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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread
- Thread starter ttasselm
- Start date
Any more info?
Too many apps...
CYCLE (100s)
cyclemeters, sleep cycles, alarm-clock cycles, cycle maps, cycle technologies...
CYCLE SOUND (dozens)
more sleep, alarm clocks, breathing, relaxation, white noise...
CYCLE SOUND AMBIENT (several)
Meditation, bedtime fan, sleeping sounds, ocean sounds, rain sounds...
CYCLE SYNTH (3)
Cycle — Meditative Synthesis, Explore Course for Model Cycle, EvolverFX AUv3 Plugin, Digital Composer
In my defense, I just woke up and the coffee isn't kicking in yet.
Thanks for the app tip!
Thanks.
Sorry, I should've said in my other post that I did find it in that last search, there were only 3 results for "CYCLE SYNTH".
Been playing with it this morning while drinking my coffee... just gone 7am here.
I initially searched just for "cycles" and found lots of bike and women's health apps. It's not the easiest find
I've always been a .130 guy, especially with the Wal, because you can really hear the B so well.
re: strings ... ~35 years ago my day gig was at a musical instrument store, so I had the opportunity to try a bazillion different brands of strings at dealer cost. After a seemingly-exhaustive search, I settled on Ken Smith "Rockmaster" stainless steel roundwounds, and I have used those on all* my basses ever since. Not having to go through the angst/agita of "Should I try a different brand of strings?" has been such a comfort for all these years that so long as the Smiths are still available I intend to never revisit that question!
*okay, not quite all of them: the Steinberger gets the Ken Smith stainless steel roundwound double ball end model, which for some reason is not called "Rockmaster". One fretless gets the Ken Smith Slick Rounds (nickel groundwounds), the other fretless gets LaBella 760N nylon tapewounds, the P Bass gets LaBella flatwounds (forget the model #), and the 8-string gets D'Addario XL-8.
and re: other stuff in general: ... I'm kinda off-the-grid for the next two months. Not literally off-the-grid (obviously, since I'm posting to an internet forum!), but off the Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural Bass Playing Items Of Interest grid: The missus and I decided to spend the winter in Arizona, and all I brought was one bass. No stompboxes. Not even an amp! So I won't be making any ambient music for a while unless I cobble something out of my meager collection of rarely-launched Virtual Instruments. And while I did remember to pack some headphones, I forgot to bring my swanky USB DAC, so listening to music will be less-than-ideal.
But a change of scenery is kinda nice...
*okay, not quite all of them: the Steinberger gets the Ken Smith stainless steel roundwound double ball end model, which for some reason is not called "Rockmaster". One fretless gets the Ken Smith Slick Rounds (nickel groundwounds), the other fretless gets LaBella 760N nylon tapewounds, the P Bass gets LaBella flatwounds (forget the model #), and the 8-string gets D'Addario XL-8.
and re: other stuff in general: ... I'm kinda off-the-grid for the next two months. Not literally off-the-grid (obviously, since I'm posting to an internet forum!), but off the Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural Bass Playing Items Of Interest grid: The missus and I decided to spend the winter in Arizona, and all I brought was one bass. No stompboxes. Not even an amp! So I won't be making any ambient music for a while unless I cobble something out of my meager collection of rarely-launched Virtual Instruments. And while I did remember to pack some headphones, I forgot to bring my swanky USB DAC, so listening to music will be less-than-ideal.
But a change of scenery is kinda nice...
First of all take good care of yourself and the missus. I'd evade all humans if it where possible for the next few months also.
2nd, strings.
I've tried just about everything but came full circle to using D'addario.
I was more pondering gauges and tension for different tunings.
Just ordered a .065 to .130 set for C standard.
Played my EADG bass more lately and going back to my main in C standard , the strings felt flabby. So I'll see what happens.
Bob_Ross , enjoy the break, welcome it.
Writers often "box themselves in" or at least, their characters...
"Saw"
"Phone Booth"
"Cujo"
"Life of Pi"
"Panic Room"
"Lifeboat"
"12 Angry Men"
"Elevator"
"Dead Calm"
... Dozen upon dozens more, I'm sure, especially if you stretch the boundaries from a room to an entire island, "Castaway", or a small boat to a big ship, "Poseidon Adventure" etc.
The limitations in Arizona will force you to find new unexplored avenues of creativity, but I guess you already knew that or you wouldn't be in such a pickle. Best wishes, good luck and enjoy the brine!
Writers often "box themselves in" or at least, their characters...
"Saw"
"Phone Booth"
"Cujo"
"Life of Pi"
"Panic Room"
"Lifeboat"
"12 Angry Men"
"Elevator"
"Dead Calm"
... Dozen upon dozens more, I'm sure, especially if you stretch the boundaries from a room to an entire island, "Castaway", or a small boat to a big ship, "Poseidon Adventure" etc.
The limitations in Arizona will force you to find new unexplored avenues of creativity, but I guess you already knew that or you wouldn't be in such a pickle. Best wishes, good luck and enjoy the brine!
Well, heard back from the audiologist. Not good:
So, the red line is my right ear, green is the right. Just as I suspected, I'm getting a noticeable decline start around 2k.
No ruptured eardrums or anything. She said that, since I couldn't recollect any particular injury, the big difference in the two ears set off some 'red flags' for her, including the 'pulsatory tinnitus', where, occasionally, I can hear my pulse pounding in that ear. She's sending me to an ear/nose/throat specialist, to make sure it's not a tumor on my auditory nerve (or somewhere in close proximity).
