BigRedX

IIRC the Bas Extravaganza bass is off-the-shelf plywood bought from his local DIY warehouse.

3 hours ago, dyerseve said:

how on earth do you reach this conclusion? Surely if this was the case all basses would be made from plywood or MDF or any other readily available and cheap material...

There's plenty of basses made out of plywood - and not all of them are cheap MiJ 70s copies. 

Here's one from Bas Extravaganza:

And another from high-end luthier Jens Ritter:

And TBH there's a fine line between multi-laminate which appears to be a perfectly acceptable construction technique and "plywood".

If you are starting from scratch, it doesn't really matter which DAW you pick, there will be a big learning curve but once you have got to grips with your DAW that will be the one that you'll probably stick with as learning another way of working will just be too much hassle.

I terms of standard features AFAICS all modern DAWs are on a fairly even footing. However if you intend to do a lot of work with MIDI instruments (either external or plug-ins), rather than simply treating it as multi-track tape recorder, then I would go with a DAW that has its roots in sequencing such as Cubase, Logic, or Digital Performer, and steer clear of Reaper or ProTools.

I would also steer clear of anything that uses hardware copy protection especially iLok. IME these devices fail at the most inappropriate time and as many iLok users discovered the zero downtime option doesn't always work.

Intersting insomuch as I was surprised by how few of the musicians interviewed hadn't been "screwed over" by their employers. Maybe there were plenty with less charitable things to say about the "stars" they played with that could not be included for legal reasons?

However I though it was much too long. Under an hour would have made a much tighter documentary and nothing important to the main narrative would have to have been left out.

Ultimately it re-enforces my opinion that the musicians who do well out of the music business are the ones who also write and/or produce the popular songs. Not the guitarists who play the killer solos.

1 hour ago, Twigman said:

Cakewalk Sonar

Lifetime updates forever package

Has just been discontinued by Gibson (not the first time they have done this with music software they have acquired) so your lifetime updates are now worthless.

1 minute ago, lowdown said:

Transcriptions turn up in this very 'General Discussions' forum as well, are all these to be removed unless cleared ?

Talk Bass and many other musicians forums have Transcriptions & chord sheets on their sites, I wonder how they deal with it?

I don't know.

At a guess I would say that TalkBass is probably big and affluent enough to have some sort of financial agreement in place with the relevant royalty collection agencies to cover themselves. The other forums either do the same or are small enough to be currently under the radar. 

As I said, it only takes one copyright holder to make a fuss...

16 minutes ago, lowdown said:

Where does that leave all the transcriptions down in the Theory & Technique section? (Note for note lines with accurate chords and correct tune titles - PDF & links)

Just curious really.

Having just had a look there (it's not a part of the forum I would normally venture into), I think that Basschat is on dodgy ground by allowing these to be published, hosted and linked, until they have received proper legal advice that tells them otherwise. If there are transcriptions there have been made available with all the copyright holders' blessings then they can stay, but probably everything else will need to be removed or at the very least change the status of the forum to be invisible to anyone who is not a Basschat member (which IIRC will also stop it form being indexed by Google and other search engines). 

Remember it only takes one over-zealous copyright holder to take exception, and it could be the end of Basschat.

I don't really find YouTube a very useful resource. It's too full of waffle, self-promotion, and takes far too long to get to meat of of the "lessons".

Plus I don't think there is any real substitute for one-on-one personal lessons when it comes to music. I certainly can't tell if I doing sometime right or not from a video tutorial, I would need to teacher to be there with me giving instant feedback. My guitar, bass and keyboard playing is full of nasty in-grained habits which over 45 years of playing I have finally managed to make work for me. I don't want (or have time for) the same to happen to my singing.

14 hours ago, ped said:

I think it’s because it’s missing the word ‘in’

OK enough legal chat (unless we have a lawyer onboard) - leave it with me. Thanks. 

Thanks Ped. I'd have never seen it myself.

I also think that it might be a good idea to remove the link in the OP until you are 100% sure that publishing this is not going to land Basschat in legal trouble for copyright infringement.

10 hours ago, ambient said:

Amazon sell separate D'Addario strings, just buy maybe a 125, 105, 085, 065, or whatever your preferred gauges are.

IME buying a 5-string set and chucking away the G, nearly always works out cheaper than buying individual strings. Also that low B is way too light gauge compared with the others. For those gauges I'd be looking at a 135 minimum.

1 hour ago, edstraker123 said:

Hi Daniel what's the bass - it's gorgeous ?

It's a Reverend Mercalli.

I suspect there is also an element of maintaining the "vintage vibe" behind Ampeg's continued use of jacks instead of Speakons. They would probably also still be using Bulgin mains connectors if they thought they could get away with it ;-)

2 hours ago, charic said:

I'd be giving @mcgraham a shout

This was indeed my first thought, but it appears that he hasn't been on Basschat for almost 3 years, and if my internet stalking is up to scratch this is him now, and TBH I can't afford the rates he charges for the amount of lessons I'm probably going to need.

135 tends to be at the heavier end of the scale for a low B so unless the rest of your strings are heavy gauge that should be fine. There should be much to do regarding the truss rod going from G-E to D-B, it might need slackening off a bit as the low B is lower tension than the high G. Most of the work would be widening the nut slots. 

6 minutes ago, bassace said:

No  I’m not a lawyer specialising music copyright (sic).  But take it from me, chords are not subject to copyright.

Are you 100% sure and prepared to stake all your worldly possessions on being right? 

