urb

I'll just be there on Saturday now Looking forward to it M

[quote name='purpleblob' post='1155550' date='Mar 9 2011, 04:34 PM']Will check this out, funnily enough just grabbed the Multiple Organism Jazz Orchestra album with Kevin Glasgow on bass (I assume it's the same Kevin Glasgow) - really fantastic bass player.[/quote] That's him - here's a little something I prepared earlier [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUgK0nEmy0A"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUgK0nEmy0A[/url] His playing is sounding very sweet indeed on the Smith album - it's about time he got the recognition he deserves

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1155272' date='Mar 9 2011, 01:24 PM']Actually I think the iPad is the best-value device they sell, in terms of hardware costs, and the whole appeal of it is that it's not exactly like a computer. I can imagine an iPad - given the right software - would be very useful as a control surface in a portable studio or as a controller for live effects. Way cheaper than a digital desk or other dedicated hardware controls, and more flexible. So long as the multitouch screen actually works well it could be a very useful bit of kit for musicians.[/quote] Again I agree and it's already happening - see below - I love the iPad's design and functionality (w*** word I know), right now though I think they are way too expensive and for all that they CAN do there's a ton of stuff they can't do and as with the iPhone, later versions will obviously do a lot more and will hopefully be better value for money than they are right now - they are highly desirable but I'm not convinced we all really need one.. to like remain on top of all the billions of bits of digital content we can now consume I need to look into the whole using the iphone as a midi controller thing as I know that can be done as well - but if money was no object I'd probably own an iPad - though I'm not sure I'd sit on the tube reading the 'paper' on it

Here's a little heads up on Scottish sax monster Tommy Smith's new fusion-tinged new album / quartet 'Karma' which features a killer line up of Kevin Glasgow on bass, Alyn Cosker on drums and Steve Hamilton on keys - but it's really high ebergy stuff, lots of tricky heads but some deep funky grooves too - Kevin plays like a demon throughout and it's probably the best album Tommy's done in quite a while: good fresh sounding modern jazz fusion played with real energy and drive: [url="http://www.tommy-smith.co.uk/ts/reviews/tommy-smith-karma-the-hub/"]http://www.tommy-smith.co.uk/ts/reviews/to...-karma-the-hub/[/url] Album is out in May I think - well worth a look M

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1155143' date='Mar 9 2011, 12:12 PM']I have no problem recording 20 tracks simultaneously on my crap old PC with M-Audio PCI cards. I'm not sure if that's much help though! Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense. If you want to reinstall windows, you can do so with any disk. If you're trying to "repair" it might be a different story, but, just format it! I'll not get into the standard PC V Mac debate as I agree with TNIT* - the hardware might as well be the same, so to buy a mac, the OS has to be worth a lot to you. Fair enough if you prefer the Mac OS, there are good and bad points about each. *good to see you back![/quote] I agree with you man - I'm just saying what works for me - here's the ultimate compromise though [url="http://www.hackintosh.com/"]http://www.hackintosh.com/[/url] - a friend was running a 16 track desk with his laptop attached to it, using logic on a PC laptop with a Mac OS on it - and it was working fine... So the moral of the story is do what works for you too... M

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1154362' date='Mar 8 2011, 07:43 PM']But yeah Macs hardware is heinously overpriced, so you really have to value the OS at £500 or so for it to make sense. The OS is easily worth that to me, at the moment, in my current circumstances, but I can imagine it wouldn't be to most people. I'm sure plenty of people buy them just for the badge, but those people are dickheads. I've already ordered an Android sticker to plaster over the Apple logo...[/quote] Good for you... But all us Mac users aren't so enamoured with Steve Jobs' products that we can't see beyond the fact that they are overpriced etc - and I refuse to own an iPad until they actually work like a REAL computer not a "look at me I'm a w***er" device (I think they're beautifully designed, but I still can't take them seriously) - I used PCs for years and grew increasingly annoyed with their performance, constant worries about viruses, annoying software updates, zillions of third party bits of software that all worked in slightly different ways, a lack of consistency with said software (especially Adobe stuff) - and then I started using Cubase... which was really the last straw. I know they work - I still own a PC as it happens and don't plan on selling it - but what really hacked me off was I couldn't reinstall Windows XP as the machine had updated itself 'too much' to allow the 'old' version of the OS to be installed - even though it was on the same OS disc I bought it with...!!! Likewise I tried installing Windows/Parallels desktop on my Mac and that just drove me insane as well... believe me I have tried with PCs and given them the benefit of the doubt way too many times... Macs work for me - I get the things I want to do done on them - and I don't waste precious time and effort getting the f***ing software to run... they rarely crash and never get viruses - that's good enough for me to pay the extra cash. Sorry rant over now M

