BassTractor

A cool bass is a bass that is so stubbornly, nauseatingly traditional and boring that it brings me to the point of puking and near suicide. Thus, sadly, a regular sunburst P is cool. I'd like to think that original designs with an original sound and maybe original colours are cool, but they aren't. The cricket bats, Bongos and Stash Stainlesses respond to people's need for something that can comfort us and reassure us it's really, really, really not a regular sunburst P. That is not a cool thing to do. I just far prefer them.

Oh, spd off! Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1454106610' post='2966623'] I didn't think it was actually Jimmy Saville, but there's an uncanny resemblance & his dress sense is just as bad. [/quote] Aye. Before even seeing it really was Edgar, my own first thought was Savile too - despite even remembering that picture from like 40 years ago or something (this was before MIDI).

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1454060469' post='2965825'] My main board is my Korg Kronos and compatibility is essential! [/quote] Thinking about it, I was not longer sure I got this. The thread title says "alternatives TO keytars" (which I tried to answer, basically saying to just use a keytar anyway), but the OP in isolation may be read as "alternative keytars to Vortex". Could you tell what it is you're after? As to "compatibility", do you simply mean it must be a MIDI controller? Or maybe that it must be able to control more than just KEY ON / KEY OFF - - like velocity, aftertouch, mod wheels and the like? Alternatives to keytars include monophonic wind controllers like the cheap Casio DH-100 or the expensive Eigenharp or Akai EWI and similar offering, and there are loads of things that look like toys as well. Kadabra might do it. ARQ might do it. AlphaSphere might do it. Personally, amongst other gadgets, I've used the Casio DH-100 as monophonic MIDI controller on stage. It did the job, but it also needed the humour. However, it sends so few MIDI parameters that it also really needs either modding or other external MIDI signals and a MIDI mixer.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1454101723' post='2966555'] Is that Jimmy Savile? [/quote] Dunno if you're joking or not, or young or not, but it's Edgar Winter, brother of Johnny Winter.

Kadabra? Zoom ARQ? Nah. Just use a keytar and be cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmzieCAIwxY . See that?That was a Yamaha breath controller! If even that didn't convince you, here's the ultimate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZVj2HVQ0Kc

David Sylvian: Let the Happiness In http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7XDVs0PI0E

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1453816983' post='2963017'] we heard people were saying" they were good but took too long between songs" [/quote] Then again, people can be extremely wrong, can't they? After a Philip Glass concert once, I heard people were saying "That was all a bit repetitive,wasn't it?"

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1453723118' post='2962067'] Maybe there is a basschat serial killer............ [/quote] We'll see. When there's only three of us left, it's the one who died last. I know these things.

Wow! This is not only interesting. It's downright exciting and inspiring. Thanks so much for posting. Oh... and... er... I can't do that [b]at all[/b], but if I could've done it, I could've done it a lot better!

Forgetting XTC, one of my fave bands! Thanks, Spaced, for doing the right thing.

Nope. I fear the cost these days. Before, music filled my day and albums emptied my wallet. (6,000 albums in roughly 30 years. It ended 20 years ago.)

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1453665667' post='2961598'] UK didn't release any albums in the 80s. Their last album Danger Money was released in '79. Well someone had to say it. [/quote] What have I ever done to you that I'm in your ignore list? Oh... wait! You can't see this!

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1453590276' post='2960937'] OP said UK albums :/ [/quote] Aye. It's a trick question. "Danger Money" was released already in '79. - "So" - "Hounds of Love" - "A Secret Wish" (there's Very Important Brits involved) - "Cupid & Psyche 85" [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YxCjoAMvnQ[/media]

Three very interesting basses: - the Dave Smith/Tom Oberheim OB-6 bass, - the Arturia MatrixBrute bass, - the Korg Minilogue bass.

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1453543333' post='2960382'] ask him how much he would pay for five plumbers to come out on a Saturday night! [/quote] Then I realised most of us are plumbers by trade ourselves. That's why we can underbid professional bands.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1453382174' post='2958942'] [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/277326-rip-animal/page__fromsearch__1"]http://basschat.co.u...__fromsearch__1[/url] Already posted. [/quote] http://basschat.co.uk/topic/277260-die-another-day/page__view__findpost__p__2958847 Already posted.

