WinterMute

Tons of processing power, limited connectivity, and you can’t increase the RAM so if it came with 8Gb, you’re stuck with 8, which isn’t really enough. if you’re spec’ing a new one and can live with the ports, 16 or 32Gb is a definite advantage.

I played a Warwick Thumb 5 for many years, with 16.5mm spacing, it remains the most comfortable bass I’ve played for spacing, I now have MusicMan basses with the 17.5mm spacing which aren’t bad at all, but needed adjustment, I don’t really get on with anything above that. When Alan built my fretless ACG, i had him go with a 17mm spacing, which works very well indeed, the combination of the spacing and the bias cut necks makes it a very comfortable instrument to play. I played a Stienberger 5 string a while back, which was (I think) 15mm, that was too close, very difficult to play smoothly on, so generally I’d say string spacing is important.

Headless, fretless, all the same, Alan makes great basses.

You going headless? This is the only single cut design that I really like, if I get around to having Alan build me a fretted bass to go with my Krell fretless, it'll likely be a Salace E type. That looks like it's going to be a stunner.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't entirely clear, my bad, we had one in on appro and ran it in live sessions against some of the mics it's modelling and frankly the results were excellent, certainly within the bounds of the differences between 2 models of the same mic in normal use. I'd not be unhappy using one in a session at all. It's actually a very capably mic without the modelling, a little neutral but very capable. it's the same price as a Sontronics Mercury or a second hand U87ie, both capable mics but without the range of the L22. There's one on Reverb for £950 currently.

That's very sad news, yeah I knew him, we played gigs at the Arts Centre together in the early 80's. RIP.

Tamworth has a history of oddly named bands, Fetch the Comfy Jigsaw, Those Attractive Magnets and Badger, to name 3 from my time there.

I had a good play with this and with the same tech in the UAD plug-in, the mic is very good anyway and the modelling just adds a layer of tonal variation to the mics capabilities. The plug-in is less successful unless you have a very good mic in the first instance, nothings going to make your beaten up old 58 sound like a U87 sadly. If you don't want to buy multiple mics, it's an interesting option. Addition: I was thinking about this after I posted, the Sphere is actually a lot more sophisticated than the Slate for instance as it models off axis response and polar pattern colourations as it's a dual capsule mic, it needs 2 mic pres and records to a stereo channel, it is capable of replicating the sound of some of the most iconic mics very well indeed, but you are completely at the mercy of the developers maintaining the software and the plug-in, I doubt people will be using their Sphere's 30 years from now... I loved the tech, it's the best modelling option on the market, but it's the price of a U87ie, which is an iconic studio mic and will serve you well for decades. If I was in the market for a studio mic and one came up 2nd hand for a good price, I'd consider it.

I found the Focusrite Control app to be very useful when setting up this kind of thing, it allows various levels to be defined before they go to the DAW. https://focusrite.com/en/focusrite-control I use UAD interfaces now, they have a very similar app that also allows the use of plug-ins in the signal chain. Be aware that adding effects of amp simulations in the DAW will lead to more latency in your signal, using a pre-amp ahead of the interface will cure this.

I love the multiple meanings in McLeod's work, Wake does some heavy lifting in that book, from following on behind to celebrating the life or mourning the death. Clever b*gg*r Mr McLeod. Glad you're still with us.

Yeah, Hiscox would be my first choice, but nothings going to protect it as well as a "proper" fitted flight case I think. I had a Packhorse flight for my Warwick thumb that was responsible for it's fair share of shoulder injuries, but that bass travelled for years without a scratch. The Hiscox that came with the ACG is a great unit though, plenty of protection for the usual bumps, but I don't think it'd survive being run over by the van.

Tony Levin had a list of unused band names on his website for a while, some funny and useable names on that. For the last project we trolled though the usual pop culture references and in jokes (Putin's Tiny Horse was a favourite for a while), then looked at all of the ship names in Iain M Banks Culture novels after Anal Musk started using the names for his drone ships (the "Of Course I still Love you" and "Significant Shortfall of Gravitas") there's some good ideas in there. In the end we chose a Ken McLeod Novel title.

This is why god gave us lofts.

The Humanscale Freedom chairs have an ingenious mechanism where the arms drop flat to the seat, they're brilliant for studio chairs where there's lots of playing, very comfortable for long sessions too. You just have to be able to tolerate the cost... https://www.humanscale.com/products/seating/freedom-headrest-executive-chair

Where's the fun in that?

