christofloffer

i am looking at a new bass. i sold a pile of stuff and i have around £200 to spend as it stands right now. i know its still very budget but i can progress into better basses later on. for now i just want to get a better one than i have right now, which was under £100 for bass+amp+leads, and i think the neck is twisted.
things i would like ideally are precision and jazz pickups so i can get a variety of sounds to play around with. a dual purpose bridge would be good (through body and through bridge string positions, dont know a specific name for that type) again to keep options open. i also want a 34" scale one, that is what i have now and it feels comfortable to play so i would like to keep that length. i am not gigging so i dont need anything flashy. it also has to be of a shape that will sit on my lap as i cant play standing up or with a strap due to nervei am just looking at new ones for the time being. i know it wont be the most astounding quality but it shouldnt be too vital for a while provided that its not horrific. i am mostly playing funk/soul/jazz type stuff but i am still exploring the many approaches and havent really settled too far yet. i am mainly just trying to narrow down the options to help myself a bit.

well, thats a really kind offer but i have made a bit of a call. i asked my mum the very rude question of how much the bass cost in the first place and the whole caboodle was under £100 new. taking into account the fairly neglected life its had up until recently i dont think its worth messing about with it.


instead i am just going to start looking at a better quality bass. this one can just go as a spare and a travelling hack. when i picked it up in earnest i was going to play for a while before deciding wether or not i was going to stick at it or not. i am enjoying it far too much to be dropping it so its worth a better bass. doesnt seem wise to me to spend anything on something that i am thinking of replacing in the near future anyway really. i may have you take a look at the new one once i get it to make sure i am starting with it set up properly.
perhaps once i have a better one to hand i will strip this one down and use it as a learning experience. i am not lost on woodworking so it might be a chance to learn some new skills.

ok, i got some new strings. fairly budget but the most i could afford to throw in at this particular moment. i got a set of picato stainless flats as i liked the look of them. if nothing else comes from this, i think i will be sticking with flats from now on, absolutely love the feel and sound of them.

still having some issues with her though. i have been messing with the set up a little and using two songs as a reference. on the CD player i have been using pink floyd's money and on youtube i have been using jamiroquai's too young to die. those songs just because they are what i have been on lately. it doesnt sound out on the CD player so perhaps it is that video that is sped up/slowed down that caused the problem there.
it has thrown a couple of new issues into the mix though (inevitably there all along but at least now the strings are not the issue). i tuned up on the tuner to 440Hz (checked against the guitars to be sure of it) open strings and found something odd. it tunes up fine on the open strings but fretted at the 12th fret E+A read a little higher and D+G read a little lower. i did the various adjustments, action, intonation and neck relief, and i am happy with how it plays but i worry that this indicates a twisted neck.
i'm not sure how worthwhile it would be going to a luthier to be honest. the bass is cheap so the build quality wont be that good, would probably be better putting the money towards a better quality one.

i am getting an infuriating problem wit my bass. its pretty cheap and not the best by any means and the strings are old but i cant see any reason for this.
i can tune it up with the tuner, relative, piano or with various tone generators online and it seems fine. it also holds that tuning for a long time without issue. but i keep trying to play along with tunes on youtube as a bit of practice for learning to keep time with other stuff going on and its never quite in tune. i have spent hours trying to suss this out and i am none the wiser.
i thought that maybe the set up was wrong so i spent a couple of days checking and adjusting. the intonation is ok, neck relief and action seem fine. i cant see any twisting in the neck either.

i am honestly at a loss with it. its not that its massively out, as its really close but just never quite there. i play along with songs on the guitar all the time whilst learning to play things and i use the same tuner. the strings are really old (8+ years, i know i know, they will be changed soon though) but they stay in the tuning according to the tuner for plenty of time so its not that they are just slipping out once its tuned. i get the feeling that i am missing something fundamental.

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1447243366' post='2906009']
That sounds like you have 'Snap to grid' on.
You can move/nudge files as close/sample accurate as you want.
Check your manual for where to look for the snap on/off icon.

