HairyScaryMark

The fancy EQ isn't necessary for everyone but it does help you seperate 'mud' from 'meat'. For example 500hz is usually mud but 300hz might be meat. Some bass guitars like Fender Jazz are nearer the expected bass guitar sound by default. You learn how to use it by playing around with it yourself and speaking to people who know how to use them and getting advice on it. Once I recorded a Fender USA Jazz bass (Kieran Imray) through an Ashdownl EVO combo with an AKG C414 microphone infront of the speaker. We preferred the sound with bypassing the EQ on the amp. Very happy with the end result. Ashdown EVO amps have the main 3 band EQ and 2 bands inbetween for more precise adjustment (7 band EQ in total). My advice is. cut below 60. Boost at 300, cut at 500, boost at 1.8K and boost at 2.4K. Ocasionally you may also wish boost at 4K, depending on the style.

I would say the pickups are the weakest point in your setup. Also. I own a Roland Cube 15 as well as a Fender Super Champ XD (small valve combo with retail just over 200). I think it is more than possible to get good sounds out of Roland Cube amps although I don't think all the models of them are entirely equal. Being 'dull' and 'lifeless' is a bit subjective but I would question maybe how your guitar is relating to your playing. Your string height, action and technique make a big difference. If I play a guitar that is slightly out of tune or the intonation is a bit off, it drives me up the wall and makes me feel like a bad player when it is not my fault. The only way you can really know what your weakest point is, would be to repalce each part of your setup indivually.

Well, it depends on the style and overall quality of bass amp to whether or not it is a good idea but it isn't all that unusual for the bass cab to be mic'd. Unless you are doing a recording (where you can move waveforms and use phase alignment plugins) it is often best just to chose one source as there will be a time difference between the mic and DI signal which will cause phase cancellation.

Have to say I am quiet taken to this music.

I've seen microphones infront of bass cabs in a number of Aberdeen venues such as The Moorings and Moshulu. I think I might have seen it in the tunnels at some point but not sure about that. Also.... I've heard good things about EBS.

When a song comes on in a pub that people are obsessed with (i.e Tenacious D) or a party somewhere, drunk people look towards me and act as if they are singing it to me. Also, people who invite you round to their house then tell off their guests for just about everything. Leaving the door open between rooms, using the wrong type of glass (after them refusing to get off their arses and get one or even describing which ones are acceptable to use). Then someone puts a drink on a table and this is treated as a great crime, despite not having any coasters in a visable place. Smokers who refuse to open windows when it is blatently both too warn and too smokey (just about every smoker I know tends to do this as well as people who let smokers smoke in their house) and they always have a reason like "people will steal my valuable stuff I left beside the window which goes onto the main street", "the wildlife will come in" or "it will get cold", People who are incapable of listening to full songs at parties and feel the need to change the CD or music radio/ TV channel every minute.

the gig was rather splendid

Many single parents would not wish to miss large parts of their child growing up to work for minimum wage in a supermarket. Job seeker allowance stops after 6 months and some benefits are claimed off national insurance (the fact they have worked before). Much of what you suggest would punish the children without adressing the real problems in modern culture which lead to this. Anyway. Most people seem to think I am middle class and I probably am. I used to live in England and depsite not living in a particularly upmarket area (some have described it as 'a bit rough' or 'run down') on the Essex/London frontier. I have suffered the curse of having taints of an English accent in my voice. Combine this with living in an area of Aberdeenshire where people don't speak doric I end up with a voice that appears to give away too much of my background. People assume I am 'posh' or 'upper class', solely based on my voice. I don't like giving off this impression and often try to hide the English parts of my voice. The reactions I get, even to my voice says to me that social class is very much alive today but the boundaries and blurred and often a bit fake. For example. I had a friend who had been to an all-girl boarding school. She often read about celebrities, smoked, watched game shows and did other things which were more conventionally accociated with 'working class' people. Many of those who went to this school were similar in their lack of traditional middle class values. I dislike much of the snobbery from people I know who condem anyone who wears a tracksuit as being a 'ned' and look down at people from areas such as Northfield as a matter of course. I think part of this comes down to is you kind of know what youths look like in your area and you know whether or not to be scared of them but youths look differnet in differnet areas and it is harder to tell if you have reason to be concerned. What I also dislike as much is the inverse snobbery where I have been told by people who hardly know me I have had an over priveledged life and suchlike (perhaps I have but who is to say this? not someone who hardly knows me anyway). Many of the things that are concidered 'middle class' in this country are either unheard of in other countries completely standard across society.

