BigRedX

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1428058169' post='2737539'] Sex. [/quote] Thank you. It's all matt back except the part of the logo, frets strings and bridge saddles. The metal parts are all anodised.

[IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/DSC01114.jpg[/IMG]

AFAICS the tablet version needs to be Windows because of the pen interface. However there appears to be a desktop computer version either available or at least in development using the Wacom interface. This means that a MacOS version should be possible even if iOS isn't.

A recording of a gig is not the same as the gig itself. For a start one of the most important elements is missing - the visuals. As Bilbo says don't rely on a recording of a single gig. If you record the next 5-10 gigs and they all show the same"problems" then maybe you should do something about them. But the audio from a single gig in isolation is not necessarily a concern.

If it's the real thing and not a copy then TBH eBay is your best bet. Even after eBay and PayPal fees you'll still be paying out less then the commission most musical instrument shops will want to sell it for you. The bass remains in possession until it is sold and therefore you don't have to risk it getting accidentally damaged while it's on display in the shop. And probably most important of all you reach a far larger audience of potential buyers than anywhere else (and more so if you are prepared to ship abroad) including this forum.

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1427829253' post='2734849'] From a punter's perspective, I'd say live music is struggling to appeal to me. I don't go and watch covers bands or tributes generally and the original bands on offer just aren't doing it for me. Most of the artists and bands I'm listening to are usually from the US and don't gig over here...even if they did they don't gig within an 8 hour round trip to see them. [/quote] At the risk of coming across as unsympathetic, think if you live somewhere "off the beaten track" then you really can't expect to be well served by live music and especially so if your tastes run mainly to bands from the US. I know because I spent a year living somewhere like that in the late 70s. During that time there were a grand total of 8 gigs locally by known touring bands of which only 1 was a band that I really wanted to see. Most tours didn't come any further west than Cardiff which meant either getting the train (expensive and you ended up spending the night on the station platform as there were no trains back after the gig finished) or hitching (no one I knew had a car back then). Fed up with all of this I moved to Nottingham, was going out to gigs at least once a week and all by bands that I actually wanted to see (and that was before Rock City had been built!) And who actually GOES to see covers bands? From my own experience my covers band audience were either friends of the band members or people who would have been in the pub anyway. When I've been in the audience at a covers band gig it's either because I know someone in the band or because I'm there to check out the venue on a gig night. I can't help but think that the majority of the audience would be better served by a well-stocked juke box hooked up to a decent sound system.

As promised here is one of my older analogue tape recorded tracks: [url=https://soundcloud.com/bigredx/love-junkie-by-sugarbox]"Love Junkie" by SugarBox[/url] This was done on a Tascam 238, 8-track cassette recorder which managed to cram 8 tracks onto a chrome compact cassette running at 3.5ips with DBX Noise Reduction. The vocals, guitars and bass were recorded onto the tape along with SMPTE timecode which was used to drive a Macintosh Quadra 650 running a MIDI only version of Logic (either 2 or 3) this in turn controlled an Ensoniq EPS16+ sampler for the drums and loops and an Ensoniq ESQ1 for the synths. There was also an Akai S2000 sampler which was used to fly in the extra backing vocals (sampled from the multi-track tape) at the end. There was a fair bit of track juggling to fit all the instruments and vocals onto 6 tracks (the track next to the time code had to be left free duet bleed issues). The final mix wasn't quite what we had hoped for, but unfortunately it was the last decent one we got before the cassette would no longer play back reliably due to having been over-used in the recording and mixing process! For anyone who likes this there is a whole album by SugarBox available on [url=https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/skin-tight/id463276864]iTunes[/url], or [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skin-Tight-SugarBox/dp/B005M067XW/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1427813964&sr=1-1&keywords=SugarBox]Amazon[/url].

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1427805259' post='2734418'] I'm not disagreeing with you. I meant that if the pubs are dying so too will the live scene. Obviously this changes from region to region. Good luck if you are having a successful time at the moment and long may it last. [/quote] We play all over the country and there are plenty of paying gigs available to us. I think that people expect the gig venues to remain the same over time, but that simply not what happens. I can only speak for what has happened here in Nottingham, but only a couple of the venues that were active back in 1980 when I moved here still put gigs on, and even just 10 years ago the venues were completely different ones to those operating today. Venues come and go, it's whether the overall gigging scene gets bigger that matter and here there's certainly far more, and far better opportunities for bands than any time I in the past as far as I recall.

[quote name='Number6' timestamp='1427801304' post='2734338'] Not mine.....gigs when we want them in our neck of the woods [/quote] [quote name='Norris' timestamp='1427802760' post='2734368'] Not ours. We are probably busier this year than we ever have been. Venues come & go. The ones that survive are the ones that ensure they have quality bands (-> decent money) on a regular basis (-> commitment). [/quote] Then I think it's probably down to how entertaining your band is an how proactive you are about getting gigs. I had to quit my covers band a year ago because the Terrortones were far more busy and after expenses had been deducted were actually getting better paying gigs. However that might have down more to general inertia and poor business sense on the part of the covers band than anything else.

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1427802373' post='2734358'] Pubs are dying.... Live scene is dying. [/quote] Not from where I'm stood as I continually keep saying. Maybe crap pubs and unentertaining bands are having problems, but compared with what the live music scene was like for me in the 80s and 90s getting decent gigs has never been easier.

Is this something mainly affecting covers bands then?