BTW being dyslexic the only way I can make sure what I type is right is if people point out my mistakes so please what is wrong with the phrase "No  I’m not a lawyer specialising music copyright" to warrant it having a "sic" after it in your post? Because I can't see anything wrong with it.

Start by trying the 5-string set with the same E A D and G strings that you would normally use, but make sure that the low B is at least 128 minimum for a 40 - 100 set. IME most low B strings are too low in tension compared with the rest of the string unless you go slightly heavier than normal.

However getting a good balanced sounding and feeling low B is a bit of a dark art and you may have to trial and error your way through several sets to find what works best for you. Unfortunately what works for one player on one bass won't necessarily work for you on your bass. 

11 minutes ago, bassace said:

Melodies are copyright, chord sequences aren’t.

Are you a lawyer specialising music copyright and prepared to offer your services for free to Basschat should they need it?

Courts make all sorts of weird decisions when it comes to music copyright. It would be a pity to see Basschat disappear due to poor advice.

Apparently when I was a boy I had a lovely singing voice, but adolescence combined with a love of shouty rock and punk music plus the fact that really don't like how my voice sounds when recorded (much like the Red Dalek) means I haven't really done much singing for the last 40 years.

However I think I'm missing out a lot in my musical development by not being at least a competent singer, so I've decided to look at getting some lessons in order to improve the, pitching, range and tone of my singing. Is there anyone in Nottingham that Basschat members would recommend? I am really looking for a personal recommendation rather than a list of Google results.

I'm not looking at becoming a fantastic lead vocalist, but some help in being able to provide a competent vocal performance that I would not be embarrassed about is what I am after.

Thanks in advance!

11 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

I'm not a lawyer, but I've always held the idea that chord sheets aren't copyright. Melodies could be (and usually are...), or whole songs, but not series of chords. I'm a member of several other forums that make available, either as sites or by member's posts, chord sheets for many styles. It won't hurt to check, I suppose, but the example posted is, in my (non-legal-eagle eye view...) OK to have and to hold.

So I'm sorry Dad but your opinion on this matter is simply that, an opinion, and won't help Basschat in the slightest when a big copyright IP lawyer comes after them and closes the forum down.

If you'd taken the time to read through the two links that Bluejay posted, the general consensus appears to be that while a chord sequence on its own isn't subject to copyright as soon as you associate that chord sequence with a song title then it does become copyrightable.

The safest thing is for Basschat to hold off publishing this information (and personally I'd also remove the link in the OP and any subsequent post that quotes it just to be safe) until they have taken some serious legal advice from qualified to give them the right information in this matter.

Sorry to be a bit of a killjoy, but in these instances it always better to play safe than to be sorry. Personally I like Basschat and wouldn't like to see it closed down.

Simply go to the first post in the thread and click edit.

2 minutes ago, ped said:

As far as I know, unless it’s official sheet music being shared, enthusiast made resources are fine. Any idea who I could ask otherwise?

If you are a member of the MU maybe now would be the time to take advantage of their free legal advice service. Personally I wouldn't risk it without it being approved by some with specialist legal knowledge in music copyright and IP.

The best DAW to use is the one that most closely matches the way you want to work, or failing that the one that majority of people you collaborate with use. Other than that they are all much of a muchness these days when it comes to features, so I'll take ease of use and ease of transferring projects between different machines over everything else. 

I'm a Logic user because back in the mid 90s when I bought my first computer for music, the person I was mostly collaborating with, was also a Logic user and that meant it was simple to exchange song ideas. Left to my own devices I'd have probably chosen Studio Vision, because of all the DAWs I'd seen this was the one that most closely matched the way I'd like to work. Luckily I didn't because within a couple of years it was dead following Opcode's acquisition by Gibson - a similar fate that has recently befallen Cakewalk. 

TBH once you've got used to how a particular DAW works its becomes easier to use, and you are going to be reluctant to change hence...

And that for me is the next most important thing when it comes to picking a DAW. How long is it likely to be around. Logic is pretty safe because it is one of Apple's core Pro Applications, as for the others it very much depends on the whims of their parent companies. The future for ProTools has been looking particularly dodgy for the last couple of years with Avid's on-going problems. Plus their reliance on the less than brilliant iLok copy protection.

And that brings the last key feature - copy protection. Reaper doesn't need it because it's essentially free and if you are going to pay for it, then it is stupidly cheap. Logic is also relatively cheap (certainly these days the full version cost less than the price an upgrade used to) and is tied to your App store account so it doesn't really need anything more than that. Personally I'd be suspicious of anything requiring an iLok to function. Whilst the idea is excellent the implementation is less than brilliant, and if there is a problem with iLok it can render all your iLok protected software useless, as has happen several times in the past few years to large numbers of their user base.

It's a good idea, but I suggest that Ped and the other Basschat owners check that there are no copyright issues with any of the songs published. It would be a terrible thing if Basschat got closed down for IP infringement. 

1 hour ago, Barking Spiders said:

hmm are a bit I'm afraid. i've already got two electric fretless basses. Thing is people at this pub just pick up guitars, bongos, whatever is around and just get on with it. No faffing around with tuning up, counting in etc. I 'd just wanna be able to whip out a bass and join in. Might just stick with bringing along my banjo instead.

Unfortunately that's not going to happen with an acoustic bass guitar unless the only person you want to entertain is yourself.

39 minutes ago, M@23 said:

Interesting. I love a 9th, but wouldn't omit the 3rd unless it was an 11th, for jazzier chords. 

3rds never sound properly in tune to me on the guitar so for instance in an A chord I'll always swap out the C# for a B.