mike257

I used to have a 6u with an SVT3, rack tuner, wireless, and a 1u power distributer/rack light, only had to plug in power and the speaker cable and I was good to go. 

Then I got a Genz Benz Shuttle that could fit in a gig bag pocket and sacked it all off 🤣

23 hours ago, Skybone said:

That's one thing I've been looking at. Most of the budget ekits have the snare off to one side rather than in the middle, which isn't very realistic.

 

Thanks for the info folks, most helpful! 👍😀

The kick pedal is usually centre of the rack on the electronic kits, so the snare is usually sitting roughly equidistant between the kick pedal and the hi hat pedal, which is about right. Putting the snare centre would be like sitting it on top of your kick drum!

On 18/11/2020 at 18:56, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

Not sure how to . I may see if the midi lead I have can go into the mic input of my line 6 interface and try that..

This won't work!!

So, MIDI connections don't actually carry any sound. They just send instructions between devices. For example - if I connect a keyboard to a sound module using MIDI, when I play middle C on the keyboard, it sends a message to the sound module telling it to play a middle C. No sound goes down the cable, just instructions. 

It can be used to allow one piece of equipment to play sounds on another, or to control settings/functions, change patches etc.  You can get MIDI fader controllers that can control the faders in you recording software, or MIDI pads that can play the drum sounds in your sampler. 

It's a language to allow your pieces of equipment to talk to each other. Your USB keyboard is talking MIDI to your computer, but over a USB connection. 

You can't connect MIDI to a mic input, or to anywhere else that sound comes in and out. You can only connect a MIDI port to another MIDI port. 

If he's a beginner drummer, I'd get his tutor (or of he doesn't have one, a sensible drummer) to come round and help with the layout of the kit. 

Electronic kits allow for things to be positioned much closer together and in different spots than you can manage on a real kit, and I've seen plenty with pedals, pads and cymbals in positions that bear no relation to a real kit.

If you can get the kit set up in a way that's reflective of a "real" one, it'll make the eventual transition to acoustic drums much easier and stop him picking up bad habits/bad posture by playing in the "wrong" place. 

Another Reaper user here. Main attraction for me is that it's very resource-light (will happy chug away on a fairly basic spec computer) and very stable. My main use for it is capturing live recordings, where it needs to just work, and that's exactly what it does. 

As far as editing video - you won't find much in the way of software that does both well, because they're different tasks with different demands and workflow. Video editing is much more demanding of your computer than most audio tasks. If you're trying to do both at once, especially if you're doing a lot of processing/plugin useage on your audio, you'll be taxing your system. I'd be inclined to use the right tool for the job - finish your audio and do a final mix in a DAW, and throw that mix in to a video editor where you aren't asking the system to do anything extra other than playing a single file with no live processing. 

On 09/10/2020 at 16:59, Maude said:

I was just about to post that. 

I'll add Melancholy And The Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins to the don't list. It's just too samey, it could've been a blinding single album instead of 'mediocre and the intolerable snoozefest' double that it is. 

Noooooooooooo!

Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness is one of the few double albums that make me want to turn down the lights, clamp a pair of decent headphones round my ears and just disappear in to it.  How an album with X.Y.U., Thru The Eyes Of Ruby and Stumbeleine on it (back to back!) can be samey is beyond me. Yes, the singles on their own would have been a great record, but it would have been the worse for what it would have lost.

It's definitely a weird phenomenon with rock music fans that they're surprised to find top flight musicians from "less worthy" genres are actually extremely talented. 

Nobody musical in my family and my parents thought pursuing music was a terrible idea.

I started playing guitar at 13, and after a few months on a borrowed acoustic, asked for an Epi Les Paul Special II for Christmas, on offer from Soho Soundhouse for £99.  "Can't you find a cheaper one. It's not like you can really play it anyway" was my Dad's response. When I wanted to take music for my GCSE options at 14, the blocks were put on by my parents in collusion with the head of year "You can't read music now, there's no point carrying on studying it". Didn't stop me playing, and a few years later my shitty unsigned band ended up being one of the first shitty unsigned bands to be offered a headline tour of O2 (or Carling as they were back then) Academy venues. 

