JamesBass

Today it’d be: Kind of Blue Songs in the key of life Thing of Gold

Far too many great albums to list just three but, some of my favourites are: Kind of Blue - Miles Davis Headhunters - Herbie Hancock Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder Aja - Steely Dan Voodoo - D’Angelo Tell Your Friends - Snarky Puppy Thing of Gold - Snarky Puppy The Beautiful Game - Vulfpeck there’s 8 for you, all or most draw from multiple genres so it’s a real mixed bag!

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[quote name='thegummy' timestamp='1508201545' post='3390493'] It seems a lot of people share my experience in finding the P "just right", especially for rock or blues involving electric guitars. Some situations I can think of that theoretically may allow the J to shine could be: [list] [*]A sparse song with acoustic guitar and light drums? [/list][list] [*]A slow ballad with clean arpeggiated guitar rather than dirty chords? (we do a song like that and I roll the P's tone all the way off and use my thumb but have thought using the J's neck pup could be good. Have tried it at rehearsal but when I'm concentrating on playing and singing it's hard to really compare the tone - would need to record both). [/list][list] [*]Songs where piano or other keyboard instrument are used rather than guitar? [/list] I think the reasoning behind the scenarios is that the P seems to have strength alongside electric guitar chords as it manages to fill a space that fits in with that. Good posts so far [/quote] Funny you should list all those options for using your Jazz, I'd be using my P with flats for all those situations! My Jazz tends to get used for most things post circa 1985, and especially so when I need to get more at hand tone shaping!

My P is my go to. It sounds awesome, it plays awesome, and it's light and easy to carry! My J is a 5 string elite and it also sounds awesome, it also plays awesome, and it's light and easy to carry! Being an active bass and a 5 string I use it for more modern sounding songs and in rooms where I need added control on the fly! Also the low B comes in very hand! The P wears flats for all other circumstances!

It's not a particularly hard line for me, harder ones like Lingus which is relatively slow and switches between 5/4 and 4/4, and most of the stuff off the Tell Your Friends album. However if you can't get the line and it's made you not go to practice then get the lads to bin it off. Music shouldn't be a chore and definitely shouldn't cause you to not want to practice and play!

A major 6 is a very Dorian note to pick over a minor chord. As others have said the G# can come from melodic minor as well. I love making use of different notes to alter the feel of a track! For me there are no right or wrong note choices, only better and worse choices. Each of us will pick different notes at some point, I say embrace that!

This is just one of the reasons I LOVE music theory!

I find these days the only SBL vids I watch are those with other bassist in as they are much more interesting! I learnt to set the email filter to spam as soon as I joined the Academy. For what it's worth, I LOVE P basses, I don't quite get the hate/discontent with those above over Scott's bass choice!

Degree educated experienced professional bass player available to take on new students in either Portsmouth or Southampton. I can also have students come to me, I'm based in Warsash, and I'm also available via Skype. www.jamesfoxmusic.co.uk

I can confirm that the interface should work with sierra as I have it and I have sierra and I recorded some stuff just last night! Check audio preferences and make sure that the Safire is routed properly. Alongside that try opening the Safire mix control and seeing if that helps. The college I'm the Technician at has a Safire 56 and it only seems to work with the mix control open too!

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1506102547' post='3376535'] There's lots of pickup options with the Maruszczyk - you can also spec the neck profile as well. The Moollon's look great too, but does the £1700 include shipping & import tax? [/quote] Yeah I've seen all the options at Maruszczyk, it's certainly a good way of doing custom orders but I'm not sure they are for me as I don't think they nail that vintage sound. Yeah the Moollon final price was all inclusive of shipping and tax! The exact price delivered is £1703.47 on today's exchange rates.

I totally forgot about the CITES reg changes! I was considering a MIJ from Ishibashi just the other day! From the Marusz (that's the most I can spell right now of them!) that I've played it felt nice, but sounded much more modern than any of the 60s P's I'd played! Plus their "custom shop" prices have gone up quite a bit, a P that wasn't actually a full width P neck was topping out at £1450. Where as the Moollon was only coming in at £1700 for the exact spec I'm after. The attention to detail that the Moollon guys put in to things really excites me and combined with the amount of pro players who have used and do use them I'm certain that I'll be placing a order for one at some point soon, I just need to save up a little bit more!

