Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[monsterthompson]

not if you’re a dumbass like me. you just go ahead and do it and pretend that it’s cool.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

26343346[/URL], member: 131803"]

Hahah
For real the name is spelled Dumas. But you already know that

 

[lordradish]

In my convalescence, I have been hoping for some more fulsome rants. Please continue....

Oh, ranting about stupid stuff on the internet is so passe, now. I just point and laugh.

 

[steubig]

true. sometimes i just get exasperated.

 

[lordradish]

I’ve got some thoughts on what types of people are active on Internet forums, along with what types of people play bass (broad generalizations and probably misinformed and wildly inaccurate). In my mind, there seems to be areas of overlap or intersection where traditionalism and/or narrowness of mind could be a prominent characteristic.

One of the issues the Internet creates is that it exposes a paradoxical finite and infinite nature of things. One one hand, it exposes the fact that there seems to be an endless number of bass, amp, and pedal designs all made by countless builders. On the other hand, it allows you to zoom out and see that most things can be grouped into a few identifiable categories. Say, distortion pedals are all some variation on an age old design (Rat clone, OCD clone, TS clone, Muff clone, PLL, etc.). I think people are simultaneously overwhelmed and limited with choices, and it makes the lizard brain get angry. I mean, do I really need a slightly different delay? You bet I do! And it’s going to change my world until I sell it and forget I ever owned it.

I think there’s also a fair bit of trolling and meme repetition, and we’ve come to a place where we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

All that and many people's brains simply prefer binary choices and shun/fear novelty and novel experiences. There's a lot of overlap with that and political beliefs, too with a lot of research backing it up.

 

[monsterthompson]

All that and many people's brains simply prefer binary choices and shun/fear novelty and novel experiences. There's a lot of overlap with that and political beliefs, too with a lot of research backing it up.

I’m sure there’s correlation with religious beliefs too. There’s a significant number of worship players here on TB, so I’d expect some connection/parallel there.

I remember being in high school and playing football (the American variant also known as hand egg). I was an offensive lineman and an adult friend of mine commented that he could see my personality aligning with the position. He’d seen a personality study of pro players and explained some of the general characteristics it identified for various positions. I couldn’t argue what he said, and I never read the actual study (if it existed), but it certainly left me with the impression that certain groups attracted certain types of people, in ways that weren’t always superficially obvious.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Oh, ranting about stupid stuff on the internet is so passe, now. I just point and laugh.

 

[JES]

I think @monsterthompson is onto something with the contradiction of seemingly endless choice and at the same time a lot of repetition -- oh look, a new overdrive!

Also, perhaps the dad band people are right about themselves*, in the sense that if they don't intellectualize some part of what they do--gear, technique, music theory, approach--maybe there's not so much to talk about and everything is already settled. Which begs the question of why they're hanging out on a message board, but there you go.

I always find the "why would you want to do that, that doesn't make sense in my music?" exasperating in its incuriosity. Stick around and learn a new trick people!

I do prefer TB to Gearspace and the Gear Page though. The Super 6 thread on GS has devolved into people fighting about whether knobs or sliders are better with idiotic appeals to "science" as if they're not random people on a message board.

--

* one of my bands is dad rock, though they deny it. So maybe dad rock adjacent?

 

[JES]

actually it was a post about going stereo, with both a misunderstanding of what it would entail (it’s not ric-o-sound, imo)

Speaking of which, what are you trying to do with stereo?

I got to play around with a copy of this Buchla-built quad panner at the synth conference, and it immediately made me want to set up a quad system, which is absurd because a) how would I ever record that and b) I still can't even see a gig, much less play one.

 

[JES]

For real the name is spelled Dumas. But you already know that

 

[steubig]

I think @monsterthompson is onto something with the contradiction of seemingly endless choice and at the same time a lot of repetition -- oh look, a new overdrive!

Also, perhaps the dad band people are right about themselves*, in the sense that if they don't intellectualize some part of what they do--gear, technique, music theory, approach--maybe there's not so much to talk about and everything is already settled. Which begs the question of why they're hanging out on a message board, but there you go.

I always find the "why would you want to do that, that doesn't make sense in my music?" exasperating in its incuriosity. Stick around and learn a new trick people!

I do prefer TB to Gearspace and the Gear Page though. The Super 6 thread on GS has devolved into people fighting about whether knobs or sliders are better with idiotic appeals to "science" as if they're not random people on a message board.