I'll be around on both days - say hello if you see me Should *hopefully* be good Cheers Mike

[quote name='willyf87' post='1152426' date='Mar 7 2011, 01:03 PM']I've only had a quick skim of the posts so sorry if any of this has been covered!!! I personally would swap from PC to Mac for starters, i've never had any issues with various mac devices, just so you have an idea indoors I use a cheap alesis express 2 in/out with a macbook G4 only 512mb of ram with snow leopard into logic express 9, never had any problems recording, when I go down to record my band collectively we have two presonus fire pods 8in 8 out, we chain them together 16 in/out with absolutely no problems running onto my laptop. I think at one point we had about 12 tracks running at one time. I guess all I'm trying to say is you don't need the best gear, i use the avaliable plug ins on logic and have made some good demos. If you wanted to go a step further you could always outsource the mastering process. If i were you I would maybe look out for a 2nd hand fire pod or 2 if you want to record everything at once. This is also something I'm looking into doing to save time but havent tried. I'd also recommend a mac book or such like, maybe with a couple of gigs of ram just so you know you have plenty of power, get an external hard drive and save all your stuff straight to there, this keeps the laptop running at optimum. I'd go for logic express or studio its up to you but express does everything I need and is cheaper. After that all you need is mics, stands, cables and some decent headphones/monitor speakers. I'm pretty sure you could get all this gear for under £1500 brand new, if you go 2nd hand like I did then defnitely under a grand.[/quote] +1 I was a PC user for many years and was completely set to go the way of Cubase but as soon as I started trying to use a drum module to generate beats etc it all started going horribly wrong, and finding a solution proved incredibly frustrating... my misses has always used Macs and so about six years ago I took the plunge and bought a secondhand G4 15" Powerbook - and Garageband. I'd already got a US122 soundcard and that was doing a pretty good job at sending a signal from my bass into the laptop... ... so that was enough to get me going, recording some OK demos, recording some new ideas, admittedly in quite a limited way. Now, to make a long story short, I've stuck with Macs as I really like Logic (it's not without its bugs) but with 4GB of RAM and a better Mackie soundcard, some powered KRK monitors, and Logic Pro (that I've installed on both my desktop and laptop macs) - I'm guessing in total I've probably spent roughly £2K on my stuff so far, admittedly I've upgraded my basses too - but I'm currently looking at a a good compressor and a quality DI box. My one nugget of advice is if I had to recommend a set up I'd go Mac, purely based on experience, Logic is great for composing, but Pro Tools is better for live tracking - both are now at affordable price points - both run on Macs and both have a load of great plugins that are very powerful and sound superb. But also think about what you want to do with your set up - if I want to track a full live band I'd most likely hire a studio for a day and then take the raw files away after to do post-production mixing etc. I know that I can do that at home, I know also that if I want to use my drum module in multi-output mode Logic can handle that as well. So think about that - a Macbook Pro with 4GB of Ram and a decent soundcard will be enough to get going - monitors, a mic, DI box, compressor, MIDI keyboard are a few more things that will enhance your basic set up - but again you can start real basic and add more stuff as you go. END BIT: [b]One of the best things I bought was a year's worth of One-To-One lessons in Logic at the Apple store on Regents Street in London for £80 - you can go for an hour lesson every week and the people they have tutoring you really know their stuff - I learnt a lot and now feel fairly confident about diving in and creating a new tune - I also work about ten times faster than I did when I started farting around in Garageband! More info here [url="http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/"]http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/[/url] [/b] It's all very well owning all the right gear (basses too) and not knowing how to use it - Garageband is amazing and can do pretty much everything a pro-level DAW can (to a point) so it's also worth factoring in 'learn time' Lastly - here's a tune I started recording in Garageband and finished off in Logic Pro - with about three or four years between starting it and finishing it! [url="http://mikeflynnsurb.bandcamp.com/track/boogie"]http://mikeflynnsurb.bandcamp.com/track/boogie[/url] The moral being I got the ideas down in a basic set up and gave it a better sound via a pro-ish set up... I still want a 2 X Quad-Core tower but that's somewhere later down the line... Hope that helps M

