SumOne

I've become a big fan of the Akai MPC range and as they are sort of their own thing I thought they could do with their own thread to share the love!

I love simple basslines, one that springs to mind is the main bass riff from 'come together'. McCartney might have recorded 100s of quite complex basslines but those simple few notes are as memorable and impactful as any.

Break - Last Goodbye

I dunno, isn't the finger in contact with a larger surface area with flats - making it more sticky, like how sticky tape sticks more to a flat surface than a lumpy one? But I suppose flats might get lubed up and be more slippery though!

Personally, I don't like the sticky feel of flats and I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference in sound once rounds are a few months old and you use EQ and are playing through an Amp/Cab with a band. It is pretty easy to roll the tone down or EQ out highs from rounds (including the scratch noise from dragging along the string), difficult to do the opposite and add highs in dull flat strings though. The dogma is that for stuff like Motown or Reggae you 'need' rounds, but I've seen professional Reggae players say they use rounds and EQ. To contradict myself a bit though: I do really like the feel and sound of tapewounds.

Have been listening to a lot of Milton Henry over the last couple of days, good stuff:

A timely thread resurection! I've recently developed tennis elbow in my left elbow, I assume it is from Bass playing - or at least it plays up when I play the Bass. I think as it is from 'overusing your forearm due to a repetitive or strenuous activity' that my high-action heavy guage strings probably don't help. My solution has been to focus on piano playing for a while. (Although I have also also used it as an excuse to start eying up new Basses....for medical reasons!)

Milton Henry - Crisis

Any recommendations for Piano lesson apps? Main ones seem to be: Flowkey €120 per year (€9.99pm) Playground sessions $150 per year ($12.49pm) .....both have free trials/30 day money back so I'll probably sign up for both, it is a bit of a faff giving all payment details and then needing to remember to cancel though - especially if there are better alternatives. Or, any recommendations for online lessons or books that are worth getting? I have a Hal Leonard Piano Method one. I did have lessons when I was a kid and have continued to play occasionally so I can play and can read music to a basic level. (I know actual face-to-face lessons are ideal, much more ££ though, and I'd rather just have lessons I can dip into when there are quiet 'work from home' days rather than having scheduled appointments).

The Future Impact can get close to that lower part Eb octave. I'm pretty sure the C4 can too. After a lot of time with synth pedals I'm going the route @BigRedX suggests though. Bass synth pedals are fun but there's usually a bit of a battle with tracking, range, hands-on editability, and issues playing more than one note at a time. Even a cheap keyboard wins on almost all aspects - there are things you can do with keys much easier than with a Bass. I guess it depends what you want to recreate though - just the lower part Eb octave of 'ain't nobody' is do-able but most of the keyboard line has polyphonic stuff with chords and there are the upper register bits which I reckon need a keyboard to recreate.

'Take a Ride' riddim, one of my favorites:

And certain MJ songs were written by others ('Thriller' was by Rod Temperton and produced by Quincy Jones), MJ just performed it. So if you sing it nowadays in your own style you're not really using any MJ 'art', and if you play the bassline then it is just something that was popularised by MJ - not his artistic creation as such.

It seems to depend partly on how good the music is. Chris Rock's latest standup: "The thing I have a problem with is selective outrage. That’s right, selective outrage. Everybody, you know what I’m talking about? One person does something, they get cancelled. Somebody else does the exact same thing… No. You know what I’m talking about. You know, like the kind of people that play Michael Jackson songs, but won’t play R. Kelly."

Yes, the same. Still vampire slaying

A new one from Scientist:

Koffee, Lonely

^^^ You sure it's not an echo you're after?! 🙂

Sounds good. If they are taking requests then the main things on my wishlist are: USB Expression pedal port Fast/Slow detection switch (dosn't need to be a physical switch, but good if it could be set per preset) Notches on the parameter dial Perhaps this is user error but the EQ seems to act in quite an odd way for me (and I'm used to para EQ), just a graphic EQ option would be good. More compact

There can be issues with active basses and wireless systems due to the ground wiring, it must happen often enough as Boss have taken the time to draw diagrams of the issue and solution and put it on their website: https://www.boss.info/global/support/by_product/wl-20_wl-20l/support_documents/cf786345-1dd0-46c3-a2ac-350bfb4a8104/ I used the Boss wireless for the Waza Air headphones with an active Bass and there were no issue though.

It is good having those controls directly to hand though, if there is just one part of a song where you want to quickly make an EQ change then it is slightly easier doing that by turning a dial on the Bass rather than walking over to a pedal/amp to make changes mid-song. That's my main plus point for active Basses anyway. I used active and passive Basses with a Line 6 wireless system and it seemed to work fine for both.

Menahan Street Band 'Make The Road By Walking' is a great instrumental funk/soul album from 2008 that sounds like it could soundtrack a 1970's New York cop series.