TorturedSaints

Don't try this at home, kids! 😀

Well done, a well deserved win Douglas!

I have a Focusrite Saffire Pro26 (which is FireWire so no use to you Steve), however it comes with Focusrite MixControl. If the Scarlett interfaces have their own version of this (downloadable from their website) you can create headphone mixes with no delay/latency and add comfort reverb for the vocalist as well (signal recorded dry). Having said that, I don't bother as the latency achievable on my iMac (2012) and Reaper is so low as to be not noticeable. Hope this helps. Edited to say, yes there is a MixControl for Scarlett, and the tutorial is here: [url="http://global.focusrite.com/answerbase/scarlett-mixcontrol-tutorial-0"]http://global.focusrite.com/answerbase/scarlett-mixcontrol-tutorial-0[/url]

I haven't used it, but it might be useful for someone. It looks like an emulation of a 1176 and LA2. [url="http://www.dontcrack.com/news/2016/01/nomad-factory-and-dontcrack-say-thank-you-with-the-free-bus-driver/"]http://www.dontcrack.com/news/2016/01/nomad-factory-and-dontcrack-say-thank-you-with-the-free-bus-driver/[/url] cheers Ralph

Voted, as ever a difficult decision. Amazing diversity and musicality. Ralph

Douglas, thanks once again for your time and effort in producing your reviews of everybody's pieces. For me, it adds an extra dimension and unifying framework to the competition, and takes it to a different place . . . Now off to listen again and vote. Ralph P.S. I am so not a Hippy. 😀

It's about time for my semi-annual entry into the competition! I always wish I had more spare time to participate, it just only seems to happen when I've got a few days of holiday not allocated for other stuff. I was going to metaphorically squeak under the wire and submit tomorrow, but I've got a band rehearsal to go to - and we won't be doing this song, although I'm sure a decent vocalist could do more with the vocals, the lyrics, and probably the tune! [url="https://soundcloud.com/torturedsaints/wings-of-a-butterfly"]https://soundcloud.c...-of-a-butterfly[/url] Luckily, I didn't get flooded in the recent UK deluges, but my heart goes out to those who did.

DarkSky video at the Lucky Break Club. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FyR8Yxqt88"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FyR8Yxqt88[/url]

For the OP, as far as I know, you can't have a free download on iTunes. I'm pretty sure that iTunes sets their own pricing. We use www.distrokid.com which was cheap with a first year deal (about £20 as far as I remember) and they deal with all the UPC/ISRC admin trivia, but we were unable to set our prices for iTunes, so Apple set our prices for us at 99p per track. Another option is www.nimbit.com which we have also used, and there you can do free downloads (or mark it as 'donation ware' and let people donate what they think your music is worth - so far we've not had much lol). I'm pretty sure it's free to sign up for the basic package (which doesn't include iTunes submission) and they take (for the basic level package) about 10% cut of sales. We never looked at bandcamp, but a lot of people use it, but we do use Soundcloud for quick and dirty uploads, or dropbox for rough ideas. Hope this helps Ralph

I had a listen too. First of all, I'd just like to say that I don't think I have the skills (bass or recording/production) to do anything like this, so anything that sounds like criticism isn't criticism. As Dad says, the production values are very pristine and modern. Hip-hop's not my cup of tea, and I wouldn't normally listen to it, but it kept my interest for a couple of minutes The Gang Signs track was great. Again, electronica not quite my usual genre, but it kept my interest. Lovely bass playing, nice to hear it in the mix. I actually think the bass line was far more interesting than the vocals. Certainly in the second half, if the vocals were meant to stand out, for me, I would have been tempted (see my second sentence above lol) to have played a less 'upfront' and less mobile, slower line so that the vocals were more the focus of attention. Although I was only listening on my cheap-ish Desktop 2.1 speakers, the song felt as though there was a lot 'carved out' of the frequency spectrum, and while it kept my attention, if this is the norm in electronica, I think my ears would feel that they were being shortchanged if I listened to a whole album of it! Lastly, I'm glad you told me the last track was dubstep aggro. I don't think I've heard anything like that before. Excellent production chops and loads of ear candy, but I'm not 17 any more, and feel a bit like Dad did. Is there a mistake in the title on soundcloud, or does REFIX have a meaning in this genre? But certainly you can be proud of producing something relevant to the kids of today, and kudos for that, your work embarrasses me by showing me how narrow my musical genre 'comfort zone' is. Good work! Ralph

