Leonard Smalls

Here's some early Roco recordings wot we did live in our rehearsal and living room in Harlesden back in 1990 (89?). I eq-ed them a bit recently and put it up as an archive! one's pure punk rock, the others aren't (there's even some slap bass in Agnes from 2'20 on, plus drum solo in Phoal). ... I've got some probably far more embarrassing Dredd and the Badass Weeds tapes from 1985 recorded after far too much imbibing which I may dig out! Th

21st Century Schizoid Man! - King Crimson

With you tube being a streaming service, they tend to normalise all audio to a perceived loudness of -14 or -16 LUFS - i.e. it gets multiband audio and digital compression so it'll never sound as good as a lossless version. Though as most folks don't listen back on decent kit they'd never know the difference. Not sure what this means! Back in the days of NICAM I used to take mixes home to check for rumble missed by the Rogers LS5/8 monitors they used to use... Nowadays all TV is delivered as part of a AS11 DPP file with the audio component being a 16bit wav at 48kHz, bandwidth 20-20kHz with a max true peak of -1dBTP, and max perceived loudness of -23LUFS so in theory pretty high quality, and they use Harbeth 40s which are far better. It was true that in the days of live TOTP'n'all that there was a breed of studio sound mixer (I was post production) who didn't believe in enhancing in any way, it was basically as it came, warts and all, not even reverb on vox - later trainee intakes emphasised creativity over engineering and scientific knowledge, so things have got better! However, with BBC training having disappeared largely all they have to go on is required tech specs.Radio ones here, but they're basically the same as for TV, https://www.readkong.com/page/audio-quality-information-standards-for-4418233

I find this to be the norm... We played a decent venue last year; the sound engineer took ages sculpting the bass drum sound to get that kick-in-the-kidneys thwack and left that as the loudest thing in the mix as if it's somehow a badge of honour to get that sound! But ultimately, both our basses were drowned out every time there was a kick. I know that some venues have poorly designed PAs that will go loud and give the idea of low bass, but in actual fact there is no definition between frequencies due to bad speaker placement, poor acoustics etc, but you can't get that kidneythwack without reasonable subs and mid bass reproduction. It's like the matey wasn't interested in us poor bassistas! I blame metal...

MF of the Year - Mötley Crüe

the Weekend - Stormzy and RAYE

He's a lucky beggar! He's up very high in the mix... I find soundmixers are often firstly obsessed with getting that ridiculous thwack off the bass drum that swamps everything low down, then keeping guitar to fill everything from there up leaving the tiniest of tiny spaces for bass guitar! Not always the case, but far too often.

Thursday - Morphine

Awesome bit of bass-led avantjazz, funky-as!

Because You're Frightened! - Magazine

C30, C60, C90, Go! - Bow Wow Wow

Radioactivity - Kraftwerk

Silicon Carne - the Monochrome Set

Tarmac The Knife - Bobby Darin

Turn to red - Killing Joke

Shoal Man - Sam and Dave

Trapped - Colonel Abrams

Done!

https://circl8radio.com/ Excellent internet station based in Chester... They're playing a track off Weeds' ep at 1720 today followed by my entry to BC's monthly compo compo. There's no accounting for taste, though they're currently playing Shriekback which is a good sign!

Check out https://circl8radio.com/ - they're actually playing my entry for this month's compo preceded by one of the tracks off Weeds' e.p at 1720 today. It's an awesome station with generally impeccable musical choices, though they obviously have lapses 😁

Death of a Maiden - Franz Schubert

Lust for Life - Iggy Pop

Ein Sinfonie des Grauens - Monochrome Set

Poor Old Mr Woogie - Chas & Dave