BigRedX

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[quote name='paulbass' timestamp='1424602661' post='2698100'] Hi everyone, after a recent thread on here about liking fellow members facebook band pages i noticed that many of the bands have really good posters advertising their gigs etc. This looks more professional and appealing. What software is used to create these posters? We use a basic software that came with a camera we use but it doesnt do the fancy stuff like manipulate the wording so you can say curve the wording or put it on an angle. If that makes sense. I'm usually left to deal with this side of things and my knowledge is pretty basic to say the least! I can manipulate the pictures but not any wording. Any help and advice would be appreciated. I've spent hours trying to figure it out and its driving me up the wall Thanks in advance peeps! [/quote] In a way asking what software people use is the wrong question. The most important part of getting a good poster (or any other graphic design) is having a good idea and the talent to be able to realise it. While the right software can make some things easier, a decent graphic designer will be able to get excellent results with whatever they have to hand. The computer and the software on it are just another tool, just like the pen, paints, Letraset or airbrushes that came before it.

I saw Polysics at CBGBs in NYC and Fra-Foa in Kyoto, Japan. Neither visit was specifically to go and see the bands but I did alter the timing of my trip to NYC to make sure I was there when Polysics were playing. The Fra-Foa gig was just a happy coincidence that they were on tour to promote their second album while I was in Japan. In the late 70s and early 80s I would often go to gigs away from home with no means of getting home after the gig and no accommodation booked, just hoping that I would find either a suitable all-night cafe or somewhere safe to bed down until the first train/bus back in the morning.

I own a bass with no truss rod (although it is supposed to have some type of extra non-adjustable re-enforcement in the neck). There's a little bit more relief in the neck than I would like these days, but considering that the instrument is over 50 years old that's not bad.

Any decent DAW will be able to open MIDI files and assign them a track and instrument based on the their MIDI channel and program change numbers.

On the whole everything sounds better when it's louder - especially rock music. It's making it still sound good when it's quiet that is the true skill.

How durable are these inlay stickers? I tried something similar using Letraset shapes in the 80s and it all rubbed off in a matter of months even with a clear-coat over the top.

Thanks. I see that they've added a dedicated Octave/Volt CV input on the MS20 now, although it was always possible on the original version using a bit of lateral thinking.

Honestly I don't think that there was anything in particular that made me play bass. I just wanted to be in a band play music and write songs. When I was getting into music in the 70s many of the bands I was interested in had at least one member who owned and could play a vast array of instruments, and I wanted to be like that. In my first band everyone played everything they could get their hands on and instrumental roles were handed out on a song by song basis depending on who could play which part best. The main reason I found myself playing more bass guitar than the others was that I was the one who went out and bought one once we no longer had access to a bass that we could borrow from a class-mate. Between then and now I've spent time in bands playing guitar, bass and keyboards. Right now I'm happiest playing bass but that could all change if I decided to do something else musically.

A lot of what you get to do will depend on where you are staying and how much you want to walk. And if you don't want to do a lot of walking you are going to miss out on a lot of things. I would agree that Coney Island is worth a visit, but I only went there because it happened to be at the end of the line whose station was closest to the apartment where I was staying. If you are interested in that sort of thing a visit to the Transit Museum in Brooklyn is well worth the time. If you like art the Met, Guggenheim and MOMA are all essential. Don't bother going to the cinema unless you can stand the overwhelming stench of stale popcorn. Have fun.

[quote name='Huge Hands' timestamp='1424188740' post='2693627'] Probably because like any trade or skill, you learn from watching others and this is how it is usually done. As drums are often the most acoustic instrument on stage, it does make sense to get them under control first and then add things to them, but as with any artistic endeavour, I don't believe that there should be any rules on this, and if you (as in the engineer) want to start by checking the organists pedal board, then do it and stand by your sound. [/quote] Surely the vocals are the most acoustic instrument on the stage and also normally the quietest but also the most important from an audience PoV. Therefore it makes total sense to get them sounding good and mix the rest of the band around that.

There were tied sockets like that on the MS50 expander module (but without the mini-jack). Is the SQ1 Oct/volt or Herz/Volt for the CV control?

[quote name='tedmanzie' timestamp='1424181355' post='2693520'] That's what I thought, but now I've built it I think it's actually a bigger box than it would need if it was shipped as a finished unit. I guess a professional korg employee could put one of these together in an hour or two, and then the units could be tested and approved before shipping, so it seems like more of a 'concept' than a cost thing? [/quote] Ah… I didn't realise that it was without the keyboard. In that case it doesn't make very much sense at all. What are the extra row of sockets below the external input module for?

