Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[hieronymous]

You can always use a trial of Reaper and buy it if you end up having use for it. It's very reasonably priced but you can use in trial mode as long as you like to decide. I think it even has a ProTools skin. Most of my friends have switched over to it.

Thanks again for suggesting this. I've been doing little self-contained drone/noise pieces with the Maneco Grone direct into Zoom H6 recorder - normally I'd clean up the file with ProTools but realized this was a chance to experiment. At this point all I'm doing is fading in/out, maybe normalize or edit at some point. It was a bit intimidating at first, but I basically know what I'm doing in my old ProTools rig, just need to figure it out here, and with the help of YouTube sensei (as my wife calls it - she actually calls it dai sensei - great teacher) I edited my first track!



Now I'm tempted to get the Moogerfooger bundle - it's on sale til the end of the month (this Wednesday!)

 

[Robot.G]

Thanks again for suggesting this. I've been doing little self-contained drone/noise pieces with the Maneco Grone direct into Zoom H6 recorder - normally I'd clean up the file with ProTools but realized this was a chance to experiment. At this point all I'm doing is fading in/out, maybe normalize or edit at some point. It was a bit intimidating at first, but I basically know what I'm doing in my old ProTools rig, just need to figure it out here, and with the help of YouTube sensei (as my wife calls it - she actually calls it dai sensei - great teacher) I edited my first track!



Now I'm tempted to get the Moogerfooger bundle - it's on sale til the end of the month (this Wednesday!)

Nice track.

I'm really interested in the Grone, but I'm really confused by the variants of the unit.

Also, I love the circuit bent sounding loops in some of the demo videos I've seen as well as the more organic sounding textures in your track and other videos. The unit seems to be versatile.

I guess I need to do some more research on the unit(s).

 

[hieronymous]

I put up another one - previous to my last one in terms of recording order:

Nice track.

I'm really interested in the Grone, but I'm really confused by the variants of the unit.

Also, I love the circuit bent sounding loops in some of the demo videos I've seen as well as the more organic sounding textures in your track and other videos. The unit seems to be versatile.

I guess I need to do some more research on the unit(s).

Thanks! Yeah, it's kind of an obscure thing. Most are modular, but mine is like a modular unit with a conventional power supply (I think they call it tabletop?) I don't have a true modular setup, so this is perfect for me. Maneco seems to make a bunch of different but interrelated stuff - the cool thing about mine is that it's self-contained, and yet, I could use the various sections separately if I were so inclined. I've experimented with outboard stuff through the Clouds module, but I've been generally using it as a standalone device. Clouds isn't the easiest thing to grasp - there are several modes to use it in - I'm never sure if what did the previous time was saved - but that's part of the beauty of it, for me anyway. They also make "effects pedal" versions of some of the individual sections of the Grone. And then there are the whole modular variations on the Grone that look cool but way beyond my aspirations.

 

[triviani]

1,8 million views in 5 days.

Cool. But more than anything it strikes me as an instagram-y device with a clever marketing campaign. The video also appeared in my youtube feed, out of nowhere. I guess it has been heavily promoted in Insta as well.

 

[Robot.G]

I put up another one - previous to my last one in terms of recording order:




Thanks! Yeah, it's kind of an obscure thing. Most are modular, but mine is like a modular unit with a conventional power supply (I think they call it tabletop?) I don't have a true modular setup, so this is perfect for me. Maneco seems to make a bunch of different but interrelated stuff - the cool thing about mine is that it's self-contained, and yet, I could use the various sections separately if I were so inclined. I've experimented with outboard stuff through the Clouds module, but I've been generally using it as a standalone device. Clouds isn't the easiest thing to grasp - there are several modes to use it in - I'm never sure if what did the previous time was saved - but that's part of the beauty of it, for me anyway. They also make "effects pedal" versions of some of the individual sections of the Grone. And then there are the whole modular variations on the Grone that look cool but way beyond my aspirations.

Another nice track!

