meterman

2 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

 

?? errm I don't like Roundabout at all but do really like Owner and for that matter most of 90125.

If Yes had recorded “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” in a Sound Dimension-esque ska style I’d have been all over it like hair on a gorilla.

Well, a sweaty gorilla. In Asda pyjamas.
 

Might have to power up the 4-track and do it myself.  

18 minutes ago, ezbass said:

I like Yes, a lot, but some of it really leaves me cold and or irritated (shades of, “Shut up! We know you can play,”). Take any bits you like and stick with them.

 

I really like the pre Steve Howe era Yes, Banks & Kaye definitely had something going on that I found and still find pleasing. Yesterdays is a intro to that era, with only 1 Howe, Wakeman era track, a cover of America, which is sublime. YMMV. 

It might only be “Roundabout” that I like? Might have to do an Open University prog degree and try them again 👍

I’ve tried a few times to get into Yes. My mates dad was in them and he was always saying “you really need to hear the early stuff” but I just never got it at all. 
 

I do generally struggle with prog though. Some of the Pink Floyd records I do like. The Syd Barrett era, and just after. But things like early Genesis, VDGG, King Crimson, ELP, Rush... I think I’m just too ‘caveman’ to get it. 

For 30+ years I’ve practiced unplugged and either working out my own lines, or playing along to the hi-fi on low volume.

Very rare that I plug into an amp to practice.

Bass isn’t my main instrument and I  don’t need everyone to hear my bad timing and constant mistakes. I save that for gigs 😂

3 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

This looks rather cool, i like the colour scheme ,out of curiosity  I’ve added it to my watch list 

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115478266551?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Qjvtuq5-RP2&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=1wDkd4CjTIi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Woah, memory jog! The bass player in one of my school bands had one, around 1983-84. It sounded fairly P-like, much stronger than the MIJ Ric copy he’d had before it. We were only 15 so anything that didn’t come from Woolworths was ‘proper’ to us.

Pics if you get it!

32 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

I haven't heard about Porky for ages, then we have this thread and I listedneted t olast nights MArc Riley show on 6music and he was talking about Porky.

Marc has had roles as a musician, A/R and label owner and spoke very highly of Porky, especially the run out grooves. The Fall had particularly good run out groove comment IIRC.

He also mentioned that Porky was responsible for cutting Hey Jude to 7".... apparently the longest song on 7" at that time (don't know about since).

I only knew him from his cuts in the late 70’s on punk or new wave records. Only found out later he’d not only done cuts for Apple, but Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, T.Rex, The Who, Faces, Toots & The Maytals, Genesis, Serge Gainsbourg, etc. What a career!

39 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

Cool story, but leads me to a question... sorry!

Is the mastering done as part of the 'cutting' (i.e. you hand Porky the final un-mastered mix and he sets the controls to give the best master and then makes the cut)? Or you make a new mix made for vinyl and hand that over to Porky?

No problem! We definitely took a DAT tape of the finished mix to Porky’s and he definitely did the mastering, and as far as I can recall, the cut too. But thinking about it now, it’s possible he might have sent the master off to be cut elsewhere? The 1980’s / early 90’s are a bit hazy for me, to be fair.
 

I’d ask our label manager but I haven’t seen or heard from him since 1998. Or our royalty statements 🤔😂

32 minutes ago, WinterMute said:

I've still got a few pressing plates from promos in the loft with the same inscription, George was a proper character.

Totally!

11 minutes ago, Velarian said:

I always wondered what that meant! Another piece of the jigsaw falls into place. 🙂

As far as I remember George ‘Porky’ Peckham would engrave “A Porky Prime Cut” on your record if you attended the mastering session and he liked the music or if you weren’t totally up yourself. Otherwise, if the record label just sent a courier round with the master tape you might only get “Porky’s” engraved in the runout groove. That’s what I was told anyway.
 

I think if you attended the cut, and got on with him, he might ask if you wanted any messages engraved in the runout groove too. We had part of a song lyric in ours, but we shouldn’t have got something a bit funnier really.

There’s a record by The Monochrome Set that had “we’re still not going to pay you, Morris” engraved in the runout, presumably as a riposte to Morris Windsor who’d played with them briefly? Loved finding stuff like that on records. Don’t know who did that one though.

57 minutes ago, WinterMute said:

I remember watching Porky at Porky's Prime Cuts mastering and cutting plates on that beautiful old Neumann valve lathe he had, he managed to get so much bass in his cuts it was miracle the damn discs didn't just fall into huge black spirals.

 

There's an art to mastering for vinyl.

Porky! He cut my first album in 1993, and it was such a ‘hot’ cut (needles in the red) that it came back a bit distorted on the top end, a bit sibilant. The bass sounded pretty beefy but the high end was super trebly, like an early Stereolab 45 or something.

I attended the cut and do remember he was brilliant craic, but I never heard the actual record until 18 months after it came out. All I had to go on was a pre-master cassette of the album mix. Was quite surprised when I heard it on vinyl for the first time.
 

It does have “A Porky Prime Cut” engraved in the runout groove though, just like ‘proper’ bands records did back in ye ooooolden days, so I don’t mind 😂

8 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

I didn't fully understand the difference between mixing and mastering until late.

Mastering, as someone said, is optimising the mix for a particular medium. In that sense I don't master, just create one final mix and that's it.

 

For a start, I'm not really putting my music out in different mediums (Soundcloud and Youtube maybe) , and second I would know what to do differently for any given medium.

 

Interesting thread.

