HairyScaryMark

Just listen to the extreme copyright lobby. Yes, it is quite ridiculous. It seemed to be heading towards a system where it would be hard to own work, written on computers, using other people's software. note: my understanding of this situation is not that great but i am aware of some basic information. I am sure there will be someone else more clued up about computer copyright than me. I believe software patents were heavily lobbied for in the US then the EU and UK parliaments. I don't know what the outcome was.

I've only been to the Tunnels twice. The first time I went there was a woman on sound (shortly after it opened) and it was awful. She maybe has improved since then. I feel qualified to comment on sound quality. I own a home recording studio. I have about 4 years of live sound engineering experience in a church through a turbosound live PA. I am also a career musician. Poor sound quality is capable of ruining gigs but generally doesn't.

Although learning songs is a vital part of being a musician it should not be the only part. A musician cannot make really great progress unless the specific skills which need to improved upon are practiced individually. Anyway, learnt 2 jazz standards recnetly for my leeds college of music audition. 'Here's that Rainy Day' and 'Afternoon in Paris'. --Mark--

For me Drummonds - usually fun, sound quality isn't very good and once was so loud that I could hear it perfectly while waiting for a bus, outside McDonalds in Union Street. Bands often complain about not being able to hear themselves. Probably sometimes the fault of the band for failing to do soundchecks properly but not always. The Lemon Tree - quite good but lacks the same level of atmosphere as elsewhere. PA is quite good but the quality of the sound engineer is highly variable. The Moorings Bar - unbeatabley sound quality, great house backline, really good atmosphere, reasonably priced drinks with a huge selection, always good banter. Gets my vote on this pol. Have to convince some friends to start going there more regularly (so I can go also). Moshulu - more similar to the lemontree in the setup of the gigs. Sound quality varies depending on the system used and the sound engineer, atmosphere can be really good or not that good depending on the crowd and the band. Drinks are well priced. Probably overall the best venue of it's size in Aberdeen for rock gigs, at least. The Tunnels - fairly bad sound which is always far too loud. Partially the fault of the bands for having their backline too loud, partially the fault of the person who purchased the mackie PA, partilaly the fault of the sound engineer (depending on which one it is as not all are bad). Drinks are also more expensive than I would like. I do however like them for putting on the shere number and range of gigs that they do. Other The Forum - really good if you can fill that place, too big for local bands but if you can get 1000 people or so it would be amazing (or less if the gig is suitable for sitting round tables). House PA is stupidly big and not brilliant. Better buying a higher quality and smaller system for the same money. Venue is quite well laid out for big gigs anyway. Kef - never been to a 'proper' gig there. only the jazz on Thursday night which it is ideal for.

My uncle owns the original space echo. Not sure how well it still works. Think it might need replacement tape. I heard the electronics eat tone theory before. It seems to be true of some companies but not all. Many people think the mesa boogie roadking is overall the best sounding amp mesa boogie have ever made and it has about more electronics than I have seen anywhere else. Some companies I believe use this as a marketing tool and sometimes even deliberately create models with more features which they intentionally assure don't sound as good as their more 'classic' models.

The whole copyright system is fairly bizarre. It needs to be changed for our modern times. I doubt any change likely to happen will bring any real advantage to most professional musicians. Hopefully we have seen the demise of the extreme copyright lobby that were prominant a few years a go. They possibly are still around asking for software patents and such but I haven't heard much about it for a couple of years. I can forsee the day where bands that record music in cakewalk sonar will have to pay money to cakewalk when they sell records and writers who typed their novels in a certain type of software will no longer own copyright to their novels. On a more related note. I don't see a problem with extending royalties to the lifetime of the composer, at the very shortest. Maybe then allowing them to be inheriated by children and widdows after their death. 50 years vs 70 years vs 90 years. I don't see the point of that.

If I play The Moorings Bar (which I hope I do within the next few months or so). I might use the HiWatt + mesa pedal combination, by choice over the other amps. The other amps are good but this sounds more up my ally way. Never played one though. Have a fairly extensive range of tones available from the house backline now. Don't know of any other venues (big or small) offering gear of this quality available free of charge. Quite exceptional. Concidering I now only play guitar in about 1/2 of my bands songs it probably wouldn't be worth me bringing my own amp setup if I can use one of these bad boys. I probably am going to end up bringing along one or two keyboards + a laptop anyway which is more carrying than I would like. Also preferably have a spair laptop to avoid big time embaressment if it fails. Does the HiWatt have built in Reverb. Is it a monster like I assume it would be on the ENGL or is it a bit more subtle like on Marshall?

the guy who wrote that website is a twat

I plan to compose all the music for my funeral.

