urb

A little solo on my fretless over some nice chords from a Gary Willis tune called 'Speak' - with some trip-hop drums and funky Rhodes chords... hope you like it. In case this ain't working try this [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeZDJi6CdgU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeZDJi6CdgU[/url] Cheers Mike

For sheer ease of use and flexiblity + quality Garageband is so easy and as a next step up Logic Pro offers a huge amount of stuff under one roof - the VSTs are good and so are the plugins - MIDI is a doddle plus you have the additional score capabilities - plus the latest version emulates a lot of the speedy editing moves of Pro Tools. I think Pro Tools is probably a better overall platform for doing live tracking of bands etc but I think Logic is the ultimate home studio recording set up - and loads of top musos love it and use it to do their albums on... plus it's only £200

Mad sh*t... but great

This kind of groove playing means alternating between different rhythmic patterns of quarter notes, eighths and 16ths - so as a little side exercise from learning the actually tune you might want to spend some time working on switching between those subdivisions. What Paul Turner does so well here is ad in little rhythmic pushes and fills - and accenting pick up notes in the bar with an octave here and there, or plays half a bar of 16th notes. The more comfortable you are switching between these different feels the more relaxed and flowing your lines will be - so while you can learn the original part you can make it your own by navigating your way through the tune with some tasteful embellishments - but definitely lock in and get it grooving first whatever you do.

[quote name='Huwberry' post='915845' date='Aug 5 2010, 12:36 PM']Looks to me like the rhythm section is both Mondesir brothers, if I'm not mistaken. Apologies if I am.[/quote] Nah... you're spot on there

[quote name='Rayman' post='915777' date='Aug 5 2010, 11:56 AM']Anyone know who the bass player with Jeff Beck's band would have been in 2006? I know Randy Hope Taylor did a stint that year but it wasn't him. It was the lineup that included Jan Hammer on keyboards, and I saw them at the Manchester Apollo. Any ideas?[/quote] Mike Mondesir (though the vid here is from 2004) I think he was in the band before Randy took over (or rather returned after a break)

One of the best bits of advice I've heard recently was from Mr Vic Wooten - that in a nutshell is no matter what scale or arpeggio you are practicing - try and make it groove.. so in a sense you're doing two things at once: familiarizing yourself with a new scale or pattern but also creating a new bass line as well. It really works and is actually a short cut to playing new information in a 'musical' way instead of trying to 'work it up to speed' - which will happen over time any way - but this way you can focus on creating solid phrases in a way that is far more practical than just trying to shred One other nugget of advice from VW is also to play all your ideas across the full range of dynamics - so from very light and soft to hard and aggressive - and maintaining the groove at all times and dynamic levels.

I had a nice Hartke playing experience back in 2005 at a festival in Thailand - and I'd really like to try out the HyDrive cabs at some point... IME Hartke make great, solid gear that just works - sure it's no frills but with a decent bass in your hands and some Hartke gear behind you I'm a lot happier with that than many other amps/cabs - shame most rehearsal rooms and festivals favour either Trace or Ampeg - I'm not a fan of either

[quote name='frank' post='915488' date='Aug 4 2010, 11:21 PM']Thanks lads i forgot to mention i intend to upgrade to 4GB. Have never used garage band is it possible to have a chord progression and have the loops-samples follow it,how much control is there over the loops dynamics timing editing feel Im wondering how easy or quick it is after you come up with an idea to get it recorded can you just plug in and go. Also to start of with will i be able to get by without the extra VSTs drum modules and so on. i was kinda hoping for a one stop shop within logic , suppose ill have to wait and see what i need. I want to get into this but without it taking over from my bass. Also well done URB seen you in Bass guitar today ,was the album done with Logic. Thanks[/quote] Hey Frank - yes i recorded my album mostly in Logic but the track 'Boogie' started life in Garage band - I re-imported back into Logic and redid the drums and keyboard stuff on it - sounds much better now! Re plugging in and recording straight away with either GB or Logic that should be possible - the great thing with either program is that they come with a load of very useable samples and hundreds of drum loops - so rather than spending hours prgramming stuff you can splice together some drum loops and start layering up the bass parts i.e. chords, melody, bass line etc. the only downside of this approach is that the backing could sound like it's come straight out of Logic or GB - it's funny when I watch Masterchef or some other crappy program I find it quite easy to spot a looped Logic drum beat... - they are good quality but ultimately you want to creat drum parts that are unique and fit the track.... Logic does come with Ultabeat which a fantastic drum sequencer - there are a stack of very good Youtube videos on how to use it: [url="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=SFlogic+ninja+ultrabeat&aq=f"]http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...rabeat&aq=f[/url] In fact any aspect of Logic has been well covered on Youtube - this guy SFLogic Ninja is a bit of a lgend and has thousands of subs - he's really cool and knows the program inside out: [url="http://www.youtube.com/user/SFLogicNinja"]http://www.youtube.com/user/SFLogicNinja[/url] Re dynamics there are lots of ways of creating dynamics in your music - Automation is the way - look it up, it's great as you can bring in various effects and volume level changes across an individual track - again I'm sure it'll be covered in many Youtube videos. Hope all that sounds good - the other top tip I can recommend is that Apple do year long classes in various programs like Logic on their One To One program - it's £79 a year and you can have a one hour lesson every week - I did it and even though I probably only went about 20 times I learned a lot and I feel a lot more confident now with Logic... but it's a massive proram and very powerful - so the learning never ends... not sure if you have an Apple store near you but I know the Regent Street store in London does the OneToOne lessons and they are really popular. [url="http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/"]http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/[/url] Mike

