lowland

Peter May has been Cliff's drummer since 1988, I'm pretty sure it's him on the ROB record. I met Pete at a studio I worked at as house engineer in the mid-80s and thought him a pretty extraordinary player (and all-round top bloke), one of those drummers who can play metronomically accurately or with as much feel as you could want. Googling around, I found this interview from a few years ago about the various work he's done with emphasis on West End gigs - an interesting read and insight into that world. [url="http://www.mikedolbear.co.uk/story.asp?StoryID=3135"]http://www.mikedolbe...sp?StoryID=3135[/url]

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1477930393' post='3165344'] One reason reason I assumed it was Mo (apart from some interviews), was back then, Guitarist Ray Russell was also writing some cues on the show (although George Fenton composed the themes) They were all good friends and worked a lot together (from what I have read). Maybe 'Rich' Moderator might have some info. He did an interview with Mo Foster for Basschat (a very good read, actually). [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/182955-interview-with-mo-foster/page__p__2322435__hl__mo%20foster%20interview__fromsearch__1#entry2322435"]http://basschat.co.u..._1#entry2322435[/url] [/quote] Interesting, thanks lowdown. I'll have a look at the interview tonight after Only Connect!

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1477927319' post='3165315'] Ah..ok. A full track version. This is the version I thought was Mo Foster (The opening titles cue)[/font][/size] [size=5][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=2]I believe 'Rich' (moderator) interviewed him for Basschat, maybe he knows.[/size][/font][/size] [size=5][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=2][url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/182955-interview-with-mo-foster/"]http://basschat.co.u...with-mo-foster/[/url][/size][/font][/size] [/quote] The thit plockens: I think that's an early version, fretless, and therefore (according to my theory) Dill Katz. I attach him to the Bergerac music because when the series was running there was a music video (presumably made by the Beeb) of the theme showing the musicians, with DK on fretless. Of course, we could have been hearing Mo Foster and seeing someone else...

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1477925445' post='3165292'] Any links for the fretted version ? I have never heard a fretted version. It would be interesting to compare them. I know that there were two or three alternative arrangements over the various seasons. [/quote] Try this, note fretted gliss @ 0.03 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9iyPEJ4ELw

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1477924113' post='3165275'] So who played on this one? Was it Dill - or perhaps Herbie Flowers? [media]http://youtu.be/3VdN-2RYPKg[/media] [/quote] Brilliant!

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1477921576' post='3165257'] Learn something everyday. I thought it was 'Mo Foster'. [/quote] I think we're both right - I didn't know this before, but it seems there are two versions - one Foster (fretted) and one Katz (fretless).

Fretless bassist on Bergerac was Dill Katz - one of those bits of trivia you pick up along the way :-) Cracking (old) thread with some great tunes. How about - Flambards, composed by David Fanshawe. I heard him talking about it on the radio once, the second half of the tune is the first half upside down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHIk2eeXjBg

Having returned to bass about three years ago after some decades away, when I first started playing again I had detailed notes for everything. Although this helped get me up and running, I was often reading at gigs. Not good in a pop/rock covers band as my head was down and I wasn't interacting with band members or audience. Now I'm back pretty much where I was playing-wise in the early 90s (took a while though!), I don't need to write things down - I learn parts from Spotify and Youtube at home on my own, then we adjust where necessary as a band in the rehearsal room. The learning part has been helped considerably by acquiring a Zoom B3 recently: I run it off my iMac and listen to the track and bass (the latter using one of the amp/cab sims for a realistic sound) through headphones.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1477314697' post='3161313'] I am sure there must be a light bulb gag in there somewhere. [/quote] Haha! You're not wrong there... How many sound engineers does it take to change a light bulb? "Sorry mate, I don't [i]do[/i] lights, just sound...".

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' timestamp='1477312337' post='3161277'] I was at a gig the other weekend where a band were using backing tracks to beef up the sound, and I found it totally unthrilling. Yes, they were in time, and yes it all sounded very rich and well-produced, but there was no feeling of immediacy, no connection. When I'm at a gig I want there to be a one-to-one correlation between what I'm seeing, and the noises that I'm hearing. Anything less than that and I just end up spending the entire gig fixating on which parts are live and which parts are recorded, trying to mentally calculate some sort of authenticity quotient. S.P. [/quote] Good points - yes, unsubtle use of BTs can come across that way if overcooked. I'd like to think that in our case we use just enough to make things a little bigger in the right places, but never so much it becomes plastic-sounding. Three of us are sound engineers (1 mastering, 1 mastering with a record production background and 1 studio owner/recordist/mixer) with a lot of experience between us, so - in theory anyway! - we should be able to make it work.

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1477223638' post='3160629'] Wow that's pretty militant. We use tracks for horns and strings. We have a great keys player but it always sounds more natural if he is freed up to concentrate on more piano, Rhodes, moog and synth stuff. If a drummer can work well with click then it's a great way to improve the overall size and depth of sound. Monitoring is really important if you are using tracks. We all use in ears for best results. It does take away some flexibility but, if used only when beneficial to the song, is a great tool to have. That said, if it was just to cover a shortfall in a guitarists ability to fill space, I'd be more inclined to ditch the guitarist. Why he needs to fill space is another question that should be asked. Unless you are doing big rock songs then you shouldn't need more fill from him. [/quote] +1. We use backing parts played off the drummer's Roland pad to fill out here and there, plus he gets a click in his IEMs. The aforementioned strings and horns, plus we sometimes have small perc. elements going (the bongos on the dropdown of 'Let's Dance' come to mind), occasional BV parts to fill out what we're already doing live and once in a while rhythm guitars during guitar solos. We're a 5 piece pub and functions band and could manage without these things, but choose to use them because for us they enhance something that's already half decent.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1476269472' post='3152822'] Great choice of inears! I think I need to start claiming commission soon! [/quote] For sure :-) Paul at CIEMC was great, and enabled me to audition a few sets to make a choice - I brought an iPod with some music I know well to run them. I'm a mastering engineer by day so fairly fussy about sound, and what impressed me about the JH11s was their very decent frequency response/resolution with no lack of lows, and although they're not exactly cheap they sounded better, or more usable for the purpose, to me than a set costing a couple of hundred quid more.

My band went to in-ears recently, it's been great for all the usual reasons. For me on bass, IEMs are wired and driven by a Behringer Powerplay P1 headphone amp; I have that on a a mic stand (there's an adaptor on the bottom of the P1) rather than being attached to my belt for freedom from the cabling. I still have an amp and cab on stage, albeit much quieter than previously as I'm currently using it only for a sensation of moving air to back up the in-ear sound - as I get more confident in time I may abandon amplification and send the Zoom B3 to the PA only. IEM-wise, I have JH Audio JH11s via The Custom IEM Company - thanks for recommending them in the other thread, EBS freak.

I use Sennheiser 600s with my Zoom B3 (the latter acting as a USB soundcard with an iMac) for practice - great. A simple but effective 600 hack is to replace the supplied cable with the equivalent part from the 650, which is thicker/more robust and sounds better. And not for the faint of heart, but I removed the internal foam from my 600s some time ago and found the mid and low clarity improved. I agree with bubinga5 re. the Beyer DT990 Pros: another very good set of open-backed cans with a warmer sound than the 600s. I've had mine over 20 years, although thanks to Beyer's spares availability I don't think any part, except possibly the headband, is now original.