lowdown

Ozzy and Rick Wakeman were good buddies:

He did come out with some classic lines... Ozzy, "We started off as a Rock band messing with drugs, but we ended up as a drug band messing with rock".

What about the trill in the iconic melody of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'? It's all part of the eerie mood of that theme. Especially in that opening motif.

One Cannon, that's not overplaying in the 1812. Below is an example of overplaying in the 1812: 1812 Overture: "In the sections that contain cannon shots, actual cannons are sometimes replaced by howitzers, tanks, fireworks, recorded cannons, a piece of staging, usually hit with large wooden mallets or sledgehammers as used in Mahler's 6th Symphony. Bass drums, and gongs/tam-tams are also regularly used as cannon substitutes or adjuncts in indoor performances!"

He certainly plays well. I believe he studied at The Royal Northern College of Music in the early 70's.

A very cool version of his big 80's hit. Wonderful groove, good band, great vocals all round, and some nice Bass playing from Nashville Bassist, Jacob Lowery: An interview with Jacob:

A great find with an interesting story.

Freebie alert...Honeycomb Bass OD App. I haven't tried it yet but will give it a whirl a bit later: Honeycomb Bass OD | Free Bass Plugin | Canvas Audio

This just popped up on YouTube... Recorded last weekend, the Marcus Miller concert at TSF Jazz Chantilly Festival 2025 (ARTE Concert):

That sounds about right. The switching on the back is pretty much the same on both the Mk1 824s & 624s. I was concerned the 624s might not have enough bottom end, but because they were ex-demo, the chap in the shop said I could try them for a couple of days and if I didn't like them, he would give me a full refund. My studio room is also on the small side. They were fine and worked a treat (and still do):

The old Mackie's are great sounding nearfields. I have a pair of the smaller version, which I still use - Mackie HR624's (Mk1). I got mine the year they first came out in the UK, the end of 2002 sometime. I've got so used to them sound and reference wise, I don't want to change them. If I remember correctly, I paid £700 (ex-demo). They were about a grand brand new. Originally, I wanted a pair of 824's, but I couldn't find a pair anywhere and didn't want to wait for new stock to come into the country. The HR824's were released a couple of years earlier. About £1200/1300 (once again, If I remember correctly). Enjoy!!

I use Steinberg's 'SpectraLayers' for stem splitting (and a whole host of other things). The quality and results are very good, and it has just got even better with the recent update. Maybe a bit pricey, but if you hold out for the annual Steinberg sales, you can usually get most Steinberg products at 50% off, which is what I did about four years ago. Steinberg are good at giving good favourable discounts on all the new version updates. SpectraLayers 12

Freddie is a very fine musician and sounds great on whatever he plays. The two tracks below are played on his Ken Smith.

That's a very good watch... Scott asks some interesting things and gets right into Freddies playing, timing, groove, feel, technical aspects, little showbiz stories and the whole shebang!

No problem, all fine. Like I said, it's probably better here because more people might see it and it is worthy of its own thread. Defiantly a good watch (well, I think so).

I posted this a few days ago over in 'Off Topic'. But it's probably better off in this forum.

Once again, another very good 'u-he' VSTi Synth, previously only available from Computer Music magazine, but now a free download direct from 'u-he'. Although, the smaller brother of bad boy 'Bazille', it still offers plenty of tweaking along with plenty of well-crafted presets (265): BazilleCM: Little modular monster | u-he

Originally only available from the Computer Music magazine, 'ZebraCM: Baby Zebra', can now be downloaded for free at the 'u-he' website. Its a very light on resources VST'i Synth with 220 excellent sounding presets to get you going: ZebraCM: Baby zebra | u-he

The same concert. 'Uh, Oh!', with Marcus' solo at around 4:30.

Here is Marcus on a live concert with Dave Grusin and the GRP All Stars out in Japan in 1980. It says from a 'Broadcast'. Possibly from a TV airing. It's interesting, because Marcus at times, seems to be favouring more of the back pick up sound on his Jazz Bass like he is still experimenting sound wise. At 10:50, on the tune 'Shamballa', Marcus plays some really nice Fretless: 'Shamballa' on it's own:

'Deviant Drums', free edition...It will run in the free Kontakt 8 player: Deviant Drums FREE Edition – Chaos Tones