ironside1966

Are the USA fenders worth the money, are the Jap ones just as good?

I always wanted a USA fender Jazz but after seeing this post, Found an interesting 'finish' quirk on my jazz bass,
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=26434&st=0"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=26434&st=0[/url]

this has really put me off fenders, such lazy workmanship in the routing send the wrong signals when they are selling a bass on American craftsmanship, so looking for other alternatives. I know you need to try a load of basses to find the right one this is just a hypothetical question at the moment

Lakland skyline, G&L Tribute, Cort GB94 are they on par quality wise as a USA Fender?
Also Geedy Lee jazz bass and other Jap fenders how do they compair with a USA Fender.

Anything from the first 2 Paul Young albums
No Parlez,
The Secret of association,

Oleta Adams Get here
All great Pino palladino lines

Or Garry Numan’s albums
I Assassin
Warriors
All full of great fretless bass playing.

there is always good old Jaco

I probably would use real hi hats and cymbals, especially the ride cymbal if they are important part of your groove, maybe just use two overheads or you can use spot microphones if you prefer.
If you use just the close miked samples of the drums along with the cymbals and Hi hats microphones or over heads, you can use your own reverb, a good convolution reverb can imitate some great drum rooms, or a plate for a more processed sound.

If possible I would record both audio and midi then pick the sounds most suitable.

Try to stay away from big overproduced sounds as the can sound artificial in the mix.

Using sampled drums can sound seamless and great if done with care, if your drummer uses a lot of articulations and drags it might be worth considering using a real snare.

If you are new to recording I would try to keep things simple and just use midi with triggering Ez drumer.
But if you have plenty of time experiment se witch works for you.

Good Luck
Post the results if you can

Well done Prose for bringing out good value for money guitars, keep up the good work.

I was looking in to bass around your price range and did consider one of yours,

Two things put me off your basses.
1 wanted a Jazz
2 I had no idea what they sounded like,

Maybe some sound clips or a video of your basses will help sales, or at least a good review from someone in this forum.
I bought some Irongear guitar pickups from a new company called Axtec starting and still happy with them because I liked what I heard from the sound clips.
The clips where nothing flash no grate playing with nothing added to give a false impression, when I fitted the pickups to a Stagg cheap Les Paul the guitar did not sound a million miles away from the sound clips

[url="http://www.bonza.co.uk/"]http://www.bonza.co.uk/[/url]

Have you had it checked out , are the valves ok.

It is a sad fact that there are people out there with the windows open on a cold winters day standing by the phone, waiting to ring the council if they get the slightest hint of the sound of live music.

also when people buy the house near a pub it is reflected in the purchase price. so it is unreasonable to complain about moderate noise levels from the venue.

There are also bands out there who wont play a reasonable volumes also, no matter how fair the venue and residents are.
I have lost count the times I have seen bands in small empty pubs with large distorted PA rigs going full pelt at unbearable volumes.
The standard response is we are a rock band we are meant to be loud.

I don't mean play quiet, just play to the surroundings with consideration for others.
it just takes the actions of a few inconsiderate bands to turn the residents against the venue and spoil it for all.

Scales can be confusing but you have some good replays here.

This is worth a look Dave Marks walking bass lessons on you tube, walking bass is a great way to understand how cords a built and learn your way round the neck.
It may make more sense to you if you have no formal training

[url="http://www.youtube.com/user/davemarks"]http://www.youtube.com/user/davemarks[/url]

Sorry Bassicinstinct I didn’t mean to be personal and was not referring to you, when I read my post back. I can now see that it sounded patronizing.
I was actually trying referring to people I have known and have worked with in the past.

I can understand the neighbours complaining even if it is one night a year if the volume is excusive.

I try to look at things from all sides
I personally think it is the hotels duty to inform the booker that the venue is not suitable for live bands,
If the booker insists on a live band then the venue has every right to insist on volume restrictions.

When the band turns up who are informed of the restrictions, it is fair to say that the band are expected to accommodate the hotels wishes on volume. But if it turns out that it is imposable for the band to play then the fee should be met in full.
This all should be agreed beforehand.

