Stylon Pilson

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='303734' date='Oct 10 2008, 11:49 AM']Yes unfortunately I fear that might be the case. It's fairly safe to say though that it is probably not alder.[/quote]

You're almost certainly right. Genuine Alder is generally found on the high end basses of this style. This one's probably just unknown Tone Wood, Solid Body or Basswood.

S.P.

If a sunburst Fender Precision bass has black finish covering the entirety of the rear contour, does this indicate that the bass is actually made of plywood and hence not a genuine Fender?

S.P.

Played The Cellar Bar at Bracknell last night.

The drummer had to stay home, through no fault of his own, so we had to go ahead without him. It turned out pretty well, but we definitely missed him.

Not a flawless performance on our part, but we engaged the crowd, and the sound man made us sound really good. If every gig could be as good as that, I'd be a happy man.

We had a slight technical hitch early on in one of the songs in our encore, which resulted in our frontman's acoustic guitar being totally lost. Took us a few minutes to get it back online, and we restarted the song. Slightly awkward, but we had a forgiving audience.

S.P.

It's kinda funky, but could there be a neck dive problem here? My Sinsonido is headless, and has good balance as a consequence.

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I'd buy that if it was made of alder.

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I usually play somewhere between the bridge and the 7th fret.

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My first amp was a Stagg 20W combo with an 8" speaker. Used that for half a dozen pub gigs. No PA support. Admittedly I didn't have to compete with a drummer, so the overall volume was low.

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[quote name='bass_ferret' post='290799' date='Sep 24 2008, 12:52 PM']Dizzie Gillespie?[/quote]

That's different. His trumpet had mojo.

S.P.

[quote name='bnt' post='290312' date='Sep 23 2008, 08:42 PM']If you were using Audacity on Linux[/quote]

I am. Ubuntu. I installed the SC4 and Hard Limiter with

[code]sudo apt-get install swh-plugins[/code]

S.P.

[quote name='bnt' post='289217' date='Sep 22 2008, 03:10 PM']Does your Audacity installation include a plugin called [b]SC4[/b]? This is a more flexible compressor with an attack time that goes down to 1.5ms.[/quote]

SC4 and Hard Limiter are working beautifully for me. I did consider trying a different DAW, but to be honest I can't be bothered with the hassle of learning how to use it.

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With the exception of electric guitars and electric basses, what other musical instruments have significant stylistic variation within the species? You never hear a trumpet player complaining about the fact that all trumpets look the same.

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[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='289773' date='Sep 23 2008, 11:27 AM']i don't mind being told i am off or what ever though telling someone who sings that they can't just feels that bit more personal, i can practice and get better but if your vocals are dropping off then thats really hard to improve on, you can't just tune up you voice.[/quote]

Not true. With practise, he can improve.

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[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='289750' date='Sep 23 2008, 11:03 AM']i have suggested we get a small tape setup to record some practices so we can hear back what it sounds like in the hope that he can hear what he sounds like but will that be enough[/quote]

This is definitely a good place to start. The only potential downfall is when he listens to the recording, turns to you, and then says "I sound terrible! Why did none of you gits tell me?!?"

S.P.

[quote name='charic' post='289253' date='Sep 22 2008, 03:50 PM']If it clipped on the actual recording its going to always distort. If thats the case theres not alot you can do im afraid[/quote]

Nope, no clipping on the recording. The drums got up to about -3dB on the recording, but everything else was down at about -15dB.

Thanks for all the plugin recommendations, guys - they sound very promising. I'll give them a try.

S.P.

Morning all,

I've been recording my band using a Zoom H2 set on "low" microphone sensitivity. I then import the files into Audacity and split them into individual songs. They're quite quiet, so I amplify them to get rid of wasted headroom.

For Saturday night's performance, I'm finding that an amplification of about 15dB gets the waveform looking nice and fat, but not too fat. The only problem is that on some of the songs, the drummer ends the song very vigorously, so if I try to amplify the songs by more than about 3dB, the drums clip.