--

* one of my bands is dad rock, though they deny it. So maybe dad rock adjacent?

it's the incuriousity and dismissive attitude that often goes with it that get me. reminds me of my younger and dumber days.

yeah, been through the gearspace thing with the hydra and iridium, and when i was researching the waldorf m. omfg. (and the fb notion [notation software] page.)

basically my rule of thumb is that 95% of what you see on the internet is bs. (my friends tell me it's more.)

never admit to being in a dad rock band again.

 

[steubig]

Speaking of which, what are you trying to do with stereo?

I got to play around with a copy of this Buchla-built quad panner at the synth conference, and it immediately made me want to set up a quad system, which is absurd because a) how would I ever record that and b) I still can't even see a gig, much less play one.

well i've done a few bands where i was in stereo. one was long ago (1994 or so?) and probably didn't make too much sense, but i was throwing different mono loops to the left and right sides. the whole band came under the heading of "more gear than sense," but it was fun.

i've done two improv duos with drummers where i was running bass and ipad synth apps in stereo. the second of which i ended up with a panning pedal on both the bass and synth chains, so i could throw different parts to different sides and loop them that way or have a self-generated call and response in real time—plus have stuff travel left to right in real time. (all live, no overdubs)
i've pimped one here endlessly:

i did an all-improv gig with a friend who's very deep into the max/msp thing (and other music tech—actually teaches university-level and lectures internationally about this stuff) who did a quad setup on a gig. i personally found it very frustrating because 1) i was mono and it became more about the quad thing than it did the interaction and 2) i couldn't always hear what was happening cause it was way across the room and he *likes noise*, so it was hard to hear any "nuance" at certain points.

the recording it thing seems really hard (well, beyond my pay grade). i guess you go into surround sound or what have you. some day (assuming humans don't destroy themselves one way or another) a 7.1 recording system will probably be like a tascam portastudio back in the day). but it is why that spatial panner thingie @monsterthompson posted piqued my interest, because it also had up/down orientation as well as somehow getting the illusion of going *behind* you.

 

[Spectrum]

Are we having an internet discussion about why arguing on the internet is stupid and unoriginal? Does anyone see the irony in that?

What does the B. in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?

Benoit B. Mandelbrot, of course.

 

[Bob_Ross]

i personally found it very frustrating because 1) i was mono and it became more about the quad thing than it did the interaction

Yeah, ^^^that's my beef with way too many musical performances or performance strategies or compositions... someone gets a Shiny New Toy and the piece becomes all about "LOOK AT MY SHINY NEW TOY!" rather than "Here's Some Cool Music That, In Addition To Sounding Cool Also Happens To Make Use Of My Shiny New Toy."

the recording it thing seems really hard (well, beyond my pay grade). i guess you go into surround sound or what have you.

Recording quad (or immersive/surround) audio is pretty easy; it's getting playback to render "correctly" [sic] in any/every listener's home that gets tricky.

Actually, strict old-school 4-channel discrete quadraphonic recording & playback is ridiculously easy: Record your four separate signal paths onto four separate tracks of a multitrack recorder, connect the outputs of those four individual channels to four separate amplifiers connected to four separate speakers, and Boom! Bob's yer uncle.

More modern x.x surround formats get a bit more convoluted because you have to figure out how to derive the .1 LFE channel (do I capture it during recording, or extract it during mixdown?) and rendering height channels in an x.x.x immersive format (ATMOS, Auro3D, or DTS:X) has to happen in post-production, I don't think anyone's yet developed a discrete capture system for x.x.x immersive audio.

But the quick & dirty way to record surround is almost painfully obvious: Just as there have been stereo microphones for decades, there are now surround microphones: e.g., 5100 Mobile Surround Microphone

 

[steubig]

Yeah, ^^^that's my beef with way too many musical performances or performance strategies or compositions... someone gets a Shiny New Toy and the piece becomes all about "LOOK AT MY SHINY NEW TOY!" rather than "Here's Some Cool Music That, In Addition To Sounding Cool Also Happens To Make Use Of My Shiny New Toy."




Recording quad (or immersive/surround) audio is pretty easy; it's getting playback to render "correctly" [sic] in any/every listener's home that gets tricky.

Actually, strict old-school 4-channel discrete quadraphonic recording & playback is ridiculously easy: Record your four separate signal paths onto four separate tracks of a multitrack recorder, connect the outputs of those four individual channels to four separate amplifiers connected to four separate speakers, and Boom! Bob's yer uncle.

