Woodwind

And in action the bass instrument extravaganza that is ORE.

The Tuba Doom group is normally massively amplifed and we're all playing through octave pedals for super sub-bass action, but this was a rare completely acoustic set at Supernormal Festival in 2017 (Now my favourite festival and this may rank as my favourite ORE show)

Enjoying the mention of bassoon earlier in the thread.

My main instrument is the Contrabassoon.

An octave lower than bassoon, it descends to low Bb, a semi tone below standard 5/6 string bass guitar.

I fell in love with the instrument when I was a double bassist and was writing for the bassoon for my ensemble. I could only ever recruit session musicians rather than a band member, so I decided to become the player I couldn't find.

10 years later my main project is solo performance of my electroacoustic ambient music, but I do sessions and guest in bands with more regular bassline playing.

Here's the only gig from last year - A live stream set for Nick Luscombe's Musicity project.

And a recent release:

https://thomasstonemusic.bandcamp.com/album/host

1 minute ago, MacDaddy said:

 

Absolutely superb!!!!

Where can I see this in action?

12 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

As an extension user when I played double bass I absolutely love this!!

Any more pictures of the whole bass?

9 hours ago, sprocketflup said:

As above really, looking for a contactless card reader/POS for selling merch that preferably doesn't tie my phone up for the evening like the iZettle does.

 

Any recommendations?

 

TIA , dave

I use sumup with my phone and have absolutely no complaints.

Sumup now have phone free devices which would seem to be up your street:

https://sumup.co.uk/solo-card-reader/?prc=AIR1799UK2021-s-AB2999UK2021-s-3GP11999UK2021-s-SOLO7999UK2021

2 hours ago, cheddatom said:

great thread guys, 3/5 is underselling it

 

The guitarist in one of my bands is totally deaf in one ear. There's a device you can get, a mic that goes on your deaf side, connected to a hearing aid type thing on your working side, and it's supposed to sort it out for you. He tried it at the audiologists and was amazed. Then he tried it in real life situations such as in a jam or down the pub, and it was worse than useless, totally disorientating. It must work for some people, so maybe worth a go for you @Killed_by_Death?

I woke up one morning completely deaf in my left ear.

This was rather distressing, but the most extraordinary experience was my brain trying to compensate with my working right ear.

There was a weird delay/phase effect that magnified over the course of 48 hours as my brain "learned" how to interpret sounds from my left side.

Fortunately My ear was just jammed with wax following two weeks of wearing ear plugs at work and my hearing returned over the course of a fortnight. 

1 hour ago, nekomatic said:

Not off the top of my head, but have a look for Christopher Stembridge (and maybe others) playing the chromatic harpsichord, on which some of the keys are split in half and one side plays a note tuned according to one keynote while the other side plays the ‘same’ note but in a different key. It sounds proper weird. 

Wow sounds amazing!

Thanks for the heads up, will investigate now

25 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

 

...

It took me decades to be able to listen to the piano without becoming dizzy because of this fixed temperament tuning, especially when chords or even triads were played.

I love music that seems to really exploit these sounds. 

A lot of the early 20th composers were not just experimenting with atonality, but these fixed tone dissonances within tonal writing - Debussy, Satie, Messiaen all seem to explore this within their beautiful, slightly alien sounds

Also Arvo Pärt with his tintinnabuli style. I bet the bell like effect wouldn't work as well with a keyboard tuned in a different temperament

1 hour ago, zbd1960 said:

...

I play the viola da gamba (viol) ...

Bit of a tangent, do you use your viola da gamba in any contemporary music making?

Any links of so?

4 hours ago, zbd1960 said:

OP You've probably put some of the notes into 'just' intonation i.e. not equal temperament. That would give you better major thirds and purer fourths and fifths, e.g. a sharper C# or a flatter Db would be more in tune in some contexts than an ET enharmonic Db/C#   

I was going to write the same thing.

Instruments without predetermined pitches, so everything excluding keyboards and fretted instruments will be pulling and pushing tuning of notes, especially thirds, the whole time.

As I was so conditioned by the world of fretted instruments I couldn't really understand how the root A of A major isn't the same tuning of A as the A in D minor for example, but then as a double bassist, then a woodwind player I found you adjust notes to be "out of tune" but actually in to tune without really thinking about it.

I think it's worth playing around with

I've just done another search now for a band for an imaginary wedding. I'm not logged in and it seems like you have to create an account before it will show you the bands.

As a punter this would put me off, although I understand why they would implement this.