The problem lies when hotels or bands just take the booking and pocket the money without any regards for the bookers wishers.

PS you will always get dickheads in charge of venues making life harder then needs be.

I can understand why people disagree with me.
But in the nicest possible way, being a professional is completely different to how you think being a professional is when you are a armature or even semi pro

A band is there to offer a services to clients, they are not pop starts there is no good throwing your dummy out if things don’t go your own way.
As I said if you don’t want to play ball cancel. This is some one big day remember it is no good to any one turning up putting petrol in the van then going home.
I do not advocate doing a gig at all costs especially if there is risk to equipment or life.

Sorry the management turned out to be dickheads, hope you feel you went about things the right way because Any well done for acting like professionals

hope this helps

I changed the neck on a cheap Gould jazz bass yesterday.
It seemed to have a plywood middle with real wood wings.

Is this strange, or common on cheap basses, would I benefit by spending a little more money on a better body?

It actually sounds ok since I put a Gotoh bridge and some Wizard 84’s on it

IMHO The Wizards will make a shovel with a bit of string sound good.

Can you message the seller through to confirm it is him.

I think he had a little shop in Barnsley in 1980’s.
I don’t think they were anything to get excited about.

A lot of the time the people involved with the wedding try to micro manage every last detail, even down to the bands and DJ set list.
When the night comes and the entertainers ignore what the have spent week of sleepless nights planning and record collection rummaging, it upsets them thinking all the hard work been for no reason.

Situations like this are best addressed before hand, or when taking the booking if pos able.

[quote name='Sean.Robinson' post='257628' date='Aug 7 2008, 09:56 PM']Hi, i think im going to give up trying to fix my eden myself and have the job done properly by a good technician. The amp is a Eden VT-.40 head (i've made posts about it in other parts of the forum) and i live in rotherham and does anyone know of a good technician to take it to please?[/quote]


238 London Road,
SHEFFIELD,
S2 4LW
T : 01142682738
M : 07890744230

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=20602&hl=238+London+Road"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...238+London+Road[/url],

[quote name='Tengu' post='252221' date='Jul 31 2008, 06:16 PM']I really like all of those tracks. Musically I don't think you need to be doing anything differently. Everything you are playing fits within the context of the song and nothing strikes me as being out of place.

Recording-wise the drums and especially the vocals sound very dry to me, so you could do with dropping a little reverb on them. You have a very good bass tone and it is far more prominent than the other instruments so take a bit more time with setting them up.

The only other niggle is that some of the timing seems a little off. In parts the snare seems to be hitting just before the beat and other parts aren't as nailed on the beat as they could be. Do you normally use a click track when recording? Playing live you tend not to notice details like that but when recording you really need a good timing reference down before you start adding tracks.[/quote]


Agree with all the above, maybe try more overheads if the room sounded ok

if you focus on the individual tracks they sound ok, but IMNO they do not gel together as they should, it sound like the tracks where treated soloed to get the best individual sound rather then in the context of the mix.

saturation plugins can do wonders to help sound gel keep up the good work.

nothing bad to say about the bass sound.
Keep up the good work

Any comparisons with a Gotoh 201?

Lost interest in playing bass for many years, Ian Dury always gave me urge to play again though I never bothered until now.

No I don’t work in a studio, I only have a small home studio like you, with relatively cheap gear, I did work in live sound for a number of year though.
Now I mainly do custom baking tracks for singers or part track for bands.

I have few of the cheaper TFPro or Jomeek pre’s, and Art Dps Pre amps
For microphones it’s Red5 Audio or Se microphones+ 57’s mainly.
I am amazed at the quality of the gear condidering price.

All I say with is be honest with people, I am sure your recordings are more than adequate for a demo CD or to sell at gigs. But played alongside Metallica or Nickelback or even Nora Jones will it compete.

