Mornats

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1373289914' post='2135695'] Yeah, I always give my mixes a final listen on one or all of the following: - 'Hifi' system: old Tannoy speakers and an even older Cirrus amp - Boombox: a little all-in-one thingy that we have in the kitchen - iPhone: both earbuds and built-in speaker - Car stereo - Mate's systems (including pestering people on here for feedback - 51m0n included ) ...each of these gives a different response that I use to tweak my final mixes. That said, my most reliable reference is my headphones. That's not a recommended solution by any means - it's just that I've got to know my cans very well (I've been using the same pair for nearly 3 years) and so I trust the results I get on them. Or to put it another way: I know their inadequacies and do my best to compensate. [/quote] I use my Superlux HD662F headphones, my M-Audio BX5as (through my Guitar Rig I/O), my Tannoy E11s through a Rotel RA-930AX (with a signal taken from my Soundblaster X-Fi sound card), my Galaxy S2 with the Superlux headphones then also my AKG K313 earbuds on the Galaxy and finally my crappy Logitech 2.1 PC speaker system that I've got in my kitchen. It's waaaay too bassy and boomy and tinny all combined. I've only just started listening in the car too (I can never hear any bass in the car which is a tell-tale sign). So my next question... well two... 1. is it worth sticking with the Superlux headphones if I'm used to them? Or will upgrading to the Studiospares M1000s give me a whole new perspective on my mixes? 2. Do bass traps need to fixed to the wall? I live in rented accommodation and even those pictures I've got hanging on my wall are technically against the rules I'll move my desk around today, and see about getting a bass trap. I'm sure I've seen some for £25 which is worth a punt at least. Finally (so actually 3 questions), will I notice a big difference with facing the corner and putting a bass trap in or will it be a subtle (yet still important) change? I guess a lot of people are put off from fixing their rooms because they can't "picture" (or hear) the difference it will make. You can notice the difference a new set of more expensive monitors with bigger woofers straight away so I guess it's tempting to go for that first. But I've been reading Mike Senior's book and listening to advice on here and I know that the room is the way to go first! I don't want to make a lot of big changes only to find that I can barely tell the difference - and I think many others would initially think the same.

Well, I've got two DVD stands that are the same height as my desk which could make for some makeshift speaker stands. The main problem I have (and I suspect you have too Ray) is getting out of the corner without taking over the entire room! [quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1373276103' post='2135458'] I mix solely on headphones, mainly because the room I work in doubles as Skol Jnr's play room and there's no way I could acoustically treat it to any worthwhile degree (plus I tend to work late). [/quote] Same here on both counts. So that could be the solution you know. Your mixes sound great so nothing wrong with mixing on headphones then. Do you use monitors for checking stereo width mainly? I think 5imon uses these: [url="http://www.studiospares.com/headphones-studio/studiospares-m1000-headphones/invt/448760"]http://www.studiospares.com/headphones-studio/studiospares-m1000-headphones/invt/448760[/url] (although I think he called them H1000s?) and I'm more than happy to go with his recommendation. So here's the option. I could try making my living more centred around music production, i.e. moving it so that the computer desk is more of a focus than the TV (I live on my own so it's only me that would be upset by that) and get some acoustic pads to place around the room. I think I'd always be compromising somewhere though. Or I could invest more in headphones and use my monitors more for stereo mixing stuff (see, I know all the technical terms). So if the latter is the case, is there still anything that I'd need to do to the room to help with the stereo stuff?

Oooh brilliant, some reading material - cheers! Good job I've got the week off

Top-notch, cheers!

