WinterMute

You know, I was expecting the usual ego, drugs sex and musical differences, but murder and firearms.... I've led a sheltered life...

I was reading through the Being in Bands that Broke UP thread, and it occurred to me that i've had a couple of bands break up for the most pathetic and minor reasons. I'd been working for about a year on the late 80s with a brother and sister (guitarist and singer) and a very good young drummer, we'd got demos done and most of an hour set properly sorted, it was well run and well financed, both having been in moderately successful with bands in the late 70's and 80s. The stage show rehearsals were going well and new material was arriving that was better than the current stuff. We had some small company interest etc. etc. The band finished abruptly one morning outside my house when they had a fist-fight in the road over who was going to sit in the middle seat in the front of the bands van... Claret all over the gaff from a busted nose. Apparently they didn't speak for 10 years after that. I was not well pleased. What's the most petty reason your band broke up?

it looks like a lefty being played right handed to me, never seen that pickup config though, could be custom. Is that back part actually part of the bass? looks like a handbag in some shots.

No option for "absolutely f*ck*ng filthy" then? What is this "clean tone" to which you refer?

Can't stand any of ya, useless bunch of argumentative, talentless b*st*rds.... 😜 It's a fine place, well run and well regarded.

I bought my thumb 5 from Bass Centre in 1988, I paid £875 I think, no hard case. They were rare and exotic beasts back then, it didn't seem like a lot when new Wals and Alembics were a lot more. Just seen on Reverb, an absolute steal... https://reverb.com/uk/item/78407511-gibson-eb6-john-entwistle-1961-original

I had Alan build my Krell 5 string at 17mm which feels better than my SR5's at 17.5mm but not as good as my old Thumb 5 at 16.5mm...! I couldn't get on with 18mm basses at all, which is a shame as the multi-coil pups he uses are brilliant but only come in 18mm spacing. Speak to Alan, he's usually got an answer for most questions.

I bought the same model the year before I went fully 5 string, it was a beautiful instrument, a little bit fragile for the real world I thought, but others seem to get on with them well enough live. The guitarist in my first band had a JD flying V, genuinely didn't know he made basses back then, lovely instrument. RIP John, thanks man.

Had a play with the 1176 pedal, it's very good indeed, given that you probably wouldn't want to take a real 1176 out gigging, it's the next best thing.

dbx160x if you can find one, still one of the best compressors for bass on the market, or if you're very flush an Empirical Labs Distressor... The secret with any in-rig compressor is where you put it in the signal chain and how you use it, too much compression is never a good idea. The beauty of the 160x is it's soft knee and the auto attack release, which works very well in this unit, not so well in others, it's a very easy unit to get a good result out of. If I had a choice I'd put a Distressor in the rack.

I don't know if this will help or hinder your needs, but the Rupert Neve headphone amps just about the best thing I've plugged headphones into barring some £10K japanese tube amp... https://rupertneve.com/products/rnhp

Over time these are the constants: Geddy Lee Tony Levin Mick Karn Jaco Pastorious John Stockman Alan Thompson Tim Commerford John Paul Jones

That's a cracking bass, Alan's work is top drawer all round and he's a great fellow to deal with, congrats. My Krell fretless 5:

I got a QSC K12.2 for rehearsals and potentially gigs, works brilliantly with the Quad Cortex, they do a 10" version too, it's plenty loud enough to hear over a hard hitting rock drummer, has plenty of interface options and sounds great. Not the cheapest, and other units from RCF and the like are available.

David Byrne's How Music Works is excellent.

Sounds funky, bit like that SR5 with the carbon neck that was on the Marketplace for a while... Post a pic.

This year I've made it all the way through to Christmas Day without hearing Mariah Carey, Slade, Wizzard or George Bloody Micheal.... Long may it continue. I'm off the sing along with Fairytale for the 15th time...

I try these things as they arrive and, whilst they are getting better, they really can't match the work of even the most basically competent mix/mastering engineer. Even the Nugen mastering suite templates are rubbish. If you have no-one available you can turn to or you just can't afford to pay a professional/decent amateur, then maybe, but a little persistence and a little guidance can produce results that are objectively better than AI mix templates IMO. This may not always be the case, I think there's probably going to be a point where running your tracks through an AI mix device will produce serviceable work, but it's not there yet.

We had David Baddiel hosting at the Barbican last night, which made for some fascinating conversation about Geddy's Jewish heritage and his parents experiences in the camps. Alex turned up for the second half Q&A which was hilarious and moving by turns, I hadn't expected Geddy to be so candid about Neil Peart's passing. What a fine night all round .

Same architect did my live room...

Geddy Lee Tony Levin Mick Karn Loads of great players on that list, but it's not a bassist's list without Levin and Karn.

If it worked for Freddie... etc. Can't do it with a U47 however...😆

Always used Schaller, have them on my Bongo 5, they hold the strap off the body well and the new design has a grub screw in the collar that solves the old "working loose" issue that the original design suffered from.

Apart from the app itself, it's always useful having an iLok associated with a Protools install for plug-in authorisations, you tell yourself you won't be using them, but you will...

As BigRedX notes, there is a big "depends" on al studio technology, and what it depends on largely is the style of music, if one was tracking a Jazz album, the entire band could be in the studio, which would have been selected for the job, there would be very little in the way of dynamic range control and the edit and mix stage would be almost entirely free of time-based correction. If it was a Math-core metal band, the drums may well be programmed, the dynamics smashed flat and everyone playing their parts separately with multiple OD and punch ins, all to click. The edit/mix could be a sea of elastic audio and quantised edits. It's definitely horses for courses. I'm not a fan of one size fits all, you have to approach each and every project from the perspective of discovering the best techniques to capture and enhance what the band /artist (and producer) are trying to achieve. Certainly playing to click and applying quantise will make the engineers job easier in the long run, but does it make the outcome sound better? The answer is "it depends".