thisnameistaken

I saw LFO a couple of times back in the day. It was never really my cup of tea but their tunes sounded amazing through a big sound system. I grew up in Wakefield and I was a teenager when the whole rave scene was blowing up so I knew a lot of people who knew Mark and bumped into him from time to time in clubs in Leeds. Chatting to him I always got the impression that they weren't trying to be revolutionary at all, they were just doing what came naturally to them. He made friends easily, very likeable guy, and basically a habitual music producer. Wish I was half as dedicated.

Hmm. This sort of sound is more difficult than you might think. The amplitude envelope is the difficult bit if you're using an analogue octaver like the OC-2, because as your note decays the octaver will start to think other harmonics are the dominant note and you'll get that glitchy sound you get when you ask it to track a note that's too low, or you'll get it gating too early or too sharply. Honestly this whole ADSR envelope thing when trying to reproduce synths sounds on bass guitar is a big problem. Of the pedals that attempt it, the best at re-triggering reliably is the EHX Bass Micro Synth but you'll still struggle to get it to trip each time on notes that are close together. It's probably why this guy built [url="http://www.mwfx.co.uk/product/retreat"]this pedal[/url], which I think is a genius idea but it does stretch the practicalities a bit. And for the record this whole ADSR problem is the reason why, after years of using a bass guitar and pedals, I bought a mono synth. I still use pedals for loads of stuff but this particular problem cannot be surmounted IME.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1413197898' post='2575650'] I very much agree with this. With two volume controls it's impossible to reduce the output level on the fly without altering the tone.[/quote] That's one nice thing about having a series/parallel switch. Wired in series, only one of the volume controls works anyway.

I really liked (and still like) their debut album, but I never liked Pinkerton, and after that they were rich and irrelevant, sadly. That debut album is still quality though.

I use a Line 6 M9 for stuff like pitch shifting, delay, phaser, occasionally the ring mod (basically stuff where I want tap tempo or expression control), and an Octavius Squeezer for envelope filter and fuzz, but the rest of my effects are singles because they're either things you don't really find in multi units (Bugcrusher, Frantabit, synth-modded OC-2), or they have such a good sound that the multi equivalents aren't good enough (Xerograph, OC-2). I'm not against multi effects but they never seem to do everything I want.

Both?

[quote name='GazWills' timestamp='1412796026' post='2572216']'tracking' is the new 'biro' [/quote] I guess people really don't understand what pitch tracking is. Fair enough. If I turned up the pitch control on your turntable and then declared 'Wow the tracking on that is perfect', you would think I was either being facetious or that I was insane, because all it did was speed up the rotation of the deck and obviously no pitch tracking is happening. Well, when you say that the tracking on a digital pitch shifter is perfect, you're making exactly the same mistake.

I did like the barbershop cover from Bioshock Infinite. I stopped and listened to the whole thing in the game. :-)

[quote name='GazWills' timestamp='1412719485' post='2571443'] does it really matter? [/quote] Yeah it does. People on forums are always arguing that one digital pitch shifter has better 'tracking' than another, and it's turning into one of those voodoo topics that everybody believes. The difference in performance of these pedals are down to two things. One is the quality of the transformation function. The other is the performance of the hardware which runs the transformation function. There is no tracking happening. The hard work involved in digital pitch shifting is much more subtle and faceted than that. If EHX are claiming 'flawless tracking' then they should be crediting every other company that produces a digital pitch shifter with the same performance, because they are all doing it equally well. Tracking is *not* a differentiating factor amongst pitch shifters.

In my last band in rehearsals we did a one-drop dub version of Sabbath's Iron Man with trombone and trumpet playing the vocal/guitar melody. We never gigged it but it sounded epic.

They're not tracking anything. Seriously. No digital pitch shifter actually detects the input pitch and matches its output to it. They simply take the input and perform a mathematical transformation on it and use that as a basis to resample it to modify the pitch. Which is why every digital pitch shifter does the job in much the same way, the only difference being the output of the resampling algorithm and potentially some audible latency in performing the transformation which is a simple matter of processing time (which is obvious when it does not vary with pitch - if you've ever used an effect which genuinely *does* track pitch).

I think the audio input just routes the signal through the filter, and the filter is very good and there are lots of modulation options, but no I haven't yet. I've got a couple of very good filters on my pedal board (which I will be running the synth through too).

I love that someone brought a Max patch to the thread. If your synth has two or three oscillators you could get a fifth and/or an octave in there which counts as a chord, right? It would sound nice and thick anyway.

The POG doesn't do any tracking. This is also a digital pitch shifter so - again - it won't do any tracking. So yeah, it will track just as well as the POG. It could be pretty cool for people who want a compact Whammy that isn't a Whammy. I've got a Line 6 M pedal though and the pitch shifter in that is really, really good.

What did they do to Brian Wilson's voice? Weird. I love that song and they are bastards.

Having never owned a 'proper' analogue synth though, I'd decided that's what I wanted. I haven't taken it to a rehearsal yet (Thursday will be its first outing) but I've spent every spare minute pissing about with the modulation options, it's a fascinating little box.

I would expect a Lakland to be a better bass than a Fender but I'd still be more likely to buy the Fender. The Lakland bridge is ugly, I don't like the knobs they use either, and I don't like blingy features like quilted tops and pearly pickguards. And they're too expensive. To be honest I also think Fender basses are over-priced so I wouldn't buy one of those either, or if I did I'd be looking at the used market, but at least they're not usually as ugly as all the Laklands I see.

I'd rather hear a band make mistakes because at least you know they're working hard, not relying on a DAW to ensure that everything is flawless. Although if you tour something for long enough it's going to become pretty routine, no matter how difficult it is.

Ok so today I went out to Gear4Music and tried some synths. The Arturia Minibrute sounded great but without patch memory wouldn't be useful enough live and I want a synth that will be tweakable and also easy to use live. So I came home with a Bass Station 2. And it's better than I thought it was. What a great little instrument. :-)

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1412252217' post='2567153'] Think that's Dave La Rue who's worked with Steve Morse in various guises so he's used to backing sh*t hot guitarists, he's an excellent bass player without being unneccessarily showy which fits these type of acts just fine. [/quote] I met Dave La Rue at a jam night once. I expected a thorough schooling in how to play bass guitar, but I got some fairly straightforward blues-rock while he stared at himself in a large mirror at the back of the stage.

There are two tones mixed representing each number, I imagine it would be very difficult to vocalise. I don't know if it's still the case, but it used to be possible to dial out just by tapping on the mouthpiece of a phone receiver. Before touch-tone phones, rotary phones simply emitted a series of audible clicks as the dial reset. You could mimic this by tapping with your finger and reliably connect to whatever number you wanted without needing access to the dial or key pad. I imagine it would still work, otherwise rotary phones would no longer work.

Nah nothing on YouTube. To be honest I've been recording my bands rehearsals for the last six months or so and when I listen back to them some of the bass sounds surprise even me! :-) Fortunately I'm not in bands with anybody who lives by any of those old 'The bass should...' philosophies. You just have to be a bit bold. If you do anything confidently enough you'll probably get away with it.

[quote name='Weststarx' timestamp='1412238127' post='2566945'] That bass looks like it got dressed in the dark! [/quote] I have to agree. I like blocks on Jazzes (well, MoP blocks on rosewood, not blocked maple boards) but not on P basses, and I don't like that weird ovoid bridge, and the pickup is ugly too. And the pickguard looks too small. It has features that might look good on other basses, but not all together on that one.

Looks like a P bass eh.