SubsonicSimpleton

I just took another look and had to laugh at myself for being a dumbass and not noticing

Viewing the site using Firefox/Windows all the prices that used to appear at the top of adverts in the marketplace have disappeared - no idea whether this is a browser specific issue, or affecting everybody.

Can you identify a reason why your current bow isn't up to the task or do you just have GAS? There are three things that will make learning to play with the bow easier IMHO - Face to face lessons with a good teacher (youtube videos can't give you feedback on what you are not doing right or direct you towards practicing what you need to work on to address areas you are struggling with) - Fresh rosin (I'd recommend Nymans, because it's good and very popular, so you are unlikely to end up buying a stale cake thats been sat around on a shelf for months/years) - Good bow hair (a rehair will breathe new life into any bow even an inexpensive one - depending on how technically demanding the material you are working on is, getting your current bow rehaired might be a better bet than buying another bow. I know a local bassist who is very active on the amateur orchestra scene, who buys a new cheap bow every six months from ebay because it is marginally cheaper than paying for a good rehair, these cheap wooden bows were suprisingly good when you consider what they cost in terms of how they handled and sounded, but let down by the hair quality, so I wouldn't assume that because a bow is cheap it automatically isn't worth using)

I've used the local train network in yorkshire plenty, but best to avoid rush hour like the plague. The usual drill is that you need to avoid blocking corridors and the nearside platform side doors, I've found that if you ask the guard nicely where would be best they appreciate that you are trying to make their life easier in respect to their H&S responsibilities and are very accomodating. Bear in mind that you might end up having to stand with your DB for the entire journey to ensure it doesn't get damaged or to be on hand to move it out of the way if necessary. If it needs to go in the guards van, then make sure you have means to strap it in place quickly and securely. Never taken my DB on a Virgin train specifically, try talking to their customer service first, but if you are passing through a mainline station, and have the opportunity to talk to their frontline staff in person you might get better answers.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1509448231' post='3398937'] Because they've bodged it by fitting a sub-standard item (flakey WiFi router) in what looks like an otherwise perfect piece of kit. And not only that but it would probably only cost a few pounds more to get it right in the first place. [/quote] IIRC the wifi router has low transmission power in order to allow the unit to be certified worldwide (different territories have different regulations on RF transmitters yada yada yada) - it is a bit disappointing, but given Behringers business model of low margins and economy of scale it makes perfect sense from their viewpoint as a manufacturer to ensure there are no territory dependant variations in the circuitry.

They were probably using the pad to control one of the new generation of digital stagebox mixers that don't have traditional controls (eg Behringer XR18, Allen & Heath Qu-SB etc)

[quote name='Ajoten' timestamp='1508930029' post='3395394'] Rather than start new thread I'm going to chip in here. I currently have no need to amp my bass but would like to experiment anyway. In a very very cheap way. Has anyone had any success with a £10 transducer or tie clip mic thing? [/quote] I have the J-tone that Beer linked in the post above yours, which I would recommend as a reliable low budget solution that punches above its price point. If you want to go the DIY/ebay route with cheap mics/transducers, do it because you are curious and be willing to lose any money you spend - there was some buzz on talkbass about using cheap radioshack lav mics some time back, but some people reported success and some total failure (in about equal measure IIRC), it is impossible to know precisely why there was such variance (QC issues, differing volume levels, bad gainstaging, bad amp placement etc etc), so best to treat it as a gamble.

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1508187410' post='3390420'] Listen to music. Thats what I do. [/quote] This - there is a huge amount of music to discover and accessing it has never been easier, spend some time listening to unfamiliar music and find something new that excites you. Also, if you have been spending a lot of time playing covers, involving yourself in a project that is purely creative can be very satisfying, whether it is contributing to writing/recording original songs or improvisational.

Just a thought - have you tried connecting the click track output to something other than the drummers headphone amp, and does the problem persist? According to the focusrite website the line outs on your interface are TRS balanced mono, so as you indicated in an earlier post you were unsure about this you might want to review your cabling solution.

Looking at the photos, it appears the issue is the shape of the fingerboard(neck itself doesnt look bent). Take it to a luthier - if the nut height and fingerboard relief can be sorted out without major surgery they'll be able to tell you. Assuming it is doable, the amount of reshaping necessary is likely to vary depending on the strings you intend to use (modern setup for spiros is much flatter than traditional approach for gut strings) - if you got the bass for nothing, throwing some money at a proper setup is a no-brainer. I'd guess you might need to spend £200-£300 quid, but in the long term its a small price to pay to have an instrument that is comfortable and easy to play.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1507808797' post='3388081'] Of course it's Duck, so I'm happy to accept that he's right, and everyone else is wrong :-) [/quote] Carole Kaye told me she deliberately played the major 6th over the minor chord to create tension when she recorded this.

Not directly on topic, but bear with me. Recently there has been a lot of developement in the use of impulse responses, which is potentially very useful for home recordists wanting to record acoustic instruments - several hardware manufacturers feature this in their products focussed mainly on live use (axe fxII, line6 helix, fishman aura, audiosprockets tonedexter) - some use premade IRs, some allow you to create your own, and you can buy professionally made IRs very cheaply. There are plenty of demo videos available on youtube, I'll link a couple. I first came across this concept some time back, and was intrigued (thinking it might be a good solution for DB, but the units are way to expensive for casual experimentation) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZixaSgBOy4 Pretty recently the tonedexter came up on the american forum DB section so I had a look around and was quite impressed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Argxbq0vvM Bit more digging and the low-cost software option appears(worth watching these to hear how the IRs affect both piezo and regular mag pup DI signals) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ob9Qn8uH4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmPm_28Jtxs If you have a plugin that does EQ matching (like izotope ozone) you can even have a go at making your own IRs. After a little google-fu, I found a free VST called Bodilizer and a bunch of impulses for it, and a quick test using my old ovation copy which has a rather basic and nasty sounding piezo system sounded favourable - I'll do a proper test tomorrow, and I'm happy to publish the audio on soundcloud or supply the uncompressed 24bit wavs if anyone is interested. Why is this relevant? You might want to prioritise ergonomics and acoustic performance over onboard electronics given how much sonic improvement is available from hardware/plugs, and you might not need to spend top dollar on buying an axe with a cutaway, which might let you hang on to one of your existing instruments (if you feel they have another worthwhile flavour to offer, or writing mojo etc).

