Annoying Twit

[quote name='chaypup' timestamp='1400058173' post='2450204'] I reckon it will go for 6 or 7 times the current price (£105 as it stands) [/quote] That sounds about right, but that would still be a lot less than the new price as quoted by Happy Jack. My bid was one of my frequent lowball bids.

It looks like a Maton Slenderline. I couldn't find any finish resembling the deep brown of Mike Chunn's bass. And the Maton instruments I found had different logos on them. But, it could be a refinish or just another model in the range that isn't easily found via google images. I've done a google search on "Mike Chunn" "Maton", and found nothing. But that doesn't prove anything - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The second video is the bands second bassplayer, Nigel Griggs. It's said that he had a Rickenbacker 4001s previous to joining Split Enz. So I'd assume (not necessarily correctly) that the bass in the video above is the same one. http://www.rickbeat.com/photofeatures/pauldavid/pauldavid.htm BTW: Can i just point out that they are a band from New Zealand. They were popular in Australia as well, but the band themselves say that they're careful to point out their origins when they're described as an Australian band.

It could be a unique build, I suppose.

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1399996747' post='2449736'] It has an air of Rick Turner about it. [/quote] Do you mean like this? http://www.rickturnerguitars.com/model-1-guitar-mahogany.php Mike Chunn at that time wasn't making large amounts of money, so a luthier built instrument is unlikely. This video was from 1976 I think. Or thereabouts. It's an odd looking thing, and I wonder what it is.

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1399986147' post='2449594'] That's saddeningly uncharitable of you but perfectly understandable. It's OK though, robbery is always an option. J. [/quote] I have already been outbid!

Which bass is Split Enz bassplayer Mike Chunn playing in this clip? [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjm7thPQjOI"]https://www.youtube....h?v=Zjm7thPQjOI[/url]

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1399913005' post='2448899'] Blimey, that's extraordinarily rare and lovely. Someone in Watford - buy it & sell it to me! Jon. [/quote] I have a vague suspicion that my lowball bid will not be enough to win it. And I have a vague suspicion that if by some freak of economics I did win it, that I wouldn't be in the slightest bit inclined to sell it on

Thanks. I was encouraged by actually having other people using it at the bass bass on Saturday. Just putting in the code so that I can append a stereo sample onto the end of a mono sample and vice versa. Edit: It now has a server built in so that it can be controlled from a browser. The idea is that eventually it will run on the Raspberry Pi, and any computer/tablet/phone/etc. on the same network can access the looper using a browser. At present, raw commands are entered through the interface, but it's intended that eventually there will be a more fancy browser interface with menus etc.

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1399891125' post='2448609'] Sorry, not clear was it - I meant Lemmywinks' mate's Raven. [/quote] Whoops! My context interpretation fail. Sorry.

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1399889315' post='2448574'] £50?! Yikes. What happened to it? [/quote] The listing was ended because the item is no longer available. Possibly sold elsewhere, or someone made the seller an off-ebay offer.

I don't want to write too much here as it's sorta off-topic for the thread. But, for those who saw my looper in action, can I just mention that it's now been significantly advanced since Saturday. No more me sticking my head next to the amp so that I can pick up on the 'start' being said by the metronome I won't post more details here, but have in the looper thread: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/218120-diy-looper-project

Just added functionality to be able to append (usually drum) wav loops read from disk, as well as import them. This is so that I can build up a backing track for a longer loop from smaller (e.g. one bar) drum loops from disk. The import command reset the length (and tempo) of the loop to be based on the wav file read in. The 'append' command adds the new wav file onto the end of the loop. At present, the tempo and number of bars may not quite be in sync with the drums - that's a debugging session in itself. And I can't append a stereo file on the end of a mono file, or vice versa - that requires some more coding. But, if the metro is turned off, the append works. Which is something, and makes the looper more flexible, musically.

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1399880339' post='2448464'] And which is more likely to inspire a young player to want to play ? [/quote] TBH: I think that the Noel Gallagher guitar is more likely to inspire a young player to want to play. Big noisy chords versus technique they're less likely to appreciate.

I'll have them. Or, if others want them as well, I'll have the grey one because I'm not excessively greedy. I would be paying postage. 'Gift' via paypal OK? Edit: I'll have the red one?

I'd say that they are of similar difficulty. For every root note plodder bass player, there's a three cowboy chord folkie who can't play F or Bb and only has one strum and uses a capo to change key. Or a rock guitarist who only knows power chords and 16ths rhythm. It's the degree to which a player wants to take things beyond the minimum possible that defines the difficulty. Learning to play guitar as well as Noel Gallagher, or to play bass as well as Percy Jones. Which is more difficult?

Modern Fujigen bass. Very low starting price. Collection in person in Watford. [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fujigen-Expert-MJ-Jazz-Bass-Guitar-Brand-New-In-Case-Maple-Neck-Mint-Perfect-/251528595755?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item3a9045c92b"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item3a9045c92b[/url]

[sub]In my case, time has run in the opposite direction. My first experience of this bass was playing it at the bass bash. And now I've been able to see how it was built![/sub] [sub]A very nice bass. Both on the page, and in real life [/sub]

I wrote a simple s-curve distortion for Max/MSP. It didn't sound too bad. There are plenty of patches around for frequency domain pitch-shifting in Max/MSP. It would be up to you to decide whether it sounds good enough for you, but if you have Max/MSP already, you can easily try it out and see what you think.