Mark was one of the first guys to ever use a 7-string over here in the UK in the 1990s - he was in NYJO for a while as well then he kind of disappeared - he's an amazing player with a great style and wonderful phrasing and tone! Looks like he's living in Denmark now - I hope he's out there working and earning a living from music, he's a lovely player for sure.

For me Jaco's tone is / was a direct reflection of his personality - which was not one that SAT BACK - he was a totally in your face player, he WANTED to be noticed - if that meant walking all over the rest of the band, so be it, that was Jaco - the one thing he had above and beyond any technique/tone thing was [b]personality[/b] - something sadly lacking in many players today - he was a 'marmite' kind of guy - and like all great artists he was very good at pissing people off sometimes... he was also a huge inspiration to millions of people (not just bassists) and that's an indisputable fact. This for me is Jaco at his grooving-best - so on it and just right in the groove: M

A little something I improvised - made on my iPhone this morning - hope you enjoy Cheers groovers Mike

[quote name='51m0n' post='1136362' date='Feb 21 2011, 09:53 PM']If you like the sound of it then its an advantage! Simple... Most tube comps are more noisy than their SS brethren though, not necessarily too noisy depending on the situation, and I am aware that its a sweeping generalisation, and that tube comps have been used succesfully iin recording for ever and a day, its still true though. Having said that FETs are noisier still very often, nature of the circuit. You may find if you are very noise averse that a very good simple pre with basic defeatable tone controls into a decent SS comp will actually get you a better result, assuming you set them up right. Your Sei sounded gorgeous through my rig at the SE Bash, hitting the compressor pretty hard without you noticing it as you played. I know the ae410 isnt considered the warmest of cabs, but married to the sa450 and with the right compression on the front its a crazy good sound. I'd DI and mic that in a heartbeat....[/quote] Thanks man - great info/advice - I guess I should look into a SS comp and or DI - so what's a good one? I can't justify spending more than £200-£150 - are there any good ones? I've been thinking about it for a while - I don't use a DI generally and just go direct into my Mackie Onyx soundcard - the level is usually fine from the bass, so I'm not really conderned about that, so will a sansamp or mark bass DI or similar give a noticeable improvement in depth of tone/resonance? Any thoughts on this welcome - thanks in advance M

[quote name='lowdown' post='1135700' date='Feb 21 2011, 04:17 PM']I have tried a few VST Amp plugs, and got far better results using SIR 2 and cabinet IR's, and there are plenty knocking about the tinternet free. But to be honest my Avalon U5 just out does any of it. A good set up Bass and a decent Pre-amp will get great results to start with, Then maybe some minimal EQ for the mix. If you can not get a good sound that way, no plug in the world will make it sound any better. Garry[/quote] I totally agree - I've got really sweet sounds from all my basses, all great quality instruments, by running them through the most basic bass/guitar amp that comes with Logic, this gives me a great clean sound that I've A/B'd with the sound I get via either the Mark Bass Studio 1 plugin, Amplitube or other modeling software - and I prefer the huge range of tones I can get from my basses than all the 'simulated' sounds. However I do think the plugins create some great tones I do use from time to time - but overall I think they can make your tone sound 'forced' IMO. One question I have got for you lovely lot is related to this subject though; is there a noticeable advantage to using a valve compressor as a preamp / interface between bass and DAW? Thanks for any answers... Mike

Definitely a cool plan - would be useful for lots of people here - as and when you organize something I can pin the details at the top of this forum Keep us posted M

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1128907' date='Feb 15 2011, 09:04 PM']bloody good. i would have danced my tits off to that. your playing is excellent as always, are you using any filters ?[/quote] Thanks man - to be honest I've tried using effects live loads in the past and I actually find they either don't cut through enough and just get lost, but also when the music is as intense as this, having some mad effect on my bass doesn't really enhance things, I can get plenty of natural 'effects' by varying my technique and tone - but I do have some auto-filters (EBS BassIQ and Wah-One) that I use on other more pop related stuff. Glad you enjoyed it though. Thanks for checking it out Mike