Best case scenario, there's no tumor, I just have to deal with this, as I've had some damage (and dealing with this means learning how to re-hear, so that I can mix/sound design properly). Worst case would obviously be some sort of tumor. Within that, there's several ways it could go... it's benign and easily removable, benign and not removable without considerable risk of more, even total loss, or worst worst, malignant.
I guess, regardless, she didn't really give me any indication that this is reversible.
I'm remarkably calm about all of this, surprisingly. Probably my general philosophy or something. My wife's flippin' out a bit.
The upside, though, is I got fitted for a set of custom earplugs that'll fit perfectly and reduce everything 21 db.
So, the red line is my right ear, green is the right. Just as I suspected, I'm getting a noticeable decline start around 2k.
No ruptured eardrums or anything. She said that, since I couldn't recollect any particular injury, the big difference in the two ears set off some 'red flags' for her, including the 'pulsatory tinnitus', where, occasionally, I can hear my pulse pounding in that ear. She's sending me to an ear/nose/throat specialist, to make sure it's not a tumor on my auditory nerve (or somewhere in close proximity).
Best case scenario, there's no tumor, I just have to deal with this, as I've had some damage (and dealing with this means learning how to re-hear, so that I can mix/sound design properly). Worst case would obviously be some sort of tumor. Within that, there's several ways it could go... it's benign and easily removable, benign and not removable without considerable risk of more, even total loss, or worst worst, malignant.
I guess, regardless, she didn't really give me any indication that this is reversible.
I'm remarkably calm about all of this, surprisingly. Probably my general philosophy or something. My wife's flippin' out a bit.
The upside, though, is I got fitted for a set of custom earplugs that'll fit perfectly and reduce everything 21 db.
@Bob_Ross have an ipad? very useful for sketchbooking ideas.
back to the strings thing: for me it's about tension. i like lower-tension strings for a number of reasons. mostly i think they sound better.
the trick is getting the right balance between gauge, tension and pitch: too little tension and there's not enough resistance; too much and it sounds tight to me and some of the techniques i use aren't possible. and older hands.
i recently upped my gauges very slightly for my primary roundwound basses. still low tension, but a little less so.
i did like the kalium strings idea of balanced sets, so i used their stuff for a long time.
back to the strings thing: for me it's about tension. i like lower-tension strings for a number of reasons. mostly i think they sound better.
the trick is getting the right balance between gauge, tension and pitch: too little tension and there's not enough resistance; too much and it sounds tight to me and some of the techniques i use aren't possible. and older hands.
i recently upped my gauges very slightly for my primary roundwound basses. still low tension, but a little less so.
i did like the kalium strings idea of balanced sets, so i used their stuff for a long time.
@lordradish
sorry to have posted the other thing before seeing your ear situation.
sorry about that news. obviously not great.
not to be a pollyanna, but do you know david torn's story?
sorry to have posted the other thing before seeing your ear situation.
sorry about that news. obviously not great.
not to be a pollyanna, but do you know david torn's story?
What's Torn's story?
Man... @lordradish ...hang in there. I have damage in both ears, but mainly my right from having drummers on that side all the time. Constant ringing. I use custom earplugs now for sure, and you get used to the ringing and hearing loss to conti ue your work. Please keep us up to date about the rest.
Best to stay calm...if you are calm, don't question it...ride it.
My wife gets so crazy about everything and most of the time its for no reason. She goes through all the emotions as if the problem was as bad as possible and then all that wasted stress when we find out what the story is. Control the controllables as they say...until something is a thing, I try not to worry about it (but still do the proper care/maintenance to prevent a thing from becoming a THING).
Dang.
With your half-pair of ears and my half-pair of arms we could almost make one bassist
Fingers crossed for a best-case result.
@lordradish from the Glass-Half-Full department: At least your low-end hearing is intact, and since we're bass players... :::ducks:::
I don't mean to make light of your audiological predicament, and apologies if that comes across as callous.
But I come from a radically different perspective: My wife suffers from sensory-neural hearing loss, a degenerative malady that's hereditary; showed up out of nowhere ~25 years ago and very quickly impacted her hearing/discrimination such that it immediately ended what had been a 15-year career as a professional singer. And it's only deteriorated since that original diagnosis, such that top-of-the-line hearing aids now only give her modest assistance in one ear, the other being beyond hope. If she saw the graph from your audiologist she would probably burst into tears and ask "Why couldn't my loss be so minor?!?!" (Her graphs have what audiologists call a "cookie bite" profile, albeit an extreme manifestation: Everything from about 300Hz to 6kHz is >70dB down.)
Good luck, glad you're staying calm, here's hoping you'll get a chance to use your Schwarzenegger impersonation ("IT'S NOT A TUMOR!") soon.
:beer:
I don't mean to make light of your audiological predicament, and apologies if that comes across as callous.
But I come from a radically different perspective: My wife suffers from sensory-neural hearing loss, a degenerative malady that's hereditary; showed up out of nowhere ~25 years ago and very quickly impacted her hearing/discrimination such that it immediately ended what had been a 15-year career as a professional singer. And it's only deteriorated since that original diagnosis, such that top-of-the-line hearing aids now only give her modest assistance in one ear, the other being beyond hope. If she saw the graph from your audiologist she would probably burst into tears and ask "Why couldn't my loss be so minor?!?!" (Her graphs have what audiologists call a "cookie bite" profile, albeit an extreme manifestation: Everything from about 300Hz to 6kHz is >70dB down.)
Good luck, glad you're staying calm, here's hoping you'll get a chance to use your Schwarzenegger impersonation ("IT'S NOT A TUMOR!") soon.
:beer:
David Torn has been on my mind quite a bit, lately, and if this does get severe, I've actually thought about reaching out to him. Thanks.
