Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[lordradish]

I’m glad I bought all my stuff pre kids... just wish I hadn’t sold my fretless cos now I’ll never afford a 5 string fretless *sniff*

There are plenty of decent non-Fodera fretless 5's out there. Don't fret too much.

 

[Spectrum]

Welcome to Page 666 of the thread.

Marking this post to put something evil up here later...

 

[monsterthompson]

I'm just here to post on page 666.
Good work, team!

 

[theunknowndude]

There are plenty of decent non-Fodera fretless 5's out there. Don't fret too much.

yesh I have my heart set on a gwb35 again... but that’s still 1500-1800aud That my bills will swallow up for a long while haha

 

[hieronymous]

I’m wondering if there are other ambient things. We’ve got music. I can imagine video and photography, or painting. Is there ambient literature or poetry? I’m watching Norm Macdonald and I think he’s telling ambient jokes. There’s a theme and a feel but no traditional set up and punch line; instead the story/joke just keeps going and evolving and being amended.

What other “unexpected” ambient things are there?

The opposite - ambient temperature!

Ambient feline?

 

[dukeorock]

Duke is out ambient cycling

it does give me some good zen!
The last few days in Nashville have been severe thunderstorms, tornados (near by) and flooding. If I tried to go mountain biking today...

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Ok, 666 shameless black metal plug!!!!

 

[theunknowndude]

Here’s my 666...


My odometer in my car a year or so back clicked over to xx555... and this came into my head when it did

 

[theunknowndude]

Oh and also here is your ambient temperature reference...

this is burnt into my brain from playing to so much in the 90’s...

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Any of you have any experience with stereo widening plugins?
Been trying mastering with iZotope, not bad. Much easier than dealing with delay,reverb and compressor racks.
Added bonus is seeing the stereo image while you tweak the parameters.
My old trick that everyone knows is doubling the master L-R and adding delay to one and slight reverb to the overall mix, but a mastering guy I will never be....nor do I aim to. So an easy button would be awesome.


Any input would be appreciated
Edit: Yes, I still use my old version of Ableton Live 9, no way I’m going to pay 250$ to uprgrade and loose most of my Live software instruments.

 

[JES]

Satisfying.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Any of you have any experience with stereo widening plugins? ...[snip]... My old trick that everyone knows is doubling the master L-R and adding delay to one and slight reverb to the overall mix

I think this might be what you're describing: The most effective stereo widening I've ever heard was the old Modulation Sciences MYB-2 StereoMaxx Spatial Image Enlarger, a hardware box that was originally designed for radio broadcasters. But its process was pretty simple (conceptually) and I've been able to recreate it with some fairly simple routing in a mixing console:
- extract Left minus Right from the main mix (I'm presuming that's what you meant by "L-R"?)
- delay that L-R signal by ~12-20 milliseconds
- split that delayed L-R signal into two identical copies; route one copy to a fader assigned to the Left output, route the other copy to a fader assigned to the the Right output and invert its polarity 180°
- push these two faders up until your mix grows beyond the physical location of your speakers
- profit

Never found a plug-in that could make a mix grow quite that wide. It's uncanny.


Oh yeah, here's my "666" contribution. Warning, definitely NSFW.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I think this might be what you're describing: The most effective stereo widening I've ever heard was the old Modulation Sciences MYB-2 StereoMaxx Spatial Image Enlarger, a hardware box that was originally designed for radio broadcasters. But its process was pretty simple (conceptually) and I've been able to recreate it with some fairly simple routing in a mixing console:
- extract Left minus Right from the main mix (I'm presuming that's what you meant by "L-R"?)
- delay that L-R signal by ~12-20 milliseconds
- split that delayed L-R signal into two identical copies; route one copy to a fader assigned to the Left output, route the other copy to a fader assigned to the the Right output and invert its polarity 180°
- push these two faders up until your mix grows beyond the physical location of your speakers
- profit

Never found a plug-in that could make a mix grow quite that wide. It's uncanny.


