Leonard Smalls

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1468534154' post='3091668'] I might add, it's not very Zen. However I like it nonetheless. [/quote] Cheers! It was meant to invoke lying there on a sunny afternoon, looking at a beautiful view, beer/reefer/cup of tea in hand, feeling just a touch mellow, a touch elated, and at one with the world...

Am I the first? Here's my bagpipe based opus, featuring the talents of fellow Weed and Guitar Hero, John Sullivan. [url=http://soundcloud.com/dredd-and-the-badass-weed/weeds-investigate-the-duality-of-man]Donald Where's Your Troosers[/url]

The picky just seems to say "epic funky disco thang with enormous sweeping synths". Though I could be mistaken...

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1467548322' post='3084432'] The Badass Weeds played a big outdoor party near Shrewsbury last night.. [/quote] There's even a photo!

The Badass Weeds played a big outdoor party near Shrewsbury last night.. Funnily enough it rained about 5 minutes after we started, but luckily we had a roof on the stage, unlike the revellers. They were far enough gone not to notice - they also seemed not to notice our computer with backing track (samples) crashed twice. And against our usual policy, we did a cover - Last Night a DJ Saved my Life - in order to let the party organiser sing. We didn't hold back from spoiling it with a very loud and distorted guitar solo. Roll on our next outdoor gig, just before Craig Charles at Green Meadows Festival in August.

I've got 2 bands... Firstly, Dredd and The Badass Weeds. We started in Leeds back in about 1983, and had as members such luminaries as Jay Rayner on keyboards (!), Chris Haskett (later of Rollins Band), and Jez (still with the Utah Saints). We've still got the original core - our drummer used to be with the Utahs, Andy was the singer in the New Fast Automatic Daffs, one of our guitarists was in indie merchaants, the Snapdragons, and the other is still in German goth favourites, the Cassandra Complex. We do, as we always have despite a 20-odd year hiatus, funk, rock with lots of daft clothing. Here's a hint: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WRGw-D08Gc[/media] My other band are The Bucknell Noise Kollektiv, which is sort of jazz, though our idea of doing a standard is Herbie's "Chameleon" with heavy trombone becoming "P-Funk" via "Happy Birthday" and "Mission Impossible"...

I've seen them once - and funnily enough they were supporting Muse at The Astoria. Wetter than Wet Wet Wet, and they haven't got any better. So rather than watching them at Glasto, I flossed my dog's teeth then cleaned out the u-bend in our toilet.

My favourites include: Dread Beat and Blood - Linton Kwesi Johnson Natty Dread - U-Roy High Priest of Dub or Scientist vs. Space Invaders - Scientist Dub Me Crazy - Mad Professor CB200 - Dillinger

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1466694739' post='3077963'] I got asked why I wanted a 4 as well as a 5 string, well, I'd say it was my choice. [/quote] When I went in for some FX, we had an entertaining if robust discussion... He wanted to know why I stuck with a heavy, 30+ year old 4 string Wal when "5 strings are so much better"? Having tried a Dingwall 5-er I discovered that it felt weird with all those extra strings (!), it didn't have the killer mid-range tone and the Wal just played better (spose I'm very used to it!). His response was "but 5 strings are better!", to which I responded "if 4 are good enough for Bootsy, they're good enough for me! And besides, I'm confortable with 4". And then we got onto amps... And cabs... He was appalled to hear I had an enormous bass horn (!) and a 25 year old Marshall jubilee at 30 and 22kgs each. "But this ones lighter" etc Still, we agreed to disagree, I bought an excellent distortion and an envelope follower and everybody was happy...

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1466612740' post='3077260'] listen to your track instead. [/quote] Careful now... It's liberally smeared with scat!

Bassline from the first 50 seconds of my entry into this month's compo-compo: http://soundcloud.com/leonard-smalls/hes-a-noodle-doodle-man

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1466355653' post='3075217'] I've kept mine mercifully short'n'sweet! Warning, contains purely-executed scat content and other things that some of a sensitive nature might find deeply offensive. [url="http://soundcloud.com/dredd-and-the-badass-weed/harry-monk-and-his-steampunk-funk"]http://soundcloud.co...-steampunk-funk[/url] Now remixed.... [/quote] I've fiddled with mine too!

