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free jam tracks for us bass players

#124
Hi Mo' Bass - that's an easy qn for me to answer. I'd recommend a zoom unit to anyone:
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The HD8 or HD16.

They ony difference in the two are the amount of tracks you can record at once. Only 2 on the HD8 and up to 8 on the HD16.

I just bought and HD8, I record the stuff I only need 2 tracks at any one time at most.

Why the zoom?

They are a great price - about $450 for a HD8.

And (especially for us bass players) - the programmable drum machine in the zoom's is unique and the best tool to have.

It's a drum machine like drum machines are but the pads are touch sensitive and you can make 'mistakes' on them and play the drum parts on the pads in real time. If if you are not a drummer it's easy to program it in - the tools on there make it very easy for you to do it - you can layer the parts bit by bit. Just awesome.

You just can't beat that for my money. The convenience is fantastic. I don't know why everyone else hasn't put that into their multi-tracks as a standard feature.

Comes with built in cd burner and has USB connectivity so you can dump all the stuff onto your pc. And comes with cuebase software (I don't really know what that is yet, but I'm told it'll be handy).

You should look up on harmony central if you want more opinions - I don't know what people have said on there but I'm sure it'll be good.

I was using a borrowed older model zoom - it was great (an MRS,1266 but this new unit man - I'm stoked with it.

You'll hear what I can do with it on www.freejamtracks.com over the coming weeks/months etc etc etc

haha - how's that for an ad for zoom.

Cheers,
Nick.
 
#126
cool as - that looks like a really good tool for if you are travelling around with just your axe. Especially with the size of the thing.

Going by the comments there are a few limitations in terms of recording full tracks and with the amount of space you have but in general - that would be a great unit to have.

There are smaller zoom units that are around the same price - a friend of mine bought one of those and it's good cept she is always running out of space - just uses a SD card with something like 1 gig of space on it. So pretty much has to transfer every 2-3 song to her pc so she can start again.

It is a good unit though - just depends on how much TV you watch. (ie you'll run out of hard drive/space if you use it A LOT)

It is amazing all the stuff that is out there now days. (haha - I'm an old timer).

The first jam tracks I was ever doing for myself were about 12 years ago on a tape recorder. Yes we had computers and multi-tracks but all I had was what I called my '1-track'. ;)

Tonight (this morning if you live in Texas!) - I have recorded a track on the new zoom. It's good - I don't have to learn too much to get used to it - so will be able to get some new stuff down and onto the site very soon.

:bassist:
 
#128
nickonbass said:
There are smaller zoom units that are around the same price - a friend of mine bought one of those and it's good cept she is always running out of space - just uses a SD card with something like 1 gig of space on it. So pretty much has to transfer every 2-3 song to her pc so she can start again.
Click to expand...

I know it's convenient to have several tunes on the recorder at once, but I'd personally be totally happy with one at a time.
As long as I can dump it to my PC, I wouldn't care about a
one song limitation.
 
#129
nickonbass said:
ps - when I did the jam track tonight I got side tracked and spent about 3 hours jamming along with it. hahaha - that's 90% of the point of me doing all this stuff - so I get better myself.
Rock on.
Click to expand...

Very cool. Those jam tracks are a great path to getting better. I should be logging more time doing that, too.

You have already cranked out a ton of tracks. Now that you own your own recorder, you're Really going to turn into a jam track creation Machine. :)

Thanks again for sharing.
 
#131
Wow! Nick, thanks SO much for creating all those jam tracks!
I'm a guitar player learning to play bass, and there's not as large a selection of bass backings online as there are for guitar. Especially for free! I've just found out about your site and couldn't be happier! This makes practice much more interesting.
Thanks again!
CO
 
#136
Thanks for the comments. (The site runs on the comments)!

Charles Obscure - yeah, I was a guitar player once. Bass is more fun and you get to play with more people I find (...maybe I just sucked at guitar - hahaha).

bwsailor79 - your butterscotch bass sounds like it's one very nice axe.

and bassrique I love you too.

I've recorded one track on the new zoom. I have taken my time with the track and I'm working on a few extra's to put up on the site along with the jam tracks.

A good mate of mine (who is about as insane as me) who was a bass player and went to guitar is going to help me out. We are going to team up our multi-instrumental selves and are working out ways to give a bit more structure to the site, add some new features and so on. So that'll be good.

Plus I'm going to start putting up the tracks with no drums so drummers get a page as well. (I was a drummer before I could talk).

There is a fair bit of stuff out there for guitar players - bassists and drummers it's harder to find jam tracks (as we all know).

So give the drummer some.

Give the bass player some.

:hyper:
 
#137
nickonbass said:
Thanks for the comments. (The site runs on the comments)!

Charles Obscure - yeah, I was a guitar player once. Bass is more fun and you get to play with more people I find (...maybe I just sucked at guitar - hahaha).

bwsailor79 - your butterscotch bass sounds like it's one very nice axe.

and bassrique I love you too.

I've recorded one track on the new zoom. I have taken my time with the track and I'm working on a few extra's to put up on the site along with the jam tracks.

A good mate of mine (who is about as insane as me) who was a bass player and went to guitar is going to help me out. We are going to team up our multi-instrumental selves and are working out ways to give a bit more structure to the site, add some new features and so on. So that'll be good.

Plus I'm going to start putting up the tracks with no drums so drummers get a page as well. (I was a drummer before I could talk).

There is a fair bit of stuff out there for guitar players - bassists and drummers it's harder to find jam tracks (as we all know).

So give the drummer some.

Give the bass player some.

:hyper:
Click to expand...

If you get all that done, you really should consider charging a small fee. I know that's not your focus, but, your tracks are great, and they are worth something. Unless you recently hit Lotto, or your family is rich :) , you should generate some
bucks with this.
 
#138
hahaha - I keep trying lotto but the numbers keep coming out wrong. I'm so used to not having money I don't see the point of it.

But you are right - I am looking into having a paid section on the site - cause I want to put so much stuff on there I pretty much have no choice.

Still - I gotta work out how to do it all. It's great a mate of mine (Dylan) is coming on board to help out with recording the tracks etc. He is a gun and into other stuff that I'm not so great on - rock, metal and reggae for starters - so that'll help mix things up a fair bit.
 

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