lurksalot

woo hoo, the voting thread is here , well, er, most of it , it need a slight edit when I can suss it out !

Ladies and Gentlemen, 'tis time to lend your ear to the offerings served up for you this very fine May All based on this wonderful 'album coveresque' photo from last month’s winner Bobbass4K So for your delectation and consideration please make 3 choices from the following entries.. 1 Dad3353 Here is my contribution to the May 2020 Basschat Composition Challenge, inspired by a picture chosen by the previous winner: BobBass4K..! An ambient track this time, composition inspired by the thought of the fractal nature of the branches and twigs in the photo. A slow build-up, using fractally-generated themes, intertwining in apparently hapless fashion, but all interlinked, combining natural earthiness with algorithmic rigor. Somewhat hypnotic; it kept me up until the early hours refining it. Was it worth it..? Hmm... All instruments are Kontakt (Contra-bassoon, horns, Emotional Piano, archtop guitar, percussion...), excepting the Superior 3 drums (a first, for me...). Very little Fx or mastering 'pixie dust', as the quality of the instruments speak for themselves, I think. Thanks for listening, if you already have; if you're about to, enjoy. 2 Iacopo San Finally is time for me too to give this a go.Working from home I was given a MacBook Air by my employer, so recently I have been having a bit of fun with GarageBand. Recorded with my Precision Classic 50 MIM and Squier John 5 Telecaster. All the rest is the standard GarageBand stuff - I did not have a chance yet to look into plugins and what not. I am new to recording so be nice 3 Nick D My contribution to this month's composition challenge, inspired by the image selected by last month's winner, bobbass4k. 4 Lurksalot I am at the point that if I try and make it better , it gets worse, and that takes some doing If I could make it better I ........ Would .. enjoy 5 Leonard Smalls I was going to go for a whole-tone piece, as key-based music is non-egalitarian to all other notes, until I realised that the whole-tone system discriminated against frequencies not present in-between the notes... So I thought I'd do this slightly over-driven bit of jazzy stuff instead, using 3 brass VSTs, plus Music Labs and AmpleSound Les Paul VSTs - when I saw the pic I thought of Miles Davis' "Agharta" for some reason, hence "Hollow Earth": 6 adam67 I stayed very much in my comfort zone for the basic idea with a pretty straight up rock song, but tried to take some inspiration from the pic to make it a bit darker and moodier than I'd normally go. Then I jumped on a metaphorical bus out of my comfort zone, went to the airport, caught a plane, and ended up somewhere where my comfort zone was a distant memory, trying to do lyrics and vocals. This is my first ever attempt at that (ever, not just here) and I don't think anyone will need much convincing of that. It will give you some idea how bad my first attempts were when I say that the finished article is a big improvement. Anyway, I did it, and my aim is only ever to be able to sing enough to write words and vocal melodies for other people to perform. 7 Fingers 211 Entry into this months basschat comp using picture as inspiration. On new laptop this month with very few recording bits or gizmos....guitars by me ( and reaper delay/echo), rest is all free Kontakt. A tree chat is all it is.... 8 Upside Downer Finally finished it, all recorded with Wavepad and Audacity. Used a drum sample from Looperman which I treated and twisted into shape, violin bass, Epiphone Gibson Special through a Roland Micro Cube and a Zoom 504 effects pedal. Used DADGAD tuning and got a nice wonky sound in places. A bit of menace, a sliver of light then back to peril. Dedicated to Pauline from Birmingham. 9 MoonBassAlpha May 2020 BassChat composition challenge entry. I didn't make it easy for myself, the timing is somewhat fluid in places. At least you can tell it's not programmed on a grid. Features a first appearance of my new guiro (on the left), kindly made for me by my good friend Timi Sp8. all done in Reaper again, Godin Solidac phased guitar, Gordon-Smith 12-string electric, US Masters fretless bass bass and US Masters (with flats) "Lead" bass with a bit of octave on. 10 SH73 Listen to Prelude 2020 by ThEddie on #SoundCloud Well there you go , enjoy, and put 3 ticks in the appropriate boxes voting ends midnight on 31st May

Go for it , ‘deadline’ is midnight tonight but there has been a little flexibility allowed in the past so get busy that said , if you are taking an extra day to polish a masterpiece that will make everyone else sound like amateurs , we may think again 😉

There is nowt wrong with your vocal tone and pitching , excellent , most excellent !

Is the 1/4” jack part of the equation a balanced jack ? It would look like a stereo jack ?

I’ve just realised , I have a similar photo of a tree , taken under similar circumstances, but as the tree is just across the road, I see it most evenings in the winter , I have no idea what triggered the need to photograph it

I was very much this , but now I have decided that if it needs me to provide a vocal , then it’s me that it gets , and while I think my tone sucks , it's the only one I’ve got and all the FX I throw at it doesn’t really help , so in the spirit of Chester FC , I just embrace the shitness !

Aha I think you’ve stumbled on the secret of my success , well, not so much the retuning , just the Frankensounds I get from standard tuning with my Frankenfingering guitar technique, not by design though

If it’s like me , you believe one day you’ll nail it .......one day I’ll nail it......one day I’ll nail it ......one day........ you can see what @Dad3353 thinks of my vocal input above and that was just talking ......with irony

The thread is pretty much aimed at people completely new to the idea of home recording , and is probably pitching at interfaces and computers as they are abundant in the market. As such they are best place to start . If a new starter has a dedicated hardware multitracker he could read the manual I guess 😉

I had the first led zep album with a velvet underground label on one side , I swapped it with a mate who I think still has it .

I am at the point that if I try and make it better , it gets worse, and that takes some doing If I could make it better I ........ Would .. enjoy

Yes cheers Douglas a good tip indeed , I have never had a reaper file not load since I first used it , and even opened up a few early ones to 'remix' them , but this one just had gone , I tend to increment the renders I do but hadn't given a thought to the reaper files until last month . as I tried a few midi files that I wasn't sure of, I did the incremental reaper jobs , worked a treat

I'm going to let mine settle for a day or so, I like it, but I cant get it to gel together just yet but It will do as is if I cant get a better feel for it , have to say though its a good job reaper backs up every project or this one would have been done for, a very scary 20 minutes till I sussed that beauty !

I got the Ujam ones they do great chunking and with some FX , waves gtr3 , I quite like them , but for thrashing , an open tuned guitar is reasonably straightforward to perform on.

I didn’t think it needed saying that I am acute..y. As for angles , even at 90° I am rarely right

I have a strict policy of not listening to entries until mine is done , I know I would rip it up each time I listened to anyone else’s. i do have done sounds I want to put in mine but also I’ve noodled a cool guitar riff , but I haven’t found the angle for the guitar sounds yet

Hi Glenn welcome to the forum dude

Woah I’m thinking Twiggy going back to her roots, maybe branch out and try something countree I’ll do some noodling , I’m not stumped yet

I was due to go to Nottingham to see @cheddatom and @Leonard Smalls I was really looking forward to that

I think it’s like a lot things , the guy has a great enthusiasm and it rubs off , Ms Tarbuck much the same , always having a chuckle with you !

Consider yourself lucky , I used to see pictures and think that they would make great photos for the challenge , I had a fair few saved, but it took 2 years before I could use one

Ah , the grief I used to give myself trying workarounds. I just get the kit that does the job now , especially computery things

She’s a fave in this household , she was a blast on Taskmaster as well

Well , colour me clairvoyant , I called that one didn’t I !! Very well done , congratulations , I am sure a sustificat will be on it’s way , but til then get raiding your picture folders