Nice bass playing, and nice VST - I'll have to download that one!

Edited to Add: Beaten by Dad3353 (and his is a more complete answer!). Open the Preferences window (sorry, I'm on Mac, so can't help you with that). Go to Plug-ins section, VST sub-section. Look for the VST plug-in path listed. Copy your new VSTs to that folder then click on the Re-scan button.

I"ve just shelled out for a pair of ACS Pro 17s. Looking forward to trying them out at rehearsal at the weekend.

Definitely a close one!

Another great set of entries. Difficult to make a choice, things to like about all of them. Well done.

I listen to music when I have time to focus on the music - like when you put an LP on and had to actively listen, and change sides after 20 minutes. Music is special, but unfortunately it's all too pervasive now, too much like 'lift muzak'. The space without music lets me appreciate music more when I listen or play it . . . And if I listen to a lot of music, my next composition comes out sounding just like the music I've been listening to, so when I'm in a writing mood, I tend not to listen to other people's music. It's probably also a function of the amount of music out there, new and old. And we're guilty of adding to the pile of music to be played . . . little wonder that even offering free downloads of our (admittedly self-produced) original music has resulted in very few downloads.

Hi, One of the pieces of software like this is Band In A Box (BIAB). I don't have it myself, but Paul Wolfe from How to Play Bass.com has featured it a few times as being useful, he seems to be a great fan of it. As far as I can remember from the tutorials, yes, you input all of the things you have mentioned, and I think it's quite easy, not complex nor full notation, but don't quote me on it. Here's the link to the website: [url="http://www.pgmusic.com"]http://www.pgmusic.com[/url] Hope this helps (not a user), regards

Hi Dave, A few more suggestions in this topic:[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/222721-foot-keyboards-or-something/"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/222721-foot-keyboards-or-something/[/url] including what I use, which is the Roland PK5 pedals into laptop/Reaper DAW and its built in sampler for playing wav files. If you have an iPad, you could probably also find a cheap app that simulates a hardware sampler, something like iMaschine or an Akai MPC clone, which you could use to trigger samples live using fingers (or keyboards if you had a midi interface for iPad or a mini keyboard that plugs directly into an iPad). We use both my pedals and the drummer's iPad playing live in DarkSky. cheers Ralph

Voted. A fine summer crop! All very good in different ways and musically diverse too. I didn't even manage to start a song this month as holidays and work got in the way :-(

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1435342952' post='2807986'] Good day, all... All of the compositions can be heard here... [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/264655-june-composition-challenge-voting/"]June Composition Challenge - VOTING![/url] ... and the 'Play of the Day' here ... [url="http://soundcloud.com/torturedsaints/and-so-it-comes-to-this"]'And So It Comes To This', from RalphDWilson[/url] [/quote] I don't think I've ever had such a comprehensive and sympathetic review, Douglas. Your reviews of the compositions have such literary merit that perhaps BassChat should be running a Literature Challenge as well, you would get my vote! Seriously though, thanks for the encouragement. Ralph

Thanks! A very varied selection of ideas and genres to choose from. It's a toughie.

Seems like I can only select one, instead of three. Am I doing it wrong again?

Here's a thought - why not downgrade your new PC to Win 7 and then everything would work? I'm not a Windows user any more, but is there not a downgrade option to Win 7? I was under the impression that Win 7 was the current favoured version for music PCs anyway.