[quote name='MoJoKe' timestamp='1505913051' post='3375165'] Yes, no question. I have one of each. The passive rig is conservatively 8000w, and the amp has a built in crossover (and Dante... very neat, but not cheap). I can do anything up to small festivals with this rig. The smaller rig is the MarkAudio Audio Chain, as per link above. I have 2 x System 2's, which, by comparison to my big rig (and most "sub-pole-top" type active systems too) it disappears on stage, but each is rated at 1000w RMS or 2000w Peak (bearing in mind they are the same MPT power amps in Markbass gear, these ratings are almost certainly a real-world underestimation!) and they are very loud, but still very musical. Don't risk being misled by claims of wattage and SPL figures. It is known that the majority of the industry is a joke when it comes to these published figures. Nearly all the cheap/budget manufacturers will quote peak wattage (until you dive into the small print! 2000w peak but 150w RMS is not uncommon on ebay!), which means absolutely bugger all in the real world, and claims for SPL (Sound Pressure Level), may well be accurate in a lab, at a specific peak frequency, for 10 seconds before the drivers pop out of their cages, but again, don't give any idea how loud or musical they really are in the real world. You need to give several options a proper listen. The AC2's are louder, more musical and don't sound compressed when compared to a full set of Bose F1 tops and subs (I was able to A/B them in a music shop), which are often seen as a benchmark for this class of gear. I also listened to their ERGO system, which still wallops 1400w RMS a pair and sound as nice, but less headroom if you need lots of power, but fine for a band who just want to put vocals and a kick drum through the PA Getting back to the original point above! Most active PA systems have reasonable DSP and crossovers built into them, and are designed to work and play well together in a top/sub combination, and you simply send them a single XLR feed for each. Trying to do it with a mix of different gear is going to be very complicated. If you have a digital desk with matrix sends, you may be able to do the crossovers on the desk then use 2 x outputs for the subs and 2 x outputs for the tops (though I would probably recommend making your life simpler by running the subs as mono, as these frequencies don't provide stereo imagery at all well, and having each one do slightly different things is gonna give you a world of muddiness), though this is hungry on aux outputs. Alternatively an outboard crossover will do this as long as it has some decent EQ-ing options as you will need this to match your gear to get the best frequencies from the speakers you have. And this is all very well with the gear in a nice dead sounding marquee at a wedding, until the next gig is in a small stone barn with a 90db room limiter on the power supply, in which case you'll have to start from scratch! If you are still heading down the crossover route, see if you can pick yourself up a XTA DP424. Expensive but will certainly be the best chance to take all your headaches away. If you want a simpler (and more reliably musical!) life, sell what you have and re-invest in a full active system, or a full passive one. [/quote] Can't disagree with any of that! Like you say one or the other is best/easiest as mixed gives HEADACHES! Having never needed to own festival capable speakers and rig I'm a HUGE fan of going for active. The Alto TS212s the OP is look at are phenomenal and blow the Mackie SRM series well out the water! I find them to be nice and rounded as well as being very loud and punchy. As always the best thing to do is to hear them and experience them as much as possible. Haha, you've nailed the illusion of manufacturer stats! Far too many stats are purely marketing crap! OP, currently Yamaha are making VERY good speakers at an affordable cost, Alto's TS2 series are great, RCF, dB, EV, the more expensive JBL actives are good, and the MarkBass AC2 sound interesting! Good luck OP!

[quote name='FuNkShUi' timestamp='1505211061' post='3370202'] Think this would be the right forum for this? Feel free to move. Currently we have a non powered desk (Yamaha MG16xu), powered by a Behringer iNuke, then this powers passive tops, that we link to subs underneath. The subs have a built in crossover in them. I've convinced the band to go for active tops, and as such we are looking at either RCF 322s (second hand) or some DB opera 12s, or some Alto TS 212s. My question is, what would be the best way to set this new system up? Because the tops will be powered, we obviously wont be running the power amp to them. So what would you do? Whats the best way to link everything? I'm not a expert on PA's so any advice is appreciated, even if you think it may be obvious. The mixer has 4 auxs' and 2 monitor outs. At the minute we run our monitors from the aux outs, so they can have individual mixes to them. So my thoughts were to run the tops as normal, then instead of linking the subs to them, run the subs from a aux via the power amp , and manually mix in the channels we want to come through them. Or would you still link the subs to the tops in series , and do away with the power amp? [/quote] Personally the easiest and simplest option is all powered or all passive. Mixing both is a ball ache. The modern active speaker offerings are light, powerful and full response so it may be that you don't need subs. It all depends how you set your sound up and what you are micing up. What sort of size gigs are you guys doing and what sort of backline do you have and what sort of music?