SubsonicSimpleton

Maybe ukulele might be an option to investigate - softer strings combined with smaller necks and a selection of shorter scale lengths depending what type of uke.

Might be a good idea to find a good teacher even if you don't go for regular lessons - there is a huge amount of information freely available on the interweb, but there may be many instances where being able to ask questions about things you are unsure about and get some clarification will make life much easier. A good teacher will also provide guidance on what you need to work on at any given time to maximise your progress - method books and youtube tutorials are not targetted towards individuals, so they can't target specific aspects of what you need help with most.

Before you splash the cash based on an old review, there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind; - Gear4Music are sourcing their double basses from an anonymous far east source, this doesn't automatically mean that they are bad, but there is no guaruntee that if you buy what they are listing today, that it will be the same product as what they were selling back in 2010. - Factory produced instruments usually need proper setup work to make them truly playable, every retailer that sells stringed instruments has a different standard as far as what they consider setting up a new instrument entails - box shifters don't invest the necessary man hours to bring instruments to their full potential, and much of the time what they consider "set-up" equates to borderline unplayable. - Double basses are very idiosyncratic due to the sheer size of the bits of wood used in their contruction. I would strongly recommend you take a road trip to the Gear4Music showroom in York and take a look in person at what they are selling before pulling the trigger, and also make the effort to play at least one double bass that has been set up properly by a good luthier so you know the difference.

Your Audient ID14 has adat optical connection, so you can connect up another device with adat connectivity to add up to eight additional preamps (depending on sample rate you get [email protected]/48 or [email protected]/96 on devices that support higher sample rates). Cheapest self contained new option to expand your interface is probably the Beringher ADA8200 (don't dimiss it as trash without doing some research, and listening to some material that has been recorded with one), if you want to spend more (or less secondhand) there are lots of other options for ADAT compatible preamps or interfaces with more inputs.

Can't let this thread pass without posting this - actual video of an actual basschatter(me) having a go at vocal + double bass version of the song in question. https://www.facebook.com/datbassduo/videos/1785425118384605/ Feedback/mickey taking quite welcome.

Have you tried playing your favourite lines to just a click, or unaccompanied?

Try deliberately breaking your daily routine habits across all activities - even if it makes life less convenient.

Well worth checking out Nicholas Dubochet - loads of performance and tutorial vids on his channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcQnF_pIAA I found these guys randomly surfing youtube a while back - really tasteful and musical use of slapping IMHO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seKAfbWFWCM There is so much music now on youtube, just get listening and discover things that excite you.

If you are not playing your DB with other people, you should make it a priority to find others to play with - don't worry that you haven't been playing a long time, DBs are in short supply, so most people will be quite forgiving (moreso if you let them have a go at playing your bass). I always find it helpful to listen to music that inspires me when the motivation is low. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34cAe2LDfrs

What do you have to lose by giving it a try?

Is jazz inevitable - definately NO, but discovering new music that inspires you is unavoidable unless you isolate yourself completely from hearing anything new, whether you decide to try and play this new music is a different matter. I find it hard to believe that any truly passionate musician can only appreciate music from a single narrow genre, but generally to establish yourself as a musician/band you have to have 'your thing' and be reasonably consistent with it, so even if you love a bunch of different styles it's unlikely that you can be marketed to an audience without some identifiable focus - musicians who are already established have more latitiude to branch out later in their careers and perform/record music which they may have been passionate about since their formative years but not associated with when they initially made it big, and which their management might have steered them away from for financial reasons.

From time to time I see ads on gumtree/joinmyband with retired old farts looking for band personnel who can rehearse during the day and they are not looking to play loads of gigs, just doing it for the fun of it - maybe that sort of situation would be something that would suit your working hours and allow you to not feel pressured. Last time I saw such an advert, the band had an arrangement with a local pub who let them store amps and use the backroom to rehearse on the basis they play a gig in the pub every couple of months, and they rehearsed during the day once or twice a week. Playing music with other people isn't something you should just give up on - if being part of a gigging band isn't manageable for you right now, that doesn't mean that you can't find something you will enjoy that fits your circumstances.

Congratulations

Don't try to force it out - endpins are taper fit, so the impact will have wedged the hard ebony fitting into the softer endblock, and attempting to remove it by force is likely to cause damage.

Copyright is pretty complex, here is the simple version boiled down from lots of different sources - I'm not a copyright lawyer, and much of the available information about these issues is US centric, so this may be incorrect. Recording a cover version doesn't require permission, but it does require a mechanical license. If you want to use someone elses recording in whole or in part then you need to get permission, whether it is to use a sample in a song or to use the music in a film/tv ad. If you want to make a parody version, then you need to get permission. In the US the licensing situation is very straightforward, you go to the Harry Fox Agency and buy a license that covers you for a set amount of physical copies/digital downloads. In the UK you have to deal with MCPS/PRS and they have a much more convoluted system, which refers only to % of published dealer price, which appears to be geared to esablished labels/businesses and not independant artists, but they do have a phone number you can ring, so it might be worth contacting them with some pertinent questions, and then get confirmation in writing if you want to proceed. I suspect that the stumbling blocks are likely to be issues of administration - how do you establish published dealer price if you are just selling CDs at gigs/through your own website(would you need to also sell through something like cdbabay/bandcamp to legitimise your pricing), - will your license for physical sales cover digital sales as well and what are your responsibilities if you license for a set number of physical copies and digital sales drive up your overall sales numbers, would you need to make the cover version exclusive to the physical product, - does the band need official status as a business etc, if not what happens in the event of the band splitting, will the person who bought the license be liable if digital copies continue to sell. so before you run this by an expensive lawyer(or use your MU legal assistance) the first port of call should be a conversation with the MCPS/PRS, you can find their number at the bottom of the webpage. https://prsformusic.com/licences/releasing-music-products/retail-audio-products