Looking forward to hearing others experiences

8 hours ago, Bunion said:

....
A Baby Blue head and monitor speaker with the 2x8/1x4 set up

...

 

 

Beautiful, beautiful amplifier and speaker combo'.

I would love one

I had a profile on there for a long time.

It Kept becoming inactive for some reason, perhaps because I didn't get anyone contacting me through it, perhaps because I didn't log in enough.

I play a niche instrument in an even more niche genre so wasn't expecting it to generate any solo bookings, but was intrigued about the session work capabilities.

I've run a few test searches for all sorts of players or groups etc over the years and I don't think the site is really that active.

Happy to be proved wrong 😃

Not what I play, but my ideal is a dark natural (non-coffee table) wood with just shellac over oil or wax finish with an ebony fingerboard.

Failing that a black finish.

My bass is a tobacco burst which I can tolerate. It has a black pickguard (and ramp) but my preference is no pickguard and a ramp that matches rhe body

Back with more.

The first few minutes are great!!

10 hours ago, ambient said:

Where are you playing Thomas?

A show at Kings Place on the 1st of October.

It will be a great event.

9 hours ago, alyctes said:

 

9 hours ago, alyctes said:

Hmmm.

 

Presumably this would mean the nut didn't have to be lowered as much?

I didn't do any setup work after putting the vinyl on, so essentially the action is now a fraction of a millimetre lower.

i have the strings very low at the nut

34 minutes ago, Grahambythesea said:

So in theory you could have your fingerboard any colour you like, as long as they manufacture it in that colour. 👍🏼

Yup, precisely.

The black vinyl is black the whole way through the material, but some of the other colours have a white backing which will show through as it wears, but that would take a good few hours of play.

My tobacco burst instrument perhaps isn't the best canvas for colours, but on block colour instrument you could have a lot of fun with this.

The 90's dance music band that I dream of getting together, would suit neon orange or yellow for example 😎

That would be most noticeable on a fretless, but there is no reason not to do this on a fretted instrument

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

By "black vinyl tape" do you mean something similar to electrical tape?

 

What about the glue residue when you remove the tape?

Not like electrical tape, this is not particularly stretchy. I had a load left over from vinyl cutting stickers

This doesn't leave a residue, but as said above if it did some alcohol would clean it off and then a good oiling of the wood would sort any drying 🙂

10 minutes ago, jd56hawk said:

The same material people use to wrap cars?

Pretty much this, yes.

The stuff I have is thicker and not as flexible as that stuff though

I absolutely loathe the look of dots and blocks on the front of fingerboards/fretboards.

Always have and on several occasions the presence of fretboard dots has stopped me buying a bass.

I've been a fretless player for the last 6 years or so and my main bass is a defret. The aesthetics of Fretlines don't worry me in the slightest, but the dots make me want to cry, so one evening (after a few drinks) I decided to apply a layer of black vinyl tape over the board.

I'd often wondered about the feasibility of this, using colours to theme a bass for particular performance settings, of a UV reactive colour for ridiculous stage presence under blacklight etc etc

Would the vinyl mute the sound, would it wear through quickly?

Well, it doesn't mute or dampen the sound and with half-round strings there is no noticeable wear after a fortnight of playing. The fretlines provide nice position markers on the edge of the board.

I can imagine I'll keep this going while I own the bass. 

I can sympathise!

I've started rehearsing in earnest for my show on the 1st of October.

It will be 23 months since my last gig(!?!!!) and in that time one of my amplifiers has developed a fault, my pickup is on the way out and I need to make a whole heap of new reeds (the woodwind equivalent of strings).

Thankfully it's all showing up with a month to go...

OK own up, who was it?

Who reported the harp+distortion pedal video and got it taken down by YouTube?🤣

I kid you not, the video got flagged for unsuitable content.

It's back now, but Emily is rightfully a little miffed.

This is great, thanks for posting.

I've been a big fan of the experimental harp playing of Rhodri Davies for a long time and he opened my ears up to sound palettes usng the instrument beyond its normal usage.

Another shout for the Double4. Superb amps.

I have had keyboard players order them immediately after trying my amp at soundchecks.

I use two in my gigs both as stage monitoring in larger venues and for smaller shows in more resonant spaces with no PA.

Initially I cursed the use of the DC power adapter, especially after I lost both at a gig a while back and the replacements took ages to arrive.

However I did some busking with one double 4 last year running it from a laptop battery pack and it worked brilliantly, so I rather changed my mind on the DC input.

Worth noting brand new double4s use 240v ac input via kettle lead now.