Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[monsterthompson]

Learning new tricks on the Polyend Medusa. It has 6 oscillators that can be set to run on midi channels 1-6 and sequenced independently. I’m running each one on a different sequencer with a different clock rate but a similar sequence of notes.

From there I can change the oscillator settings for wave form, octave, and mix in the output. Three of the oscillators are analog (saw, square, triangle, sine) and three are digital (saw, square, triangle, sine, and wave table).

I’m running these through the Empress Echo and Reverb. The next step will probably be sequencing the pedal preset changes via midi.

It’s getting my brain working on ideas.

 

[Flabzilla]

Dumb question time, apologies if I missed it in a previous post; ECM stands for...

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Dumb question time, apologies if I missed it in a previous post; ECM stands for...

Edition of Contemporary Music....

If I'm not misremembering

 

[Flabzilla]

Cheers!

 

[Spectrum]

So here's one of my new tracks. This is all layers made with bass guitar through pedals. Main pedals used here are the Boss SY-1, Boss DD-7, EHX Superego Synth Engine, and Dwarfcraft Grazer. The Grazer is run through the loop of the Superego and has an expression pedal on it. Sounds cool in headphones.

 

[lordradish]

Latest itineration of the board... Gotta neaten those cables up. Will have a few Particle bits up in the next day or so.

Mothership 5.20

• lordradish
• May 17, 2020
• pedalboare

 

[monsterthompson]

Latest itineration of the board... Gotta neaten those cables up. Will have a few Particle bits up in the next day or so.

Mothership 5.20

• lordradish
• May 17, 2020
• pedalboare

Looks impressive

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Latest itineration of the board... Gotta neaten those cables up. Will have a few Particle bits up in the next day or so.

Mothership 5.20

• lordradish
• May 17, 2020
• pedalboare

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Ok I just got my noise station pedal board back.

I might be compelled to annoy you guys with something noisy....euh....i meant art!!!
Yeah....art....

 

[monsterthompson]

So here's one of my new tracks. This is all layers made with bass guitar through pedals. Main pedals used here are the Boss SY-1, Boss DD-7, EHX Superego Synth Engine, and Dwarfcraft Grazer. The Grazer is run through the loop of the Superego and has an expression pedal on it. Sounds cool in headphones.

That’s pretty darn good.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

@monsterthompson

Do you have a perfect circuit redeem code?
Something over there is looking at me funny.

 

[monsterthompson]

@monsterthompson

Do you have a perfect circuit redeem code?
Something over there is looking at me funny.

I don’t know. My emails just show the SPRING10 code for 10% off

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I don’t know. My emails just show the SPRING10 code for 10% off

Ya, same here.



The exchange rate is so terrible I can’t justify buying said item. But, it was a “want” more than an absolute “need” .....but not by much.....I’ll survive

 

[monsterthompson]

Ya, same here.



The exchange rate is so terrible I can’t justify buying said item. But, it was a “want” more than an absolute “need” .....but not by much.....I’ll survive

Yeah. Exchange rates :-/

I got burned on my big Canadian medical expenses out 10 years ago. I owed Vancouver a bunch of money after all the insurance dust settled (I was a US resident with a Canadian accident). The bill showed up right after the US released a bunch of reserve cash as a “quantitative easement” which devalued the USD vs. CAD. It was a several thousand dollar swing in the cost of my care. On the plus side, there was a particularly expensive procedure that mysteriously never got charged, so I think I still came out better financially
Regardless, I sent enough back to Canada for all my Empress and Dingwall purchases.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

At least I went and got a bunch of pedals n stuff I haven’t touched since the quarantine started.
That’s going to give me some more ideas and cheats to try out.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Ok. Total mind blown. Dakim on the beat.
Had to share.

 

[RogerTheAlien]

I don't know if this thread has any Sonic Youth fans, we recently did a track that gets a bit of inspiration from Sonic Youth's skip tracer and some of Lee Ranaldo's work. It was a one off original piece that was meant to be an instrumental but we had a good piece of poetry we thought fit the part.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Yeah. Exchange rates :-/

I got burned on my big Canadian medical expenses out 10 years ago. I owed Vancouver a bunch of money after all the insurance dust settled (I was a US resident with a Canadian accident). The bill showed up right after the US released a bunch of reserve cash as a “quantitative easement” which devalued the USD vs. CAD. It was a several thousand dollar swing in the cost of my care. On the plus side, there was a particularly expensive procedure that mysteriously never got charged, so I think I still came out better financially
Regardless, I sent enough back to Canada for all my Empress and Dingwall purchases.

Fu#&$&
That's quite the story.

 

[cosmicevan]

So here's one of my new tracks. This is all layers made with bass guitar through pedals. Main pedals used here are the Boss SY-1, Boss DD-7, EHX Superego Synth Engine, and Dwarfcraft Grazer. The Grazer is run through the loop of the Superego and has an expression pedal on it. Sounds cool in headphones.

I liked this one. I usually click on whatever is posted and rarely get to the end, this one I slapped on some ear buds and kept it open while surfing TB. Was this captured live or multitracked w some sort of purpose in mind? It comes across as a one take live (but solid).

 

[Spectrum]

I liked this one. I usually click on whatever is posted and rarely get to the end, this one I slapped on some ear buds and kept it open while surfing TB. Was this captured live or multitracked w some sort of purpose in mind? It comes across as a one take live (but solid).

It was multitracked, on a Tascam DP-03SD digital 8-track.

I can almost play it live, though it would require some practice with the Ditto Looper.

For a long while I tried to record things in one take to prove to myself I could do them live, but I realized I was limiting myself. With multitrack portable recorders you can do so much more. In this case my goal was having independent slider control over the levels of each layer, and the ability to re-record a single layer without having to pitch the whole thing and start over.

I have thus far stubbornly resisted using a DAW due to a combination of disliking working on a computer and laziness in learning ever more new software. Hardware is just more fun to me.

I used to record everything on my little Korg SR-1 handheld multitrack recorder, but while it lets you put down as many layers as you want, you can't do any editing without importing it into a DAW. I still use it for recording away from home since it's battery-powered, pocket-sized, and it's also great for recording band practice with its internal mics. Since they are no longer made it's harder to find one new-in-box, but it's been one of the most useful pieces of gear I own.

The Tascam 8-track is what I prefer at home now. Lots more control over things, and allows editing, panning, adding reverb, track bouncing, do-overs are easier, etc. When I bought it I feared the learning curve but it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought. One pass through the tutorial and I was off and running. Some of the more complex editing features emulate the old school practices of tape-splicing, cutting and pasting, and so on, and I haven't mastered those yet, but I got the basics down.