My one immediate thought is that while 2GB of RAM will do for basic two or three track recordings, the machine will struggle as soon as you start running a drum module, plug in FX and any VSTs (virtual studio instruments). Upgrade it to 4GB and it'll cope with all that stuff much, much better - the last thing you want is to be half way through a take and the machine crashes... the extra RAM can be bought quite cheaply and if you put 'upgrade to 4gb ram on macbook' into Youtube there are a load of very clear and helpful vids on how to install it. Sounds like you have a load of great stuff to get going with - I can recommend EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer as good 'virtual drummers' - and EZ Pro as a way of editing your MIDI drum files - and a cheap M-Audio MIDI keyboard is worth getting as well - they are about £80 or less

My J bass is great [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4OqNvamScM"]for most funk sounds[/url] - it's a good loud bass too, the Glockenklang pre kicks butt - I just added some wah-funk stuff in the recordings forum too

Great stuff man - really cool transcription - plenty of great ideas there! Cheers Mike

Exploring the joys of some auto-wah funkiness with various thumb and plucking ideas: Drums by Superior drummer - Logic plug in for the effects Hope you enjoy Cheers Mike

Smoking... nice work man

Got this as a promo about three weeks ago and I've been loving it - in short it's a cracker...

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='907496' date='Jul 27 2010, 07:42 PM']Love it! [/quote] Cheers Pete - like the new avatar by the way, big fan of Tobias originals... Mike

A little bump for a bit more Maceo style funk...

hey - basically all good advice - the key is find a good soundcard - ie audio-interface, MOTUs are great but there's a ton of choice out there now. Personally I use a mackie Onyx satellite Base Statiom (I think they're unavailable now) but it does a great job. I agree that a lot of plug ins sound very artificial and force your sound to sound very processed - the one I like best having tried loads is the most basic Bas amp that comes with Logic - it's great for simply boosting your signal level, and then shaping the EQ - it's quite rudimentary but if you have a decent bass with a great DI tone all you need to do is boost this a bit (by all means try some compression a well) and for me that's a good way to get a very 'true' bass sound. I also like the 'imaging' plug in called Spread which creates a fake 'stereo' image of a mono track - that way you can create a bass track that's much bigger sounding in the mix. I think the fundamental thing though is to get a good clean sound that you can then work with - try and achieve this mainly wih the bass and your playing but enhance it with tasteful use of plugins. I hope that helps - a lot of it is trial and error - so best to do some test recordings and experiment with different settings and amounts of boost, compression etc. The channel strip EQ can be quite useful as well when tweaking your bass tone. Cheers Mike

Hi Andy Well I'm very happy to explain - but I've got to go to work now... seriously I'm late already - but I've spent the last couple of years trying different stuff out and think I've finally got a few fail safe tips to get a decent sound - I'll get back to you ASAP (NB when I get a quiet minute in the office!) Cheers Mike

I just enjoy playing and striving to better myself both as a bassist and a musician - and if I can do that with musicians who are as good, preferably better than me then I'm a happy man - being a journalist is also a great way to see how the other half live at the top end of the music industry, while also being VERY aware of just how many incredible musicans are barely scraping by and yet are vastly more talented than the likes of Susan Boyle... that's what it's like t have a job in the 'arts' in this country. I'll stop before I really start ranting Mike

A little jazz funkified version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, covered by my funk band: hope you enjoy Mike

[quote name='geoffbassist' post='903179' date='Jul 23 2010, 01:38 PM']Great stuff mike! Enjoyed your playing. Cheers Geoff[/quote] thanks Geoff, much appreciated Mike

[quote name='bubinga5' post='903509' date='Jul 23 2010, 07:22 PM']Respect to you Huwberry...that was solid bass playing...love the tune and you did it justice...that slap was SPOT ON!!! what a tone from that SR4 [/quote] +1 Huwberry - great feel and groove and tone... all the things you need to be a busy, in-demand bassist - nice work - and I thoguth you nailed the snazzy outro bit as well. Very enjoyable. Cheers Mike

Some funk from my rehearsal the other night - plus short bass solo - not our tightest take on this tune but I hope you like the groove - and no that's not my normal amp - had to use the one supplied (i.e. a beaten up Trace hulk) M