Did you buy the pedal version of the unit without the CV jacks? Or the mini synth version?

 

[theunknowndude]

So don’t know where else to fit this although I guess it kinda fits…. Band doing combined first gig in six years and album launching. It was fun to get to the point of now we have a full time drummer can experiment more, tried combining fuzz, wah, reverb and delay in the ambient bridge sections or fuzz, reverb and harmonics to get creepy sounds.
Pretty excited for the gig in 2 weeks!

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Cool. But more than anything it strikes me as an instagram-y device with a clever marketing campaign. The video also appeared in my youtube feed, out of nowhere. I guess it has been heavily promoted in Insta as well.

 

[hieronymous]

Another nice track!

Did you buy the pedal version of the unit without the CV jacks? Or the mini synth version?

View attachment 5077369

Hmm, mine looks pretty much like the 2nd one in the pic you shared, though I think that one is for modular, mine's a stand-alone:

This picture was taken the day I bought it, so those aren't real settings! There are also 4 jacks on the top - I think it's 2 CV ins and L & R audio outs, all 1/4" jacks. I need to take a couple of pics from other angles.

The one thing I'm not 100% into is the oscillator - it's usually rhythmic, cycling through octaves in 4/4. As far as I can tell, there's no way to sync anything to it, and it's not easy to get it to stop! In fact, near impossible?!! Occasionally I've been able to get more of a static drone, but it's rare, and not sure that it has actually happened! Actually, I found a couple:





I think a lot of my Grone tracks are made trying not to get caught by that 4/4 straightjacket - not that I can get other time signatures, but utilizing various aspects of the Grone to try and interact with that, often using the LFO & filter to play against it, or Clouds doing crazy things that I often don't understand...

 

[Spectrum]

Rainy day off, decided to force myself to jam on the Volca Bass. With 3 oscillators capable of operating independently you can make some pretty cool busy sequences.

Zoom MS-60b is used for delay and reverb here. Cool thing I noticed about the MS-60b is that you can precisely set the delay time to a BPM value, so you can nail that dotted 8th note thing. The MS-60b annoyed me for a long time because of its complexity, but it's becoming my favorite small synth rig all-in-one effects box.

 

[JES]

Nicely done.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

@Spectrum
Overview
Get any Zoom fx from any pedal.

You’re welcome

 

[Spectrum]

@Spectrum
Overview
Get any Zoom fx from any pedal.

You’re welcome

Yeah I've seen that before. I'm too lazy to bother and the MS-60b has a zillion effects in it, most of which I've barely played with. Thanks for the thought though.

 

[hieronymous]

Found this today at Modwiggler:



Reminds me of a David Sylvian track. Not that I want to do this kind of thing - I couldn't! - but I do have chants from a different tradition that might be interesting...

Also, managed to successfully download the Moogerfooger plugins and use them in Reaper - just checked to make sure it worked - not necessarily an easy process, but I survived and succeeded! I'm thinking I'll record my basic tracks to my H6 or Blue Box, then import them to Reaper and manipulate/mix them.

Rainy day off, decided to force myself to jam on the Volca Bass. With 3 oscillators capable of operating independently you can make some pretty cool busy sequences.

Zoom MS-60b is used for delay and reverb here. Cool thing I noticed about the MS-60b is that you can precisely set the delay time to a BPM value, so you can nail that dotted 8th note thing. The MS-60b annoyed me for a long time because of its complexity, but it's becoming my favorite small synth rig all-in-one effects box.

Nice! That's all recorded in one take? That would be a great segment of a concert.

 

[Spectrum]

Nice! That's all recorded in one take? That would be a great segment of a concert.

Two takes. First layer is the 3 sequenced oscillators with various knob twisting, and then a second layer of me playing the lead part.

If doing this live I would play the lead on a second synth while the Volca Bass does its thing.

 

[hieronymous]

Two takes. First layer is the 3 sequenced oscillators with various knob twisting, and then a second layer of me playing the lead part.

