BabyBlueSound

Help me out please, compressorheads!

Just got a Sansamp Paradriver, yay! I have been told before these pedals should eliminate the need for compressors/limiters as they're designed to even out the sound, and I see it's manual actually confirms this.

But I have seen a lot of boards where there's a compressor before or after the Sansamp (which is in the chain and not used as DI).

After playing around with the pedal, I do hear the compressed character and my crappy uneven playing is evened out to more than I expected it would be.

So how would I justify GAS for a Boss BC-1X?  

Good to know there is a synth pedal that actually works. The Electro Harmonix Bass Synth was SO disappointing in terms of tracking & triggering... I'll have to check some vids about this SY-200

wrap that thing in toilet paper!

The only thing I forgot to actually mention is the AI I tried: https://moises.ai/ . Give it a go, if you hate mixing, it might work for you!

I sort of enjoy noodling around with plugins and EQs a bit and trying to find that perfect growl that never comes, so it's obviously a bit different for me. But I could not do this for a living, oh no.

oh boy. I have very little time in November but will try to produce something for this! When I put in the work, I usually record a video too. Are videos acceptable or should I just rip off the audio track?

You already have the stuff that's needed (audio interface, bass, cable, camera, computer, electricity), so what is your specific question? I'm happy to answer them, just give me a bit more 😁

I guess you need some video recording/editing software. Reaper is supposed to do this on some level but I never tried it for video. Depending on your skill, maybe get something simple. I started with Filmora, pretty decent and EASY for simple stuff and not expensive, but nowhere near what a proper editing tool can do though. You should not need any of that just for the purpose of filming yourself tho.

Then you just... start recording both audio and video. Do some loud slaps and thumps at the beginning, so you can sync audio and video together using these peaks. Filmora can actually automatically do this for you, but it's not that hard to manually match a slap sound to the frame where it happens.

This is the first video I ever recorded, cut, mixed and edited. It's a bit lame I know, but I was trying out a lot of stuff I would not normally use all in one video.

I am by no means a pro mixer, but a guy working in a recording studio told me some rules of thumb I can easily work with as an amateur.

DON'T OVERTHINK IT.

- EQ out unwanted buzzing and timber with the help of doing some frequency sweeps

- Fine tune your EQ for every instru track to make sure the dominant frequencies do not overlap too much, and make sure you LIKE THEM

- Slight panning as per standards

- Add only few plugins: Compressor, limiter, don't play around too much, use presets. Consider a mild reverb.

- And a final EQ for the whole thing as master where you HPF the sub bass and maybe LPF some very high freq hiss off, and adjust the final sound to your liking

- Let your ears rest, do one more round adjustments the next day after relistening

- Force yourself not to be a maximalist and move on to your next tune after spending X amount of time on something (I could easily spend mixing 5 days looking for that perfect sound I will never find. Not a good idea)

I find my amateur sound better than some other Youtube amateurs, and the above only takes an hour or so once you have the workflow, definitely less than doing a proper recording!

I tried AI mastering instead and it always sounded like boxy cardboard crap coming from an iphone speaker, even compared to my Poundland mixing, even when I provided bright classic hard rock songs as mastering references.

In the end, my recordings are alright. They're not perfect by any means but on my level it works, and when compared to the raw render, the end result is definitely cleaner, better, punchier. I feel like I'd be kidding myself if I was trying to do anything more.

ONLY blue! (well the guitar is TOO blue and therefore the basses look less blue, but they are!)

I have nothing of value to add but please look at my beautiful green Rafferty

I have long EB cobalt flats on both my Ibanez and Ray, they're fine! But I'd rather not show how the Ibanez looks, I was still practicing with the right lengths there, that one looks awful  

1 hour ago, msb said:

I’m quite taken with the retro look of the Talman. Communicated with the seller but haven’t picked it up , he lives about an hour away in Lunenburg. It will probably be mine tomorrow.
I’ve heard good things about the Talman pickups although the Lobster thought they were a bit too bright. I have an old Fender grey bobbin Pbass pickup from the 70’s sitting in a drawer , and have just bought a Tbird style pickup to put in the bridge position. So I’m pretty committed to this as a project at this point. 
If I pass on this used one it’s pretty easy to get one delivered to my door. They’re cheap little basses.

 

I might well be just putting lipstick on a pig , but it will be my pig.

