HairyScaryMark

How affordable is affordable? What is the rest of the gear you will be using? What is it going to be used to record? Shure SM57 or SM58 is sometimes used by choice by professionals in expensive recording studios, because they like the way it sounds. Mainly on guitar amps or voice. With good pre-amps and ad converters the SM57 or SM58 should sound good. Good placement and source is also essential. There is not a great deal of point on spending a great deal of money on microphones unless you have good ad (analogue to digital converters). You will also need a reasonable set of studio monitors to mix your recordings. You could use headphones but they will need to be fairly accurate (which there is a cost involved in) if you are to mix recordings effectively.

www.dabs.com had a supply of fairly cheap hard discs last time i checked (a number of years a go). What is the multrack for? Just for recording your own riffs etc. or an entire band? Computer recording is coming down in price and you may wish to concider that at some point.

Metall!!!!! Mesa Boogie Roadking. I want one of those.

Don't mean to take advantage of your generosity but do you have any other examples of your work?

I'm confused now. What exactly has been recored and what is still to be recorded?

Strathclyde University is the only one I have heard being recommended for contempory music. I have a friend who went to Napier but I haven't heard from him since. Edinburgh and Glasgow University also have music courses but I don't know much about them. I suspect they are quite classicaly based. Strathclyde is quite competitive but not as competitive as elsewhere. I have at least one friend who is a good musician yet didn't get accepted. My other friend isn't the most amazing ever yet got accepted for it. The Royal Scottish Academy is also probably largely classicaly based but might be less so than it once was.

If you are looking at getting a delay pedal and a loop pedal you are probably best off getting one that does both (loop is essentially a type of delay). I own a Line 6 DL4 and would recommend it. Admittedly, when using the loop function you can only use a short delay at the same time. It also depends if you want to use it live. Native Instruments Guitar Rig sofotware has a large number of effects and a loop machine built in. http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=guitarrig2_us&ftu=96561a0a1925368

My band are looking at getting a bass player in place within 2 weeks. We are otherwise ready to gig minus 2 new songs. http://www.aberdeen-music.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35540

My band are almost ready to gig but need a bass player. We share your influences and are looking to try out bass players over the next 2 weeks. http://www.aberdeen-music.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35540

Soundefex: I was about to post on your thread but you appear to have beaten me to it. Deffinately would be intereted in trying you out as bass player. add me on an instant messenger or send me an email. All such information is in my profile on this site. Your musical background sounds interesting. freddiesoffspring: also try you out sometime and the same applies as I wrote above. John (the other guitar player) is currently in Paris so I can't say for sure when the next practice will be. Probably either, Tuesday, Thusday or the following Tuesday. Can be negotiated however. Good to have a bass player to audition for then.

To be honest, there shouldn't need to be a great deal to be done to get it to sound half decent if it was well recorded with good gear. Getting to sound extremely good often requires a good engineer but half decent does not. I recorded a 3 piece band, the drum kit used 10 mic's (mostly very good but not 'studio quality' mics) through Behringer ADA8000 (unbeatable for the money but it doesn't compare with high end gear by anyone's definition). I have upgraded the AD conversion now to RME fireface 800, but that is for a differnet thread. The only thing I used EQ on was the top of the snare to make it sound a bit more punchy and more like a rock snare. Mixing is a fine art but it is largely about your perceptions. Generally anything that sounded a bit crap, needed to be re-done. The bass player still needs to change his strings and re-do all his parts before the tracks can be released. This band ultimately weren't the hardest band to mix. I think your band would be a bit more challenging as their are more instruments and there is overall a 'bigger' sound, to the best of my knowledge. So some instruments would conflict with each other in the mix and such like. good source -> good mic placements -> good microphones and AD conversion = relatively straight forward mix. If there was problems at or before recording stage, the end results will never sound as good. A suggestion: Sound on Sound magazine run a 'Studio SOS' column where bands write in telling them about their mixing problems. Each month, the engineer from sound on sound comes along to a band's studio, mixes the tracks and write up a story about it. Also, don't automatically assume that someone is a good engineer just becuase they have had training or experience. Go by results only.

Concidering how racist and reactionary a large proportion of English people are, quite a lot I believe this strategy has something to do with discrediting Muslims as a whole with the hope non-muslim voters will rate Muslims as 'guilty by accociation'. These comments were made on a day where there were ongoing racially motivated riots in an area of West London related to the suspected proposed opening of a mosque (or rather Islamic commuity centre). Jack Straw and co will usaully point out "not all Muslims are terrorists" but never "not all terrorists are Muslims." Labour have very little to lose from their tone against Muslims. Something well in excess of 80% of Muslim voters are not interested in voting Labour. The strongest defence of Labour's terrorism policies at the moment tends to come through encouraging fear in the British population, in this case, the fear of Muslims.

You will never exploit anything in music to it's full potential. Part of the rest of my post was worded against going overkill with large speaker cabinets and other uncessary things, The 'good enough for live' theory I also have changed my opinion against. I have seen (and heard) a number of musicains with phenominal instrument tones live and the difference in the enjoyment of listening ot them play is immsense. The Moorings Bar PA system is further evidence that high quality gear can enhance the enjoyment of a gig and i am sure quite a number of people have experienced gigs where low quality gear, whether it be crap guitars or speakers have spoilt the gig.

