Mornats

Signed, hope it all works out for the venue!

I use Windows at home and a Mac at work and the biggest pain is switching between the two. If you're a Mac person, that'll be best for you In my experience upgrading any hard drive to an SSD is a much more noticeable upgrade than upgrading a processor. Mechanical hard drives aren't in the same league as SSDs by far. I have Reaper open up in 3 seconds from my Crucial M4 SSD. Looking at the quoted speeds for the CalDigit AV drives they operate at up to 200 mb/s which is a generation behind SATA-3 SSDs (around 500 mb/s read/write on average). Although for the price of a 480 GB SSD you can have a 4TB CalDigit! I'd say that any SSD, even a CalDigit one, is wasted if you're using a USB3 interface. I'm not convinced that an external USB or Firewire drive will be faster than any internal SSD. When you get your MacPro you'll notice the improvement the SSD gives straight away so that'll give you some idea of what they can do. Then I guess your experience with your current CalDigit drives on that setup will set you in good light to make a decision on going fully SSD. Personally I'd consider it a good investment but SSDs are still a little pricey these days. That's changing all the time though so every moment spent considering the purchase is saving you money (as it always is with buying computer components...)

Just don't defrag an SSD! They don't need it and it can be damaging. Paul_s has a good point about keeping your software and DAW on a separate drive to your operating system although I'd say that if you have an SSD, chuck your software and DAW on there for the sheer speed of them. I'd also say that getting an SSD to replace your system drive will be the most noticable speed boost you can give your computer. They're also conveniently sized at 2.5" so laptop users can benefit from them too

I switched from my Macbook Pro (which actually belongs to work so it's not really mine) to my home gaming PC for my home studio. Incidentally, in terms of stability and compatibility and general suitableness for audio work I would say there's no difference between a Windows 7 PC or a Mac. My home PC has considerably more grunt than the Macbook Pro too, despite needing a bit of an upgrade now. It's an old Core 2 Duo overclocked by 20% to 3.8ghz, 8GB of XMS2 RAM and running three hard drive - which is what I wanted to focus on in this post. Disk 1: 256GB Cucial M4 SSD. This has Windows 7, Reaper (my DAW of choice), and all my virtual instruments and sample libraries. It also has a select few other programs on, notable Lightroom for my photography. Disk 2: 1TB Samsung Spoinpoint F1 - one of the fastest 1TB SATA-2 drives around when I bought it. This has my games on but also used to house my documents until a few week ago when I bought: Disk 3: 1TB Western Digital Blue - not as fast as the Black version but 2/3rds of the price of one and no reports of it being noisy. This is where I house my Reaper project files and where my .wav files are saved once recorded. The SSD is naturally silent. The other two drives are virtually silent. The case fans (despite being quiet ones) are louder than the drives yet I've never had a problem with the noise being picked up. They all have fan controllers on so for DAW use they power down anyway. (For gaming it sounds like a jumbo taking off when it's at full tilt.) SSDs are great for reading from but don't really like lots of writing and overwriting. Plus they're expensive for large ones so it makes sense to record to another drive. As I only record one, maybe two tracks at a time through my interface I'm not really hammering write speeds so writing to a mechanical drive isn't slowing anything down. Plus those two drives of mine are fairly nippy anyway. Also reading from one drive and writing to another should in theory be faster than reading and writing from one drive. I'm using a Native Instruments Guitar Rig Session I/O audio interface but I'm looking to upgrade to either a Focusrite Scarlet 2i4 or the Forte (which has been recommended for the sheer sound quality). 44.1/24 bit recording for me too.

[quote name='Mottlefeeder' timestamp='1389130199' post='2330519'] Apart from the distinctive riffs, if there are any for that song, surely a covers band needs to play something that sounds tight, good, and recognisable in total, while a tribute band has to be as close to the original as they can get. [/quote] Even though I'm in an originals band, I do tend to agree with this. I've seen a few bands "rock-up" classic covers which is nice to hear.