I own a Line 6 DL4. No longer use it but I think it would be worth concidering for the moorings bar, providing the users aren't idiots (or just not technically minded people, in which case they probably shouldn't be using delay pedals at all). The main thing against it would be the users ability to understand how to use it. There is 2 knobs which do differnet things depending on the delay type. There is bit of card (or maybe a sticker, i can't remember) that comes with it which explains what each of them do). The plus sides are. You can programme up to 3 delay types at once recallable from 3 footswitched and there is a 4th pernamnet 'tap delay' footswitch. It also has a 28 second loop function. If someone goes onto this function by mistake, it would confused them, bigtime. It also digtally clips if the input level is too great and the delay is switched on (quite likely to happen if someone puts a distortion pedal infront of it). It most likely wouldn't be suited for an effects loop as the percentage of the signal going back into an effects loop often isn't 100% It also has 'true' bypass and will allow audio signals to pass through it, reguardless of whether or not it is switched on. The large range of delay types is an advantage providing the user understands how to use them. ........... On another note: distortion pedal going into a valve amp on the clean setting is the tone of choice for many rock guitar players including Jimi Hendrix and Zakk Wylde.

'Jammy Fanny' is my new favourite combination of words.

Is the bass teacher called James by any chance? If so, he gave me his card and I lost it. If you have his (preferably mobile) number. Could you PM it to me please. Thank you.

Bass trombone is quite capable of playing basslines. Drummer style question to ask, yet again.

I find there is usually one person in each band who tends to organise the stuff for most of the band and is often the main 'voice' of the band. Sometimes it is the drummer. There is also a habbit that one person will be expected by other band members to arrange equipment i.e PA's. etc. I have generally found drummers to be quite loud and obnoxious people which is why they are possibly attracted to playing drums. Turning up late is very common also. This brings back memories of a group of drummers studying music at Aberdeen college saingy things to the effect of, "I don't like getting drum lessons as I don't like having someone tell me how to play," and then agreeing with each other. Note that Drummers often have the worst reputation for many bands i.e Lars of Metallica and Phil Collins of Genesis. Drummers also usually think they can sing. I also once played with a drummer who turned up to a gig wearing a burbery cap. I don't think anyone else in the band knew he owned any burbery. He also thought he could sing (and rap).

I might take it off you if you still haven't sold it in a couple of months. Not sure, would make a rather nice spair for my other 7 string. It has a fixed bridge so the chances of it going bezerk, at the last moment are conciderably less. Don't think I use my 7th string enough to justify having a spair, at this stage and also got other saving plans so the first line I wrote is the most relevant..

Was a good gig. All the bands were good. Red Mongouse could do with perfecting their sound a bit further before taking it to gigs. They are conciderably younger than the other bands and have a lot of potential. Many bands learn the hard way with this and to be fair they played at a level where they didn't have to embaress themselves very much to find this out. I learnt a valuable lesson. Never drink 2 pints of beer, then cider then 2 other pints of beer with sly whiskys inbetween. Shame there wasn't more people. Don't think it was particularly well publicised and being on a monday probably didn't help. Also could do with a better PA system ran at a lesser volume level.

Listened to demo tracks of EZ drummer. Sounds quite realistic up until the point I notice the cymbal hits sound identical to each other. I.e a ride cymbal hit 4 times in the row, sounds identical for each of those 4 hits. You lose the human feel. Of course, you can fiddle with it to add a bit of variety but then you have to wonder 'why am I using sampled drums?' RossP's description of what he's after sounds more the area where sampled drums have an advantage. Best idea is to listen to as many demo tracks as possible, watch demo videos and such and actaully figure out where you will use these sort of drums. If you are after a wider variety of synths. Possibly Native Instruments Komplete 3 off ebay (with free upgrade to komplete 4 and if you buy kore you also get to download massive for free). This would give you a fairly complete set of synths which would probably allow you to make any of the music you speak of, by yourself. EastWest do a package titled 'collosus' which is meant to be good if you currently have no software synths. It has a wide variety of sounds.

