BottomEndian

[quote name='Truckstop' post='1184541' date='Apr 1 2011, 12:10 PM']Speaking of which; Doesn't Jens Ritter sound like a Bond baddie name?[/quote] Speaking of which... it's nice to see Hank Scorpio on the back of that bass. One of my favourite "bit-part" characters.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1183405' date='Mar 31 2011, 03:03 PM']A quick question... Why would you not use a USB drive to record multitracks to? I recently ran out of HD space and desperately needed more for a project. I couldn't fit in any more IDE drives and I have no SATA on the board, so I bought the cheapest 1TB USB drive I could find. It seems to work fine recording 15 channels 24bit 48Khz with almost 0 latency.[/quote] I think USB's fine for many, many applications (especially USB 2.0), but IIRC the USB bus is controlled by the CPU, so if the CPU's busy with other stuff (plugins, automation, stuff like that), it can end up dropping the USB ball. USB also tends to transmit in bursts of data; again, it's usually fine, but if the CPU's having a tough time, a data burst can be held back and you get pops and clicks and all sorts. Can you get all 15 channels to play back through the DAW with heavy processing on every channel? FireWire, as I understand it, is largely independent of whatever else is going on (CPU-wise), and can handle high rates of [i]constant[/i] data throughput.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='923633' date='Aug 13 2010, 11:23 AM']An external Hard Drive that connects via FireWire (don't use USB for multi-track audio) for your audio files ONLY is an excellent idea - you'll get much better performance. However TimeMachine will not back up data on external hard drives so you'll need to look at alternative backup strategies and TBH I'd be vary about letting TM run while you're actually recording from a performance PoV.[/quote] Just had a read through this whole thread. Brilliant stuff! But I just thought I'd pick up on the one thing here I actually know anything about (albeit 7 months late, so everyone may have figured this out for themselves by now)... Time Machine [b]will[/b] back up your external drives. You just have to make sure you take them off the "do not back this up" list. It's a slightly counter-intuitive way to present things; I'd prefer it if drives were automatically included to back up rather than automatically opted-out. But it definitely works. My Time Machine drive backs up my internal drive and my external audio-projects FireWire drive.

[quote name='sime17' post='1182608' date='Mar 30 2011, 07:14 PM']Is it ending then? Dammit I bought my Markbass gear on that! That's a fact to concentrate the mind (in particular the GAS receptors on the frontal lobe).[/quote] Sorry, I should have been a bit less poetic. As of 1st April 2011, it'll only be available for those aged 18-25... which I'm very much not. So I got in while I still could. Yep, the Classic J is sitting here with me. [quote name='Wiseoldfrog' post='1182651' date='Mar 30 2011, 07:59 PM']Thanks for the review BottomEndian...I've just paid for my Overwater Aspiration Artist and should have it (hopefully) on Friday. I'll be gutted if there are build quality issues on it; I've got a PRS SE guitar that I paid £500 for and the build quality on that is fantastic - I certainly would expect the same from Overwater. Anyway, as soon as I've got the bass I'll post an initial review and then update it in a month or so when I've had a bit of a blast on it.[/quote] Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to go on such a downer. As I said, no one else appears to have had any problems with build quality (indeed, most have been raving), so I'm hoping my local ones are the wild exception to the norm. The J basses are absolutely sublime though. For under £400, I couldn't be happier with it.

