WinterMute

They rarely come up but the Tony Levin signature OLP 5 string is an absolute gem and usually goes well under £350, which is a bit of a crime IMO. Mine had a Bartolini Pre-amp and pup, but the stock offering is very good. Otherwise, another vote for the Sterling Ray 35s, excellent basses without paying the premium for the full on SR5, and the aforementioned Skylines. I played a Warwick Thumb for 20 years, and beautiful it was, but I've never come across anything in their lower ranges that compares well. YMMV.

Are you sure it's not a latency issues, are you listening to the input bass sound when recording rather than the output from the DAW? If the timing is absolutely consistently ahead, then you may be suffering from the round-trip latency of the system, it's worth checking. If thats the case, as BigRedX says, drag the track back into line with the drums and see what it sounds like.

I bumped into Jonas in a lift in Olympia on his way to a demo with that beast round his neck, I believe it was for electronic drums and he'd just turned up to play with his mate... Honestly didn't recognise him at first as I was ogling the bass..!

I've used Etymotic ER20XS passive earplugs for years, 20db attenuation, flat response, dirt cheap. https://www.etymotic.com/product/er20xs/

The old Focusrite Octapre was a good unit, and has optical outputs on some models. The pres aren’t their best offering but they are serviceable and there’s 8 of them… Edit: This is on Reverb right now, don't know wether this constitutes "cheap" but it ticks all your boxes and adds a bunch more pres to your rig. https://reverb.com/uk/item/64024902-focusrite-octopre-mkii-8-channel-mic-preamp-with-adat-optical-output

That's pretty standard, it's also why a lot of engineers prefer to record and mix rather than just mix, as they're assured of the edits and the comping etc. Still no idea why he thought it was OK to remove your performances without discussing it, not cool. Drummers and bassist do get replaced in some genres a lot, but only by prior agreement. it remains cheaper to programme drums rather than record live drums, although to my ears it never sounds as good.

If the bass signal wasn't "hot" enough, he could have increased the gain with any number of gain stage devices in any number of DAWs. That was not an honest thing to do and I'd be p*ssed if it was my project. The most important aspect of mixing someone else's music is a clear understanding of what they want it to sound like, and how they've gone about recording it, if it's a live band feel, that needs to be retained, if it's a Mutt Lange re-build note by note then attention to detail is essential. Good engineers respond to the music, the musicians and the intention. I have a list of questions I use to get to the meat of what an artist wants, even if I'm only engineering, not producing. There are limitations to what can be done with some self-recordings, particularly where distortion is concerned, but there are tools available to make a fist of almost every recording error these days. When you say "stems" what do you mean? If I was mixing your track, I'd want everything as close to original as possible, "stems" is a term that comes from Post Production engineers to describe sub-mixed groups of tracks. Do you mean comped and editing tracks?

Best SR5 ever made IMO, although I'd really like to try the 35th anniversary model as it looks very slick.

My 2 SR5's a 20th Anniversary and a very hybrid fretless based on a EBMM SR5 neck, an OLP body and Bartolini pups/pre.

I was at that concert, when he performed "Thousand Kisses Deep" as a poem, the place was silent, 25000 people hanging one the words of one old bastard in a suit... Utterly unforgettable.

Decent mic preamps are pricey in the general market, anything with a name attracts silly money. You could do worse than picking up an Audient ID14 USB interface and using it in stand alone mode, the mic amps on those are identical to the ones on the ASP8024 console and are very serviceable indeed, if slightly lacking in the kind of character a Neve 1073 might possess. They do a 4 input version, the ID44, but it's newer and more expensive as you'd expect. You can run it as a hardware input mixer without the USB attached, and route the mic pres to the line outs. The ID range are great interfaces in their own right, built like tanks and very capable indeed, under-rated IMO.

Proggy self-indulgent studio band: Newton's Wake after the Ken Mcleod novel. Imaginary Post-ironic Indie band: Putin's Tiny Horse.

I have DB25 on my UAD2 A16, once they're set up they don't get moved much, which is where patch bays come in handy, and yes they're fully balanced as the others have noted. VDC make excellent D-sub looms to any specification, I'v had VDC looms in my room for years and often spec them in audio designs, they are not cheap but they are 99.9% perfect at manufacture and they last.

XLR balanced connections won't make the sound any better, unless you've been using properly poor cables before, but they do eliminate hum and EM interference. They also allow signals to pass over longer distances as the impedance doesn't factor as much. I'd need to look at your system to decide what might be the best way of approaching the problem, it's not an academic exercise...

If your balanced cables are in good order (XLR), it shouldn't matter, but it's not a great idea passing signal though multiple connections, as each one is a point of failure and can induce problems, you may also unbalance the signal with a poorly or wrongly soldered cable, which will leave you open to EM interference. That said, mic signals get passed through multiple patch bay connections in your standard TT or Bantam patch-bay as a matter of course in most studios, with no ill effects, but the patchbays and patch cables are all balanced and checked. I'd try to keep it down to as few cables as possible, even if that means a bit of creative rewiring on the fly.

It's usually described as 3db per meter from the point source, but speakers are complex sound generators and small rooms have nodes that will interact with some frequencies. Bottom line: it'll be as loud as it was before but might sound a bit different.

Yes, physically, you can always turn the amp up and down. The further you are from the speakers the lower the SPL and the more the room plays a part in the sound you hear as reflected sound become a larger component reaching your ears. You will have altered the acoustics in the room as the sound will be active in the space behind the speakers, which will depend on the design of your speakers, rear v front port etc.

There you go, Mumford's on the songwriting team... I knew I detected his dreary style... 😉

I don't know, the performances are great, and the story is interesting enough, but I can't help thinking that the original songs composed for the show just aren't very good... Maybe they are going to get better as the show progresses to indicate the growing experience of the band, the song at the end of the 3rd episode isn't bad. That would be quite impressive... I'll probably watch all of it, but Spinal Tap is the only mockumentary I can think of with "decent" songs and they were all pisstakes.

You could do worse than this Lakland on the marketplace I think...

I worked with Mike when we were lecturing together at UWL/LCM in London, not only is he a fine bassist and producer, but he's a thoroughly decent fellow too. Weird in that 70's slightly spaced out way, but a genuinely fine human being.

Yup, that was my rig for a while now have the Quad Cortex into the K12.2, it's absolutely perfect for rehearsals and the like, I've even taken to recording it for a bit of room. The RCF and FBT variants are equally good, and anything with a decent sub is going to move serious air.

Could I have continued to play a £250 OLP Tony Levin and had a much fun? Oh yes. Do I enjoy plugging the 20th Anni SR5 is and making a racket? Oh yes. Can I afford to pay a craftsman like Alan Cringean to make me a fretless bass that is a work of art and sounds brilliant? Oh yes. Are all three lumps of wood (bits of metal, bits of wire, bits of plastic, carbon fibre, fanatical devotion to the pope...) Oh yes. Lucky me eh?

This is not helping me...

I had a GK800RB bi-amped into an ampeg 8x10 and a TE 4x10 and I could get it all into a Renault 19... Played havoc with the fuel economy...