Still better to get an Audio Interface (USB), with Pre-Amps built in, in most cases this will include Midi I/O.
Around the sub £100 mark should get you something decent and more than ample for your needs.
[/quote]

snap to grid!

that has freed up so much. i gave it a try and sure enough i can jiggle the tracks to match up properly. i can set a loop up properly thanks to that now too. that should get us rolling for the time being if nothing else.
i downloaded asio4all too, just trying to get everything talking now.

an interface is most definitely on the sooner rather than later list. along with a set of reasonable headphones as we have flute and sax to throw in too and the volume needed to hear the tune and the sax is a bit much. at the moment the wishlist is enormous and expensive, which is why we want to get a bit further in before spending out on gear. nothing better at spoiling the mood of a session than fighting against gear or software.

so nice to get good advice right off the bat, i think i am going to like it here.

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1447199220' post='2905815']
Not sure what you mean by 'recording the drums through the speakers'?
[/quote]

i mean playing the drum track out loud on hydrogen and recording it through the mic to get it onto sonar. rather than directly importing it from hydrogen into a track. i used to do it with audacity for years as i couldnt get the files to transfer. its a pain but in the grand scheme of things it might be tolerable.

i have seen asio4all before, i will give it a try.

i did try to manually knock the track forward but i couldnt get the movement fine enough. it annoyingly steps quite a long way and i havent figured out how to get it any finer. most places i have looked at just say to buy bigger better software and drop the LE version of sonar. which is fair enough but it depends on what we end up doing as to what would suit us best, neither of us are very techy.

me and a friend have embarked on a project, all very rough and ready for now as its a new style for the pair of us. i have Hydrogen, Sonar LE, a Samson Q1U mic and a Boss ME-25 (mostly just being used as a direct line-in). all very budget obviously but for the time being it should serve its purpose. i set up a drum track on hydrogen to use as a base, transferred it directly into sonar, all well and good at this point, then we tried to record his djembe to it and could not get the thing to line up. we assume latency and recorded the drums from the speakers and sure enough its not right.
we also tried a click track on a keyboard through the ME-25 and had the same gap so i guess its that the onboard sound gear for the PC is just not up to it, or could it be something to do with the hydrogen-to-sonar part?
while its not a great issue for the time being as its just us finding out if it works, it is rather annoying. for now we are going to have to record the drum track through the speakers so that while the quality would be poor, at least everything would then be on the same latency and allow us to experiment more. if it could be cured then it would allow us to get a bit deeper into it before deciding what gear would suit us best. it would certainly be nice to get some tidy tunes that we could mess with. we just dont want to go forking out for something that we later find is not quite right.

my name is chris and i currently live in near market drayton. i have had a bass for about 8 years or so but in all fairness i have always just been a guitarist with a bass too. recently i have been trying to record some tunes at home (just for myself as i like writing) and got a little tired of what i was doing. so i decided to stop trying to be a jack of all trades and reign myself in a little. i was trying to play acoustic and electric guitars, bass, piano and a few other things like the mandolin for a while. the results were chaotic and not really much cop. so i decided to focus the guitar side of things just on the acoustic (as that is my main love with it), and focus on the bass for electric stuff.
so i am not entirely alien to it and i have enjoyed many hours of twiddling, but its about time to learn to play it as an instrument in its own right. my bass is not that good, its a Shine (no model name/number) and its still got the strings that it came with fitted. i have a few multi effects pedals for the guitars that i have dedicated a few patches on for the bass. not ideal i know but like i said, i wasnt really playing it in earnest until recently. i have a little cruiser cr-15B amp which came with the bass. so cheap and cheerful but if i start to really enjoy playing properly then it is worth getting better gear.
as for styles, i do love a bit of slap. i am still fairly stuttery but i just find it really fun and comfortable to play like that. i also like slower dramatic stuff and jazzy/funky stuff. my main thing is that i really dont like playing tunes where the bass sits in the back copying the rhythm guitar and being given no space. while i dont think the bass should be a lead instrument i do think it deserves better. i dont like playing with a pick, i have tried a few times but i definitely prefer the fingers.