With my parents still nonplussed, I was pressed to stop chasing my dreams and ended up at 21 working with my dad at the same company he'd worked for since he was 15 years old, and the band folded shortly afterwards. 

Seven years of increasingly dull corporate misery later, engaged, with an infant son and a second one on the way, I took a chance, to my parent's sheer horror, and left the sensible job to make a living from music. Until COVID struck, I'd managed to sustain a career for eight years, although I do very little bass playing now and primarily work as a sound engineer and tour manager. 

I don't see my parents any more, but when I landed the biggest gig of my career last summer, touring as a monitor engineer for an artist who's music was always played in our house growing up, I finally got some acknowledgement, with a one word comment from my dad on a post on my company's Facebook page after mixing the main stage headline slot at Boomtown Festival - "Congratulations". That was it. I didn't feel compelled to reply!

Had a set for years that's migrated across various basses and always sounded great

If you enjoyed learning Sir Duke, you could stay with Stevie and add I Wish and Master Blaster to the list. Both fun lines to play. 

There was an isolated bass part of the original Sir Duke line posted on here a little while ago, worth looking that up for a little listen!

1 hour ago, joeystrange said:

No.

I read about a Frank Turner show a few nights ago at a smallish venue that was open at around 20% capacity (with social distancing) as an experiment. IIRC it was a 1200 cap venue with around 200 people in.

The venue said that they didn’t cover their operating costs even before paying the artist. So I don’t think that playing for free is going to help venues stay afloat.

Reduced capacity gigs just don’t seem financially viable for anyone.

Yep. The reality for small to medium sized venues is that you need a pretty well packed house to break even. When you slash capacity to 20% but you also need more staff in to enforce distancing measures, you don't have to be a genius to realise the numbers won't work. 

4 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I'm in a different field, but exactly the same place... my work dropped massively, but no help whatsoever.

Sorry to hear that. There's an awful lot of people in a similar position. The government have played a blinder in coming out with great, headline grabbing schemes that they can shout about come the next election, whilst simultaneously making the small print full of enough challenges that an absolute ton of businesses and individuals have been left without any real support. 

8 minutes ago, dudewheresmybass said:

Thank you mate. 
I have a fair few friends and associates on the other side of the curtain as well. 
the whole industry has been thrown to the wall.

are you eligible for anything through any other support networks? Isn’t there a ‘support staff’ thing called crew nation? How does that work? 
 

Cheers mate - frustrates the hell out of me when people act like we've somehow got it easy being outside the world of "normal" employment. 

I'm receiving a small grant from HelpMusicians UK which, whilst I'm immensely grateful to receive it, is a monthly amount equivalent to what I'd normally earn in one day on tour. I put in for the Crew Nation scheme that Live Nation are running but they were just overwhelmed with applicants. Was in line to be working on their summer of drive-in concerts before all that got pulled too!

I was doing some delivery driving for a local brewery but they've laid off all the home delivery drivers now they're back supplying pubs. 

There's little bits happening - I'm involved with a live streamed festival happening at the end of August, and possibly doing some installation work for a couple of new bars/venues, but everything has the shadow of a return to lockdown hanging over it, especially in light of this week's local restrictions in some areas.  It's very hard to plan ahead with any confidence. 

7 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

You'll be getting money off the government then, since you're self employed, made a decent living pre-COVID19 and completed all tax returns etc?

This stinks of the tired assumption that the self employed are all on the blag. 

I work in the touring production industry. I trade as a limited company, even though it's just me. This means I'm not "self employed" so I wasn't eligible for that support. I can't furlough myself, because I still have to undertake what tiny little business activities I can, otherwise I'll have no business to come back to. I don't have premises that are eligible for business rates, so none of the grant schemes apply to me (I did have a small unit but it was within a self storage facility and not counted as eligible premises. I've had to give this space up for financial reasons). 

I've got precisely zero government support. The government support that does exist will cease in a couple of months, long before our industry is able to return to normal. 