Just been down to the local music shop on my lunch break to have a good bash on the Tanglewaters. To cut a long story short, I may well be back down there at the end of the day to see if I can get me a Classic J in CAR on the dying breaths of the Take It Away scheme. The slightly longer version... They had: Classic J (CAR); Contemporary J (trans black); Aspiration Artist (red trans); Aspiration Deluxe 5-string (trans black); Aspiration Elite 4-string (dunno what the top was... zebrawood?). I gave each one a good 4 or 5 minutes of playing, and had a good look over them in terms of build quality and finish and all that. First of all, from a distance, these basses look superb. The Aspiration series shape is lovely and just screams Overwater. Notice that I said "from a distance". Up close, the Classic J and Contemporary J still looked fabulous, but I have to admit being a little disappointed by some aspects of the Aspiration basses. The main culprit was the neck pockets. A couple of the Aspirations had whacking great gaps around the extended neck pocket. I'm not talking Rizla gaps. Easily business-card size, often with bare wood visible in the crevices. Also, the Elite with the lovely-looking top had an area on the top (about the area of a 5p and a few mm deep) where there'd either been a void in the wood or a machining problem, so there was a sort of hole in the top-wood that looked like it had just been flooded with finish (or possibly filled with something translucent-white before finishing... I'm no expert). Completely smooth on the surface, but not attractive. Everything else looks brilliant, by the way, especially for the money at the lower end of the range. And at the end of the day, of course, if I'd wanted an Elite I'd have asked the shop to get in another one for me. Seeing as there haven't been any other reports of such issues elsewhere, it may be that my local shop just happened to get a couple of not-so-greats. Sounds-wise, the 3-band-equipped models with soapbars sounded wonderfully refined, but with a lot of power in the EQ to bring through some really aggressive tones. Lovely mids. The Artist (J/MM setup with 2-band EQ) was naturally pretty honky, but again the power of the EQ tamed it nicely. Loads of tones from the J/MM pups. (Oh, and to reiterate the previous post, the 5-string was [i]very[/i] much 35". Too long for me.) The Contemporary J was [b]beautiful[/b]. Trans black, maple and blocks. Yum. A little polite-sounding for my tastes, but if you're after smooth sounds, it's got them in spades. The 2-band EQ gives A LOT of bass; in fact, it's a naturally very bassy-sounding instrument. I found the most sensible position for the bass knob was backed off a bit from the (presumably neutral) centre detent. That stopped it getting too boomy. The Contemporary J responded nicely to a bit of aggressive pick playing too. Lots of growl and attack. And then the Classic J. Oh my. I'm a bit of a sucker for CAR with matching headstock, so I hope I wasn't listening with my eyes. Fit and finish lovely; balance on the strap good. Plug it in, turn it on. Lovely. Classic passive P/J tones. Thumping, driving P pup, bright, honky (in a good way) J pup. Pan to the middle for some (shoddy, in my case) slapping. Pure class. Tonally, it's up there with a rather lovely 2008 Fender P I had for a while, with Nordstrand P and added J... and the Tanglewater is under £400. It made me realise how much I miss having a passive P/J (or indeed a passive bass of any description), and I haven't played a better one at that price-point... so yes, it may well be mine by the end of the day. Hats off to Overwater for bringing these lovely instruments to the market at such good prices.

Side note: IIRC, with the Zoom H/M/L switch for mic gain (at least on the H2), the H and M settings are identical in terms of the analogue signal coming from the mic; the difference is that the H position gets an internal boost in the digital domain, pushing the noise level up with it. The Zoom forums are littered with people doing sample-by-sample comparisons of the same signal recorded at H and M settings, and finding no difference once the M version has been brought up to the same level as the H. As I say... IIRC. As you were.

Dunno if it's just me, but I haven't seen [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180645000460"]many of these[/url] on this side of the Atlantic. It's just a few miles from me, but not really my cup o' tea (4 strings, frets, ugliest headstock known to man or beast). Seems a tad high for an opening price, and collection only is surely just shooting himself in the foot.

Cheers Dave! Do you know the impedance of the Burmans, by any chance? Ta for the PM too... I'll have a chat to Tim, but I'm about to be away for a few days.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1176988' date='Mar 26 2011, 10:22 AM']Turn the cab on its side / upside down and see if it still does it...[/quote] Yeah, I think that might be the next course of action. It only started playing up towards the end of the session, so we didn't have much time for muckin' aboot.

