WinterMute

well, if the XXXXL joggers fit...

The things we do for money eh? I'm glad that phase of my career only lasted about a year, I moved to a excellent studio after that and nearly all the sessions were of good quality, and then I went freelance and I could chose the sessions I worked on after that. Now I work purely for the fun of it, and it's a great hobby to have.

Just out of interest, and I expect the answer is "turnover", but why would you accept a booking from a band that ill-disciplined a second time? I will completely accept, and support, the wildest changes in direction and planning provided there are sound creative reasons for doing so, simply adding more and more rubbish to an already overloaded arrangement "to give it a try" is not a good reason to over-run a session by 5 hours... I had one band heading into the mix on an album that'd taken 3 weeks to track come in and demand that the entire drum recording were to be replaced because the drummer had a new drum kit. This was on 24 track analogue and there was no room to lay the new kit in parallel, I would be literally erasing the old drum tracks as the new ones were captured. They insisted that the new kit was better and the drummer was capable of tracking the whole album in a "reasonable" amount of time, but that it would have to come out of the mix time budget. This simply became a matter of 'Just do it" as far as the band were concerned. I did point out that if he wasn't, the whole album was at risk. I fully expected to have to rush the mix. I set it up, mic'ed the new kit (which was an absolute belter as it happened) and kept my fingers crossed that the poor drummer could keep going for what I thought would be at least 2 days... Pressing play and record on that first track was one of the hardest things I've ever done in a recording studio. He nailed 7 tracks in 4 hours, 2 in one take and 3 with drop-ins into break downs, he had a pizza and an hour break and cleared the last 5 before midnight. I had him drop an intro the next morning and started mixing. We finished the album 2 days early. Sometimes it works out. Good musicians are worth their weight in gold, good drummers doubly so.

As a hard rule, I never update MacOS on the studio Mac until I have seen confirmation from Avid, Universal Audio, PACE and Sound Toys that they all play nicely, I let the early adopters take all the pain. Too many botched updates in the past.

Going to have to finish re-building this studio before we can get anything done...

Bontempi organs did that sh*t in the 70s, didn't slow us down any... it'll be more interesting if we ever get into William Gibson's Idoryu territory.

Used to use Final Cut Pro and Premier, but these days I just shove it all into iMovie and have done, video edits don't need to be Micheal Bay level and it's easy enough to sync the footage with whatever audio you have. If I'm editing video to the audio, as you would with a band promo, it's very easy, if you're doing post-style sound design for existing footage, I'd definitely go ProTools/Reaper/Logic etc.

I wonder if Horoscope based face make-up featured anywhere...

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...