I'm a huge Spotify fan and have been subscribing to the premium version for about 6 months now. I joined when it was still in beta and never used it that much but now it's my main form of musical entertainment. In total I've paid around £60 in subs but I must have listened to around £300-400 worth of albums (assuming a tenner an album), amongst that a lot of new music that I'd never of heard of before. No money's been wasted on albums with one good single and 9 filler songs. Offline playlists (which only remain available to you whilst you've got an active premium subscription by the way) are great. I set some up on the PC, it syncs with my phone, I tick the ones I want to be available offline and then I head out with some new music. Simples Two features stand out for me as being amazing. The first is the ability to right-click on a song/album/artist/playlist and start a radio station based on that. I discover so much new music this way. The second is the recently launched Discover page (the start up page now) which looks at what you've listened to, stuff you've favourited and also looks at what you your friends and the people you follow are listening to and will greet you with a page of new music. In short, I think Spotify is the best thing since Walkmans. And you can hook it up to Songkick so you'll get emails telling you when your favourite bands are playing near you. Only downside is that artists don't get a great deal of royalties from what I've heard. Still, if the music industry had took its head out of the sand 15 years ago maybe it would have had more say in how music's listened to these days

Oh my, that's shaping up very nicely.

I can't upload any photos as I've reached my 30mb limit. I can't find out how to delete old photos from My Media. Any ideas?

So, I've been watching the videos that Skej21 mentioned on here ([url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/211770-studio-rescue/"]http://basschat.co.u...-studio-rescue/[/url]) and I've been reading Mike Senior's brilliant book - Mixing Secret for the Small Studio ([url="http://cambridge-mt.com/MixingSecrets.htm"]http://cambridge-mt....xingSecrets.htm[/url]) and I'm going to tackle the first major issue - my room. So here are a couple of photos of my current set up and a list of things that I think/know are a problem right off:[list=1] [*]I'm in the corner of the room. This is a big no-no but I don't have the space to position my desk anywhere else without basically turning my living room into nothing but a recording studio. The wall on the right would be ideal but it has a radiator on it (problems with blocking heat in the winter and also my PC is a gaming PC and heat doesn't mix well with it). [*]My speaker stands for my BX5As are my Tannoy E11s! I'm pretty sure this isn't ideal however it does put them at around head height. [*]I have no acoustic panels/bass traps. [*]Whilst seated, I've got the wall immediately to my right and over to the left (8-9 feet away) is a patio door with a blind over it. [/list] In terms of what I can do room wise, I could move the desk away from the wall by about 6 inches and move it to the left around a foot. I can put some acoustic foam and bass traps up. I mix mainly on headphones (Superlux HD 662F - made by the company who makes the components for AKG and they look remarkably similar to some AKGs. They sound very similar to my m-audio monitors too which helps. I also sense-check the mix against my Tannoy E11s which go through a Rotel RA-930 AX amp (both over 20 years old and still rocking out). I heard that the Tannoys used to be used for studio monitors due their very nice flat response. These are unique however as the Tannoy rep and my older bro took them apart, rewired them and sealed up the cabs. My two most recent mixes (to get an idea of where some problems exist) are: [url="http://soundcloud.com/mornats/when-things-come-out-at-night"]http://soundcloud.co...me-out-at-night[/url] [url="http://soundcloud.com/beautiful-skin/missing-busses-1"]http://soundcloud.co...issing-busses-1[/url] Room pics: [attachment=138557:room1.jpg] [attachment=138556:room2.jpg]

This is great, I've flicked through all 12 to get an idea of the types of things he was doing. Nice to see that he's fixing bedroom studios rather than dedicated rooms. So now hmm, I'm thinking about my setup and how I can improve it. I'll start a thread about it I think. My main problem is that I probably can't get into the centre of the room so I'll have to see what I can do to work around this.

I do predominately open mic nights around Bristol and I just plug right into the PA all the time whether I'm using my active or passive bass. Charic's right about there being no monitors though, it gets a bit hairy when I can either not hear myself or only hear my bass booming around the place.

They look quite refreshingly different too, which appeals to me greatly. Oh, my avatar is an instagrammed Dean Hillsboro by the way!