Just a quick question... er... what it says in the title. Rehearsal last night, guitarist's rig starts making nasty scratchy noises from two of the speakers in his 4x12. Sounds OK when played [b]very[/b] quietly, but if he hits a note with mid-to-high vigour, the noise is there. It's very reminiscent of a dodgy lead (scritchy, scratchy, sputtery, crackly distortion), and we've narrowed it down (via swapping leads, heads, everything) to just the cab, and the top two 12s in particular. Sound like voice coil rub? Bear in mind he tunes down to drop-G, uses heavy fuzz and these are speakers voiced for guitar... and you'll see why I suspect the coils may have given up the ghost. Lots of energy ploughing through those poor little things.

About halfway down [url="http://www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm"]this page[/url].

If you [i]do[/i] decide to go Mac (lord knows I'm not getting into that one ), keep an eye on [url="http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro"]the refurb store[/url]. Old models, newer models, even the most bang-up-to-date ones, with some wedge knocked off. Get yerself a (relative) bargain with the peace of mind of a proper Apple warranty.

I recently got a PJB Super Flightcase (250W, four front-firing 5"s and two up-firing 5"s). The sound is absolutely heavenly (everything from low B to the highs comes through smoothly and richly), the build quality is superb* and it's only about 14 kg. And with the up-firing speakers, you can stand right on top of it and still hear yourself perfectly. Very useful for fretless intonation. The 5-band EQ is really useful, and very musically voiced (low bass, high bass, low mid, high mid and treble), and the lack of tweeter really suits me. The downside is that it's a [b]very[/b] quiet 250W, due to the low-sensitivity speaker. It's the old trade-off: you can only have two out of loud, low and small. This is small and low, but certainly not loud. I've yet to gig it (and I won't have the chance for a while now), but I've had plenty of low-volume rehearsals; it'd be fine with a small acoustic gig, but it might struggle up against a drummer... even a sensible drummer. Oh, and the other downside is the cost. You can't think of it in terms of £ per dB. In summary: not a rock rig, but a bloody lovely rig. If you get the chance, try one out. It's a very surprising experience. [size=1]* I say this... actually mine was faulty straight out of the box (intermittent cut-outs). It went straight back to the distributor, who fitted a new main board and got it back to me within a few days. Hunky-dory ever since. Brilliant, smooth service; no hassles. Apart from the broken amp, obviously.[/size]

G6 Interpret it as a chord or a note (i.e. g''')... I don't mind which

[quote name='Oggy' post='1167032' date='Mar 18 2011, 01:13 PM']Good point about the extra storage - well spotted.[/quote] [url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h1/sd.html"]Some figures here[/url]. At the end of the day, you won't notice much difference between 16/44.1 WAV and MP3 at 320 kbps, so you can get nearly 14 hours on the 2GB card if that sort of thing doesn't bother you.

Sticking strictly to the budget, the Zoom H1 is probably worth a look*. Very simple interface -- they've ditched the slightly fiddly (and eye-strainingly small) menus from the H2 and gone with a much more hit-it-and-go thing (BIG RED BUTTON to record). It's happy up to 120 dB SPL too, which is useful. Don't forget to factor in the cost of a bigger storage card too. You usually get 2GB, which'll probably only do you a couple of rehearsals at CD-quality WAV. * Based on nothing more than the fact I love my H2 and I guess the H1 will be similarly decent.

Oh, bugger, balls and dammit. I'm actually IN Harrogate that day, but I'll be [url="http://www.nurseryfair.com/"]here[/url] instead. Hope everyone has a good day. I'm sure mine will be just as gripping.

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='1164364' date='Mar 16 2011, 01:20 PM']Actually this one's a little too big for a wee 5 year old[/quote] Nonsense, man! She's clearly got the fifth fret covered. Build her a 5-string and she doesn't need to go any further down the neck than that.

[quote name='deksawyer' post='1164127' date='Mar 16 2011, 09:49 AM'][/quote] That's what I'm using these days, and I think it's lovely. My only gripe is that you can't control the different bands separately in "Studio" (i.e. multiband) mode, but it does a nice job anyway with whatever automatic settings it's using. It lets me whack out a bassline at the same time as leaving harmonics ringing on the upper strings... without getting muddy or swamping the harmonics.