It's actually a TRBX 305 in that video (Yamaha said I was right!). Mine's the 504 with the volume, pan, bass, mid, treble and active/passive switch. I mostly keep it in passive mode so only have a pan, volume and tone to play with so you could always ignore the other knobs

Yamaha linked a video on their Facebook page of one being used live. They say it's a TRBX 504 but they don't come in that finish, plus it's a 5-string so I think it's a TRBX 305. Can't tell for sure as there's some cheap tramp standing in front of the bass player most of the time: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Sm7FUXeKE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Sm7FUXeKE[/url]

[quote name='ead' timestamp='1388961140' post='2328263'] Something like this maybe? They seem to go for not much at all given the pedigree. I used to own one of the Contemporary J basses from the Overwater by Tanglewood range and it was a very good quality bass. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Overwater-400-Electric-Bass-Guitar-ex-display-item-ex-dem-new-metallic-RED-/191021153644?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item2c79bf7d6c"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item2c79bf7d6c[/url] [/quote] I own both the classic J and contemporary J and yeah, they're great instruments. Very playable and great sound. Fairly heavy though - around 10lbs each, hence why I went for the 8lb Yamaha for gigging.

They're Indonesian made but look and feel better put-together than most American or Mexican Fenders.

You should try out the new Yamaha TRBX 504, there's no lacking of quality on those. They're nice and light and very nice and easy to play too.

All I can picture in my head is Burt Reynolds running around the Escher staricase to the Benny Hill theme tune.

I've got a Yamaha TRBX 504 and a Warwick Rockbass Corvette and the Yamaha beats the Rockbass hands-down for playability, the power of the tone and the looks.

I've never tried flats before but I have an Overwater (made by Tanglewood) active J that currently has Rotosound Nexus coated strings on. I don't like them as they sound a bit artificial and the feel just isn't right. It's a black bass and the coating is black so it looks the part but I find I'm not playing the bass as much as the sound is a bit "meh". I'll let you know how I get on with the flats. The Overwater can do a decent vintage sound when rolled onto the front pup and the back pup has a jazz tone to die for. I'm looking forward to trying some flats

How about a Squier P/J or one of the Overwater Classic Jazz's (also a P/J and a fantastic sounding instrument)?

I got some good shots: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnattress/3862316184][/url] But yeah, I might take the 4-track along to a band practice and set it up to record a song "live".

Hell yeah! To go slightly off topic I was in Peru a few years ago taking photos of the condors flying over Colco Canyon. I was checking some shots on the LCD screen and looked up to see two condors clash in mid-air and have a scrap then fly off before I could lift the camera again. I was so gutted!

That's some good advice. Last year I did a traditional photography course and shooting on film has helped me think about my digital photography in such a different way. You have to really know what you want out of what you're doing beforehand. It's a good discipline to have.

I was up north visiting the folks over Christmas and got talking to my uncle (who's been a guitarist for decades - played with Alan Holdsworth once too!) about recording. Long story short, he gve me his old, barely used Tascam Portastudio 464. Whoop! So, er, what do I do with it? I'd love to try it out for a few recordings but I have no idea if I could integrate it into my home studio setup at all. I have a Guitar Rig Session I/O box (1x mic and 2x line/instrument in) and use Reaper as my DAW. Or shall I buy some tapes and try it old school? Obligatory pic: [attachment=151271:tascam.jpg]

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1388271951' post='2320370'] I am Spartacus. [/quote] No, I am Spartacus!

Do you have Spotify? If so, find all of the suggested songs above, pop them into a playlist then make a radio station from that playlist and star any of the tracks you like. Great way to find good new (or old) music.

Fender P = Ford Mondeo. Boring, been around for yonks, yet is solid and everyone's got one. Fender J = Ford Focus - ditto the above. Rickenbacker = Audi (because the owner's a t**t)* * company owner, not the bass owner.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1388227326' post='2319603'] Rotosound Tru-Bass 88. Now [i]there's[/i] a string..! They last, not days, nor weeks, but generations (finger-style, of course; no-one uses a pick on bass, surely..? ). Round..? No. Flat..? No. [i]Smooth..![/i] Real bass tone. Best on Hofner Verithin, but available for lesser basses, if one really must. Strings for snobs..? Nah..! Mmm..! Black Nylon..! [/quote] Just for your viewing pleasure. Rotosound Trubass 88s on a fretless SGC Nanyo Bass Collection SB320: [url="http://whttp://www.flickr.com/photos/pahttp://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnattress/9873394375/in/photostream/#ulnattress/9873394375/in/photostream/#ww.flickr.com/photos/paulnattress/9873394375"][/url]

I just drove 300 miles from Newcastle the Bristol just so I could vote! What have you done for your country today?

Great bunch of tunes! I had to go for Dad's in the end. I just loved the interplay of the strings and brass. It just hits that old-fashioned kids TV feel bang on. Al and Skol's were also great tunes. Hmm, could I register a few more accounts and put three votes in?

[quote name='steve' timestamp='1388106481' post='2318655'] iRealB if you are interested in jazz charts [/quote] +1 and not just for jazz in my opinion.