There will be no concert touring, festivals, theatre productions etc in 2020. There is no guarantee they'll be back in their normal form in 2021. Will the government continue to support artists, musicians, technicians, production companies, venues, event trucking and bussing suppliers, tour caterers, stewards, security, all the huge supply chain that supports live events? Like hell they will. Redundancies and dead companies will be all over the place.

@dudewheresmybass, like me, will not see his income return to normal levels from live music for quite some time. Our mortgages and bills won't go away. Our kids still need to be fed and clothed. 

I won't be working for free. 

On 21/07/2020 at 13:50, Heathy said:

My greater sympathies are with technical/venue staff who have been affected.

I have always thought that making any money from doing something that millions just do for relaxation/fun is a massive privilege. Whilst it is causing hardship, I would hope that if I were in that position I would have the good grace to realise that point.

Does anyone think that COVID will contribute towards putting an end to cash altogether? 

 

 

Thanks! 

Touring techie here. The year's diary completely wiped out for myself, and all the freelancers and companies that I work with. Lot of people and businesses at real risk of going under, it's certainly a strange time to be in this industry. 

I'm sure it'll come back eventually, but the high profile pulling of the country-wide drive in concerts hasn't exactly boosted consumer or industry confidence. Attempts at getting shows up and running are going to be hamstrung by the debate of who takes on the risk (and the costs) if a second wave/local lockdown/plague of locusts causes cancellations.

On 23/03/2020 at 12:49, Paul S said:

Late last year he played me 'I Want You' from Abbey Road which, to my knowledge, I had never heard before.  I actually like that a lot  

That's a truly wonderful bit of bass playing, that song. 

On 10/07/2020 at 20:47, bobbass4k said:

It's always nice to see some StT love - how they weren't huge I'll never understand - x-french tee shirt is a masterpiece (anthemic sing along ending over a single chord? Mad genius).

I could list songs and bands all day long that you've most likely never heard of, but based on your original ideas I think you're looking for things more ensconced in the bosom of popularity.

Building on Mountains - a lot of the newer Biffy stuff still uses odd time sigs - Different people (main riff is a 15/8 feel), Spanish Radio (5/4), Bubbles (ends in 7/4) and a lot of the older stuff (Glitter and Trauma, now the action, jaggy snake etc...)

Deftones sneak a few in every now and then - Poltergeist (Very fun 7/4 bass riff), DIamond eyes (11/8 feel chorus), Leathers (11/4 feel verses)

Radiohead of course -  2 + 2 =5 (in 7/8 not 5, oddly), 15 step (again 5/4, not 15...)

Obligatory plug for my favourite band Oceansize, especially tempting bait to a drummer - maybe a bit on the proggy side for some people but very musical and melodic -

 

Only came here to excitably yell "Oceansize!!!”

Huge amounts of Biffy Clyro stuff is in things that aren't 4/4, and they're very good at squeezing it in but making it sound perfectly natural. This shifts effortlessly from 3 to 5 and back again...

And this goes to a whole bunch of different places musically and dynamically in less than five minutes....

There's definitely a history on here of everyone mobbing round whatever budget bass is found to be slightly less bad than you expect a cheap bass to be. Remember the SX craze? I think this forum must have bought most of their stock over the course of a few months. 

There'll be another one along soon, there always is!

A lot of lower end consumer models aren't built for rack mounting because most of their target market won't be looking to cart a rack around. 

All professional standard radio kit is built for rack mounting because 90% of the time, that's how it will be used. 

Second hand Sennheiser G3 kit is available for good prices these days. I wouldn't go for anything less than that. Huge step up in quality from the likes of Line 6. 

8 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I was going to suggest adding the Sterling by Musicman RAY4HH, but was staggered to see these retail for over a grand.

That's crazy. The real thing was around £1250 when I got mine! 

There's these guys....

Because like any popularity contest, the "greatest" basslines are, in the eyes of the public, the ones they most easily recognise, or the ones that feature at the forefront of their respective songs. 

Put it on my 8 year old son's tabet and he spent the afternoon sat in the garden making beats. Definitely a worthwhile download, thanks again!

Nice spot! Just downloaded and killed 10 minutes making a beat when I should be cracking on with DIY. 

If the missus asks, I'm blaming you.