SumOne

Nice one, I hadn't realised that (apparently it wasn't available to begin with so older one's need an update for it to work, but mine already had the update applied). Individual samples easily assigned to each step of each of the 6 tracks opens up a lot of possibilities and is a big upgrade. The only downside is that it is still only 6 tracks, so maximum of 6 sounds playing at any one time (which is probably plenty) and the fx assigned for each track is applied to all samples within that track. That's fine, just might need a bit of planning sometimes.

Nice doing business with Paul. Sold a pedal and all was good. Cheers

Crappy digital sounding claps are one of the foundations of drum machines!

I'm impressed with the Elektron Samples so far. Played about for a couple of hours and it's intuitive enough that I made the attached loop without needing to look up any instructions (it doesn't come with any). All good quality built-in sounds and it's a fairly straight-forward work flow but I'll need to look up on the online manual how to do more complex things and still need to figure out how to import samples. Although it's plastic I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing nowadays- this thick type of plastic is probably nearly as strong as metal. All the knobs and buttons seem well made, the whole thing feels well built and fairly strong, I reckon it could take a drop on the floor. Nowhere near as rugged as something like a Boss stompbox but I'd trust it at a gig if it was somewhere off the floor. It's smaller than an A4 piece of paper and about an inch thick. Negatives I've found: 6 Channels is okay for drum loops, but is limited for doing full tunes. (e.g. Kick, toms, snare, hi-hat, cymbal, clap...and you're done, no room to add anything else). The effects are fine and they are intuitive to use - amounts can are applied per channel but reverb size/tone and delay time/feedback are global so it's just the amount of it you apply per channel chat can be altered individually. There aren't loads of effects and they are relatively limited if you're used to using DAWs and having things like 5 different types of Reverbs to fine-tune. Chorus and Echo would be nice to have. The pressure sensitive finger-drumming pads aren't sensitive enough- they need quite a hard whack to get full amount (perhaps there is a way to adjust that, all I've found though is that they can be set on full velocity for all hits - no adjustment to sensitivity) and they are small if you want to do two hand drum rolls. Screen could do with being bigger. Midi in/out come with adapters from mini jack to midi, probably not an issue but it's a bit more flimsy and an extra connection than if they'd just put in midi connectors. I'm pretty sure you can't sample directly (e.g. via a line-in or USB in) need to import from a computer, which is fine but breaks up the spontaneity a bit. That all sounds a bit negative, but overall for £250 I think this is a good fun piece of kit for creating drum patterns (and hopefully for importing/triggering samples) and I'm pretty sure I'll keep it. The restrictions are actually probably good for fast workflow and not getting too bogged down in things. Can also buy a battery handle that could be useful for times like flights and train journeys, and a protective cover. Will report back in a couple of weeks once I've used it more.

The Korgs look good, I had a Korg monotron that was fun (although the headphone output didn't last long). Also had a Teenage Engineering PO-12 which was decent for electronic sounding stuff. I've got an Elektron Samples arriving this morning, looking forward to it!

Here's a good one from Bob Marley that doesn't get much attention:

It would seem I like quite varied music (Dub/Reggae, Funk, Stoner/Psychedelic Rock, Drum n Bass, Dubstep, Techno) but there is something linking them all that makes them similar in many ways - they are usually hypnotic/psychedelic/abstract and driven by the rhythm and are often more about building a mood rather than being catchy tunes with sing-along chorus. I think for that reason people should be open to listening to a lot of styles because quite often it seems that different styles of music have been written by people trying to convey similar feelings in the music - just due to time/technology/culture etc they have conveyed them in a different way (a bit like speaking different languages).

I prefer their earlier stuff before they went commercial.

Yeah, I spend all day working on a Laptop, it's not very inspiring to then go back to using a Laptop to make music.....always seems to need an update or some other faff and even if it all works fine it's just not much of a fun/hands-on way of making tunes. I 'm hoping that a hardware drum machine/sequencer with strike pads will be a good starting point for a bit of inspiration in making tunes- quite hands-on and easily editable while playing Bass along to it to make the foundation of a tune, then use DAWs just for the boring bits at the end to finish things off.

I've used DAWs a lot over they years (Reason, Logic, Cubase, Ableton, Reaper, Cakewalk), they are definitely the best value for money (some are free, or free trials) but I'm not finding them very inspiring for the earlier stages of developing tunes/jamming/creating rhythms/editing and playing along to with Bass so am looking to go back to hardware - years ago I had an MC505 which was good for making electronic stuff but now I'm more keen on live sounding drums for Funk and Dub/Reggae so want something that can play sampled drum hits. An MPC looks ideal but is about double my budget so I've gone and bought the Elektron Model:Samples (£251) so will be able to let you know what I think of that in a few days.