As for sound quality I think you can tell the difference if you listen to any well produced CD it has a sense of detail and space, front to back prospective.
INHO a lot of home recordings sound one dimensional a wall of sound, but nothing beyond that.
When we hear something louder or with more bass and top our ears tell us it sounds better, we have all seen the smile of a graphic Eq in the hands of a beginner.
But when you really listen you can tell it is at the expense of the so important mid range which carries a lot of detail.

What do people think of this, is it better then a Squier?
It looks better IMHO
[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Electric-Bass-Guitar-by-Le-Marquis-N-Y-in-Sunburst_W0QQitemZ110193464541QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item110193464541&_trksid=p3286.m14.l1318"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Electric-Bass-Guitar...p3286.m14.l1318[/url]

I Know what you mean the same thing happened in my recordings in my teens, they sounded great in the studio but nowhere else.
And they had good gear also..

I think one of the problems with going in to a expensive studio is you need to be ready, and budget for enough time to do a proper mix down. On a different day then tracking if possible.

There is no good booking a day in the studio and doing the mix down in 10 minutes.
Who’s choice was it to stack 10 layers of guitar
I bet you think back now the time sent putting the tracks down would have been better spent mixing

This is why you can get better results in studios like ours because we can allow time to get the parts right and more time on mix down, even put in time for free.

Monitors are suppose to be accurate and not enhance the sound in any way.
A lot of studios use grot boxes so they can judge the sound on smaller systems, that’s Yamaha Ns10 are still popular because if the mix is good on them then will sound good on any thing

[quote name='cheddatom' post='242839' date='Jul 18 2008, 04:03 PM']I'm not saying my views wont change, or that I wont be able to improve, or that experience isn't a good thing.

I am saying that the potential of a cheap set up is just as great as the potential for an expensive set up in terms of the "feel" or the music. Loads of people have released self record/mixed/produced stuff that's done well. What about The Streets? Another example of a record that sounds great but was put together in a bedroom.

I think that in 10 years time I might be a bit embarassed about the PEs or the like. With (no logo) there are already things I would change, but then I think most bands get like that about their records, no matter how much they spend there's always something you didn't notice at the time. I still think that there is a good drum sound on the last (no logo) CD and I will upload this new song i've been working on at the weekend which I am convinced will prove I can get a good drum sound with crap equipment.

You may think that "if you go on myspace it is ovious witch was done tracks are done in a pro studio and witch was not" but how many enquiries have you made about where these bands recorded their stuff? I have heard some awful mixes come out of pro studios, and obviously you have too seeing as you've had to fix them.[/quote]

I agree with all you say but I think there is a deference between good, great and top notch.

Not listened to Cheddatoms track s but I will do later.
I don’t want to get too personnel so I speak generally.

The sound is not all about drums, there is the detail. In the sound that doesn’t get lost in the mix.
How the sounds gel together.
If you need good monitors and mixing environment to hear this detail but it makes the world of difference.
A good drum sound is not rocket science but the backbone of a good drum sound is the room it recorded.
IMHO it is very easy to compress and Eq the life out of a drum kit but to get the sound of a great kit in a great room is much more of a challenge.
.

Saying that some bands like a low fi sound a lot don’t

I don’t know where I stand on this really because when I was a in my teens I was in a original band, I don’t think we were too bad but have no decent recordings because all we went to was crap cheap studios.
I know can do better recordings by miles on my home studio.
I have also remixed recordings from so called pro studios because my clients have not been happy with the recordings.

But I am also aware of the short comings of my equipment, ability and acoustic spaces.

In my view when you pay for a quality studio you pay for 3 things.
Good equipment
Good acoustics
And the experienced and ability of a engineer.

I think Rimskidog is right if you go on myspace it is ovious witch was done tracks are done in a pro studio and witch was not.

A decent set of monitors and acoustic treatment is the best investment any home studio will make.
As for experience look back in ten years and listen to the work you have done now and see if you feel the same about it.

I have stayed with cubase SX and windows Xp
I use Sonalksis And Kjaerhus for Eq and compression, Powercore card for reverbs. as I am not too keen on the native ones, but they are no worse than Logics.