Christian Jones

That dava's cool. Does that grip hurt your fingers at all after a while? I looks like it could.

Yeah I just ordered some XL Jazz iii picks, the .88 tortex flex, shaped like a jazz iii but nearly the size of a regular pick. This could be it! And that's the last pick I'm going to try for a long time in any case.

Yeah bass players especially can go without changing their strings for a long time. I even knew a guy who would take other people's used strings for his bass. I think that comes down to how you play and what sound you like and also the bass itself. I play w/ both pick and fingers (no slap) and I tend to dig in pretty hard and after a while I lose my twang. Thing is I love twang and on my guitars and basses... not zing, but twang, and I know a lot of guys seem to want a warm sound. I ended up w/ the Smiths because I was researching for a set w/ the best B string on a 35" scale. I may try some of your guys' suggestions though. I forgot to mention because it just occurred to me, that my strings are probably going to die quicker than other people's because I am a hand lotion freak. It's one of those things like chapstick that I'm addicted to and can't live without. I mean I don't go and pick up my guitars with my hands all lotiony or anything and they're always "dry," but this is no doubt killing my strings quicker I'm sure. I do have one of those fret cleaning systems like Fast Fret (but something else) and use it after playing and maybe it helps. Perhaps I can make myself rinse my hands before playing, just for when I'm playing, but then I'd be going w/o hand lotion *very* often! Probably I need to see about kicking the lotion.

I play a slow melodic doom metal and my favorite pick for a while now is the black Dunlop 1mm nylon. They have that wide raised lettering that provides some good grip w/o digging into my finger like sandpaper like some other grip picks do, and they have a little more give than other materials of the same thickness which makes them feel better in my hand. But for me the nylons need some serious touch up, as they have a super thin plastic flap that surrounds these picks and causes a kind of fluttering-like attack on the strings, unlike, say, a derlin pick, which is smooth all around w/ a quick release. For me the nylons would be perfect if they had that derlin smoothness on the edge. Why don't they? I've been just dealing with it, but recently I got a 72 pack of nylons and some 2000 grit paper and have been going through one pick at a time while I watch TV at night and just smoothing the edges until they're slick like a derlin. I've almost finished all 72 but I feel this was a bit obsessive so I've been trying some new picks again; .96 Dunlop derlin 500 Prime Grip w/ a pointy sandpaper grip that I just hated until I melted it down some w/ a hot needle. Some Dunlop pink derlin .96 that I poked holes through with a hot needle for some grip and that works ok I guess. Still somehow the nylon feels more comfortable in my hand. What do you guys do to your picks, or are you just not that picky?

Geez, well I haven't priced bass strings in a while since I settled on the Smiths and now I'm seeing similar quality 5-string sets selling for around $40. What the heck man. I get about a month or so out of mine before the B goes.

Just curious. I play a Lakeland 35" scale 5-string and unfortunately my favorite strings (Ken Smith RMM-5X) cost about $30 a set. There's no way around that for me and I know this is the bane of a lot of bass players who are geeks about their tone. I used to use a tapered DR set that I thought were great before I tried the Smiths. I thought the Smiths were too damn expensive for something that gets changed out somewhat frequently, so I tried an Ernie Ball set I think it was at around $17/set or something and found them lifeless in comparison and immediately took them off and just haven't wanted to try any money on another set from another brand since. I'm glad I decided to try the Smiths back when I did as they sound amazing, but they've ruined me for strings and bass isn't even my primary instrument. Another thing that sucks is the B always goes first and when it goes the whole set has to go even though the other strings still sound fine. What are you guys using? I guess $30/set is about normal for an upper-tier set. Lame.

I don't do anything any of my Xs say

Yeah, I have Komplete 10, and for me the best part of it all is Kontakt, Massive, the Grandeur, the Melotron and the Melodian. Actually, there's some really cool transistor organs in there too as well as a pretty awesome Tronichord. IMO you kinda have to mine through the libraries to find the cool sounds and then save them as presets so you don't have to dig through the library again, which is what I do and which I think a lot of people don't do.

You still do that? Like sitting "Indian style" on the floor or in the middle of your bed w/ headphones on staring at the album art as the *whole* album plays, not just that one song?