I've kept mine mercifully short'n'sweet! Warning, contains purely-executed scat content and other things that some of a sensitive nature might find deeply offensive. http://soundcloud.com/dredd-and-the-badass-weed/harry-monk-and-his-steampunk-funk Now remixed....

I've made a start... And where it goes depends entirely on whether I add piano or synth. If it's synth, it's likely to be a large funky thing like Madre with chugging guitars. If it's piano, it'll be a jazzy little number with drum solo and (eek!) some scat. Daddy or chips?

Funnily enough, I always preferred Buddy Miles to Buddy Rich.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1465280610' post='3066667'] OK guys had a good listen through these on the bus on the way in this morning and have voted My remaining vote was for Leonard Smalls, whom I could listen to all day. I did say this last month but it's worth mentioning again, there is something wonderfully natural about your playing. it really is a case of you expressing your music through the instrument, it sounds great Another great bunch where to be honest It was difficult to whittle it down to just the three... but those are the rules and these were my favorites Long live the noodle bar! [/quote] Ta very much! But I bet by the 3rd hour of widdleywiddleywoo you'd be trying to saw your own ears off using one of my many discarded and snapped G strings as a cheese-wire...

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1465219483' post='3066216'] Isn't the broadcast mix done outside the venue in a trailer and completely different from the PA and monitor mix? I agree it doesn't tell us much but if you start to mix in bass and drums you elevate the level of the mix quite a bit and they mention not wanting an overly compressed sound for TV in the article. Which is different to what they do for radio and CD. [/quote] Depends entirely where it's recorded - in the olden days at TV Centre it would have been mixed in-room for the audience, and in a separate sound control room for transmission. We (i.e. post production Sound) always had a rivalry with studio sound; our mission was to make it sound as good as possible, their's seemed to be to make it sound as much like the original as possible, no matter how poor the original was. It's probably not true anymore - but bad mixes appear everywhere; on tv, live, and (eek!) on records! Either way you can't expect full range sound to appear at all impressive on a highly bandwidth limited tv speaker...

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1465215892' post='3066154'] I think the problem with listening to music on the TV is it is always going to be a compromise. [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/c99c3fd4-708b-3632-8c33-13abe97ec557"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...33-13abe97ec557[/url] [/quote] That doesn't really tell us anything about transmission frequency balance, or more importantly, how something is mixed for transmission whether it's music or drama or docs... Bear in mind that the mixing for transmission, as opposed to the sound in the studio, is done in a (mostly!) soundproofed room with (relatively!) full-range monitors. So frequency extremes aren't going to feature very much on a 2" speaker on your telly - unless the mix has been compressed in a frequency-dependent way. And the audio in the mixing room will be full-range and not (digitally) - compressed. So it may sound perfect to them - after all they want max quality - but after being MPEG encoded then compressed to between 128 and 320kbps (depending on what else is going on in the transmission multiplex), who knows what the balance is going to be like!

For me it's: Bootsy Norman Watt-Roy Jamaaladeen Tacuma Larry Graham Bill Laswell/Les Claypool (can't decide!) And it's nice to see Andy Warren get a mention - it was his early Monochrome Set stuff (and of course Norman!) who got me into bass...

Lawks! Not even all the entrants have voted yet...

And El Krapitan appears to be very painful for some recording studios, especially if they're working with Reaper...

They should all give up as they're obviously not good enough to make a living as proper musicians... I'd have voted for the top 2 as well...

I like to play live, but then I also like to play with myself at home - either just noodles or recording new stuff (often for the Basschat CompoCompo!). Luckily I rarely have any bass lines to learn as we don't usually do any covers and I make up basslines to suit (or not!). I've found that recording does more for my playing as I can pick over what I've done, like in one of those German toilets.

I reckon it'd be better with an anthemic synth, glitch percussion and slap bass solo right in the middle...

Excellently done! And please make sure that the next picture is funky!!!