Have you had your pre8 working with any other software? Have you used any other firewire devices with your laptop?

You will want some software to help you compose/arrange your drum parts. I am not sure what is good looping/sequencing software. Maybe Ableton live? M-AUDIO You will also need a set of drum samples (I don't know if Ableton live comes with any). I am about to recieve Native Instruments Massive which should contain some interesting drum samples. I currently have Battery 2 but have never used it. This is what happens when you buy things as part of sets. NATIVE INSTRUMENTS: home EastWest also do some very good drum sample libraries that usually run under native instruments kontakt 2 or kompakt. Steinberg (the people who make Cubase) do one package but I don't know anything about it. Sounds Online Eastwest products do tend to be more expensive than their competitors, arguably better quality. Drumkit from Hell 2, however is not more expensive. If you go onto the native Instruments website you will eventually find a list of 3rd party sample libraries. Some will be for drums.

I've not played much in the way of gigs but I would think to an extent it depends on the situation, how much it is sensible to drink, or not to drink. I think it would also make a difference what sort of enviroment you were in before you went on stage. Personally, I think I would like to distance myself from the audience and be in another location as much as possible before I play. Drinking more than a couple of pints is always going to make you play worse. On a slightly related note.... I heard a story of a sound engineer who recorded a local band while they were completely 'bleezin'. At the end of the recording session they claimed it was "the best they had ever played". The next day, they listened to the recordings and realises that no amount of technology available could make them sound half decent and I believe one of the band members said something to the effect of "we've played gigs worse than this."

People on myspace and otherwise who say "leave me some love"..... Transalted to "comment on a picture of mine, please, i am desperate". These people are really annoying. Infact, most people on myspace are really annoying, but I use it anyway. Why fix a problem when it is much more fun to moan about it? 'Gutted' was overused but is generally quite a good term. 'proctrastinating' is plainly annoying and overused in the wrong context, for no reason. I know it's not a word but I want to moan about it anyhow. Why do people feel the need to do American ghetto style handshakes? I really confused Austrian people on holiday by shaking their hands, the British way, it was great. Incorrect useage of 'ironic' and 'ignorant', also annoys me. 'oh my god' is also usually a pointless phrase, largely used as a result of popular American culture. If you want to display your shock at something why not just say 'gee whiz'?

Recently overused words I have noticed inlclude 'like' useage, "you guys are like so totally like...." (people use that word at the end of sentences here so it is even more annoying when overused, in this area). 'random' useage, "That was so random" 'harsh' - "oh that was harsh" The word 'rough' almost became really popular but couldn't make a real dent in the popularity of 'harsh'. 'skeppy' "an he waz goin like al skeppy" I am told this is short for 'skeptical' but the common useage makes no sense, if that is the case. 'bint' (I don't even know). Variations of the word 'trippy' have also became really popular for no reason. People should be allowed to be weird, even though they haven't taken drugs. Why do they have to be accused of "trippin oot, min"? Referring to everyone as 'guys'. Just stop this. If you can't be bothered remembering someone's name, just call them 'Dave'. Much better idea. I know it's not new but it annoys me anyway .... 'yous' commonly pronounces a 'yis' or 'yooooose' Also notice people from up north i.e banf, frasebourgh etc. calling everyone 'chief'. I quite like this term so I wont moan about this.

Any audio company making a device with 'presets' make sure they leave a number of truely awful factory presets on the device just to prove they get stoned while playing with the gear.

Sonds like a nice guitar. Heard someone play a dimebag signature Dean in bruce millers, great sound. Weighs an absolute ton. This is the first I heard of anyone doing this. Why? Wont it just annoy the hell out of anyone with perfect pitch?

Best gigging amp? Mesa Boogie Roadking I say. That will set you back the best part of 3,000 so maybe, a peavey amp with a few pedals, realisticly. Failing that, concider ENGL Screamer 50 combo, JCM 800 head with distortion/overdrive pedal and reverb pedal. JCM900 combo doesn't sound bad but not as good as JCM800 head. You would be pushing it to get a mesa boogie combo on ebay but it could be worth a try.