urb

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1358331028' post='1936964'] Really like yours, nice groove, great sounds, I love the guitar chords at the beginning. It's all unmistakably you mate, you have a recognisable style. It especially comes out on the fretless, you have a particular way of intonating, and the cadences and tonality in many of your compositions are very much you. Top work man! [/quote] Thanks Nige - I guess it's good we have our own 'sounds' - funny how mine has developed, I just gravitate towards the sounds I like - and chord sequences that worm their way into your brain...! The fretless thing is just how I hear stuff and my custom bass (now 8 years old) has a very distinct personality too... all good I suppose

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1358297435' post='1936778'] Here's mine. Swallow And The Kite. It starts off polite then turns on the sh*te. https://soundcloud.com/silddx/swallow-and-the-kite [/quote] Excellent work Nige - love the groove/tempo change and that was some great guitar work - I can always hear the Zappa I your music - it's there whether you like it or not Good effort man M

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1358279250' post='1936282'] I want to hate it, but I can't Good work. [/quote] I can only agree - good work guys - I wish kate Bush was this good today...

I worked in the (once) large HMV in Oxford for two years and was the buyer for the 'specialities' section which had a huge jazz range alongside country, folk, world, soundtracks and other stuff - but then I had a chance to work for a music dotcom in 1999 and went for an interview and got the job. I told one of the (arrogant) regional manager's who would swan around the shop once a month (swaggering about like he was a frigging rock star) that I'd got a job on a music website and his immediate response, with a sneering laugh was; "what the internet? that's rubbish..." Well this seems to tallying exactly with the views of the MD as per the above article: [i]"The three greatest threats to HMV are, online retailers, downloadable music and supermarkets discounting loss leader product". [/i] [i]Suddenly I realised the MD had stopped the meeting and was visibly angry: "I have never heard such rubbish", he said, "I accept that supermarkets are a thorn in our side but not for the serious music, games or film buyer and as for the other two, I don't ever see them being a real threat, downloadable music is just a fad and people will always want the atmosphere and experience of a music store rather than online shopping."[/i] It is sad but their business model and their arrogance (like all old school record labels who had it good for so long) they got complacent and then failed to act quick enough when the tide turned against them - the music industry and music fans have changed forever now and while I love going to a good record shop but increasingly artists/bands are getting really good at selling merchandise directly to fans at gigs and that really is the way it's going. If you want to actually buy music (which I still do quite a lot actually) then there's no excuse - it's all there at your finger tips.

Well soundcloud seems to have crashed while I was uploading a new version of my track - so when it returns it should be here... (I've deleted the old one sorry) https://soundcloud.com/munkio/what-lies-beneath-new-mix Cheers M

Giant Steps is a good one to work on - but it's Satellite that'll keep you busy PS This is a saxophone chart (ie all the chords are a tone higher than for bass...)

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1358166430' post='1933992'] Wow Mike! That's a great track. It sounds like you've taken a very positive step off the beaten track towards the sort of sound we were discussing over Xmas. And it sounds like fairly uncharted territory to me, which is great! I really like this direction. It's dark and dubsteppy, and it has a jazzy flavour too. But not too much of either; you seem to be finding the right balance. Production-wise it's fantastic. Sounds very 'alive' through headphones with a nice, full-bodied range of frequencies from glitchy highs to subby lows. Some great panning and filtering in places too. Impressive stuff, mate Just about to start mine... I've got an alright idea for it, but probably too little time to do it justice. But meh, that's the story of my life! Hoping to get a first sketch of it down this week. [/quote] Hey Paul Thanks for all the positive feedback - like I say I didn't plan on doing something yesterday, or even enter a tune for this month's comp, but hey I'm happy with quite a lot of this - I may add a tiny synth melody towards the end if I get time - but I'm feeling quite inspired at the moment and have a bunch of tunes that I've worked on over the last couple of years that need developing... so hey I can't complain about not having any ideas! Now all I need to do is buy Stylus and I'm sorted

Should get your booties shaking and walls quaking... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxK1wZeUqwc Have a good week

Thanks for checking it out Garry, love the sound of Stylus - will investigate Cheers Mike

Well I didn't plan on making a track today but having started something over Christmas I had a few things kicking around in Logic - plus I just got Omnispere, a truly awesome synth VST (and yes I paid for it ) anyway what was great about this track is all the stuff I had done intially went in the bin and I left off a lot of playing so in terms of bass there's not a lot going on - however all the chordal/melodic/bass parts are derived from stuff I played that then went into Melodyne to become MIDI files... Anyway it's pretty glitchy but hopefully has a suffocating mysterious vibe which I got from the picture - I'm a big Alien (the movie) fan so almost called this 'Ripley's Song' but felt this was a better title: [b]'What Lies Beneath'[/b] [url="http://soundcloud.com/munkio/what-lies-beneath"]http://soundcloud.co...at-lies-beneath[/url] Hope you enjoy it - this is definitely the way I want to go now... more hopefully forthcoming soon Cheers Mike

