Grimalkin

There's no point if it drowns out the band. Around 20 years ago the guitarist from Iron Maiden Janick Gers used to pop down and see the band at what must have been his local from time to time. The singer/guitarist asked him what Steve Harris was using in power ,"About 3000 watts." he said. I know they are big stages, but there is a big bank of monitoring there too.

Pubs that should be classed as small clubs, without sound reinforcement apart from the DJ, with whom you are competing. You don't want it to drop flat as soon as the band starts up. It's better to have it and not need it, than it is to need it but not have it. That I do know.

Mutes and dampers are an integral part of the instrument. Not external compression. I don't see orchestras using compression... and I've seen enough of them. They all know how to play to dynamics, that's part of the job.

Being able to play to musical dynamics is quite a part of what being a musician is. Take orchestras for example...

It's a full-time job being a purist, and a very tedious one too.

Jaco's funk style with the dead notes, you want to play the dead notes louder and harder than the played notes to get that rhythmic feel and get them to cut through. That's going to be a problem for a compressor. I remember talking to an African bassist years ago at a venue I was playing, he played there too, very influenced by Bakithi, by Jaco etc. At one gig he was playing there he asked the sound engineer not use any compression on the bass, just for the night. Later the engineer came up and said: "Wow I could hear everything you were doing..." Indeed...

If I saw a bassist using G on the 15th as the root note for the whole bass line, I'd think it was amateur night.

8.46 - 9.00. I'm not the first person to think there was something up with the playback @ 8.52. That's dynamic control:

I'd choose a different position. G on the 15th works in soloing, because you're not there for long, but as a vamp? No, I'd choose a different position and avoid the overtones.

In over 30 odd years of playing as a job, I've found it's better to work on your right hand dynamics and touch than rely on the little boxes.

"I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness." Aldous Huxley - Brave New World. Which was the inspiration for the track.

He must be brassic lint or something. The few studio tracks I like heavily rely on the musicians that composed, programmed and played on them. Take that away and he's at a big disadvantage. He won't be adored.

The cheeky monkey.

Can they still pull it off to an acceptable level, that's the question. If you know you're selling a dud, you oughta shouldn't.

The Age of Aquarium...

5 string smoked haddock. Well this is what we're going to get when we've run out of design, basses that look like sea creatures. They're making it up haddock.

I've found in a gig situation, you need quite a bit more wattage to get that sound from the rehearsal room to a full on gig. The mids are the definition in your sound, everything has top and bottom but the mids are the 'voicing' if you like. If you take out the definition, you need more volume. Quite a bit more.

"O Christmas tree O Christmas tree..."

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"