The thing that always worries me stability-wise is that with the use of light weight speaker cabs there is a danger of making your stack top-heavy. Those big old stacks were rarely a a problem because no matter how tall they were and how heavy the valve heads were, the cabs would always weigh more. Something like a Barefaced compact weighs only 10-11kg, and despite the fact that I have a light class D amp, with all the other items in the rack - multi-effects, tuner, wireless receiver, PSUs and mains distribution the rack weighs more than twice as much as the cab. Even a Super Twin doesn't weigh as much as my amp rack. I can't see the combination of a decent rack system on top of light weight speaker cab(s) being very stable.

Having done all the backwards effects and reverse reverb with multitrack tape, let me tell you it's way, way easier to do them on a DAW and it has the advantage of being able to audition the results faster to see if you need adjust any of the settings to get exactly the sound you want. If you want to hear a modern analogue recording click on the banner in my signature. This was made last year on an Otari 24-track tape machine and apart from some vocal and theremin overdubs recorded completely live. IIRC all the effects used in the mix were also analogue. In fact probably the only digital devices in use in any of the signal chains were my BassPod and my class D power amp... I'll post up some older things I've done over the next few days.

TBH there are only two things that I really consider in a bass: 1. Do I think it looks cool? 2. Can I afford it? Everything else will be dealt with once the bass is actually in my hands and being played through my rig with my band. For the most part the "numbers" are irrelevent since they tell such a tiny part of the overall picture of the bass. Plus the fact that I'm such an average player I'm probably not tuned in enough for them to make enough of a difference. Actually I find string spacing figures one of the most useless "numbers" because it only tells a very small part of the story. When I had my Sei Bass made, Martin asked me what string spacing I wanted. This was something I'd never considered before, so I went home and measured my existing basses and found that they all had different string spacings. However then I looked at what the string spacing was like at the point where I actually plucked the strings most of the time and found that they were all within 1.5mm of each other across all 5 strings (i.e. overall string width from B to G). Also I discovered that the bass I owned with the widest string spacing at the bridge also had the narrowest string spacing at the nut. So for me just having the string spacing measurement for the bridge simply doesn't tell me anywhere near enough. I would also need to know the spacing at the nut, the scale length, where the pickups are and how the bass hangs on the strap when I'm playing it, because this and pickup location will influence where I actually pluck the strings, and therefore what the string spacing was at the most important point on the string length to me. There are a couple of design features that might put me off if I'm undecided about a bass. Generally I'll avoid bolt-on neck basses with less than 24 frets as the heel and neck pocket will probably be in the way of some of the higher notes I like to use. Also I prefer angled headstocks as I don't like string trees, and I really can't be bothered with having to work out different excess sting lengths in order to get the nut break angles right.

Looking forward to seeing the photos.

That drop down panel is there because you are supposed to check, and if necessary adjust all those settings in conjunction with a calibration tape every time you use the machine. The equivalent section in an Otari 2" 24-track machine is housed in a huge cabinet about the size of a washing machine. The Terrortone Theremin is a Moog Etherwave from the days when the Moog theremins weren't allowed to sport the Moog logo in the UK - so a relatively recent one. Unfortunately on stage with Mr Venom it has had a hard life and is currently held together with glue, extra screws and a good helping of gaffer tape. The power supply input socket has recently failed, so I'm currently looking at more robust alternatives...

[quote name='funkgod' timestamp='1427455891' post='2730556'] About a year to two years ago you could still get a tascam msr 24 for about 600 700, It does seem tape is making a come back, as more and more people want a hybrid studio, just spotted this on ebay and yep their on the way up, [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tascam-MSR-24-track-24-channel-reel-to-reel-analogue-recorder-/141611889932?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20f8b9f50c#ht_274wt_975"]http://www.ebay.co.u...0c#ht_274wt_975[/url] [/quote] Blimey! That's a lot of money for a Tascam... The problem with machines of that level is that unlike a Studer they weren't really built to last. Fine for a decent home recording set up, but in a commercial studio, I can't see it staring up to the rigours of daily intensive use for very long. I wonder how easy it will be to repair or get spares even now? Also 1" tape - not a lot of tape width for each track.

[quote name='itsmedunc' timestamp='1427445350' post='2730370'] Check out the chicken bass!!!! I'm going to use it for my avatar!!! [/quote] It's a tenor guitar. Once you've read his website/blog the design ethos of his instruments becomes much more understandable. The one person I know who actually owns a Shonky guitar is very impressed with it.

There used to be (still is?) a venue in an old church in Derby where you played from what was essentially an enlarged version of the pulpit...

I've always used Interparcel's on-line chat on the occasions when I've had a problem with one of their non-UPS delivery services. Worked fine for me and has the benefit of being completely free.

Did you use double quotes like HJ posted? Didn't work for me either until I did.

You need to have the quotes around the phrase for it to work. Off the top of my head I recognised about 20 although I might not be able to put an exact user name to all of them.

I've been using UPS booked through Interparcel and over the course of the last 3 years I've yet to have a complaint about the service I've got from them. I've used them to send things all over the world. Every time I've gone with someone else for the sake of saving a few £s there have been problems. The thing to remember with couriers is that they are only as good as the weakest link in their delivery chain. So far none of the parts of the UPS chain that I've used have caused me or the person I'm sending the parcel to any problems. As an example you've found Citylink to be good, for me on the two occasions when I received parcels from them the service here in Nottingham was very poor.

For me sound checking is about making sure that everything that should be coming out of the PA is and with roughly the right balance in volume, and getting an acceptable on-stage sound.

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1427324824' post='2729050'] I'd guess everyone, sitting around of an evening noodling in front of the TV. I'd get told off if I stood up... J. [/quote] I don't think I've ever sat in front of the TV noodling. In the days when I still owned a TV if I was watching it, I was watching it and not doing anything else. If I wasn't watching it, the TV was either off or I was in another room doing something more constructive like practicing the bass or guitar standing up. ;-)