Here's the electronic whiteboard. If you want to read more about it, the guy's called Iannis Xenakis, and the machine's called UPIC. Which reminds me of a kinda cool story: I want to become his pupil, and are allowed to visit him in his apartment. We sit down at the piano, and after a lot of talking and playing, he finally says: - "I accept you as my pupil..." My head is bubbling with excitement of course. Exactly at that point the door opens, and a young man enters. Xenakis undisturbedly continues: "...ah, there he is... ...and [b]this[/b] will be your teacher!" Not what I was envisioning! (Incidentally, I didn't get a grant, and, out of money, had to return home after less than two months - without having received any serious teaching.) [URL=http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/basstractor1/media/Xenakis%20-%20UPIC%20%20-%20%20500_zpsz3dx3jre.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r525/basstractor1/Xenakis%20-%20UPIC%20%20-%20%20500_zpsz3dx3jre.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1453306448' post='2958301'] I'd love to see photos please, if you can. [/quote] PhotoBucket is weird right now. Twice yesterday it took ages to upload before I got an error message about a failed upload. Today I find two copies of the same pic in my library. Anyway, here's the first. This one is on paper but meant for the computer IMS. Notice the time markings - that piece of paper is loooong! [URL=http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/basstractor1/media/Xenakis%20-%20Mycenae%20Alpha%20-%201978%20-%20excerpt_zps1x6wtaq0.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r525/basstractor1/Xenakis%20-%20Mycenae%20Alpha%20-%201978%20-%20excerpt_zps1x6wtaq0.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

You said the g*-word! You're welcome. I may have missed important aspects, so just ask if you want to know more.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1453314679' post='2958393'] Apologies if this has already been posted.... this is a fantastic tribute! [/quote] Great! I think he'd probably be moved by it. Twing Twang!

Ha! Memories of old days! Back in the Pleistocene I had several teachers who did stuff like that. I tried to upload pics, but PhotoBucket failed me. May try later. Anyway, we'd find ourselves on the floor studying scores that were several yards wide as well as deep, so you'd have to sit on them to read the top of the score the right way. One of my teachers found sort of a solution in drawing the score directly on an electronic whiteboard, and then the computer rather than a player would translate it into music. Not live though I think. IMS we had to make two drawings on the whiteboard, and after each drawing, the computer would have to analyse and store, before combining the data into one composition. Good times! . . ...that I don't want back.

It's a steal. Not perfec', mind, but a steal at £435. Great as a first synth, and great as an addition for the pros. Its competitors are either digital or a lot more expensive, so if its being analogue is important, then it's a steal. It is far from as deep as digital synths in the same price bracket though, so there's a trade-off here. Many people react negatively to the Korg slim keys. A Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard for example spawns a keybed of a different class, whilst Arturia and Novation do not. Unlike some other offerings on the market, all four voices always have two oscillators available, and all four voices have their own filter (the last part is a drawback for certain sounds, but generally a lot more lauded than criticised). It has the right amount of knobs and switches (29 and 14 IMS) to serve as a good introduction to subtractive synthesis, and also has some goodies under the hood that go beyond the first visual impression, as well as beyond bog standard subtractive synthesis. It has a sequencer built in.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1453124134' post='2956532'] it may be best just to continue as I am and hoping that the skill develops naturally over time. [/quote] Yeah, that would be my guess for now. These guys who are better at it have surely spent the time getting to know all the "landscapes", as well as (important!) the different peculiarities and artefacts. When I hear people discuss how a sound is made, they'll often narrow it down using the sound's artefacts. That demands experience, I'd think. In general and roughly speaking, I think it's safe to say that the older the original sound, the easier it will be to replicate. New sounds would generally require the same type of hardware or software, if not the exact same. BTW, tools like Fourier analysis, spectrum analysers and oscilloscopes come in handy as well in many cases. . Stuff I was thinking of whilst preparing my posts, and I don't mean to unjustly treat you as a beginner - I just don't know what you know: - FM-synthesis performed on a modular subtractive is a wholly different ballgame than the same settings (using the term loosely here) in a digital FM synth. One either needs to understand well-written descriptions of the differences in sound (seems near impossible to me) or one needs the raw experience. - A wavetable waveform morphing into another wavetable waveform whilst being filtered through one of a gazillion different comb filters seems near impossible to recreate to me, unless you've heard exactly these combinations and know which synth can do it. - Even the synth in Van Halen's "Jump", a simple subtractive patch you replicate in minutes if you have an Oberheim, cannot be done on a Polymoog or a Prophet 5 (which would probably come closer), and even a synth plugin with good virtual analogue capacities would need to have the right type of filter to pull it off. So just listening to the sound is not enough - far from it. All the best with this! Have fun!

[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1453123245' post='2956519'] If you scratch a bass it remains a musical instrument. If you refuse to play it, it becomes and expensive ornament. [/quote] Is there a worship smiley on this forum? Oh wait, KB detests smilies. LOL (that's shorthand for a yellow circle with three graphical elements inside it: two adjacent small vertical lines near its top and a rotated capital "D" near its bottom) In all seriousness, I'm really anal about this, but my reason commands my DNA to shut the Hull up. So I tend to use stuff as normal, and since they are new items that I'm not yet accustomed to, they tend to get an early ding before years of unharmed use.