subrob

Done, good luck.

[quote name='kurosawa' timestamp='1351249549' post='1849194'] I have seen the 2x4 vs. alder "test." And what struck me right off was that the sound was compressed (the added tracks didn't get in the way). Yeah I ID'd the wood correctly by ear, but it's stupid to think all there is to sound is the filtration provided by a particular plank. A note has an envelope. It has a certain kind of attack, that is, it responds eagerly, or tops out. It has a swell, a duration, and decay. Many times I've seen it said "the difference in the wood is in the playing." Exactly. Playing is dynamic. Squishing all the expression out of music doesn't leave the most interesting components, especially not the ones we need to play dynamically and musically. Also, there are problem woods. I almost bought a body because of its weight. The maker offered aspen or Western red cedar, over a century old, capped with walnut or spalted maple. But having had problems with poplar (a poplar body I once owned gave every neck put on it horrible dead spots), I shied off aspen, which is related. Then when I learned that Western red cypress not only has a limited fundamental, but hits a ceiling where no matter how much harder you play, it doesn't get any louder, I found it misfit my style. I like a bass capable of letting me spit notes off the strings like little sling stones. I think whatever note I'm playing has to be the most important thing on the planet for me. The bass is a voice. I'm saying something. And so I end up finding most of the wood I like is alder. It doesn't limit me in any way. It produces an interesting sound, an involving sound. I can just let that one note ring out. I don't feel any need to ornament it, noodle around or anything, because it speaks so well. It has something to say of interest to my ear. I am not drawn to the mahoganies and their sound-alikes, nor maple. But according to sales, they are someone else's perfect voice. I have played compelling instruments made of hard ash and of walnut. Black korina is nice. I am about to try my first swamp ash body. I have always been drawn to maple necks, whatever the fretboard material, above mahogany. I have one all-wenge neck that is very authoritative, perhaps not as versatile as maple. I am very tempted to try it on hard ash with a single-coil P pickup, or maybe a pair of wide-aperture SGDs. It would probably be a one-trick pony, but what a trick! [/quote] I wanted to pick up on this post, and having digested this thread over the last couple of hours while also mooching through much of the complete works of Faith No More (I have the most awesome Friday nights!), this is the only post which seems to go anywhere near a point that sprang to mind a while back, while the topic seemed largely talking in charactersitics of timbre. In full honesty I know a bit more about the mechanics of drums than I do of bass. But, the bigger reason of that is because I was party to the distribution of drums, for a time, and towards the end of that time I got a little bit into product development ideas, which included gathering knowledge of tonewoods. While I was there, the manufacturer introduced a range of drums which were identical, several kit configurations, several lacquered finishes, but in two tone woods i.e maple and birch. All made in the same factory, all the same lugs, heads, hardware, paint finishes, all turned up in the same shipping container. We got a container load of those kits. I personally assembled (drum sets ship in russian doll format) and tuned up probably 10 to 15 of those, and I recall being surprised at the consistent differences between the quality of the attack and the percieved different EQ of maple vs birch sets. Now I get it that drums are an acoustic instrument, and when you come along with a pick up (i.e. a dynamic mic) the perceived tone changes radically as a result of that pick up and the electronics (especially mic distortion and compression treatments). However, i'm of the opinion there are totally transferable physical mechanisms at work here, in terms of resonance. Maple is a realtively hard wood, as a rule, birch being softer. This has significance in the attack of the note as the speed of energy transfer, the speed of sound, if you like, is faster in a harder, denser hardwood. A stringed instrument is clearly played in a different manner to a percussion instrument, but do they not have some similarity? A great drum sound has an an attack and a consistent musical decay; a complex and dynamic sound, full of harmonics. A bass note, especially a finger pluck and most especially a slap or pop (fire proof overalls are on at this point) is highly percussive. Perhaps variation in the quality of attack is where we ought to be looking if we want to understand the implication of tonewoods in our basses? I for one am pretty convinced, despite some excellent counter arguements, that there is a clear means of mechanical feedback from string to the 'chassis' and back into the strings, through the nodal points at the bridge, fret and nut. One other thing, I thought the 'blind test' experiments described were maybe a little unfair, as saying which is 'A' and which is 'B' is a hard thing for a brain to do, unless you already know what A and B sound like in the context of recording compression and the tonal response of your monitoring device. You could say both sounds are treated equally, but that doesn't mean to say that any given listener can do much more than guesstimate at how a recording might react to his/ her playback set up. Interesting learning with you, gents. That is all. Dont flame me ;P