Sorry to state the bleeding obvious but there's tons of great advice here: http://basschat.co.uk/forum/10-recording/ Really worth a poke around there

I think tone is a combination of several things but I guess an individual player's 'sound' is a mix of technique, gear, and experience - and personally speaking for me Gary Willis is a great example of someone who's created an instrument that magnifies the aspects of their ideal tone they have in their head, while he's [i]also[/i] adjusted his technique to bring out further aspects of his playing... obviously there are countless other examples of this - and speaking personally it's a process I've been following for about ten years - modifying my technique but then over time finding the gear that also helps create 'my' sound. Saying that I did a gig a few years ago where I shared the bill with another bassist - we were actually busking and I on;y had an acoustic bass guitar - but the other band had a full amp/bass/PA set up which they kindly lent to us... long story short I used this other guy's Fender Jazz bass and while it wasn't set up exactly how I wanted it, I DID sound totally different to this other bassist - so yes, alot of it is in your fingers I think

Hey Andy Congrats on getting all this together - I really admire your playing and sheer patience and skill to get this stuff sounding as great as it does. I've said before this isn't exactly my bag but that's not to say I don't enjoy it far from it - and while I think it's beyond criticism as these are just personal observations - but for me what I'd love to hear you do is work up soem of this stuff with a live drummer - that would take this stuff to yet another level - but also some more experimental parts and open harmonic / melodic bits would be great too. Just food for thought - love what you are doing and hats off to you for making it all sound so good. Mike

To the OP I would say also that there are many levels of 'musician' - from whatever you perceive as basic through to advanced - I've been playing for 25 years but typically the more I learn and progress the more I realise just how little music I really know - I guess I do call myself a musician but knowing just how good the really good ones are I don't see myself as being of that calibre - perhaps if I keep playing with those who are better than me and learning and challenging myself then I'll get incrementally better but I still feel I have a long way to go... I guess you can call yourself a musician whatever level you are at but the top level of the truly great musicians - and I'm including the likes of JS Bach and Frank Zappa there among countless others, Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane etc etc - those guys are operating on an extraordinairy level of awareness - where they can express the language of music so easily that everything just flows together. Like others have said does being able to write your name make you an author, simply put, no... contrary to our get famous quick culture for doing virtually nothing - great art requires a great amount of work - just like achieving anything else of real value in life.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1357377961' post='1921718'] is that you singing along there or just moaning orgasmically? [/quote] A bit of both probably

Forgive me for another shedding video - I just enjoy these changes for shedding on - time to learn the melody though! Hope you enjoy some of this http://youtu.be/gwZ1Ks-iYcs Cheers for watching Mike

I wrote a little instructional piece in the Recordings Forum - it's been pinned at the top of the forum for at least a couple of years - I need to update it actually but the information is still relevant - have a look: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/87414-how-to-make-a-good-looking-and-sounding-youtube-video/ One tip in terms of synching separately recorded audio - from the camera mic and your DAW is to use a 1-2-3-4- count-in - if you're playing along to a backing track - then just edit this off afterwards. I've recently switched over to using Final Cut X and really love it - but the latest version of iMovie is very good too. Hope that helps M

[quote name='Bobby K' timestamp='1357238264' post='1919668'] Hope you can work something with this pic chaps. I found it incredibly hard to choose something, but then I saw this on the BBC news website, under "the year in pictures." It's from a performance that was part of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations last year. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with ;-) [/quote] Good choice Bob - a slightly political angle is cool for sure - I'll try and find the time to do something but won't be for a week or more Cheers M

Mines here to download - I will make this a 'free' to download sometime soon - but it's about 60p at the moment http://mikeflynnsurb.bandcamp.com/track/bass-makes-no-music-featuring-victor-wooten

Congrats Bobby - looking forward to seeing the next pic - glad you're choosing it actually! M

Bloody hell... a three-way tie... perhaps we can all chose a pic? Thanks for the votes people - I didn't expect it - congrats to everyone once again for all the excellent efforts - very inspiring stuff. Cheers M

and here's me and my setup plus sax player - all synth bass sounds triggered via the i2M live with no overdubbing thingys [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxDb7_KWma0[/media] The i2M is about £120 I think - pretty cheap compared to the full VB99 GR55 thing and you can use any softsynths you have in your DAW - I run mine through Ableton

Nice demo for bass use here from Gary Willis [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxSDP4EYy0[/media] Helps if you are Gary Willis too to get the cleanness required to get the best results from this on bass - he's playing fretless too so extra respect there as well... I use a Sonnus i2M - I have a MIDI pickup built in on my bass but the tracking has never been that great low down - I've found the i2M while not polyphonic actually tracks well to a point and is more than adequate for playing synth bass lines - here's a funny little vid from some dude demoing it [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z81uWIeASZo[/media]

Voted too

You can buy my track here if you fancy as well: http://mikeflynnsurb.bandcamp.com/track/bass-makes-no-music-featuring-victor-wooten M