Hey all It's been a while since I had any live footage of my funk band but this was shot at a great gig at this ace venue in south London called Hideaway Club in Streatham (of all places) - sax monster Dave O'Higgins was in the house and wanted to sit in - so how could we refuse? Everyone else is pretty killing too: 'Europa' by Groove Digger Hope you enjoy Mike

Just having fun with one of [i]those[/i] play alongs and trying some ideas out - hope you enjoy some of them Cheers Mike

Nice Phil - great playing and a lovely bass - post more!

He's mind blowing - the bass work is amazing but it's the computer manipulations of beats and sounds that are truly gob-smacking - no one in my opinion has taken things THAT far with elasticating time and rhythm... Hello Everything is cool and I really like the new album as well.

I've got a [url="http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Camcorders/High_Definition_HD/LEGRIA_HF_200/"]Canon HF200[/url] HD cam - it uses a flash memory card instead of a internal hard drive - which knocks about £200 off the price of the exact same camera that comes with the internal hard drive - it has stunning picture quality and many cool features on the camera - it was also a Which? best buy recommendation a year or so back.

This is a great bass-led album: Kai Eckhardt- [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Honour-Simplicity-Respect-The-Flow/dp/B004HKQUSA"]Honor Simplicity, Respect the Flow[/url]

Hey guys - I think I've finally found the thread I've been looking for! I love all the analogue stuff but I'm kind of loathed to start shelling out for yards of pedals - so I'm going the other route and doing stuff via Ableton and my laptop - with some pedals as well - any thoughts on the quality virtual versus analogue effects - latency issues aside... your thoughts would be very welcome indeed. Thanks Mike

[quote name='Doddy' post='1108340' date='Jan 30 2011, 05:23 PM']I don't think it's fair to say that factory instruments have 'no soul'.Marcus or Jaco's Jazz Bass anyone? Or Jamerson or Ducks Precision? You're lucky to have some money to spend,but what do you want a custom bass for? You're only young,so is it for flash reasons? What bass do you play now? What are your plans for the future and is it worth spending a fortune on a bass? I'd be looking around shops and looking for an instrument that felt nice to me and doesn't cost the earth-new and secondhand. Or,if you've already got a decent bass,I'd get a decent amp to go with it. Remember,a fancy custom bass is very nice,but ultimately it comes down to how you play it.[/quote] I completely agree actually - I was in a similarly fortunate financial situation when I was 18 - I'd already played a Warwick Thumb through-neck and loved it, and now with the benefit of hindsight I can see what a naive thing it was to do, but I simply sent the Bass Centre (still in Wapping at the time) a cheque for the full amount and a letter saying "please send me a Thumb bass..." - this was in 1990 a while before the joys of our internet-eneabled age... well I got lucky as they sent me a stunning bass. This is where I agree with Doddy - that bass served me very well for 18 years and as it was an original Thumb I sold it for just £100 less than I bought it... Re your desire to buy a custom instruent - can I ask why you really have to have a custom bass? Do you really know the EXACT specifications that will see you through the next ten or maybe 20 years of playing? My advice is go and try loads of basses - don't spend any money until you are 100% sure you've found a great bass - don't be fooled by thinking you HAVE to spend a ton of money to get a great bass - there are plenty around the £1K mark, or under that are fantastic instruments. I went for custom instruments after years of playing the same bass and working out what it was I was missing with my Thumb bass, it took me a long time to do that - I loved my Thumb bass and loads of other people did as well - I just got tired of it. I hope that helps - knowing the value of something and not just the price is very important - don't rush this decision and whatever you do, don't feel like you HAVE to spend the money just because you've got it... it won't be there very long so take your time! Mike

Just made this - it's a work in progress - just like to hear your thoughts [url="http://soundcloud.com/munkio/yesterdaytoday"]http://soundcloud.com/munkio/yesterdaytoday[/url] Hope you dig it Mike

Small bump for this - just like to get a bit of feedback on the general vibe/sounds on this tune - I know it needs developing but I love this sort of deep-funk meets dance style - thanks guys and gals M