The best live sound I've heard in the last year, was The Human League where everything except the vocals was electronically generated, and a German Rockabilly band we did a tour with. Their sound checks were a complete eye-opener. Instead of starting with the drums, they started by getting the vocals as clear and loud as they could and then mixed in all the other instruments underneath. The instrumentation was fairly complex - drums bass, two guitars, sax and three-part vocals, but everything had its own space and the vocals were load and clear without feedback. The worst sound was HIM which was all drums, high register vocals only and the guitar bass and keyboards blended into a low-frequency mush.

[quote name='planer' timestamp='1424182424' post='2693536'] Un-relicing - there's a whole new can of worms! Imagine the uproar :-) [/quote] I've already done it once.

My guess is that as a kit it's possible to ship it in a far smaller box than if it was made up. I still have the home-made flight-case for mine. It's so big that I'm currently using it as a stand for my guitar combo.

Very poorly designed IMO. Look at all that stuff to get in the way of your picking/strumming hand. And where is the lead supposed to go? If I wanted something like that I'd have it unobtrusively built in to my guitar.

New bass shine for me every time. I'd also have absolutely no problem getting any old and shabby looking instrument refinished if everything else about it was what I wanted.

I don't see what's so unusual about it. It's essentially a P-Bass with a couple of design improvements.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1423924633' post='2690420'] Thing is with rock, you can tell by fashion if a rock fan is in to Gunge as opposed to say Thrash. Easy genre of rock had its own fashion and scene; punk; glam; goth; etc. Clothing associated with the rap scenes, or dance scenes seems to be generic. [/quote] Dance music genres are just as fashion image and scene conscious as rock. Just because you're not tuned into the nuances doesn't mean it's not so.

[quote name='Weststarx' timestamp='1423876690' post='2690098'] I constantly wish that I was born in the 60s, or 70s because the state of the music industry and the way its using sex to sell absolutely awful records nowadays is devaluing music. Some of you will probably argue thats always been the case but I don't think it is nowhere near as hilariously bad as it is now. Its seems now that the bigger 'booty' you have and the more you shake it on your music video, the more records you sell. [/quote] It really has always been the case. You would have hated it just as much if you had been around then. There was a huge amount of mass-produced identikit pop music being produced that had little to do with the music from that era that you love. If you were lucky there was one good band on each week on TotP, The Old Grey Whistle Test was on ridiculously late at night and that was about it on the TV. Same with the radio the odd decent track during the day and a few hours each week of Peel and Freeman.

Listen to what all the other instruments are doing and play something appropriate.

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1423868913' post='2690034'] Weren't Freur originally called a squiggly symbol? In that their name was simply a squiggly symbol, not an actual word/sound? J. [/quote] The first two singles just had the squiggly logo and no actual band name on the cover, although the promo version of the first single did have the name "Freur" on the actual label and featured a "pronunciation guide" as one of the tracks on the B-Side. After that they were forced by the record company to have a proper name on the record sleeves [quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1423922163' post='2690391'] That was Prince wasnt it?? [/quote] Long before Price ever thought about it. [quote name='Leon Transaxle' timestamp='1423936913' post='2690624'] That's right. I remember one of the music papers at the time referring to them as 'Elephant holding a Biscuit', or something similar. [/quote] IIRC it was Sounds who decided to call them Elephant Holding A Stick Of Rhubarb! As you can probably tell I was (and TBH still am) a bit of a fan. I loved the way everything about the band both image and sound-wise had been so carefully considered and was a complete package. And although Karl Hyde and Rick Smith went on to bigger things in the 90s many of the musical and production ideas that made Underworld stand out could be traced 10 years back to the records they made as Freur.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1423790115' post='2689186'] I've come across more string snobbery- no one has insisted I play X brand, but some have insisted I don't turn up with more than four strings. [/quote] If someone made that request to me, I'd be turning up with my Atlansia Solitaire 1-string bass, and the Fernandes PIE-ZO very short scale travel bass with built-in amp and speaker and Hello Kitty graphics.

Just been in the attic looking at what I have boxed up. It looks as though all my old IM&RW and Beat Instrumentals have gone, but I did find some old copies of E&MM and a magazine called The Mix, as well as some issues of Home & Studio Recording. The free tabloid size newspaper/magazine was called Making Music, but can anyone remember the name of the monthly A4 size mag that proceeded it? Was that Musicians Only? Edit: Just found a copy with a review of my band of the time in it the publication was called One, Two Testing...