Edit-Please delete (I've posted this in the wrong place and since found a relevant thread). Not Bass, or Bass effects but sort of related: Any hardware drum machine/sample sequencer/Groovebox users here that can recommend anything? I'm looking for something that's intuitive, fun to use and edit on-the go, can play loops (rather than just an electronic drum) and can trigger imported samples. Basically I'd use it to make drum loops and simple drum tracks that I can play Bass along to - a step up from just playing along to other people's drum loops but more hands-on and instant than making them from scratch using Laptop DAWs (I use DAWs but I'm not finding them very inspiring for the earlier stages of developing tunes/jamming and playing along to with Bass). I'm looking for the sort of thing I can make the foundation of a tune (Sampled drum hits sequenced into drum loops/tracks and some sampled chords) which I then muck about playing Bass along to and make on-the-go changes to it all before putting into a DAW to finalise. Budget of about £300 . I've narrowed it down to: Elektron Model:Samples £258 Korg Electribe Sampler £321 Anyone with experience of them or other recommendations?

A new record arrived today '100 tons of dub' and the title does it justice. Heavy sounding Channel One (soul syndicate) dub, I think mostly recorded in late 70s. George Fullwood, Robbie Shakespeare and Flabba Holt on Bass. This one is the most surprising, never heard it before but it sounds like it was made much more recently: Perhaps my favorite from the album:

Yeah, I could swear that someone was deliberately trying to wind me up a while ago with that 'Can you meet at Waterloo?' ....'No, collection only' 'But I would be collecting it from you. At Waterloo' ....'No, just you collection from my house'. Okay, how shall I transfer the cash?' .....'cash on collection' 'yeah, but shall I transfer cash by Paypal or Bank?' Personally, I've found Basschat to be the best for avoiding plonkers!

Yeah definitely similar. That was also used earlier:

It was also used by Massive Attack:

I've used Bass Direct a lot over the last year and they have always been good. Fair prices and good to deal with. GAK were so good at returns that I started to feel a bit bad doing it: could test a pedal for a few weeks and ask to return it and they even paid for the courier doorstep pickup return. Andertons are okay, always quick delivery and decent at returns and they fixed a pedal that went wrong after 10 months. But they're not always the best prices and they've given me some very poor part-ex prices last year that I'd gone ahead with out of impatience of wanting to exchange there and then but in hindsight don't feel like they particularly treated me as a loyal/valued customer - more like I was getting every penny squeezed out of me! One that sticks in my head is them giving £60 for a perfect condition boxed Boss RE-20 which they sell new for £225 so they probably get £180 second hand for it....and this was is part-exchange for a slightly overpriced Bass so wasn't even as good as just getting the £60. On a separate occasion they offered about 30% less part-ex for a Bass (one I bought from them earlier last year!) than either Bass Direct or Camden Bass exchange offered, and it would have been in exchange for a Bass they were charging more for than either of those shops- so I didn't deal with them on that occasion.

The Dubby Space Echo breakdown makes me want to get a Space Echo again (although, I had an RE-20 and Bass is about the only thing that doesn't work very well being put through it).

You've all probably already seen this, from 2017 'Roots, Reggae, Rebellion'. If not, it's pretty good at showing in 1hr how history, politics and religion all influenced Reggae. I'm not religious and I know a lot of people are put off Roots Reggae because of the religious messaging but understanding the context helps put it in perspective - I don't listen to it and feel like I'm particularly being religiously preached to, more along the lines of hearing political and religious rebellion and optimism for positive change and shifting of power...... 'get up, stand up, stand up for your rights' .

I'd you don't like that, then I'll raise the stakes with this :

This album has a few good dub versions:

Not Reggae music but related - this book is good (not a short read though). Marlon James' 'A brief History of seven killings'. Its fiction, but tied in with Bob Marley and 70s Jamaican politics. Any other Reggae (or reggae influenced) book recommendations? "Marlon James says that when he was writing A Brief History of Seven Killings, he wanted it to be “a novel that would be driven only by voice”. The book may tell the story of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976, but it’s the people around the star who dominate the narrative. As Carolyn Kellogg wrote in the LA Times: “There are patois-speaking street thugs, CIA operatives, Jamaican gang leaders, a magazine writer, a displeased ghost, an American hitman, and a woman who slept with the singer just that once.” And that’s just the start. There are almost a dozen competing voices all offering different viewpoints, opinions, and motivations, all speaking in varying forms of English, from US governmental formality to Jamaican poetry and slang."

I'm too tight to get two so it's at the end but in an ideal world I'd have one at the start and one at the end and use each/both/none depending on other pedals being used..... I like to go from octave pedal into envelope filter but my octave pedal tracks better with a compressor before it whereas my envelope filter sounds best with a compressor after it to tame some harsh peaks.

I've found with some compression that you can't necessarily hear a tone difference with it on/off but you can feel the difference when you are the one playing. e.g. Pluck a string a bit too hard and it sounds more of a similar volume to the other notes you played than if you had the compressor off.....that's not something you can tell from listening to a YouTube comparison but it's something you can feel when playing. Also, there are different types of compressors and the way they are used. e.g. The MXR M87 is good for making the output more even while not changing the tone, the Pigtronix Philosopher Bass is good at adding sustain, the FEA Opti-FET is good at fattening up and adding a sort of warm/softened tone.