dirtystatic

@beerdragon.. we havent played wrexham yet, we're pushin for gigs in central and the swan though.. so hopefully soon. i do know wrexham well though... i used to go to yale college - i know alot of the bands round there too

I've found it doesn't just vary room to room, it's your position in the room too. Our practise hall is carpeted with curtains round 60% of it - which is good, thing is there's a recessed area for seating off one of the walls that goes about 10mtrs back. Last week I set up with the back of my cab facing into the recess. I found that after every note I struck there was a slight echo which made it very difficult to keep in time.

Yeah, the pick-ups are passive. I usually find myself rolling off the bridge pick-up a little because it produces too much twang for my liking. I've acctually just purchased a Sansamp PDI from G-bitch so that's simplified things a little. It's far easier to get a good sound from that little box of joy than from the EQ on the Laney.

This is all great advice, I'm fiddling about with the mids and I'm hearing myself alot better in the mix.. Cheers guys!

Cheers guys, I know about the treble and the bass but I've never know what role the mids play. A few players I've spoken to, mainly residents in local music clubs, have told me to shape my EQ in a sort of "m" shape.. a bit like a drawing of a bird I suppose. But obviously that isn't working so I'm looking forward to putting your suggestions into practise tomorrow. Cheers again!

Okay, so I'm after a little advice.. My bass has been sounding a bit crap lately, even after several string changes and EQ tweakings. My current bass is a hand made, it features in my lil' picture over to the side. It's Bubingah with a maple neck. USA jazz compoments - a volume pot for each. My rig is (at the moment) a Laney R4H and a Laney 4x10 w/horn. I'm just after some advice on how to set the EQ to achieve a better sound. At the moment my bass isn't standing out and just exists as a drone behind the drums and guitar. My band is only a 3-piece, you can check us out at myspace.com/dirtystatic to get an idea of how we sound. I like a nice thick bottom end but I also like it to emphasise the rattle and buzz of the fret board as I slide about the place (I guess Justin Chancellor has the sound I like, obviously I'don't expect to achieve his sound with my crumby Laney). I usually set my EQ to this sorta shape: (you have no idea how long that took me!) I then set the treble boost to 0, the bass boost to 1-2 and the enhance to 1-2, I also disengage the horn on my cab. That set up gives me the best sound I've managed, but then I might be going about this the completely wrong way. I'd appreciate any help and I fully understand that I'm drasticly limited by my gear - but I'm confident it should sound better. Maybe a little EQ-theory I can put into practise will help me out! Thanks in advance guys...

I play 4-string.. I'm sure a 5-string would be perfect for me but I love thrashing away at the E so that B would only get in the way! Technically I think I'm as good as I'll ever get, I'm only just learning the theory side of music and also getting to know my gear a little better. I play with a pick, I like alot of attack, I also like a little OD. I like noodlin when I'm at home practising but in a band environment I keep it simple. My guitarist tends to disappear off into solos of ear piercing highs, so I find a good solid, simple bass line anchors the songs down a little.

There are certain reasons I play bass, one of them is my love for the lovely low rumbly stuff, the other is that you're average punter is far less aware of a cock-up on the behalf of the bassist... Which coincidently is why none of you fine chaps are invited to any of my gigs.. your professional ears would be the ruin of me!

Cheers for the reply. We've gone on to record an EP now an the drums are proving to be a right royal pain in the arse. It's an electric kit and it's proving difficult to get a good sound out of it. It's always the drummers..

Love Barbara Ann - great song. Loving all those triplets, they made me eyes roll about my skull.

Besides playing bass I also have a little setup which I'm starting to take to gigs with me. Basically a Yamaha stage piano and a laptop with a Korg K25 MIDI controller. I've got an external sound card to take the strain off my laptops processor... can get a little flustered whilst running the M1 synth program for the K25. Also as a safegaurd against any soundguys that fancy sending phantom power to my laptops line-out... It aint the fanciest of setups but it makes for an interesting change to some of our songs - plus it means I can trigger the samples we use myself, a far better alternative than trusting the drummer to do it!

Great sound you got there.. I unconditionally love any act with a sax player!

If you head on over to www.myspace.com/dirtystatic there's a load of new vids been uploaded. Sound quality isn't as good as I'd hoped. My favourite is Neon Lie at The Pentre (3rd one down). I was none too happy with the mix for the accoustic set - who'd of thought you could make two guys with accoustics sound that bad - (or maybe we're just really really [Fly a Kite])!

We got a live recording of Crack The Code from a practice sesh a few weeks back. www.myspace.com/dirtystatic It's a rough mix but its a start - nowhere near as polished as our other recordings. No real experience with recording before - 'Cryonics', 'Shift The Blame' and 'Transformers' are all home recorded jobbies. I'm happy with my bass sound in the opening riff. (This is my first post on these new boards!)