Oh yeah, here's my "666" contribution. Warning, definitely NSFW.

Perhaps I’m reading this wrong....but....
I don’t get extract Left minus Right....?
Plus using two copies of a delayed track......there’s no delay.....both tracks have a 12-20 mill secs delay....

I split the L-R , copy.
Delay one, then use a bus to blend the 2 stereo tracks and send it to the master out. (So 4 tracks total L, R, L delay, R delay)

Then send to master rack (compressor, verb...etc....)

 

[lordradish]

Any of you have any experience with stereo widening plugins?
Been trying mastering with iZotope, not bad. Much easier than dealing with delay,reverb and compressor racks.
Added bonus is seeing the stereo image while you tweak the parameters.
My old trick that everyone knows is doubling the master L-R and adding delay to one and slight reverb to the overall mix, but a mastering guy I will never be....nor do I aim to. So an easy button would be awesome.


Any input would be appreciated
Edit: Yes, I still use my old version of Ableton Live 9, no way I’m going to pay 250$ to uprgrade and loose most of my Live software instruments.

I have several, QuikQuak Upstereo is a good one, also have a few others. The big thing is to not overdo it, as it can make the center go away. There's also the mid/side processing technique which I'm using more, it kind of works in a different way, and there's some good plugins for that, too.

 

[monsterthompson]

Erica just dropped the Black System III.
I’ve got the System II, and have been considering many of the upgrades to make it a III. This thing is a beast.

 

[Bob_Ross]

I don’t get extract Left minus Right....?

Your master stereo bus consists of two signals, Left and Right.
If you add those two signals together -- Left plus Right, aka L+R, aka Sum -- you get mono.
In order to subtract one signal from the other -- to create Left minus Right, aka L-R, aka Difference -- you would add Left plus a polarity-inverted version of Right. Left + (-Right) = L-R
So that's how you extract Left minus Right.

Plus using two copies of a delayed track......there’s no delay.....both tracks have a 12-20 mill secs delay....

As @HotelX noted, you may have missed the underlined part "split that delayed L-R signal into two identical copies; route one copy to a fader assigned to the Left output, route the other copy to a fader assigned to the the Right output and invert its polarity 180°" but I think more likely I didn't clarify what's happening to the two faders we've created: These are getting mixed with your main master stereo bus; they're not replacing the main LR signal, they're being combined with it.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

You missed the invert polarity part

I always invert the polarity.
But if you do a 180 on 2 exact same tracks delayed by 20 mill secs.....what's the point??

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Your master stereo bus consists of two signals, Left and Right.
If you add those two signals together -- Left plus Right, aka L+R, aka Sum -- you get mono.
In order to subtract one signal from the other -- to create Left minus Right, aka L-R, aka Difference -- you would add Left plus a polarity-inverted version of Right. Left + (-Right) = L-R
So that's how you extract Left minus Right.



As @HotelX noted, you may have missed the underlined part "split that delayed L-R signal into two identical copies; route one copy to a fader assigned to the Left output, route the other copy to a fader assigned to the the Right output and invert its polarity 180°" but I think more likely I didn't clarify what's happening to the two faders we've created: These are getting mixed with your main master stereo bus; they're not replacing the main LR signal, they're being combined with it.

Aha!!!
Missed the combined with the master L-R.
There we go.
All good now. And yes I know how to extract tracks using phase inversions.


I'm good now.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

This is what I was referring to, bot the initial L-R extraction

I still don't know if you are getting it

Yes, I am "getting it" sir.
I've been doing this for years, just not the exact same routing.
And to isolate Left and Right, plus phase inversion I used this little old thing.


Plus in Live....this little old feature can delay tracks.

 

[lordradish]

Erica just dropped the Black System III.
I’ve got the System II, and have been considering many of the upgrades to make it a III. This thing is a beast.

SIR, DROP THE CREDIT CARD!!! DON'T FORCE US TO SHOOT YOU!!!!