Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

SubsonicSimpleton

Member
  • Posts

    943
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by SubsonicSimpleton

  1. It is really important to keep your hand relaxed - it takes quite a lot of practice with french bow to get the hang of it, and getting tired is perfectly normal (based on my personal experience), take lots of breaks, and practice little and often and you will make progress. Tension will make you tired and sound bad. No reason you can't use both bows - you have to make the determination whether you are diluting your practice time/energy though. Practice in front of a mirror, and get a good teacher - you really don't want to bake in bad form at this stage.
  2. Anything will work in a pinch - even a cheap 2.1 set of PC speakers, however you will be limited on the volume that they will handle without distorting and the detail they will resolve (speaking from experience back in the day using any old cheap domestic hifi I could cobble together). Decide what your budget actually is - if you can listen to a few of the speakers within your budget side by side, you might be suprised by how different they can sound to each other, so pick something that you like and can live with soundwise. Also bear in mind the practical implications of speaker size - whatever you buy is going to need to fit into the space you are using, which might mean you need to make some compromise if your space is small.
  3. You can always string through the body of the instrument to compensate for the shorter scale (going at an angle as the modern Yamaha BB basses, you could adjust the angle to change the amount of string behind the saddles)
  4. Drumming is great fun - definately worth asking around to see if there are any opportunites to get on an old fashioned acoustic kit from time to time for a couple of hours.
  5. Bought a strap from Chris, quick, courteous, straightforward deal 👍.
  6. Is it worth considering fitting adjusters (which will add some height) and then getting the top of the bridge reshaped properly. How much silk is on/past the bridge? On some guitar and bass guitar bridges there are issues with silks on the witness point of the bridge take a look at this fix (with pics) http://www.chubbuckguitars.com/blog/2013/04/03/1969-gibson-eb-1-saddle-up-on-silk depending on how far the silks are going over the bridge on your DB, you might be able to simply take a small piece of hardwood, and drill and slot it to match the spacing of the holes in your existing tailpiece and use it as a spacer behind the tailpiece in a similar fashion.
  7. The new mac mini that is using apple's own cpu's looks like it might be both sensibly priced(by apple standards) and worthwhile for music/video production work - I am an ardent hater of apple's forced upgrade/restricted access to older software versions/anti-upgrade and repair business practices, but I'm starting to consider migrating from windaz next time I upgrade my recording setup.
  8. This is simple; set up your audio recording into the pc and press record and set your video camera recording you need to syncronise the video with the separate audio later, so slap your hand on the strings of your bass several times - this will make a nice sharp transient (in film making this is what the clapper board is for) now record yourself jamming along. To make the final video you need to import the video from your camera and the audio you recorded separately into a video editing program. You first align the audio recroding you made separately with the video (using the transients to facilitate lining everything up easily) Next you mute the audio from the video track. If you are happy everything syncs OK your next task is to trim the audio/video - depending on which video editing software you are using you might need to adjust your approach - if you can select just the part of the audio/video you want and export it without dropping sync, then that is job done, but I found that some less well featured programs(windows movie maker) required exporting everything to combine the audio with the video, and then a second edit to trim the ends
  9. I haven't tried this in Reaper, but if you use Audacity, you can place a marker at the beginning of each section and then on the export menu there is an option to export all the sections separately - there are several options for individual filename schemes when doing this including using the text labels for each section of the recording for the tracks. Audacity is free, and it might be the case in this instance that using a different tool is more efficient in terms of general workflow. Here is a guide on how to do the above process in Reaper
  10. I've had success using a powered USB hub between my ipad and a couple of different bus powered devices which draw more power than the ipad can supply. Here is a link I found very helpful http://auriaapp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11150
  11. And playing a gig which might give some human beings some joy and uplift them from the day to day reality of their lives is a horrific crime? Depending on where you live in the UK, you'll have a different perspective but in urban west yorkshire the authorities are unable/unwilling to enforce the law with respect to a veritable cornucopia of criminal and unlawful behaviour which degrades the quality of daily life for everyone except maybe the individuals commiting the crime. Meanwhile city hedge fund managers and large corporations willfully avoid billions of taxes every year while joe public gets to enjoy watching all their essential public services being cut to the bone.
  12. It isn't illegal or unlawful to travel with any personal belongings that don't contravene the laws of the country you are travelling to or the regulations of the travel provider - attempting to carry a merch stand through customs would just be plain silly, but if you are carrying your own instrument/computer and you haven't stuffed the control compartment full of illegal substances, they have no legal basis to challenge you. It's a good idea to be able to prove you own your own intrument to avoid situations where customs might attempt to charge you import duties for bringing your own property back into the country, but there is no law preventing private citizens from taking there property abroad for their own personal enjoyment.