Apropos absolutely nothing, and in a Primus thread too, this video of Neil Peart playing after going through a tom head and having his tech swap it out is just brilliant, I used to go to a couple of shows on any Rush tour, once just to watch Peart work, what an irreplaceable force he is. There's a moment after the tom is replaced at about 4:35 where he hits a big fill and we get a little smile from him as if to say "that would have been a sod to cover up"...

Geddy Lee was quoted as saying Rush sounded like a Rush tribute band in the early days of rehearsal for any tour... I really enjoyed that whole concert, it was a glorious joyous shambolic mess, just like South Park, and I loved every minute of it.

The locking jack socket on my ACG Krell 5 string fretless custom build is a bit stiff, hurts my fingers to get the jack out... Pity my horrible life.

Thats a good shout, I have an ACG fretless thats out of this world, but it's well above your budget. I'd be wary of the filter pre-amp though, takes some getting used to. I think it's a versatile pre in many ways, but the East standard semi-parametric pre is a good option. Alan's Standard builds may be in reach of your budget.

Anything with a good pre-amp and twin pups should work fine, for the cash you have you're surely looking at mid to high range high volume manufacturers, Fender, Sadowski, Lakland, Sandberg, Yamaha... If the Jazz bass look is important they'll all have something for you. Warwick, MusicMan SR5 or Bongo, or the like if you'd like something with a different look. You'd need to decide what bass ergonomics suit you, scale length, neck profile etc. The marketplace is your friend here, some great all-rounders on there right now well within your budget.

So I've never played a Darkray as they are very rare, but it's a Stingray 4 or 5 string, which are great basses in their own right, plenty of punch and clarity, always good in any mix. I play SR5's and Bongos. Plus it has the omega and alpha distortion circuits from Darkglass, which are great tone and distortion units. Wether they are better than buying a Stingray and a O/A pedal? Who knows, you'd need to try them. Bottom line is that it'll be a great bass in either case.

I think it's very interesting how little kit you need for a pro setup these days, that's the outcome of technology, but as you say, you do need the chops to do it. I've been a pro engineer for many years and the results I get out of my little man-cave studio are as good as anything I used to get from pro studios except for the drum sounds, because, like you I don't have the space to record acoustic drums. Decent drum programming is ok for some genres, but a properly recorded skin-smacker still sound the dogs on rock and the like. I can record, programme, edit and mix to pro standards in a system that is a fraction of the cost of a major console and multi-track set up. Songwriting becomes easier too, my guitarist writes in Logic, chucks it into the cloud, I arrange his work and add bass and synth parts, throw it back, he sods around with it and back and forth we go till we have something we're happy with, then I'll string some vaguely coherent words together and chuck those on. We'll use the Drummer plug-in in Logic generally, or a loop for drums. Then we'll get our drummer into a rehearsal room for a few days, and see what his input does to arrangement, groove, tempo etc, often his input will result in rewrites, which is a good point to assess where a song is. Once we have a version of the backing track we're all happy with, I'll extract guitar, bass and keys to stems, and we'll head up to Monkey Puzzle for a few days to lay drum tracks into Protools. I'll bring the resultant tracks back and we'll track guitars, bass and vocals, re-programme the synth parts and run a final edit/re-arrangement of the songs with the live drum parts. That then gets cleaned up and prepped for mix, which I'll do over the course of many days as it's all essentially in the box and has 100% recall. This process keeps the input of all 3 musicians, allows for variation in performance and the ability to track to live drums for feel and groove (I have extracted groove templates from live drums to lock loops down many times, which works very well), and results in songs that retain feel and spontaneity whilst allowing for the raft of technique us engineers love so much. Sure, I've put money into the studio, but no more than many people put into serious hobbies, and a lot less than some, and the results are excellent, but I've 30 years of experience behind me that ensures I get those results. No DAW or plug-in or synth is going to give you those results without the skills sadly.

Well, he can play, that's for certain, love seeing people who can do that sh*t, would I watch it twice? No. Can I remember a single thing he played? No. Can I play like that? No. Virtuoso playing for it's own sake is a bit of a dead end for me, I can't stand a lot of the stuff Jaco did solo, but his ensemble work with other artists is stunning. You take your joy where you find it I suppose.

If only there was, it's a single garage conversion that's got a floating room construction to keep the noise out of the house, and there's a lot of kit in it anyway... I could probably lose the sofa for enough room for a 6 bass rack though, so there's always hope.

Wall hangers are essential kit in small rooms, provided you have the wall space for your massive collection... Here's my 4, I now have a reason not to buy more basses, as I don't have any more wall space between the acoustic treatment, so it's going g to be 1 in, one out from now on.