Dood

Interestingly, I went in to a well known high street spectacles and hearing "specialist" and they chose to do a quick hearing test on me using DT770's! I have to admit, I wasn't enthralled with the test as they did it in the front of the shop, in front of a busy main road. I could hear the buses louder than the tones I was supposed to be concentrating on! However, the place I go to for my hearing tests actually have an isolation booth and all the correct test gear, for much more reliable results. {edit} I just wanted to add, reading this back, that I'm not dissing the D770's - They are awesome cans that I use for tracking in my own studio. Love 'em!

Same here, and yes I have a dip at 4Khz and my hearing response goes back up after 6-8Khz quite rapidly. The 4Khz area is where we hear 'soft consonants'. Pete you are spot on. One of the biggest problems is hearing speech in a noisy pub etc which can be made even more difficult if music is playing, even if it is not especially loud. Background noise is impinging when trying to concentrate on the person speaking right in front of you. When it's soft consonants, this becomes even more difficult as the person talking to you starts to slur ha ha.

Stop! ignore all your results! They will all vary depending on what hardware you are playing on/through. Don’t believe for a minute that even “good” consumer earphones have a flat response or do actually cover the frequency ranges they suggest in a way that would warrant use for a resilient hearing test. So, if you are worried you can’t here anything above what appears to be a low figure, it’s possibly down to the top end roll off of your device. Or, if it’s a particularly high figure, then you might have a set of cans that accentuate the highs. In short, the only way you will get believable results is to go get ya ears checked properly. Or, ya know, you could just have bugger3d ears. So.. sorry for that too.

Totally agree regarding the power supply issue as noted above. Being able to deliver power immediately and have enough “reservoir” for the power supply to continue delivering whilst under attack from big signal transients! Powersoft was always a favourite of mine. I had a 2000W rack amp that just delivered in spade loads whatever you threw at it. I think it’s still owned by a BCer even now.

Not ridiculous at all. I played through an amp at a rehearsal space only this week and, reference my post above, it simply felt like it was choking my notes. It felt like the compressor was stuck on. No matter what I did, everything lacked kick. Yes it could do loud, but no real grunt. Hence my nod towards amplifiers actually being able to reproduce those important frequencies with some sort of gusto. The expense I suppose in creating said amplification is the attention to detail in not only the poweramp section but most definitely in a power supply that can provide for large transients and recover very quickly to continue providing. Small lunchbox amplifiers with little space for heatsinking and suitable power supplies are up against physics in order to provide such heft! So, I agree.

Then we have speakers themselves. Some have again the “perception” of extra low end, yet it is either a ‘bump’ in the low mid or bass frequencies or a dip in the upper midrange. I actually found that my now favourite cabinet isn’t as ‘flat response’ as some I have owned (which were in no doubt exceptional) but it was actually the accentuated low mids I was looking for on stage. But I didn’t want to dial in the extra bump earlier in my signal chain with EQ as it went direct to PA. (That’s for FOH to deal with). YMMV depending on signal path etc etc

The @Tech21NYC Q/Strip would be an excellent choice as I found in my own review I was able to add that kick drum slam to my slap bass notes. I still want one.

It’s a propensity for a signal path from bass to cabinet to support or accentuate the 60hz to 200hz region of the audio spectrum. Either by boosting these frequencies or by dipping out other higher frequencies. (Sometimes attenuating areas of the audio spectrum gives rise to the perception of boost elsewhere) An amplifier and cabinets ability to deliver powerful sound in the 60hz region will certain help to accentuate the effect. Some think that the ability for an amplifier to deliver sub-30hz is where heft is, but considering the Ampeg 810 is considered a ‘hefty’ (lol) cabinet - it doesn’t really produce much below 50hz. I like to think of it as the slam you get from a mic’d up kick drum, whose fundamentals tend to be around the 100hz region (though lower frequencies exist in the sound) Another consideration is that SFX’s Thumpinator that removes all frequencies below 30hz doesn’t remove perceived ‘heft’. So, given you have an amplifier that is capable of delivering powerful transients in that audio region and a cabinet that helps to accentuate said region you will perceive heft. Finally my though for the day.. EQ on amps. Ever noticed that some will have centres that are like 40hz, 500hz, 1khz, 4khz etc? Well yes there is over lap, but for me so many amplifiers don’t focus in on what I feel is a very important region; that of the 100hz to 3-400hz region where our important 2nd harmonics live and also that all needed weight in the sound. Parametric EQ is where it’s at for me! I can add heft to a bass sound without an amp or cabinet. For the “D Class is evil” folk, I’ve always thought that a lot of these amplifiers appear to sound clearer and more aggressive in the higher mids and lower treble frequencies. Given my point above, I wonder if this is one of the reasons that certain D Class amps are perceived as “less hefty”. The heft is there, more it’s being masked - our ears work logarithmically and are way more sensitive to treble frequencies.