The News of The World allegations were proven not to be true in an impartial court of law. This isn't the first case of this kind against the News of the World, they are clearly an unreliable source of information and anyone who reads it should question themselves.

My understanding of the veil is that it is meant to make women not appear as sex symbols to anyone but their husbands. This in a way, could be percieved as being liberating. I view Jack Straw's comments as part of a larger strategy to undermine Islamic voices and change general perceptions of Muslims for the worse. One reason why it is wrong for Madonna to adopt an African child is becuase the father signed a contract, when he can't even read with the false impression that it wasn't a pernament arrangment. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1928773,00.html

Soundlevels are measured in spl, not watts. Just because it may be powered with more watts does not necessarily mean it will be louder. Some old 100W marshalls are louder than 300W amps today. It all depends on the combination of gear and the sound you are going for. Generally stacked speakers will give you more bass but in a gigging situation you quite possibly will take the pre-amp signal (or even DI signal) or a mic'ed signal and the benefit of having a large speaker cabinet is practically non-existant. The point of backline is primarily to colour your instrument's tone and in some situations such as those without a proper monitor setup it is used to hear yourself on stage. Many sound engineers will tell you that their life is made conciderably more difficult by extremely loud backlines. There are no real disadvantages in having more bands available in your equaliser unless the equaliser it is of a lower quality. The ampeg is a a great sound for heavy rock music but I personally prefer Ashdown amps for the sound clarity and useful features. The Ashdown ABM series allows you to pan between the valve and solid state preamp and has a main 3 Band EQ in addition to 4 smaller bands to 'fine tune' your sound further. Admittedly, the built in octaver is a fairly stupid feature to have on an amp. The principle of saving for high end gear I am deeply in favour of. The best idea is go and try out amps in shops. Unfortuatnly Aberdeen has a shortage of music shops with a good selection of bass amps.

Don't take what I say about microphones or sound enginnering as gospel. I only do it as a hobby. Apparently, in studios when recording acoustic guitar, the booth will often be non-carpeted and possibly be a larger room. A large diaphram microphone is often used as the closest microphone to the guitar and is meant to pick up sound reflections off the floor. Probably also use a stereo pair of condensors at a distance. Distance micing is the key to recording most acoustic instruments. Remember, your mic'd signal is never going to be better than your source (if your guitar is crap acousticly, it will sound crap with a microphone).

I like Classical Music of various periods. I am not hugely keen on the recital style performance. You very much have to be in the right mood and very focused. I like the informality of pub gigs. I am not sure a string quartet would be well suited for a pub gig but I would like to see someone try it. When I saw a Mozart Piano Concerto. I put my hand into my pocket to get a tissue to find a lady had turned round and was giving me a wierd look due to making an incredibly small amount of noise.

I am not a huge fan of the term 'talented'. It suggests that someone has a natural ability which on the most part is false. All great musicains became great by a huge amount of hard work. Some people have more initiative to learn by themselves or are naturally more creative than others and often get accused of being 'talented' as a result. Some people are obviously gifted but I think for the most part, becoming a great musician in down to hard work. Another question could be, 'Do I like what they play?' the answer is mostly yes to above.

I think that is; Scott Cruickshank - Guitar Mike Ray - Bass Fraser (can't remember last name) - drums guy i can't remember the name of - piano They are all very good Other great local musicians include; Ian Milne - Piano Evelyn Glenny - percussion Vijay Pilau - piano and keyboards George Norval - guitar Dave Robets - Saxaphone Eric (really old guy who comes out with terrible jokes) - piano and keyboards There are a few other great musicians that I know of lecturing at Abedeen University and Aberdeen College. I probably mispelt a number of the names above.

Everyone is going to end up downloading this (even more than before). No way I am paying a subscription to Sky ever.

*bump* I think Tuesday nights have become our regular practice time for the near future. Anyone who is any way concidering auditioning to play bass in this band should not hesistate to send a message.

Acoustic mic'ing is more than possible but placement is a key issue. If using only a dynamic mic (i.e Shure SM57), the mircophone should not be closer than about 15 cm from guitar and should be infront and below the guitar pointing upwards at an angle of about 60 degrees. Obviously, this may not be possible if there is a lot of noise on stage. An AKG C1000 (or some other condensor mic of reasonable quality) at about 20cm and a dynamic mic close® to the guitar could also prove to be a good combination. If you place a dynamic mic at the acoustic opening of the gutiar, it will sound terrible. Also note: if your guitar doesn't sound good acousticly it never will do mic'ed up.

This appears to be a big distraction from the real problem. It takes as long to get to Edinburgh or Glasgow by train as it does bt car. I am sure most people in Aberdeen would rather the train service was improved over the station. I don't mind walking up stairs, I am not lazy. Aberdeen train station isn't very nice but neither is Preston and it still manages to have trains going at reasonable speeds in most directions.

This sounds like potentially a very interesting idea but I would like to know more, the description is very vauge.