More modern x.x surround formats get a bit more convoluted because you have to figure out how to derive the .1 LFE channel (do I capture it during recording, or extract it during mixdown?) and rendering height channels in an x.x.x immersive format (ATMOS, Auro3D, or DTS:X) has to happen in post-production, I don't think anyone's yet developed a discrete capture system for x.x.x immersive audio.

But the quick & dirty way to record surround is almost painfully obvious: Just as there have been stereo microphones for decades, there are now surround microphones: e.g., 5100 Mobile Surround Microphone

by “really hard,” i perhaps should’ve said, “really hard for me to wrap my head around about how to make it work artistically right now.”

but then there is the end user to consider.

tbh, s lit of times i hear people use immersive tech, it’s not something i find interesting on a musical level.

that mic ain’t cheap.

 

[steubig]

Are we having an internet discussion about why arguing on the internet is stupid and unoriginal? Does anyone see the irony in that?

What does the B. in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?

Benoit B. Mandelbrot, of course.

true.

it’s more that i forget reality and then get disappointed.

 

[JES]

Boom! Bob's yer uncle.

Talk about burying the lede!

With all that encouragement I may have to go down a quad rabbit hole.

 

[Bob_Ross]

“really hard for me to wrap my head around about how to make it work artistically right now.”

Oh hell yeah, I totally grok that. I mean, as a mixer/producer I can almost figure out how to make immersive technology enhance the music -- almost -- but as a composer/performer I have absolutely no illusions that anything I did with spatial audio would be anything besides the aforementioned SHINY NEW TOY.

I mean, one could (presumably) argue that it's just a continuum from antiphonal music to hocketed melodies to spatially non-coincident perfomers in a room, and then what-the-hell let's add three-dimensional immersive surround audio to that continuum...but it doesn't take long for that argument to break down, especially once you stop talking "in theory" and start citing specific examples. Music history is full of several centuries worth of beautiful antiphony and hocketed passages and orchestrations that ripple across the physical ensemble in a spatially tantilizing way...but the number of pieces where the equivalent of an overhead fly-by is critical to understanding and appreciating the music can probably be counted on one finger

...a finger that was cut off by kidnappers and mailed back to the victim's parents. With insufficient postage.

 

[steubig]

Oh hell yeah, I totally grok that. I mean, as a mixer/producer I can almost figure out how to make immersive technology enhance the music -- almost -- but as a composer/performer I have absolutely no illusions that anything I did with spatial audio would be anything besides the aforementioned SHINY NEW TOY.

I mean, one could (presumably) argue that it's just a continuum from antiphonal music to hocketed melodies to spatially non-coincident performers in a room, and then what-the-hell let's add three-dimensional immersive surround audio to that continuum...but it doesn't take long for that argument to break down, especially once you stop talking "in theory" and start citing specific examples. Music history is full of several centuries worth of beautiful antiphony and hocketed passages and orchestrations that ripple across the physical ensemble in a spatially tantalizing way...but the number of pieces where the equivalent of an overhead fly-by is critical to understanding and appreciating the music can probably be counted on one finger

for sure. i'm just trying to wrap my head around being able to integrate ebass/efx, and modular and regular synths in a *meaningful way for me*. having to do brain work (ouch!). [i can sorta hear/feel it in my head, but putting the rubber to the road seems hard for me right now.]

btw, helmut lachenmann (assuming that you don't already know his work) is great a utilizing sound (rippling, etc.) across a stereo field. it sounds good in recording, but *amazing* in a live setting cause you hear and *feel* it happening.

and, if you think about it, hollywood/film folks in general can really do remarkable things in this regard. really talented people doing the sound stuff.

...a finger that was cut off by kidnappers and mailed back to the victim's parents. With insufficient postage.

flashing on the big lebowski here.

 

[hieronymous]

rant: a lot of people on tb have zero imagination

The thing that gets me is people who confuse their opinion with fact. I worked with someone at a bookstore who made the brilliant statement: "The Beatles suck." I realized that he had confused his dislike of the band with a quantitative judgment about their abilities. I saw that in the recent thread on the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album - everyone piling on as if they had a birds-eye view of the way things "really are" - it said more to me about the people ranting than it did about the subject at hand. I am totally willing to accept that someone doesn't like something, but to express it as truth bugs me.

But I also have to accept that that's just me - I could be wrong! Maybe the Beatles really do suck. But that would mean I was wrong to like them when I first got into rock music 40 years ago and everything I have liked since then has also sucked...