alexclaber

[quote name='pete.young' post='12164' date='Jun 4 2007, 11:10 PM']So in order to get the optimum bass response, you need a cabinet volume equivalent to the VAS ? It
can't be that simple, surely.[/quote]

I'm still getting my head around the inner workings of speakers but that's certainly the gist of it. I haven't dealt with any sealed cab designs because they don't work well for bass unless they're huge or for very low volume use (Ampeg 810 and AI Contra respectively).

What size cab are we specifically dealing with, is it ported or not, how much power do you have to play with and do you need it to be a standalone or just to add bottom?

Alex

I think one of the best things about music as a pasttime it isn't competitive and furthermore competiveness rarely benefits it - it's all about working in 'harmony' with other musicians.

The strange thing about bass technique is it isn't at all obvious to the average listener which bassists have excellent technique and which don't. You may say, "pah, it's obvious that so-and-so who can two handed tap and slap like a maniac has better technique than that bloke in AC/DC" but actually the converse is often true. Yes there are 'advanced' (read: flash) techniques that can be used on the bass (and sometimes they're even used well!) but they are rarely as effective as techniques like excellent muting, control of note length, ability to play around the beat.

That's not to say that those with all the flash (Mr Wooten for one) can't do that other subtler 'deeper' stuff because many of them can. But you do get the bedroom bassists that miss the point because they haven't got sufficiently involved in an ensemble.

Then there's stuff like your ear - how quickly you can pick things up, how you can identify harmony, how you can decipher intricate grooves, etc. I know I'm not good enough at some of that to play jazz well (if at all!) but in genres in which I'm more comfortable I'm not bad - but I've still a long way to go.

Returning to the technique thing, I have an excess of technique for most of the stuff I want to play yet I still don't have enough 'technique headroom' to always be within my abilities once the chaos of the live environment is thrown in. I can't tap and my slapping is pretty rudimentary but my fingers are fairly fast and I do have a whole pile of chordal strumming, thumb plucking and other esoteric techniques which are an important part of my playing, my writing and thus the sound of my band.

I don't actually practise in a remotely organised manner - instead I spend my time writing new material or going through current material, some of which is quite stretching especially that which requires running bass and chords simultaneously and playing independant rhythms with them and then singing on top.

I suppose "when is good, good enough" for me will be when my music earns me a living - and that requires me to become a great songwriter and I have a very long way to go to get there, if I ever do! The bass playing is subservient to that but as I write on bass my technique has to be good enough to not get in the way even when I'm doing relatively weird things.

Alex

Having tried both extensively, I'd recommend avoiding compression live except as a specific effect. It's all too easy to end up beating your bass to death because it isn't getting louder like it ought to. Conversely if you're in a very guitar-centric band then it may help the overall mix because guitar, especially when distorted, has much more limited dynamic range than other instruments so it keeps the two instruments more in step. My band is very dynamic and thus the guitarist is having to work on opening up his dynamic range by judicious effects choices and minimising the use of compressed multi-FX patches, in the hope of keeping up with the rest of us when we're playing loud without being too loud when we're playing quietly.

I wish I could go without compression for recordings but it's impossible to make a radio-friendly mix without a lot of compression on the band, and that's best achieved by multiple stages of slight compression rather than squishing the final mix heavily. I won't be tracking with compression though, it'll be applied in the mix and then I expect to use multiband compression on the master.

Alex

[quote name='pete.young' post='11903' date='Jun 4 2007, 04:08 PM']I'd like to ask what the significance of the Vas is, but I'm not sure I'd understand the answer![/quote]

Vas represents the equivalent volume of air to have the same spring compliance as the woofer. Basically the higher the Vas, the larger the cab needs to be to get full bass response (i.e. resonant frequency of speaker in cabinet equal to resonant frequency of speaker in free air).

The reason that few bass cabs have the lows they claim is that the speakers have too high Vas for the cab they're in. To get a lower Vas without giving up sensitivity is difficult, hence the "loud, low, small, pick any two" law of speaker design.

Alex

4/4 with kick on 3 and skank on 2 and 4. Counting it in half time with kick on 2 and 4 makes it much harder to feel the bubbling forward motion.

It sounds like your musical director is treating it too much like a polka!

Alex

Donny Hathaway - Live

and on bass "the baddest bass player in the country - Willie Weeks y'all!"

Alex