thisnameistaken

I'm up to 4 at the moment which is the most basses I've ever had, but it just means I've got two collecting dust.

Mine sounds best in my front room which has a large floor-to-ceiling bay window. Maybe the more glass the better? We'll all have to move into minimalist fishbowl penthouse apartments.

Yeah like I said the Maschine looks like it nearly fits the bill, if only they did one with a built in audio interface and onboard storage.

It doesn't look like anyone makes anything like that. :-(

The BR800 looks interesting but it doesn't seem to have any features for punching in drum patterns by hand or modulating effects like you'd get on an MPC-type device. I think I'd want more than just canned beats.

When making demos of new tunes I like to come up with a rough arrangement and instrumentation that the band can use as a basis for adding their ideas, but something that always bothers me about using a DAW for this is you've got to get the computer and the audio interface and whatever outboard kit and so on all fired up, and then you're stuck wherever you've set it all up - probably at a desk - trying to make some music, and DAWs are generally geared more towards production than creation anyway.

These days I struggle to find enough time to justify doing all this only to find that I'm not feeling especially creative that day. What would be ideal is if I had something I could just sit on my lap and start being creative with. And then put it down again, and pick it up again later if I get the chance, and so on.

So I'm looking for… something… to just quickly demo tunes and put arrangements together. Ideally some hardware interface with drum samples and soft synths on board and an audio interface built in so I can plug in a mic or a guitar or whatever, and a really well thought-out interface for stitching ideas together quickly.

I was looking at Maschine which seems like it's intending to be the sort of environment I'm looking for, but having to tether it to a laptop and audio interface leaves me in much the same space I was in before, with lots of bits of kit with wires in between meaning I'm likely to be stuck at a desk again. And it looks like Akai's MPC products are heading in that direction too.

I don't have an iPad and don't really like using them either, so iPad apps are out. Is there anything on the market that sounds like it would fit the bill?

Do you still need an iOS device to buy sounds for the H9?

Yeah I usually practise in the same room because my bass sounds better in that room, so it wasn't the room.

Gareth: I've heard that bowing the bass will open up the sound but I haven't tried it because I am terrible at it and the dog really doesn't like it! I have been practising regularly though so it hasn't been neglected.

Humidity might be something to do with it. I noticed it sounded really flat the other day when it was cold and rainy, and it sounded like a very nice bass this morning in the sunshine in my front room. I might get a hygrometer out of curiosity...

Sometimes my bass sounds really nice, it sounds open and acoustic and authoritative and rich, but sometimes it sounds fairly dull and muted and flat.

Why?

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1401450397' post='2463743'] Whatever you may think about Bono, there are a lot more people with far more dangerous ideas and intentions in far more powerful positions to do something about it than him. They're the ones we should be worried about.
[/quote]

You'll be saying we should be nice to Gary Barlow next.

Bono... What can I say about Bono that wouldn't just get converted to a string of asterisks.

A hundred?

I think I've played about two dozen in the last 25 years, and it's turned out to be plenty. Go play something else or try your hand at songwriting, arranging or production or something. Broaden!

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1401390405' post='2463229']
Edge wouldn't be my first choice to spearhead guitar design, but it should make for some AWESOME effects pedals...
[/quote]

Well, a range of multi-tap delays...

[quote name='bakerster135' timestamp='1401193651' post='2460960']
I think people are suggesting chorus, probably after the filter, as it will provide a bit of movement and a Unison/doubling effect and make the whole thing sound a bit fatter. I do this myself with a TC Corona after all of my synthy pedals![/quote]

I know what you mean, but I still can't hear any chorus on that track.

There is no chorus on that track.

I had pistoy D and G strings on my bass but I suppose 'enough' sustain is quite a personal thing. It wasn't enough for me.

I use an OC-2 for Dancehall stuff all the time, it's perfect for that. As was suggested above you just need to play everything an octave higher.

That's the Sleng Teng bass line, I think it was played on an SH-101, but yeah an OC-2 will give you the basis of it but you'll be missing a bit of the crispiness of the higher frequencies. With my gear I'd run an OC-2 into my Bugcrusher to add in some treble content and then use my Xerograph to filter some of the really high stuff out. It's worth noting though that the OC-2 does sound different depending on the signal you feed it with, and you might get something close to that by putting a distortion before the OC-2.

Avoid chorus, that won't work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjw7m-BKmQ8

The lack of sustain did for me. I think if the gig was all about playing rhythm they'd be the perfect string but if you're used to playing long purring notes from steel/hybrid strings you might miss that.

They would've gone out of tune every song anyway, next week will be more practical. :-)

I would put that earth wire back where you found it, this definitely isn't a problem with the capacitor, for reasons that others have already explained. Even if the capacitor was duff the bass would sound normal with the tone turned full up.

I once saw a Tina Turner impersonator in a nightclub in Wakefield because I wanted a late drink and it was the first place we came to. It was beyond terrible, but at least it wasn't a whole bandof fat men in wigs pretending to be Aerosmith.

Wow these have really come down in price! They are just as good as they were two months ago, someone should snap it up.

[quote name='deepbass5' timestamp='1400877896' post='2457913']
I would do this, actually step back and choose something complementry but supprtive, but my OC-2 is the last pedal i would let go, can be over done though[/quote]

I have seven effects on my board and three of them are OC-2s. To be fair two of the others are sort-of multis (M9 and an Octavius Squeezer) and one of the OC-2s is modded.

But thinking like a musician generally comes before turning pedals on, even when I really like pedals.

Can't stop listening to this album at the moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiir1qs7qqE