WinterMute

A couple of incidental shots from Alan's workshop blog, control and battery cavities being routed.

Alan does such great things with wood, doesn't he?

See, that's the point for me, I do love a bit of pyrotechnics, Geddy Lee's playing is a huge influence, as was Jaco, but it has to work in context of the song, and often that level of virtuosity outshines the composition, there's a reason Micheal Manring plays solo... That may just be an excuse for my lack of talent however...

Not a fan of slap bass, but what fine bit of playing, talented fellow.

The new Mac Minis with the Apple Silicon chips are audio monsters, quicker than my 6 core Mac Pro, they run Logic brilliantly well, so much DSP... Cheap too, for Apple. I'm a ProTools user, I have Logic for project work, but I'm not keen, Reaper is very good but doesn't offer anything more than PT other than the price. Once Universal Audio sort controller support for Luna (if they ever do), I'll probably switch to Luna. In 25 years of running computers for audio my take is that you'll spend a good 20% more time administrating Windows than on MacOS, I run a 2015 Mac Pro, never gets above 30% DSP and I record and mix some massive productions. In the 3 years its been in the studio, it's not been touched but for updates to OS, PT and plug-ins. One piece of advice, get more RAM, 32Gb is good, 64GB is better. RAM is good. I'd go with Logic on an M1 Mini were I you.

It's a beast, the combination of the Shelford channel and the stomp on separate tracks gives me a ton of options in the mix, never had a bad bass sound from it. (or guitar for that matter).

Not in my studio... do not filter bass sounds, a steep 25Hz filter only if you really, really must, let the mix engineer decide what he wants in the LF. definitely don't filter over 10K, plenty of useable stuff on a bass above 10K. What he said. Also Line 6 Stomp, does amp and cab sim and a bunch of FX too, choice of compressors and limiters etc. Takes a bit of learning, but sounds very good. I take a feed from the stomp and a feed from the Rupert Neve DI in the Shelford channel, mix the two.

As I remember it was an 8x10 and a flightcased Warwick thumb 5 in the boot, a TE 4x10 on the front passenger seat and a GK RB800 and a leads/pedal bag in the footwell. Fuel economy suffered a bit mind.

I got an Ampeg 8x10 in a Renault 19....

Geddy Lee set the bar for me in the late 70s, stringy twang played aggressively with distortion to suit, I employ that tone now, on both fretted and fretless, I went through a stage in the 80’s of clean and powerful, but have always come back to pre-amp/valve distortion. 34” scale with heavy bridge orientated pick-ups. Latterly I’ve come to love rosewood fingerboards, but I played a wenge/bubinga Thumb for 20 years. Loved Pastorious’ tone, Les Claypool, Jack Bruce in places, anyone who didn’t just want to fill in the LF...

Another one for Sadowski, thought it was well built, sounded great, didn't think it was anything really special. Had a Wal Pro 1 fretless, loved it, couldn't get on with the series 2 5 string, not that I've ever owned a series 2 5 string mind...

Not a fan of the "pig in a drainpipe" vocal at all, have a soft spot for Rammstein, but rarely go much heavier a bit of Korn, SoaD maybe, really like some of Stone Sour's work, but not much of Slipknot, go figure. I'm still of the opinion that there isn't a much better sound than overdriven guitar, but there's a lot of scope there.

Ah, chorused distortion or distorted chorus... If you like the sound of a chorus, put it after the sans amp, if you're into tonal change that doesn't lessen the distorted edge, put it before.

That's what the DFA fader is for.

One of the PRS ofter the strat type, occasionally the Les Paul, once in a while a V2 Explorer, but only if his back is up to it...

PRS mainly, but as his formula for the correct numbers of guitars is (number of current guitars)+1 then anything might turn up. He'll be playing too loud with everything cranked up...

I've done exactly that, I downsized from a Barefaced Big Twin and a Crown XLS1500 amp with the XT pod Pro to a stomp with a QSC K12.2 which is just a brilliant solution for studio monitoring and even small gigs should I ever go back there.

I kept my old Boss Bass Chorus, nothing sound quite like it, otherwise everything else went when I got the original Pod XT, now the Stomp is my main unit. I think if you have interesting and unusual pedals in your collection they should work well with the Stomp's abilities.

I'd need a much longer moustache and maybe some wax.

Used my Barefaced Big Twin as a plant stand for a while...

We already have a name for these people, they're called amateurs... Most live sound is mono still, some bands do stereo and surround effects, Prink Floyd had a 24 track tape machine to fly all the surround effects in for The Wall live! Most pro engineers I've known or taught will be more than happy to build studios from piles of kit, many will build kit from piles of parts, every sound we make is chain of processors and effects, very mix a balance of thousands of individual components, I have no issue with the term engineer, I have an Mmus but I don't go around calling myself a Master, maybe I should buy a cape and start.

You can call me whatever you like provided the rider is filled and the cheque clears.

I have one, replaced a Pod HX Pro rack with it, I also have the old Pro bean pod. It's a big improvement if you want to do the full amp/cab modelling thing, which I do, it updates with the HX releases and they keep adding functionality to it. It's a bugger to use live without a MIDI controller mind, not enough switches. It sound great but you'd better be able to use the software editor as the screen is very limited as to what you can see at any one time. The Pod Go is a great live alternative, but doesn't share the HX architecture.

Is this a public service you provide? What a selfless fellow you are.

I took some time to decide, I've had ebony board fretless in the past and I prefer the look of a lighter board, my other SR5 has an epoxied rosewood board. I'm good with that Bubinga.