Oh whilst I am here, Go Play Along 4 is a clever application if you have access to Guitar Pro files or similar and the original song recording.

Agreed, it can do a good job, much like RiffStation used to, but with complex chords or layers of instruments it's no surprise that it gets confused. For example, a GMaj7 chord without the G loud enough for the software to detect will be heard as a Bm chord. I suspect that most people using Chordify may not understand the relationship between the two chords (no problem, everyone is in a different place in their journey as a musician) and this could cause some confusion. A track only has to be slightly out of tune (see THIS thread) and the app will be struggling further!)

No problem at all! - You can import whatever you like! I think for GigBook as long as the files are PDF's it doesn't matter what's in them. Indeed I import both hand written charts and notation, but even just random reminders about parts of songs. I like GigBook, because one you've imported all of your files in to one master list, you do exactly as you've described - arrange song lists in to folders. "binders" that you can browse but also set up set lists for all manner of different types of gigs. I think both apps will work with a BlueTooth pager turner too, so once all the songs are in order, a tap of a button or the screen will advance you on to the next song. (Or in GigBook it's possible to jump out of the song view quickly should you need to jump to another song in the set quickly.) I hope I've described that clearly as I'm just waiting for my next student to arrive!

Not a million miles from how I work out long dep sets too! For those rare live tracks where you can't hear the bass, I most definitely use my recording software (Logic Pro X or Reaper) which is also very useful for slowing down audio, but to hear bass lines, I often add plug ins to manipulate the sound. Of course you can also slow down YouTube tracks using the speed control, but the results are usually much cleaner in pro DAW software. Looping and marking the audio file you've mentioned already. There's also an added bonus. For those with video footage to peruse, Reaper and other DAWS can import video files and thus looping and slowing those down is also available. Forscore is great, I mainly use DeepDish GigBook which is essentially the same kinda thing. My main weapon of choice is Guitar Pro 7. Arobas' own online music book has hundreds of professionally notated songs (all instruments not just bass) and Guitar Pro can play the notation in the same way as Sibelius et al. - But, there's the added bonus of going to the likes of the Ultimate Guitar website where there are countless (sometimes badly) notated songs from many genres. Some files are truly horrid where members have just imported MIDI tracks - but there are a few gems in there that have been converted or scored by someone who actually knows what they are doing. I've crammed a few songs rather quickly for gigs using GP and Ultimate Guitar! All of the above isn't what I do mostly. I guess after many, many years of depping and teaching, my ear is pretty good. You start to hear chord progressions before they happen and you kinda know where the bass line is going to go for the majority of pop / rock hits. - Oh and if you do forget the line, you can rely on key information to fill in suitable notes... and most people in the audience don't notice slight in discrepancies anyway! Case in point, there are times I have mashed up my own function band songs with a bass line taken from a completely different song - and only my band mates noticed

Genuinely, genuinely pleased to read this. Thank you so much Yeah, that's a nice bass!

Did we mention It's My Life by Talk Talk yet? I always though that No Doubt's version was pretty faithful.

Awwww that'd be pretty nice! This one is 16.5mm spacing and we were careful not to get that ‘thing’ with some headless basses where the end of the neck is a little further away than a standard ‘headed’ bass. So I think you’ll probably find the 34” scale here pretty spot on.

It's beautiful. Oh and it's a six string headless.. which is, of course right up my street!

I'm not sure of the model, but I did try a model that had 4 or less drivers in it at CIEC. There's no doubt they had a lovely top end and clarity, but I leant towards the low end support of a different brand. I eventually went for an 8 driver ear piece to cover my needs.

Oooh! Very interesting indeed! Good on ya! Looks great!

I could have typed the very same reply! I do use a little multi-band compression for the overall mix and some band-pass drive in the upper mids only that may well help to even out switching between playing styles, but I control the overall level with the pick or fingers. I like a solid plectrum rather than anything too bendy as well. I would say that my slap, tap, fingers and pick playing are all reasonably practiced out to be the same volume. My bass of choice probably helps with that by design.

Did we post Bill Clements already? - As far as I understand it, before losing his right hand, Bill Clements was a session player. Much like Rick Allen from Def Leppard, the loss of a limb was gonna hold him back. Massive respect.

This has GOT to be the very seeds of inspiration for bassist's very own Les Claypool and Primus.

I know this has been mentioned a few times, but for those who don't already know. The guy holding the 24 stringer is Chris Cardonne (Hope I spelt the name right). He is the mastermind behind Circle-K (now KALIUM) Strings. This bass was built for NAMM and helps to showcase the massive range of strings that Kalium offer. Low strings that have a gauge in excess of .200 and everything all the way up to skinny offerings for our treble brethren. I do like the "cause we can" attitude. It's fun. The "Jaco only needed" brigade wet themselves every time. Oh and as to whether a person likes it or not, well, thats cool with me.. we're all different