Mornats

A few of us from here went on a one day course with Ben from Crimson Guitars last year. He taught us how to do it. I ended up buying this set of tools: http://crimsonguitars.com/shop/guitar-building-tools/Essential-fret-leveling-and-dressing-tool-kit and watched his video a few times as a refresher and am now confident in doing it. Take a look at the vid and see how you feel about having a crack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uflkxIgPr1c Where are you based by the way? Anywhere near Bristol?

I'd want a tele pickup config so I'd probably go back to this one: http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_hbt30be_egitarre.htm I have the tools to file and dress any bad frets so that doesn't concern me too much.

Macs are somewhat simpler to choose from as they only do a small range of specs. In general, buy the best Mac you can afford. Out of the current list of iMacs here: http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/imac the second one along is the best to start with - that's the £1049 one. The 1.4ghz dual core one is a bit underpowered in my opinion. There's the Mac Mini too but all of those have the dual core i5 which I'd struggle to recommend. Even though I've had experience with Macs at work (I work for a publisher and used a MacBook Pro for 4 years) I'm stil very much a PC person so I'll hand over any Mac recommendations to anyone with more Mac music production expertise than me.

Bit of a pain to unstick the tape each time though I'd have thought? Does it leave any residue?

I got myself a MarkBass CMD 121P for small gigs (which is all I do). But my Ashdown Touring 220 2x12 rig is still sitting there. I just can't bring myself to sell it. It's just gloriously warm and vintagey and looks great. Can't for the life of me figure out the passive EQ - can't even find a "flat" tone but crank up that input gain, let the tubes heat up and enjoy. I think my VU meter is bust though, it doesn't move

I'd have thought someone would have come up with a multi-compartment shoulder bag or rucksack with those cable ties built in. THAT would be handy! I've just ordered some XXL cable ties: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fisual-Chunky-Reuseable-Hook-Cable/dp/B0052DMFP8/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt (and also a slimport adapter to connect my tablet to my TV and a book on landscape photography - damn you Amazon!)

I have guitar leads, mic leads and headphones hanging around in a pile underneath my midi keyboard. They look like they're involved in some mass mating ritual and are all wrapped around each other. It's no better when I take more than one cable out to a gig or practice. Anyone have any tips on both storing half a dozen cables and transporting a few without them getting deeply involved with each other? I had a look on Thomann for cable bags but such a thing does seem to exist.

That rosewood one is real pretty too...

Mine has set up really well when I bought it. I've since levelled, dressed and polished the frets and wow, just wow. I did it mainly because I recently bought the tools and wanted to try it out. A few needed a little work but nothing you'd think about paying £90 to get fixed.

Nice! The only downside is that they're so good value for money you'll want to but a couple more in case they priced them wrong...

It's always hard to say how much to spend! Just over £700 will get you a system that most people should be happy with for audio work. Try this one: http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-mi97-music-pc-system then change it so you have 8GB RAM (I wouldn't recommend any less than that) and choose Windows 8 over 7 if you prefer that. I'd favour Windows 7 as I reckon there'll be fewer driver issues and you can upgrade either of them to Windows 10 for free in the future. So that one has a decent i5 - the minimum I think you should look at, especially around this budget. That will get you quad-core. Note that the system doesn't have wi-fi - you'll have to add a wi-fi card or plug in via ethernet, or not go online (as some people do - not me though). You can add an SSD to that system too - it'll make a very big noticeable difference. £80 gets you a 250GB one. I run one of those with WIn 7 on and a whole host of VSTs - Miroslav Philharmonik, Komplete Elements, SampleTank 2.5L, Guitar Rig Pro 5, EZdrummer 2 and around 8 EZX's and more. Plus World of Warcraft I have 74GB free after that so I reckon it should be fine for most uses unless you have Komplete Ultimate or something crazy like that. It'll come with a 1TB drive too so you could pop some stuff on there. The £38 for the CPU cooler may seem a bit steep but I've been running that type of third party cooler for years and they're worth it. You won't hear the fan on it, and it'll keep it nice and cool. If £700 is too much then a bit more research may be needed. It's hard to spec a PC from Scan at much less than £600 and after that you're going into budget component territory where one has to tread lightly.

It depends a lot on a few factors really. A preference for Mac or PC is one and to be honest, there's no right or wrong answer there, it's the system that works for you. Laptop or tower is another option - sometimes out of your control if space or portability is an issue. If you're PC inclined, then a good place to start is with Scan. They put together the right type of PC components for audio machines. Peruse this lot: http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-digital-audio-workstation-pcs/form-factors. If you're Mac inclined then it's a bit simpler. Choose desktop or laptop and get whatever's at the top end of your (presumably considerable) budget. Buy me a $10,000 watch whilst you're at it too hehe I bought mine as separate components and put them together but I know that not everyone can, or wants to do that. I went for an overclocked i7 4970k - a fairly high-end CPU with multi-threading galore, with 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM and a gaming motherboard (it doubles as a gaming PC). The case is soundproofed too (the Fractal Design Define R4) with bigger slower moving fans for good cooling and less noise. Windows 7, Reaper and all my virtual instruments and VSTs run off an SSD for tip-top performance. My actual projects and other documents run off a Western Digital Blue hard drive - nice and quick for a normal HD and fairly quiet too. Chuck a few specs up on here that are within your budget and I'm sure we can advise on which bits you could chop and change to spend the right money in the right place.

Awesome, you'll love every minute of it!

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1425995163' post='2713179'] Am I the only one who finds the whole "Chinese junk" thing a bit off? A bit disrespectful in my opinion. [/quote] People seem to forget that their £2000 MacBook Pro is "Chinese junk" too. I do think it's time to lay that label to rest.

[quote name='irvined' timestamp='1425635389' post='2709196'] Finally finished my Deko precision defret. New flatwound strings were almost the same price as the bass! A little bit more tweeking to get the action really low and get some MWAH from the board. I covered it in 12 coats of Poundland cyano! I then refinished the back of the neck with some left over danish oil. It doesn’t sound too bad. [/quote] Pics!

!!! So blue! And sparkly!

Yeah, I liked the new voting system too.

For your convenience ladies and gents: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/697-obscure-musical-backwaters/

I had an absolute blast not only composing mine but listening to them all. There's something special about hearing other people follow the same inspiration as you and share the same angst/joy they had in the art of creating these works. I've got a tune in my head already for March... Dang, forgot to say well done Bleat! And Bilbo and Dad for 2nd and 3rd places!

I have my Tannoy E-11s sat on my cheap Argos desk and really need some stands for them. Probably more so as I have my studio monitors sat on top of them. Probably not the greatest setup - see here: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:138599]

You'll soon realise how easy it is to weave complex pieces together. Overdubbing is fantastically easy to do in a DAW.

Shocking really considering how popular the Focusrite interfaces are.

I'm quite the fan of Superlux headphones, owning a pair of HD-668 B open-backed (for general music listening) and HD-662 F closed-back for tracking. The 662s sound fairly similar to my monitors (M-audio BX5a Deluxe) which is handy I guess. Those Studiospares ones are next on my list though. The Focusrite Forte that I have sounds great and the preamps are highly regarded so no problems there (other than driver support not being as good as RME's which I know you find a big issue - and quite rightly so).

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1424720258' post='2699651'] Nice video. Shame there's a bit of distortion on the lower frequencies but I love how he goes through the different playing styles in all the pickup combos. It's not doing my GAS any good, especially as I saw a bassist playing a Rockinbetter last night that sounded awesome and got me thinking of the Vantage... [/quote]