I need to apply some serious compression to those drum passages. Audacity's "compressor" plugin isn't working it for me, because the peak volume comes instantaneously, and the plugin has a minimum attack of 0.1 seconds. The "leveller" doesn't seem to do much at all, even on its strongest setting, probably because it's designed to operate on longer sections of music.

I feel that the solution is going to have to be to use the "envelope" tool to manually quieten the drums, but I wonder if there's a better way.

Or do you think I should just say "sod the drums" and, for the sake of a few smacks of the snare drum, let them clip?

Thanks,

S.P.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='284904' date='Sep 16 2008, 12:01 PM']Question.

Who buys Bose?

Answer.

The same person who would buy B&O[/quote]

Heh, I once bought a B&O telephone (I think it was the Beocom 1600). The sound quality was absolutely atrocious. I learned my lesson.

[url="http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html"]Here's a lengthy and well-reasoned article on Bose[/url]. If you're interested in skipping to the bit about the demonstration room, [url="http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html#fair"]it's here[/url].

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[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='284862' date='Sep 16 2008, 11:23 AM']Have you ever been to a Bose shop with a cinema inside?

I was given a very impressive demonstration.

They may be over priced but there staff could teach guitar shops a thing or two about customer service, they gave me the full demonstration because i was interested even though they knew I had no intention of buying.[/quote]

Perhaps its because they know that you'll then promptly run off and tell all your friends how good Bose is. And the myth continues to perpetuate itself.

The reason why the demonstration is so impressive is that they have complete control over the setup. Good luck trying to replicate that demonstration in your own living room.

Additionally, did you trace the wires back to check that the speakers were actually plugged into the Bose amplifier? I've heard rumours that they run it all back into a control room which is hidden from public view.

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This thread is starting to sound like something from Winnie The Pooh.

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[quote name='bilbo230763' post='280147' date='Sep 9 2008, 09:08 AM']Well, I definitely learned something today [/quote]

It's a good sign when people attack your spelling. It means that they couldn't find fault with your argument.

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I've been chuffed to bits with [url="http://www.andertons.co.uk/"]Anderton's[/url] in Guildford, and [url="http://www.theguitarworks.co.uk/"]Guitar Works[/url] in Reading. Both offer magnificent service and I would recommend them without reservations.

S.P.

[quote name='Merton' post='276406' date='Sep 3 2008, 05:20 PM']Plus, if you don't know th enote names, when a guitarist says "I'm playing the chord E minor" you won't have a clue which notes go into it, or even where E is on the fretboard...[/quote]

I've deleted my post because I realised that it basically says the same as this.

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[quote name='Doctor J' post='276087' date='Sep 3 2008, 10:44 AM']Fender are facing more competition than ever, the availability of instruments to the average player worldwide has never been greater. It mystifies me why they would take such a blatantly shoddy move in the face of this competition.[/quote]

Presumably they are expecting that people who want the "no scratchplate" look will just buy one of the relevant artist series instruments.

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Your bass sounds great, but there are some moments where the timing seems to go a bit wonky. It might be because the bass and drums are both doing fast fills simultaneously, and in that situation they need to be perfectly synchronised or you end up with a sound like a rhythm section falling down a lift shaft. Not that your song sounds like a rhythm section falling down a lift shaft, but it's leaning in that direction.

I like the overall style though. As the man said, it's got a lot of The Who about it.

S.P.

[quote name='marcus bell' post='274195' date='Sep 1 2008, 01:34 AM']p.s. has anyone got any ashdown gear for sale [/quote]

Well, I have an Ashdown and I love it, but after reading about all these people who don't like it, I'm thinking that my opinion must obviously be wrong. So obviously I'll be getting rid of it post haste.

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[quote name='NeonMig' post='266121' date='Aug 20 2008, 10:24 AM']The Customer Is Always Right[/quote]

Disagree strongly. An employee who is forced to adhere to this maxim is a very unhappy, demotivated employee. Shop assistants are not your slaves. They are people with whom you do business. Respect is a two-way street.

S.P.