solve the problem well.

In fact panning stops you being able to hear the problem properly at all in some cases. The issue still exists though.

A very well constructed mix done this way won't fall apart when you spread it out IME. But the clarity you get is really cool.

Each to their own though!

If this carries on you'll all be ace mixologists!

Damn it, this guy is giving all the good stuff away!

I'm not sure whether to be thrilled at the detail and brilliant information, or a little peeved. I've spent years working like this, it is the one true way.

If you want your mixes to continue to suck ignore all his advice.

Enjoy!

Yeah, its me, so I'm babbling on about compression again (sheesh get a life you tedious old fart).

This one is worth it, the absolute best video about how compression can be used to manipulate sounds to get your desired emotional content (thank you Bruce Lee). This needs to be on every single wanna be recordistas play list. Enjoy!!
 

Guitar amp standby is equivalent to a mute...

My router, works with BT and is a night and day improvement over the standard BT router IME and cheaper now than when I got mine:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WD4RVL4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_xCqmpyESusOwf

Desktops in the house all have these Asus WiFi cards in:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EC9S3LI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_9at96DfKlmOh3

Coupled with the above router the results are excellent IME.

I've got serious WiFi going on.

68Mb/s download.

19Mb/s upload.

9ms delay.

Yep wired is quicker, but not do much as to be worth it, even Jamulus works for me.

20 hours ago, Doddy said:

I can't say anything bad about Bass Direct. I've always been treated well even when I haven't bought anything for a while. But then, I bought my Bergantino cab and Genz Benz head off Mark when he was still operating out of a barn.

I bought my ae410 from the barn, that was a really peculiar experience 😆

Mark phoned me last week out of the blue for an update on my new fretless Roscoe (excitement overload). 

Definitely trading for sure!

I've not had an issue with them except their website stock is manually dealt with so not up to date. For anything serious I would recommend a phone call to check before you buy. 

Marks a top chap though IMO, I've spent way way way too much with him over about 14 years, often driving up from Brighton to check something out before buying. He has seen me right even when a £1200 amp turned out to not be right for me after I used it in a rehearsal a couple of times. No hassle just sorted it out, very happy to help.