SumOne

There is a place for high-end neutral monitors and headphones but it's probably worth checking via the ways listeners are using too. A lot of people nowadays are listening to music via laptop speakers, phone speakers, alexa devices, cheap/tinny in-ear headphones etc.and from low quality/compressed sources like YouTube so a couple of amateur producers I know take that into account - basically by listening via those methods.

Nice one. I don't have Reaktor and all the ones on the video seem decent and fairly similar to each other, generally €69 -99. It's in the price range where I'm quite temped to get the hardware though....a bit more expensive but more potential to use live and more resale value if/when I move onto the next thing!

Yeah, the Reaper bundled effects plugins aren't great looking or always intuitive. But all the main DAW stuff I really like and I guess can get a lot of decent free VSTs to make up for the ones most lacking.

By any chance has anyone found a good Roland Space Echo (RE 201) VST? The cheapest I've found with good reviews is £58, https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/49-Echo/3252-Outer-Space- It's mostly for dub production rather than Bass playing, although could be useful as a pedal too: can get a 2nd hand Boss RE-20 pedal for £150 so am tempted with that (I particularly like the 'twist' function on that pedal which does increased repeat rate and intensity - not something available on pedals like the NUX tape core, and can't get the Helix Stomp to replicate it). ... thought I was done buying pedals, but it's an investment right?!

I got Lee Perry's Revolution Dub album on vinyl at the weekend. It's a low-fi recording and some of his craziest stuff - some frustrating things like sudden harsh shouts and massive panning, but when it works it it really works - this is one that's skating just on the right side of sanity and is great, I feel stoned just listening to it: It must have been one of the first times samples were used (sounds like a nature documentary in the intro).

The most 'in the moment' and life changing musical experiences I've had have been listening to DJs at clubs and raves and festivals, hazy memories but some of those times were so far beyond my day to day life now they seem almost from a different life.....No gigs have ever topped that for me, always seem a bit too 'real' to be life changing (thinking about needing to get to the bar/toilet, people barging by, bands starting late and not playing the tunes you want, thinking about the queue for the coats and missing the train home etc) but a few excellent live band experiences have been at festivals where I've been more in the zone: Prodigy at Download 2006, Kraftwerk at Big day out 2003, Pulp at Glastonbury 1997.

@51m0n We've got quite related names! Yeah, I didn't expect it but Reaper is actually winning for me at the moment after hours of frustrating Cubase and Reason hassles with ASIO drivers because I have a lot of things with their own drivers competing (I already have Traktor, and Helix Edit on the Laptop), but Reaper and Fruityloops dealt with it with no issues at all. The simple test I've been using is seeing how long (or how frustrating it is) to import a wav break, timestretch and loop it, automate some reverb, and add a few synth notes on a piano roll and add an automated delay to them. Reaper has been the winner at that, intuitive stuff and works as it should with no hassles, which is surprising as the reviews I'd seen basically say it can do almost all the things other DAWs can do but is un-intuitive and lacks visual appeal - personally I'd say the opposite! (well, it's not as flashy looking, but I find that a bit distracting/cluttered on some other DAWs).

Red Red Wine: First I thought UB40, then realised Tony Tribe did it before, and only recently realised that was a cover too - it was originally by Neil Diamond.

Edit, I see @MacDaddy already said this. Worth saying twice though! Both versions are excellent, I didn't know about the Gloria Jones version for years after knowing the soft cell version though.

If getting to Tottenham wasn't such a long hassle for me I'd be heading to this tomorrow.

I like that a lot of DAWs are giving free 30 day introductions because they are all pretty good and do similar things - it's mostly down to how you like to work and what you find easy and intuitive. I went full on with the downloads and currently have Reason, Reaper, Fruityloops, Ableton, Cakewalk and Cubase all competing (I used Logic for years but got fed up with Apple so have gone Windows now). Personally, I think Cubase is going to win it for me.

I don't mind rowdyness at a gig and people getting over excited about getting to the front, it's all part of the hype of live music and being 6'3" means I can almost always see the stage. What annoys me is people getting towards the front then not getting into the music - checking phones/chatting etc.

Welcome! I saw a great all female band play in Accra at +233 Jazz bar, and had a good evening at the Republic bar, sandbox beach club was good too. I've been recommending that people visit.

Unfortunately, after 6 weeks my Elektron:Samples has had very little use. That's almost entirely down to how much of my fairly limited music time I want to set aside making beats compared to playing Bass (if I want a drum track to play Bass along with I tend to just quickly drag/drop breaks into a DAW and loop them, or plug in an old phone to use apps like 'Loopz', or 'Drum loops') . It's beyond the return window so if anyone is keen on a hardly used one then keep an eye out in the for sale section.

Bass from 9mins

Yeah, I guess they've got something going on where the customer isn't actually the one responsible for importing from Germany - it's just the shop moving their stock around and the customer doesn't really need to know where it was originally sent from, the shop has already factored in the import things in the prices/returns policy etc.

I ordered an amp from DV247 website a couple of months ago with it looking like it would come from the Romford store, their website is misleading - it ended up coming from Germany but was all good - no delay, no added costs etc. Not sure what would have happened if I needed to return it though.

I find it interesting that music often gets more criticism for being offensive or inciting bad things than other forms of art while actually being much tamer. Films, porn, books, computer games are all more explicit in their content. I guess it says something about the power of music.

Before & After shots. Selling a few pedals basically paid for the Helix and C4 (+ controllers). My conclusion is that this new setup is fun and has a lot more potential sounds and tweakability, but it does lose a few things - the individual pedals are more limited but often sound a bit better at their specific sound and have more obvious/immediate hands-on (or foot-on) control. The new setup is better suited to hooking up to a laptop and planning out presets rather an spontaneous tweaking. Also, the Helix editing system is great and a £20 footswitch will give you two extra footswitches which is plenty to do most things. The C4 sounds great but Neuro editing isn't as intuative, and it needs a £100+ controller to access additional presets via footswitches (and the setup of that isnt that easy either). So I wouldn't particularly recommend people spend £325+ on a C4 and controller if it is just to replace their envelope filter and octaver, but it does also do a lot of great synth sounds so is probably is worth it if you want that too.

I haven't used one but I'd be tempted with the fly-rig. Everything in one place, no need for extra cables/power supplies. Chorus, boost/distortion, fuzz, octave, EQ, Tuner, compressor, XLR out, headphone out. It looks like you can just have the fuzz on: "The controls interact so that you can get dynamically-filtered clean, fuzz, and octave, as well as octave and fuzz together. When Q is at minimum, Range becomes a high-cut tone filter for different versions of clean, fuzz, octave, and octave and fuzz together. You can then blend any of these combinations with your direct signal via the Mix control"

It's not all bad. Bands nowadays don't necessarily need major labels to promote and distribute their music globally, they don't need to play a venue in every town to reach that audience and build their fanbase, they don't need to spend £££ on fancy studios and producers to get a decent sound, can easily collaborate online, can easily set up webstores to sell merchandising directly to people around the world. Perhaps musicians on average earn less nowadays to 40 years ago, I wouldn't be so sure though - they might get paid less for playing live and make less from selling music, but the overheads are much lower and there are lower barriers to getting into it.