 

They're good indeed, especially the P, if it was not for the noise that bothered me, I would not have changed to EMG. It will be your prize pig!

4 hours ago, msb said:

Prepared for that, and apparently the travel on the tone knob is pretty limited to on and off , so I’ll change that pot to one with a more appropriate taper. I haven’t picked up a Talman yet , but they’re cheap and available. They also frequently have some neck dive so the tuners might well be changed out for some lighter ones. I guess the tuners , pot and pickup will be close to the cost of the bass…

 

edit Baby Blue Sound … that looks good! I had seen this pic online and thought this might sound deadly. I’m not afraid of a good chunky neck. I have other basses with that Gibson style pickup and really love them. This is what’s inspired my interest.

 

and another edit … just received word that one that had been sitting on kijiji is still available. It’s an hour’s drive away to Lunenburg on the South Shore , but might be a lovely drive. So it’s looking like this project is becoming quite likely.

 

My tone was not as bad as on/off, but I got new pots with the EMG anyway. My replacement knobs were like less than £1 each, I just forgot where the hell I have ordered them from, it was some electronics specialist site. I can't even find the confirmation email. They were not compatible with the pot sizes but nothing the right size drill head can't fix, they're tight enough.

Neck dive... yeah, but I myself mostly sit when playing, so not a concern for me, but I know it's a big deal for others.

The neck is smaller than a Prec but wider than a Jazz, it's right in between.

That beige one looks pretty banged up tho!  

And yes, I definitely spent about as much on modding as the bass costs, but I don't regret it! I have always been a "value on the cheaps" guy and this bass hits that sweet spot so hard, a single sparkling teardrop always rolls down on my face when I think about it.

12 hours ago, msb said:

I’m thinking of getting one of these , and dropping a Tbird pickup where the Jazz pickup is.

...also, be prepared to file off some of the wood in the Jazz socket on the sides. My P/J EMG's Jazz was like 1.5mm wider than the socket. I choose to file off a bit from the side of the pickup in the end. But it's not a Tbird  

12 hours ago, msb said:

I’m thinking of getting one of these , and dropping a Tbird pickup where the Jazz pickup is. And dropping a real mid 60’s Pbass pickup in the front. I was given the pickup over 40 years ago after someone pulled the stock pickup and dropped in a DiMarzio. I would like to actually use it again. I hear the taper on the stock pots is off so I may well change them too.

I like the shape , it kinda reminds me of some of the designs Paul Barth made in the late 50’s. And it’s said to be well made , for the price. I’ve never been one to mod things so this might be fun.

 

edit … looks like my Pbass pickups are mid 70’s … six digit , grey bobbin 

Can recommend. I got this and modded it out a bit. Lovely piece of gear, and cheap. Nice tone (bit noisy pickups, EMG solved that for me), very comfy neck even tho it's not the thinnest. Just inspect for ridiculous irregularities as soon as you get it. I got one where the bridge was not in the freaking middle and the strings were clearly closer to one side as a result. Bent tuners, crappy bridge screws, anything goes. But if you get a good one or don't care about bent tuners because you're replacing them, then it's going to be one of your favourite toys.

Replaced all my HW (except the bridge, pending) with black, and the pickguard is matte, not shiny any more, I think it looks better that way.

My trial ended but at some point in the very near future (=next month) I plan to buy it!

12 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

On my home made Nordymutes I cut the foam to be pointy. So pushing it on more means a greater surface area, and pulling it off a bit means a smaller surface area doing the muting.

 

It works quite well and is easily adjustable on the fly.

Great idea, I'll just sand the top area a bit!

20 hours ago, ped said:

 I quite like the sound of a foam mute with bright strings. You get the initial attack and a nice full sound behind it. The Mustang bridge also fits a mute really nicely, I know it was designed to have a specific mute attached but this works just as well (and quicker to adjust!)

I have a Nordymute and while I do enjoy it's seriously dampened sound as well (especially on cobalt flats), it's just not the same as the simple, oldskool foam mute. Like you said, it's so full, and I find the sustain is just so perfect...

Audacity can't handle those thick saws and squares!