Go see a luthier - setting the post and standing the bridge back up isn't a big deal, why the bridge has fallen over in the first place is an interesting question - when the strings are tuned to pitch, assuming the bridge feet are correctly fitted to the top and the slots are sized correctly for the strings and lubricated with graphite from a pencil, it really shouldn't be going anywhere, so it is possible that you might benefit from some minor setup work. This video has some realy useful info. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BXHu-s7BnI

Try googling "focusrite scarlett unbuntu" - plenty of information available on various linux forums, definately worth having a read as there seems to be a few caveats - notably on some interfaces you can only access certain features by using the proprietary driver as they are not controlled from hardware switches/knobs - this could be a major annoyance depending on how you intend to use the interface, and there are quite a few choices at the same price point.

[quote name='project_c' timestamp='1496236198' post='3309777'] I know, there are plenty of rehearsal rooms which are reasonable, I played in one the other day that was £8 an hour, so I also think it's a poor excuse. I think the problem is that they see gigs as a fun night out, and they see rehearsals as a chore because we have use that time to iron out all the problem bits. Also the 'jazz spontaneity' thing is great, but 1. it only works if you really do know the tunes inside out, and 2. you can navigate though them without getting lost, and 3. you are able to interact with the rest of the band rather than just bash out a solo and sit down. For me jazz is good when the band is connected, otherwise it's just a bunch of unrelated solos. And generally that connection comes from playing together a lot and getting to know each other. It's definitely an issue, I keep dropping hints but it's not working so I think I'll need to be a bit more firm with them. [/quote] I would suggest that it might be more productive to accept their lack of motivation as being their problem, and simply focus on improving what you bring to the party - for example when it comes to not getting lost in the form, do you know the form inside out, and can you spell out the changes in a musically obvious way, can you quote a little bit of the melody to help people get back on track etc? If you do some networking, you might find opportunities to play with better musicians, but you might well find that they are too busy gigging/teaching to spend a lot of time rehearsing, so what you can bring to the bandstand without a lot of rehearsal is really important.

If you change the mass of the headstock, you will alter the resonant(and cancelling) frequencies of the neck - resonances and cancellations act like EQ, exactly how much cut/boost you get and the frequencies at which this occurs will vary from instrument to instrument.

A440 is a convenient standard, IMHO you can vary the tone of a stringed instrument quite a bit by changing it's tuning, but it's highly subjective and depends on the music you are making. My old nylon strung classical guitar sounds a lot better tuned a bit sharp from A440, whereas my steel strung acoustic likes slack tuning - definately worth experimenting with from one instrument to another.

Might be worth investigating the Rob Allen Mouse and Takamine TB10 - neither are cheap. On the cheap side, Uke Basses can sound suprisingly good.

On the whole I think you've done a really good job in all aspects, but two things jumped out at me - personally I don't think the initial unaccompanied guitar riff works well as an intro because when everything else enters the change is jarring and it feels like an intro to the intro proper - I would just chop that first 10sec off completely IMHO. There was also a mixing/production decision that feels a bit odd - in the verses, the main vocal is well presented at the front of the mix, but when you hit the chorus the vocal gets quieter (on my speakers at least) although the singer is obviously singing at a louder dynamic, which feels a bit wrong to me - as a listener I'm expecting a dynamic lift there. If this is your first collective effort at a single, then criticism aside I think you should be proud of what you have created and achieved.

The playing fast thing is pretty simple to explain - it is an easy way to impress people that are easily impressed, it is straightforward to teach and assess, young people tend to like doing everything in a mad rush. Really it is nothing new apart from the fact that people can now post videos on youtube/facebook, whereas in decades past they would have to make the pilgrimmage to their local music shop on a saturday to show off to an audience.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1493461966' post='3288497'] I'm not looking for a flipant response. On the subject on the direction of the players. Is going to be all guys playing 6 and 7 string bass guitars as if they were guitarists and shredding at lighting speed? Blue [/quote] It doesn't really matter if people want to shred on 6/7s etc, back in the 80's Mark King spawned legions of fans who were manicly slapping their 4 strings(mostly in a way that wouldn't perform a useful musical function within most bands) - this didn't lead to everyone abandoning more traditional playing styles. Based on purely anecdotal evidence, of the bass players I have talked to that have tried extended range instruments, all but one have reverted to more traditional fives or fours because the extended range (and visual presentation) is largely useless for the majority of their playing in a band context. If someone needs a bass player, they will take someone who can fulfill the role and make everyone else sound good over a 'frustrated lead guitarist' every time, unless they specifically want that shred approach. This is beautiful playing and shows the musical potential of extended range instruments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPwMoiKaNOY But lets be honest not many people in their right mind would think that it would be a good idea to carry all that extra weight and have all those extra strings to damp if they had a long gig playing punk/rock/blues/folk/soul/funk to get through.

It might be worth trying playing back the track using each of the driver options(preferences->audio device settings) that Reaper offers and see if the noise issue changes or disappears - I had an annoying ringing noise occuring consistently on one note on a double bass recording which sounded like ring from one of the string afterlengths, and spent a while trying to eq out the offending sound without any luck. Feeling pretty frustrated I listened to the offending stem with both VLC player and Audacity, and the ringing wasn't present so back in Reaper I changed the driver and it magically disappeared. I had assumed initially that what I was hearing was part of the recorded audio, but somehow one of the drivers (don't remember which unfortunately) was adding an artefact to the sound that wasn't present on the original audio. I would also check if changing proximity of your interface/you to your screen or changing the USB cable you are using makes a difference if you can establish that the noise is baked into the audio at source.