Might be worth reading this thread and drawing your own conclusions https://www.talkbass.com/threads/blast-cult.1248366/

There is lots of information on room design and treatment here. http://forum.studiotips.com/index.php This article is a good place to start http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3314

Are punch cards more evil than TAB?

Suppose it depends on how Roger wants to approach it (keep the notes in the same place or adjust for drop tuning) - the detuner is just a slightly quicker alternative to the tuning pegs, there are also at least a couple of luthiers who make short gated extensions that extend the range to D, and don't require the same string routing as a full length extension (might work fine with a larger range of regular 3/4 and 4/4 E strings on some basses). Certainly the hipshot/drop tune the E is the cheapest and least invasive and easy enough to test in the practice room whether you can wrap your head around it before reaching for your wallet.

Hipshot make a detuner for double bass, have a dig around on the american forum, there was a thread a while back started by someone who needed low C for a musical type gig but didn't have an extension and couldn't afford one.

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1505291462' post='3370719'] Final newbie Q, if I may! How much difference / advantage is a condenser mic going to have over a normal performance mic for vocal recording? (I've already got a performance mic, but would need to buy a condenser mic). Is it a "must"? If so, which condenser mic would you recommend? [/quote] Condenser mics are more sensitive and will capture more detail, however sometimes this extra detail can be problematic if you are recording in an environment with less than stellar acoustics or noise leakage issues. So if you live in a densely populated urban area, you might find yourself capturing the neighbours flushing the toilet, the dog barking down the street and passing traffic as well as what you actually want to record. If you have access to a dynamic vocal mic I think you should start by making some recordings with that, and ask around to see if you can borrow a condenser mic(and other flavours of dynamic mic) to try in the same environment and make the decision based on what sounds better rather than received wisdom from the internet - bear in mind that different voices sound different on different mics, so if you are recording your own voice, some mics may flatter you and others may emphasise things you don't like, and because everyone's voice is different, it is not really possible to give advice on what will give good results with any degree of accuracy. IMHO it is better to have a mic that flatters a singers voice(requiring minimal processing after the fact) and that they are comfortable perfoming into than having the highest fidelity.

I would reckon you have Dominant E & A and Superflexible D & G

What do the ball ends look like?

[quote name='6feet7' timestamp='1504003057' post='3362008'] I've seen a couple of double bass ebony boards going for sale on eBay for less than £100. Would it be worth looking at getting one of them fitted? [/quote] A good luthier might insist on sourcing the fingerboard blank from a source they trust - not all blanks are equal quality, or sourced responsibly, so best to ask the luthier in question before making any third party purchases.

Take a close look at the restrictions in the 'lite' versions and cost of ownership of the full versions - personally I would recommend going with Reaper, because the demo isn't crippled and the licensing is very affordable and doesn't come with problematic copy protection BS (no requirement to be online or use special dongles), the developers are continually updating and implementing bugfixes and as a software package it runs very efficiently. I also like the fact that the team that make Reaper are not a big commercial entity, so I don't have to pay for anything other than the software, and the money is going direct to the people that make it. If you want multiple headphone outs you can also look at a headphone distribution amp that will drive multiple sets of cans (behringer make one that will drive 4 sets of cans for about twenty quid which is quite serviceable for tracking purposes, and gives you the flexibility to send a cue mix at line level some distance from the interface itself and can also be useful in situations where you don't want to monitor the same mix as the performer(you do need more than 2 outs from your interface if you want to do this though, as usually the headphone output mirrors the main outputs))

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1503669146' post='3360179'] I don't know much about them, isn't a double bass a double bass? [/quote] T&G Martin specialise in expensive carved instruments aimed mostly at the classical market, you could play rockabilly tunes on a fine orchestral instrument, but it would be a waste of money - for some styles of music ply basses are much more appropriate, not because of their cost or construction, but because of the way they respond to player input, to generalise greatly, they tend to be more direct and percussive and spit the notes out quickly compared to carved instruments (at least in my experience).

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1503656571' post='3359989'] Thomas Martin [url="http://www.thomasmartin.co.uk"]http://www.thomasmartin.co.uk[/url] They're based a five minute drive from where I live, and they also make the very fine Williamscot bass guitars. [/quote] Not really instruments aimed at rockabilly players. I had a go on artisan's Duke when he was selling it but couldn't raise all the cash to buy it at the time, very nice bit of kit indeed - you can get them from thomann who stock a couple of models or custom order from the guy who makes them in Germany through bassico.eu - I was very impressed by both Dukes I've played (another basschatter was kind enough to loan me one for a couple of weeks) they are excellent professional standard ply instruments.

Well in that case maybe the best course of action would be to let him have some input on which of the guitars he is most excited by and then be willing to spend a little cash getting it set up properly if necessary good selection of whats available here https://www.thomann.de/gb/shortscale_guitars.html worth noting that the harley benton strat is available in two scale lengths(19inch and 22.75 inch), and the expensive fenders are 24inch which is short by fender standards but still quite big compared to the other guitars on offer.