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

Well, I don't like to be contrary...despite my reputation 🫣

But I have just run through all the presets I've saved playing along to a backing track, splitting the output to two amps (one direct the other the effect) and I can't  detect any problems 🤷🏻‍♂️

Would love to give your jams a listen just to see how it sounds when used properly, I really wanted to love this pedal you know  

And while I do know it's obviously my technique as well, the things that just did not work on the pedal do work on the VST without any issues, so I have already convinced myself it's not me  

On 24/03/2023 at 11:52, uk_lefty said:

Had one for a brief while, the sounds are very good but I couldn't get on with the tracking, sadly. 

I have to agree with you, and that's the reason I am sending it back.

Obviously, my muting is far from pristine, which is very important when you want to use this pedal, but even when doing everything in my power to make it work, it just would not agree with me

Things I found that help, if one's really into the pedal:

- a hotter signal. My low signal bass had a lot more trouble triggering the synth consistently (both passive basses)

- tone turned down completely to eliminate overtones that will trigger random synth noises

- flats or tapes instead of rounds... to eliminate more overtones

- that fluffy dampener thing that goes on the neck, once again to eliminate even more overtones  (you see a pattern?)

- even though they say this should be the first in your chain, I had a compressor in front with compression cranked up to 11, since most your dynamics will be lost behind the synth triggers anyway

- a sponge or nordymute or similar, as even a medium-long note fading out can result in weird trigger noises

But even with these I could only get a consistent signal for slow riffs. It sounded AMAZING once I got used to the strict rules of playing with this pedal, but if you want to do anything "acidic" or goa-like with faster plucking, it's just not going to work, unless you're CRAZY good at muting and manage to find the one and only working sensitivity/signal/tone combination.

I am usually not a VST guy, and prefer hardware/pedals, but for this specific purpose I found https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/archetype-rabea is the solution. It's a LOT more forgiving when you're trying to play, and you have a lot more wiggle room with sensitivity, gates, filters, and various options. It costs roughly as much as the EHX pedal but provides a lot more flexibility, so unless you need a pedal to be on the stage, I can recommend.

1 hour ago, bnt said:

Well, here's a new contender in the Like, Rilly Short Scale category:

Sounds and looks fun, but how is the hardware quality? I see this is on the cheap side.

On 14/09/2022 at 11:36, Rayman said:

I want to see a complete reset of YouTube musicians.

 

I’m utterly sick of fretboard gymnastics and tricks. In MY opinion we need to go back to basics, and encourage young players to learn simple grooves, a la: Tina Weymouth, Robbie Shakespeare etc….. real bass grooves, that make people smile and want to dance. Surely the whole point? It was when I started in the early 80s.

 

There are too many “look what I can do” musicians on social media. It never was about what you can do mate….. it’s about the song, the whole song and nothing but the song.

 

Sorry for the rant.

I don't mean to be mean, but don't be such a boomer 😁 

When I go to youtube, I WANT to see the odd, weird, overplayed crap I can't see anywhere else. I don't need to see the 30 year old grooves and 1-4-5-1 for the 2000th time.

It's not like you can't find the simple grooves, or the oldschool teachers.

I'll tell you a big, big secret about youtube not a lot of people know: you don't HAVE TO watch the things that don't bring you joy! You can pick other videos, because there's a LOT of them, and you don't have to rant then!  

There was no youtube when I actively played bass ~20 years ago, yet we were absolutely bored with the standard, simple grooves "anyone can do" (so we thought, but hey, again, this is being young) and were hunting for the odd ones, the "look what he can do" guys indeed. Young people will look for what is interesting to them, and that's fine, that's the way of life. And when they grow up and calm down, they will learn to appreciate the Carol Kaye grooves, because who doesn't.  

I like the single coil setting the best as well, which is usually not the case for me  

I have lowered the action as well just a little bit above buzz levels and it's slick as hell.

I do have 2 dead notes tho, fret 18 on the D and G strings just buzzes out without any sustain at all. Not that I need them that often, but still  

I am planning to bring it to a luthier for some fret grind and professional setup, and then it will be just perfect to play. It's already pretty close.  

On 29/09/2022 at 16:03, martthebass said:

 

I was thinking of Cobalts but after the recent comments regarding these having a tendency to 'rust' it put me off them.

I have cobalt flats on both my basses for a few months now and no rust, fwiw

24 minutes ago, Chris2112 said:

 

Christ, they're playing twee music for old folk on a boat, not fighting in the trenches. Stimulants indeed 🙄🙄

I think it was less to do with age and more with the 7-9 hour shifts with no rest days for weeks