 

The guy who masters my stuff reckons mastering for a vinyl release is usually the most time consuming for him, whether it’s a 7”, 12” or even a 5” release. But he says CDs are easier and that prepping for streaming is the quickest for him to do.

I’m guessing the kind of music he’s working with has some bearing on it too?

I’d love to be able to do my own mastering, I feel like I should understand how to do it. My first ‘proper’ job was as a tape op, then I trained as a recording engineer but packed it in after a couple of years as the round-the-clock hours were doing me in. But I ought to have a few trial goes at it, as I always get my tunes mastered by a pro if they’re being released, and the costs mount up over the year.

My hearing is pretty bad though (around 30% in one ear and 55% in the other) so I’m not sure if I’d be up to the task. Might try on headphones. It just seems more scientific than I have the brains for 😂

Dr John - “Gris Gris”, the whole album.

“Tit Alberta!”

2 hours ago, MungoBass said:

Many thanks to all for your input - I have ordered a set of La Bella MUS flats!

I just put a set of these on my new Mustang the other day - well worth every penny (well, Euro centime) as they’re just spot on for the Mustang / flats vibe. Let us know how you get in with them 👍

20 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

What’s incredible isn’t his playing, bjt his creativity. He created some of the most infectious basslines ever, and unlike Jameson who was a lot showier he sacrificed any ego for the greater good of the song. 

Definitely. Similar thing goes for David Hood of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, and Traffic etc. And Leroy Hodges who played on some of the Willie Mitchell records. Love that laidback but grooving style of playing.

On 17/07/2022 at 20:22, paul_5 said:

Also something to factor in is the inclusion of GarageBand with every Mac OS. 
 

granted, it’s fairly basic and idiosyncratic, but if you don’t need to factor in buying extra software or licensing then you’ve got a couple of hundred extra to spend on a higher spec machine.

Definitely worth considering 👍

I know a lot of folks can be a bit snobby about GarageBand but it just works. I’ve got Pro Tools and Logic (and tape based setups, but I’m weird like that) and still use GB most of the time. Have done records with it, put radio shows together with it, done remote recording sessions with it, used it to record on location, etc. Easy and fast to use, for me at least. YMMV and all that.

Booker T & The MG’s might still be my favourite band of all time, so Duck Dunn is a big influence for me. I love Sly & The Family Stone, The Meters, The J.B’s, and all that era of soul and funk but there’s just something about the Duck Dunn lineup of the MG’s that does it for me. His playing was spot on for their records, but also all the other Stax and Atlantic artists they backed / played with. Great grooves on all of it, and rarely anything out of place. 
 

Loved seeing some of his gear 👍

6 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

I’m looking for one of these and was flicking through the pictures and then came to the one above 😁

Ah, okay. I’d still be tempted if it was priced accordingly though. 
 

That’s some proper knife and fork work to undo there!

20 minutes ago, outtaseezun said:

Am starting to regret letting mine go...

One good thing about Mustangs is there’s always plenty of different types  around, and often at whatever price point works for you. 
 

I almost bought a super cheap s/h Bronco bass just to have another 30” short scale bass again. But then I remembered how much I liked the Mustangs I’d had before, so that sealed it for me.

2 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

Oh my , how could you do this to a 68 jazz 

Can’t see the full bass in the pic... but has the headstock been reshaped into a Tele bass shape by any chance? Is there any Sharpie pen on it anywhere? Might explain how this would happen to a vintage Fender. 🤔

This just arrived...

...and some of these to go on it:

The shipping box was pretty warm to the touch (it’s 37c here, it must have been scorchio in the back of the UPS truck) and the bass was noticeably warm once unpacked.

First impressions? It’s light, well finished and it seems to be set up pretty well, the intonation is almost spot on. I’ll let it settle tonight and put the La Bellas on tomorrow before mucking around with string heights or anything. This will be maybe the sixth Mustang bass I’ve had, I just keep coming back to them. It’s unlikely I’ll gig with it (rarely play live nowadays) but I’m totally looking forward to recording with it, and noodling away to old ska records at home and all that.

5 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I have a squier CV Mustang bass sitting behind me now. Surf green, rather than seafoam green. It has flats on, it is pretty good.

Quality is fine, the only problem with mine was that the pickguard opening for the pickup was so tight around the pickup that the whole thing was pretty microphonic so I took it off and filed round the gap a bit. Now it is great.

 

Very nice bass for the price (although mine was S/H, so the price was quite a bit less).

Thanks for the heads up 🙏 I’m looking online, mail order is the only way where we live. Might have to do it...

Just wondering if anyone here has got one of the recent Squier Mustang basses, and what the quality is like? I think they’re the CV range? Olympic White with tort, or Seafoam Green.

Would appreciate any info about quality, etc. 🙏 

3 hours ago, MungoBass said:

 

As requested!  I’m looking forward to finding some time to have a good play and then clean it!  It has roundwounds on at the moment......

Short scale hotness 💥💙

So she likes funk? Play along to some old school James Brown or Meters or early Funkadelic tunes. Like “Maggot Brain” or “Funky Dollar Bill” or something. 

And hiphop? Play along to “Mexico Or Bust” by New Kingdoms. You’ll probably only need to do it the once before she begs you to pack it in...

I mean, I loooove that New Kingdoms album but it’s as sludgy and messed up as hiphop gets. 

Mrs Rayman will soon be pleading with you to play along to “The Birdie Song” for a bit of light relief afterwards.

I won’t upload the video for that because, well... probably an instant ban innit 😂