Progress on this has been slow recently. I've obtained a square aluminium box which I'm going to use to build the foot interface but it's sitting in the machine shop at work waiting for them to have time to drill holes etc. However, I brought my mac and enough wires to make it work to the bass bash yesterday, and I was very pleased that a number of people had a go on it. (Thanks!) Some usability issues were found. So, this morning I addressed these. I hadn't mentioned it here, but I'd changed the metro to allow flexible time signatures, e.g. specified by text such as "1 and 2 and 3 po let 4 and" for a 4/4 time signature with a triplet division on the three. I recorded spoken word samples for the numbers to get an audible metronome from that, but possibly due to the performance of those not being punchy enough and editing of the samples being harder than I expected, it doesn't really work. I'm going to have to look into what to do about that. Using it yesterday, it was quite difficult to spot where the loop started, in the slightly noisy environment of a bass bash. This led to me putting my head next to the amp, and then when I worked it out counting off bar numbers (e.g. if the loop is a four bar loop). I've added the ability to specify a sample which is played at the start of each loop. For testing I've been using a crash cymbal. This means that if I import a one bar drum loop, but repeat it four times to get a four bar loop, by adding (e.g.) the crash, it's easy to tell where the loop starts and ends. Yesterday we were streaming out performances. This feature streams the live audio output from the looper (including live playing - e.g. soloing) to disk. Unfortunately, it was previously quite difficult to set the levels of tracks and live input so that the recording would have a sensible overall level without clipping. I've added a parameter so that the level of the streaming audio can be offset from the live output from the looper. E.g. setting this to 0.5 would mean that the streaming audio is half (in absolute terms, not dB) of the live audio. I've also added the ability to automatically calibrate this to a target amount of headroom. I issue a "calibrate stream" command, play for a bit over the current loop, issue another "calibrate stream" command, and the volume offset for the stream is then calculated based on the audio between the two commands so that it would achieve the target amount of headroom. Finally a seemingly minor but practically important changed. there is now a "used" command which tells me what tracks currently have audio on. This helps me avoid forgetting which tracks the drum loops are on, and accidentally wiping the drums by storing other audio into the same track. I feel that after these detail changes, I want to add something to it that really significantly improves what it can do. It might be interesting to upgrade the import of (usually) drum loops. Currently I can import drum loops, multiplying them up. E.g. "import verse.wav 1 4" means that verse.wav has one bar (so that the looper can work out the tempo), and is multiplied four times. It would be much more flexible if I could import multiple files, e.g. "import verse.wav 1 2 chorus.wav 1 2" to get two bars of one drum pattern, and two bars of another, which then form the basis of the loop. The other thing I'm thinking of is tempo maps, so that I can have variable tempo. This can be achieved with multiple samples as above, as they may not be at the same tempo. But, this wouldn't then match up with the constant tempo metronome. I'd like to be able to specify a tempo map, for use in loops where there aren't any imported external samples. However, I'm not sure if tempo maps would really be used in looping applications. When Ed Friedman used a looper for his version of Steely Dan's "Do it again" he had a long enough loop to have both verse and chorus, and it would be plausible to speed up the tempo for the chorus. But it wouldn't really happen for short four bar loops.

Thanks for letting me try these at the bass bash today. I thought the elm bass (#3) in particular played absolutely brilliantly.

Same from me, thanks to Si600 and Roland Rock for organising the bash. Looking forward to a bass bash next year. Great to meet a whole lot of people and get to try out a whole bunch of basses.

Leaving now. I'm going to be using my mobile phone and google maps to get me there, first time I'll have travelled like this. If I don't turn up, it'll be because my phone told me to turn right and cycle down a jetty into a lake or something.

It's best to regularly apply a suitable fluid to soften the wax so that it doesn't build up. Olive oil is suitable and very cheap given you're using drops of it. If you have a lot of wax, your doctor can syringe them. You'll need to apply drops (probably something more aggressive) for about a week beforehand. I get problems with wax, and now use a small syringe at home. Having experienced syringing by various doctors and nurses, I'm confident that I'm more gentle than they are. That's one of the advantages of doing it yourself, there isn't time pressure. I use Otex ear drops, and a small rubber syringe that I bought as a set. I'm off to the midlands bass bash now so don't have time to search properly, but here are the drops themselves. http://www.boots.com/en/Otex-Ear-Drops-8ml_11315/

While we're on this topic, does anyone know how to create gradual tempo changes in Hydrogen? I can change tempo at the start of a bar, but all in one go, not over time.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1399640162' post='2446175'] I remember McCartney saying that when the Beatles went to visit Elvis, they walked into the room and he was playing on an unplugged P bass [/quote] I read that too. If I recall correctly, Elvis was playing "I feel fine", having learnt it when he knew The Beatles were coming.