Mike (Norseman on forum) went the last two years and I believe he is driving again. Either way, might be worth sending him a message and see what he has to say. You can take a fairly minimal amount of stuff, which isn't too bad for train. Most people who go by train go to Birmingham New Street Station then to Lichfield City Station then get shuttle bus but last year there were shuttle buses from Derby station also. Other option to look at is flying to Derby or Birmingham. You can get a train from Birmingham Interional Airport to Birmingham New Street then another train to Lichfield City Station then shuttle bus or taxi.

Based on your description I think you have occured the following problem. When you cut in and out of an audio file. It must not be in the middle of a peak. Try to get it to cut in at something near 0 as as possible. Otherwise you will cause an error which causes this sort of clipping style noise. The alternative is to use some form of fade in but that is probably not necessary. Also, I would suggest using a single reverb in an effects send as a general starting point. This tends to give the impression that the music is being played in the same room better than it does if you use a few different reverbs. You can automate it using envelopes etc. so you don't need to paste things onto seperate tracks although that still might be simpler in some ways.

I bought my ticket at the end of last year. I went the last two years. Two years a go I went by myself as I didn't know anyone who was going and met up with some people I spoke to on internet before then. Know quite a lot of people who went by themselves and none of them had any trouble. Very friendly festival. My suggestion is. Go onto the forum and post on the 'introduce me' and 'msn/facebook/irc' threads etc. and you will probably make a few friends and get better sort of idea of what it is like.

I foolishly wasted quite a lot of time by reading the silly argument over the last many pages. Personally. I do not understand why after being shown further information anyone could still think Wifebeater are in any way dangerous or may influence people into beating wives.They are no longer a band and even when they were they had very few fans. It is clear that a song such as "where's my fucking tea" is not meant to be serious. I would claim it is 'clearly ironic'. Jake gave me a Wifebeater badge and I don't tend to wear badges so I kept it in my pocket and later found it. A female friend of mine asked if they could have it and so did my sister on another ocasion. They could see the irony. Clearly some people either can't or just enjoying winding people up on here.

I think people should be nice to each other.

I had my first hair cut in aproximately 5 years from Angels on St Andrews Street (beside John Lewis). I think it is slightly more than you are looking to pay but I say it's worth it for not risking it going horribly wrong. I got Dave as my mum had him cut her hair before and he did exactly what I wanted and didn't attempt anything out of the ordinary. They also gave me 2 coffees and put me under a hair drying machine, looked for a guy magazine and couldn't find one so gave me a girly one, which was disapointing.

On my Ibanez RG 7 string I use Ernie Ball super slinky 9 - 42 with an extra guage 52 string. I've tried other things and I probably preferred guage 10 but i really need to take time setting up this guitar if I am going to get it to there again. I have also tried Guage 12 Elixer strings with an extra 9 on them and wasn't that impressed on this guitar. The only strings I've liked on my Schecter Jazz Elite are guage 12 Elixer electric strings.

You may be just the man we are looking for. Just two of us so far, keyboards and guitar. Can listen to some of our stuff here, more in the pipeline which should get up there soon. Matt and Mark’s Progressive Rock Tea Party on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

Your DAW gives you a diagram of the peak amplitudes of your audio files. Moving the tracks so the peaks and dips are better aligned will reduce your phase problems but it will never mean they are completely 100% 'in phase'. In the real world not every single frequency is going to hit the mic at exactly the same time, especailly true when using mics at differnet distances etc.

I'm no expert but my understanding of this is that while you may be alligning two tracks at one part of the frequency spectrum it will still leave other frequencies out of phase so when there are two microphones on the same source this will never be 100% in phase. It is usually possibly however to get them close enough. There are phase allignment plugins available which claim to examine the audio across the frequency spectrum and allign them at different parts. Phase Reversal is not the same as phase allignment. Phase reversal allows you to flip the polarity of a track 180 degrees. It does not however effect time which is the problem with phase allignment. Incidently, if you recording one mic above the snare and one underneath, you should reverse the polarity of your bottom mic as it will be creating a - when the top one creates a + and therefore cancelling it out. The 3:1 rule is relevant when micing a source at multiple distances but a lot of guitar cabinet multi-micing is done purely with close micing so it is hard to really achieve this. For example. Devildriver studio guitar micing. A Sennheiser MD421, Royer R-122 and Shure SM57 or example from sound on sound using 5 mics (a bit excessive) I agree about double tracking (if you record heavy music) rhythm guitar tracks and even bass tracks an octave higher or lower can be useful when mixed wellShort delays can help give a 'bigger sound' also.