  13. Just to be clear I think that losing FOM is a bad thing but I think you are being excessively pessimistic. What is stopping the guy from Amsterdam getting on a plane/train with his macbook and going "on holiday"? If you look at the raw maths of numbers of enforcement officers and the priorites of the enforcement agencies whose remit this situation might cover, what is the realistic likelyhood that officers are going to appear at any small event and start detaining people on suspicion of working without a visa? Everything is subject to cost/benefit, so unless we find ourselves in a situation where the powers that be are engaging in a Stalinist crackdown on the free exchange of ideas and sending all the artists and intellectuals to the gulag, in all likelyhood the authorities will only start to actively pursue you when you have passed the economic threshold where paying for the visa wouldn't be an issue.
  14. I would recommend you contact John Hornby Skewes who are UK distributor for HK, and get a copy of the documentation for the cabs in question - I have recent experience of using their(HK) active PA cabs, and the correct wiring scheme is somewhat counterintuitive and doesn't fall in line with standard convention or the labelling on the plate amps.
  15. The H2N is a great self contained hit one button and forget about it recording solution - to get the best out of it, the most useful accessory is the screw in tapered handle which allows it to be used with a regular microphone stand. The accessory screw size is the same as the ones used on DSLRs and camcorders, so if you already have a camera tripod you could use that.
  16. If you know what you want soundwise, it might be worth considering buying an amp that has been built using old fashioned turret board and point to point wiring (or building one yourself) - most modern valve amps are built using components mounted directly to PCBs and although they sound great when working properly, they can be problematic to repair due to the relative fragility of the pcb traces. I have a fender superchamp XD which I bought used, huge range of sounds available, very portable, you can disconnect the internal speaker and conect it to an extension cab(8ohm min), I would be singing its praises almost unconditionally, but a week or so after I bought it I dropped in on a mate who had built a homebrew amp based on the champ 5F1 circuit with solid state rectification, and added a baxandall tonestack and master volume and it was really on another level, no high gain tones on offer and no effects, but sounded great both with bass and guitar whatever you did with the controls.
  17. Bear in mind that there are several reasons that you may find your current bow uncomfortable; - there are no absolute standards on weight/length/balance point which can make different bows within either style feel very different - there is no standard in human physiology or individual preference which means that you might actively dislike a bow that I love - the source of the discomfort might be more about your personal approach/technique than the bow itself (input from a good teacher is really useful in identifying issues with posture or excessive tension) I play french grip, and have played many more bows that felt uncomfortable than ones that felt like they were not actively fighting me, and a couple of my DB playing pals have made the switch in the opposite direction to you and found relief from shoulder issues by switching from french to german, although in one case he found that the majority of available german bows were on the long side and ended up with a fairly inexpensive student model with a shorter stick which he loves. Before you jump ship, find a teacher who plays german grip (if you dont have one already) and try some other german bows, so you can remove some variables from the equation - in the meantime check out Edger Meyer, Craig Butterfield, Paul Chambers and Gary Carr if you are debating with yourself about one grip having an advantage over the other.
  18. Studio can cover a whole range of potential scenarios, between a basic undivided space where you might set up a computer and record vocals/acoustic guitar with a mic, DI guitar/bass and use an electronic drumkit to feed midi data to your DAW, versus attempting to multitrack multiple loud acoustic sources (drums/cranked amps). The cost of any buildout is usually way more expensive than you might expect if you are looking at your budget and eyeing the purchase cost of individual pieces of equipment such as monitors/desks/mics/interfaces etc. If you are entertaining notions of recording any loud acoustic sources, before you spend any money it is a good idea to conduct a real world test of how bad the noise problem is without conducting any soundproofing - realistically without a big budget, you are unlikely to reduce bass frequencies by much, so setting up looper into a bass amp in the room in question and then adjusting the volume until it is at an acceptable level in any adjoining rooms/properties will give you a reasonable idea of how loud you can get. Even if you spend money addressing obvious weakpoints for sound leakage such as flimsy internal doors and old single glazed windows, structural transmission of sound is much more difficult to address. The most cost effective way to address soundproofing is to relocate to a location where it doesn't matter if you need to be noisy, or address the problem at source rather than trying to contain it. In your position I would be thinking along the lines of basic PC + copy of Reason or Fruityloops + basic interface + basic midi keys + headphones as a basis to get however many people you could comfortably fit in the space making music without causing noise problems at minimum cost, and then have a edrum kit and a couple of mics/stands available as and when required (but not left out for unsupervised use).