That's very pretty And just for the hell of it, here's another pic of my SB320 fretless: [attachment=138333:IMG_0710.JPG]

Guitar Rig 5 is more suited to guitars than bass in my experience. It's only got the one bass amp and it's ok but not great. I've ended up going in clean and using minimal effects with Guitar Rig. That said, it's great for guitars and has some nice reverb and other effects units in it. I'm just using it less and less for bass and more for vocals and guitar now. I've also got Ampeg SVX which I'm playing with a bit more now and it's got more options for bass (being dedicated to bass that's no surprise). The advantage that software has over hardware is that you essentially record clean and add the effects in your DAW. I'm guessing that with a podfarm you lose this advantage? Please correct me if I'm wrong! But I can't really comment on the podfarm beyond that as I've never used one. You can grab a demo of Guitar Rig (Guitar Rig 5 Player) that comes with a few amps, sadly no bass amp but you can try any bundled effects at least. Also grab a demo of Virtual Bass Amp Pro as that's quite highly thought of too: [url="http://www.studiodevil.com/products/virtual_bass_amp_pro/"]http://www.studiodevil.com/products/virtual_bass_amp_pro/[/url]. Oh, and IK Multimedia do a trial version in their free Custom Shop software too: [url="http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/ampegsvx/"]http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/ampegsvx/[/url]. So give 'em a go really before deciding.

Yep, I've got one. Nice non-standard shape, really thin neck, nice to play. I can't get a great sound out of it but an upgraded pickup would help a million here I think. Sounds punchy like a bass with a MM pickup should. It just sounds a little thin for my liking. Anything else you want to know about it?

At least tell us the colour!

I'm going out to buy a Fender P to keep in the loft as it looks like we've gone back in time to the 60s. It'll be worth a mint when we return back to 2013.

iRealB was recommended to me by my bass tutor but it's much of a practicing/learning tool than anything. Grab some song off their forums and it'll play a backing track to it and show you the chord progression. Pretty cool And you can transpose it to other keys very easily and change the tempo. Great for jamming to. I chucked this together last year some time as a mini guide to getting set up recording quite cheaply: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/176553-mini-guide-to-starter-gear-for-recording-cheaply/"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/176553-mini-guide-to-starter-gear-for-recording-cheaply/[/url]

Yeah, I do like the tone but have the same problem you had with the differences in volume. My J pup is almost touching the strings whilst my P is as far down as it can go and they're still a little unbalanced. Better than it was though but still unbalanced.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1372529373' post='2126919'] only just seen this thread. The tanglewood/overwater I tried in the shop was, IMO a midling made bass with some of the best pups I had heard in a long time- I even emailed overwater to see if they sold them separately! [/quote] Were they the P/J passive pups or the active soapbars? I've got both across my two Tanglewaters and the active soapbars are impressive sounding. I do love the sound of the P/J but have also played a bass with some Wizard pickups in and loved the sound of those. Hmm, gotta think now!

Thanks for reporting back, I'm quite tempted to chuck a pair in my Tanglewater classic now. I bought my bass second hand so the price of those pickups will be around half what I paid for the bass which is quite a pricey sum when compared to the bass. Do you reckon they're well worth the money or can similar ones be found cheaper?

When you end up taking 50 takes to get a bassline down you'll start realising that this IS practising

[quote name='pierreganseman' timestamp='1372433400' post='2125741'] just don't believe people saying the tanglewood / overwater are as good as the uk one... there's a reason why one is worth 500... and the other one 2500/3000 you can't go wrong with them in the end, what ever people may think of, there's a reason they've been used by full time pro since the 80's [/quote] I've got two of the Tanglewaters and rate them very highly for the money. However I had the pleasure of playing Nigel Clutterbuck's 1980s era Overwater Classic and it's in a different league. Simply beautiful.

60 votes so far, that's brilliant! Thanks to everyone for listening and voting and commenting. I'm already bouncing up and down in anticipation of the next one!

It's normally an elapsed week for me to write a track and get it up on Soundcloud. I usually spend a full evening laying out the main instrument parts. I usually start with a rough beat (to which I add variety to later on once I have more instruments down) then I put on the various instruments. So after 3-4 hours I'll have a working version of the song. Then I spend an evening or two (1-3 hours each evening) tweaking, mixing and adding little flourishes. Then I spend the rest of the week mixing, listening on various speakers/headphones and working out any problems. I try to leave more time between listens as the track nears completion as you just can't hear anything anymore after listening to it for so long.