To the best of my knoweldge..... You can never get 2 mics perfectly in phase. It is physically impossible as it isn't just a matter of 1 frequency and waveform. They are out of phase in differnet parts. You can reduce the negative effects caused by this by alligning them more accurately in your DAW and/or using a phase allignment plugin but they will never 100% be in phase. One way to combat potential phase issues when multi micing a guitar cab is to run white noise or any other type of sound through the cab and note if the level meter drops when both mics are switched on. I would recommend getting them in the positions that sound best first and move them the minimal amount to get there. I would however suggest that getting a good sound with 1 mic is generally a better place to start if you are new to recording. .................... On original topic.... I have a home recording studio and there are advantages and disadvantages of this but I would suggest before spending any money on equipment you should pick up a good book on home recording. There is also a lot of information available on the internet. You wont get results as good as what you get in a pro studio unless you use pro equipment and are a pro engineer. This probably doesn't matter providing your expectations are in line with what is realisticly achievable. You can however get good results with reasonable equipment if you know how to use it well. A home studio allows you to spend more time on the arrangement of the music than you could when going to a 'real' studio but it also tends to encourage at least one band member to be focusing more on recording than the music. A fairly basic setup will allow you to get some idea of what is involved in recording and to refine your work before possibly going to a more professional studio at a later date, which i would advise doing if you wish to release your work. I have heard many people say they would rather buy the equipment than pay someone else to record them but I think there are very few cases where it will actually save you money. Even a basic system with a 100 interface (or standalone recorder), 200 active monitors, 150 worth of mics and 30 worth of cables is still more than it costs for a weekend in a fairly decent studio. If you use it all the time it might in theory be cheaper but your level of use is going to be limited by neighbours, families, lives etc. --Mark--

Getting really bad GAS for the Mesa Boogie MK 5 now. Think it would be at least 2010 before I ended up buying one though. Would like to see people's responses who have owned it for a little while also.

I have a sansamp psa-1 which I use for guitar. It is pretty good but generally greatly preferable to put it through a speaker cabinet and put a microphone in front of that. Some distortion pedals aren't too lousey by themselves but it depends how authentic you need it to be.

I think Bonesaw and Thrashist Regime may have been worth putting in the poll.

Mainly I would like to get myself a new guitar. Not sure exactly what I will get but I would like a solid body electric guitar 25.5" scale (larger scale maybe possible), preferably ash or alder body (other woods are possible but that sort of idea). Floating bridge (preferably something a bit simpler than floyd rose but I am maybe asking too much), natural woodstain finish. Neck with 'vintage' feel but not going to stop me from doing any fancy stuff. Not sure about pickups. I could probably live with only single coils but at least one humbucker is preferable. Maybe humbuckers that sound really good coil tapped or hot rails or a mixture. It also must sound good through the maximum number of amps I plug it into without the use of pedals. Not that I am against pedals but I want something that naturally sounds good. Also interested by this Mesa Boogie MK 5 talk. Maybe get a Marshall 9200 + some effects unit so I can get my rack setup sounding better. If I make more money than I expect this year might get a few pedals, Perhaps Boss Bluesdriver (maybe Keely mod), compression sustainer, a distortion pedal for high gain also, a decent reverb pedal (maybe TC electronics nova verb) and a decent delay pedal (not sure). TC electronics Chorus/Flanger would be nice also

Not specificly for rhythm guitar but I was impressed by the Boss Blues Driver when I tried it out. I was in a music shop, interested in a Tubescreamer and the guy in the shop suggested trying out a Boss Blues Driver/Compression Sustainer combination. Tried out most of the other Boss Pedals also but wasn't nearly as imprepssed as these pedals. The Comprepssion sustainer sucks the life out of the sound unless you back of the attack and release times seriously but can make things a lot smoother and thicker sounding. Apparently there are modded blues driver you can get with more options also.

As far as I can see, it will decrease the gain of your pre amp signal going into your poweramp, allowing you to drive the pre amp valves harder without them having to be so loud. The effects loop is usually after your pre amp valves but before your power amp valves. It may or may not be what you want. You may be better off getting an attenuator such as Marshall Power Break which would allow you to overdrive your power amp valves as well without having it as loud.