[quote name='darren' timestamp='1392974343' post='2374732'] Inconvenient and much worse for the people who were evacuated from their homes. The top two floors of the mill need to be taken down apparently and it could be 3 days before residents can return - according to the local news. Could be tight for getting your gear. [/quote] Aye, so I hear... :/ Without meaning to sound too I'm-alright-jack about it I've only got an 8x10 up there as the rest of my gear is a bass bag, laptop type bag, and a pedal board case, that all travels light and leaves with me. Hoping its all fixed soon as my thin stringed brethren have many more thousands worth of gear left there and we're resigned to borrowing extensively for this next gig. The practice studios are in a seperate building in the grounds of the mill and checking again tonight the roads are still closed half a mile in either direction, so I guess that main mill building must be in quite a bad way. If you look at the build of those old mills you'd have thought they'd have withstood a hurricane. You have to feel for the dozen or so displaced families, and also the dozen or more small businesses that could get badly whacked if they wind up losing premises/ tools of their trade/ stock and be faced with set up costs and loss of trade elsewhere. We're friendly with the owner of a motorbike bits and paraphenalia store that's only a recent set up, I shudder to think how they might be getting on at the moment.

Probably 95% of a stingray for 30 to 40% of the dosh, all things being equal.

[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-26276502"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...hester-26276502[/url] So rehearsal tonight was pulled at very short notice, because we rehearse in a building close by. Apparently the bulldozers move on it tomorrow and there remain open questions about a) where we go to practice for the foreseeable and b ) if we're likely to be allowed in for our gear before Tuesday's show! Anyone else come a cropper like this, or just us...? :/

[quote name='subrob' timestamp='1390951602' post='2351767'] A 5 string of equal if not greater standing than my MM Sub. And a matamp. Both chronic conditions I'm afraid. [/quote] I have maturing GAS which has me hankering badly for a Carvin XB with a quilt maple blue burst top and black hardware. Similar to this:

A 5 string of equal if not greater standing than my MM Sub. And a matamp. Both chronic conditions I'm afraid.

What is 'growl'? I thought I knew but I probably don't

Another vote for the purple triangular tortex ones. The ink wears off quickly but they otherwise last forever. Until you lose them...

I bought a Presonus EQ3B the other day. It's a less than half rack 3 band parametric, which I've put in the FX insert loop. I spent an hour with it this evening, only with the MB's headphones out, but am absolutely thrilled with it so far. 41 quid delivered. Bloody marvellous.

I'd be delighted to generally recommend bigtone studios in salford to anyone looking for a good Manchester studio, having spent this last weekend there. Alas, the coming Saturday is spoken for by us, possibly sunday too. Good luck, nontheless.

As title. I appreciate that it's a busy site. Do conversation topics really have to be so vigorously compartmentalised though? Another busy forum I use has a total of 8 subforums (on the broad church of football), including off topic, which is very much more efficient imo. Any support for a rationalisation?

Where's the pick guard from? Mine shall be nude no longer.

If the simplest solution is the most reliable, it sounds like you might just need an overdrive pedal, imho. You're still running the valve stage, and by default with a slightly hotter signal when pre-distorted. The gritty tubes will compress the overdrive wave and smoosh it about in a nice valvey way, but without startling the sound man.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1384212192' post='2274185'] surely (and there are more who know more than me) but the benefit of bi-amping is splitting the signal to drivers that are best able to deal with that portion of the signal. The low end to a bass driver and the mids to a midrange driver etc. The crossover(s) you use will need to be right. I don't see much benefit of sending each pickup to a different amp if you're trying to get the "best and cleanest" sound. [/quote] This. Unless you wanted to di or creatively effect one of the pick ups output then it could be a cool feature. I'd suspect that it'd only otherwise create unpredictable results, if your objective were fidelity.

Damping factor is also halved.

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1383685634' post='2267757'] guitarists? [/quote] Drummers.

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1383116856' post='2260268'] Two guys have PM'd me saying they'll collect this but neither have replied saying when (it's first come first served as far as I'm concerned). This might be in part because the PM system doesn't seem to be letting people know they've got a new message. I'll give them a couple of days to reply and if they don't come back to me by Friday we'll arrange something subrob. Cheers Chris [/quote] Thanks fella

Very interested. When's convenient for collection? Cheers

I thought this game was going to be a revelation. But.. Have put it away and don't foresee getting it out again. I've got my hifi attached to my ps3 as the game suggests, but there still appeared to be an incurable discrepancy between the moving tab graphic and where my inner muso beat clock wanted to play. The upshot of this was a several week period where my confidence in my natural time shot through the floor, major yips. Not fun. I appreciate that this may have been some peculiarity in the tv or hifi set up as others don't appear to get this problem, so YMMV.