If doing this live I would play the lead on a second synth while the Volca Bass does its thing.

Got it. I fantasize sometimes about taking my DFAM/Subharmonicon rig out - actually, there'd be Sirin & bass too - starting to sound like too much gear! What I would really like is a Matriarch - I wish the Grandmother was paraphonic...

 

[Spectrum]

Got it. I fantasize sometimes about taking my DFAM/Subharmonicon rig out - actually, there'd be Sirin & bass too - starting to sound like too much gear! What I would really like is a Matriarch - I wish the Grandmother was paraphonic...

Every one of my gigs lately has been WAY too much gear lol.

That said, at least the Moog Mother series synths are lightweight, and the Volcas even more so. All of the stuff that has to come with synths, such as effects, power supplies, mixer, cables, stands/tables etc. is really what makes it a huge pain.

 

[lordradish]

I have returned from the depths of the wilderness...


First one took 6 years, this one only took one. I kind of expanded on the foggy sounds of the first one, with a bit more motion in some of the tracks. I'm trying to make a gradual shift/evolution to something more active, eventually getting into the sequencer stuff. Didn't do it here, but I think that's where I'm going next. I had a lot less self-doubt with this one, so hopefully I'm getting past that. I'm actually really happy with this one... mellowish,not-newage-but-not-Music-For-Airports ambient, for those of you curious. Finally did a 14 minute track in there, too. I've been wanting to get into more long-form stuff.

This one has 6 string bass through the big board and the usual roster of synths.

If you're interested, PM me for a code, also lemme know if you want a code for the first album. I know, awful presumptive of me.

The big question is whether I'll strike gold getting this onto SomaFM again. On the last one, after I did the math (I was checking stats), about 200k had heard my album on there, which was not a bad thing, I suppose.

Wrapping this up was a good way to spend the last week or two...I sliced the pad of my left index finger almost off last week, a day before I had a week of three rehearsals and two gigs. It became a contest of how many band-aids I could get on there to make it somewhat useable. I ended up cancelling two of the rehearsals and just focused on the gig-related one. Got through it but it was tough. Fretlesses and sixers took a break that week.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I have returned from the depths of the wilderness...


First one took 6 years, this one only took one. I kind of expanded on the foggy sounds of the first one, with a bit more motion in some of the tracks. I'm trying to make a gradual shift/evolution to something more active, eventually getting into the sequencer stuff. Didn't do it here, but I think that's where I'm going next. I had a lot less self-doubt with this one, so hopefully I'm getting past that. I'm actually really happy with this one... mellowish,not-newage-but-not-Music-For-Airports ambient, for those of you curious. Finally did a 14 minute track in there, too. I've been wanting to get into more long-form stuff.

This one has 6 string bass through the big board and the usual roster of synths.

If you're interested, PM me for a code, also lemme know if you want a code for the first album. I know, awful presumptive of me.

The big question is whether I'll strike gold getting this onto SomaFM again. On the last one, after I did the math (I was checking stats), about 200k had heard my album on there, which was not a bad thing, I suppose.

Wrapping this up was a good way to spend the last week or two...I sliced the pad of my left index finger almost off last week, a day before I had a week of three rehearsals and two gigs. It became a contest of how many band-aids I could get on there to make it somewhat useable. I ended up cancelling two of the rehearsals and just focused on the gig-related one. Got through it but it was tough. Fretlesses and sixers took a break that week.

Congrats!!
On the playlist for this week for sure.

200k plays, where are my royalties????
???$$$$$???

 

[lordradish]

Congrats!!
On the playlist for this week for sure.

200k plays, where are my royalties????
???$$$$$???

I have still yet to see a dime from any of those. When I do, I'll send you the dime, which would probably be a mortgage payment in Canada with the dollar the way it is.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I have still yet to see a dime from any of those. When I do, I'll send you the dime, which would probably be a mortgage payment in Canada with the dollar the way it is.