  19. When you get better at any skilled activity, increase in skill level also increases your sensitivity to errors - you just have to keep putting in the work in your practice and learn to not dwell on the mistakes (it is quite possible that no-one else is noticing them or being affected negatively by them in the same way that you are). It is good to be critical of your own playing after the fact, but it isn't helpful to be listening critically while you are creating/performing, as you will get better results the more "in the moment" you are.
  20. Be sure to take your own bass and bow with you when you go shopping - although you might reasonably expect more expensive to equate to better, you might find that there is no certainty it equates to better playability or better sound quality even if the materials and cosmetic appointments are better. When I started looking for my first bow upgrade the lack of local stockists led me to be cheeky and ask other double bassists if I could check out their bows - I was very fortunate that they were generous and trusting enough to either invite me round to play through their bow collections or lend me bows to spend some time with at home. I found that on my bass the best combination of handling/sound was a Col Legno that had been rehaired with black hair, and that although some of the wooden bows sounded prettier (in isolation at least) none of them had a handling balance that I really liked. Comparing the Arcus(S4 I think) directly with the Col Legno on my bass I preferred the Col Legno both in terms of sound and handling, so even though I was prepared to pay more I ended up picking the bow I felt worked best for myself and my bass/strings. I quite like the directness of carbon/carbon-composite bows, but to my taste the Arcus was a bit too bright (although I do play on spiros, so if I were using a darker string the Arcus might have been more palateable). Be open minded and choose what is going to work for you and the music you like to play.
  21. In all areas of showbiz, top billing carries prestige - some headliners will be a genuine cut above and will simply be better prepared in all aspects, but some headliners are definately guilty of sabotaging their support in order to make themselves look better by comparison. Promoters and managers will usually pander to the egomanic that is laying the golden egg without exception or apology. Navigating the behind the scenes politics can be a bit tricky for support acts in situations where there are rock star divas in bands further up the billing(or frustrated rock star divas slumming it as in house engineers), best you can do in these situations is be polite and professional, play like it's the last gig you'll ever do and make careful note of the individuals you do/don't want to be working with in future.
  22. On the originals circuit you might not have the luxury of bringing your own amp on smaller shows unless you are providing the backline, on larger shows the soundguy will DI you and want to keep stage volume down. Reality for origininals bands starting out is short support slots or slots on multiple band lineups, in both situations you are unlikely to have the luxury of lengthy soundchecks, and stage space is likely to be at a premium - the most important thing is to rock out and put on a good show regardless, the easier you make life for the engineer and organisers the better. Bands where the bass is indistinct can have multiple reasons including room acoustics, poor EQ/FX choices on the part of the bassist, poor EQ/FX choices on the part of the other band members, poor arrangement of instrumental parts/voicings - the poor sound choice issue is often rooted in people being used to hearing their instrument in isolation when practising at home and then being unwilling to alter "their sound" to fit better within the overall sonic mix of the band. edit: @Cuzziebeat me to it
  23. My advice would be to wait and see how rehearsals go before buying anything in terms of amplification - if you can manage with the provided backline(that you'll be paying for anyway in the room hire price) then be thankful for the energy saved by only having to bring your bass in a gigbag. You always have the option to take the effects send on your rumble amp and connect it to the effects return on the rehearsal facility amp and use it as a slave.
  24. Will you be playing original music, and gigging on the circuit that caters to original bands, or will you be playing covers? Where will you rehearse, in a commercial rehearsal facility or will you be rehearsing in an environment where you have to provide everything yourselves? Where will you be storing your gear? Where are the venues you are most likely to end up playing, and are they easily accessible by vehicle for loading? If for instance you are playing all original material in a big city, you might not need an amp at all and putting your money to a high quality DI solution that gives the sound you want and can be fed into the efx return on practice room/shared backline or direct to the PA on larger gigs might be a better solution than an amp.
  25. Although Trace made a range of amps badged with different ratings, if you inspected the actual amp modules inside the heads you might just find that they had a practice of putting higher rated modules into lower output badged amps to meet production targets - economies of scale would have made a big difference to their bottom line, and it's important to remember that Trace were not manufacturing on the same scale as Fender/Hartke/Ampeg/Marshall.
×
×
  • Create New...