Great info Bob, thanks. And that's a cool trck actually to stay in the libraries tab section w/ your non-nicnt libraries that I never thought of. What I like to do w/ my non-nicnt libraries is just use the Quick Load function which you can bring up w/ one right mouse click and the Quick Load view will then momentarily replace the output section while it is up and it's a simple right click again to close that view and show the output section again. In the Quick Load view you can add folders, put your libraries in there and bring them up with one click. I'm going to check out those Free Library links Bob thanks

If the pads are anything like the ones on the mpk261 that I returned they're probably pretty awesome, the pads anyway. The keys though, at least on the mpk261, sucked - that is a matter of opinion of course, but the keys were the major deal-breaker for me as they were too short for full-size keys (about a half inch shorter than even an M-Audio Oxygen) and too stiff, just not a very nice feeling keybed at all to me. Hated it, which sucked because I otherwise loved the vibey look of the Akai. But if you're into finger drumming you'll probably really love the pads but I would see if you can play this keyboard somewhere so you can get a feel for the keys before buying it.

Hey thanks Michael, yeah I'll keep an eye out for sales for the Cmusic, it may be worth getting anyway with a good sale. Yeah Best Service doesn't detail much on the Vienna, but on Vienna's website there's a lot more info as to the difference between the "standard" and "full library" versions, basically there's a bunch more articulations in the full version: https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Saxophones/Baritone_saxophone#!Sample_Content Lol yeah no Vienna never has sales, not that I've ever seen. Vienna seems to be just this super expensive library developer that has been around for a long time, doesn't do much advertising and is supposed to be top-tier. And you need a $30 usb key to use their stuff.

Hey Micheal, the sound demos for that Cmusic baritone sax don't really show the sax off that well and there's really not much else for it on YouTube. Since you use this library, if you have a quick listen to the Vienna Baritone Saxophone samples at this link https://www.bestservice.com/baritone_saxophone.html#ratings (on left side of page) can you tell me if the Cmusic one sounds as good as that Vienna? Those two Vienna Baritone sax samples sound pretty amazing and I can't really get a good read on the Cmusic one. Thanks dude

Yeah the SWAM looks real nice, but a bit pricey especially considering I only want the one baritone sax, not all those others. I'll look at Cmusic maybe, and I dig that it's a kontakt instrument. If it's good enough for Micheal A.D. and msmcleod it should be good enough for me

Thanks guys I'll check this out. I actually prefer a kontakt instrument but I'll take whatever is best.

Thanks, but doesn't look like they're baritone though.

Just saying, listening to Morphine way back when and still is what got me into baritone sax for dark rock. Remember Morphine?

So I scored a nice upright bass library and now (for a while now actually) I'm looking to get a baritone sax vst. I've checked out audio samples of a few; the Sample Modeling Sax Brothers (which looks discontinued), Fable Sounds Broadway Gig (says it's out of stock but how can that be since it's a download, so it may be discontinued too) and the Vienna Baritone Saxophone library. I'm probably looking at the Vienna anyway and I've already got a key. There's a few other baritone sax libraries out there, but several of them sounded like accordions lol. I've been using the baritone sax that comes with Kontact but I can probably do better. Anyone use this virtual instrument?

To me, these days, it's not real unless it's on YouTube and he's got himself in split screen playing all the instruments, producing and mixing it too. Then it's real.

Hmm well actually I'm a doom metal guitar player so maybe I'll grab an amp there for $7. Funny you're a vst hoarder, I'm the complete opposite lol I like to limit what I have as I tend to suffer from option paralysis otherwise. Like, when I had the Arturia KeyLab Mkii 61 for a second before getting rid of it, I wasn't even gonna look at the V Lab library or whatever it's called that it comes with, with its 6,500 presets lol I didn't want all that. And vintage synths are my thing too, but I've already got a bunch of the Synth Magic stuff and I'm good. I'm the type of OCD that will go through every single preset in a synth vst and store the ones I like in a folder and never go back to the Library itself except through the presets I stored (have around 600 categorized from all my synth vsts and I'm limiting myself to those), and there was no way in hell I was gonna go through 6,500 presets lol. But that's cool though because if I'm ever interested in something I can probably just ask you about it because you probably have it.

I scored it yesterday, played with it a bit last night, tuned it down to Eb and nudged mapping over to appropriate keys. Gonna pump it through amp sims and distortion. It's pretty dope for $35 if you don't already have a good upright library.

Sorry guess I missed it. What do you recommend from there, what you like?

Is their stuff good?

Thanks man. I almost bought Orange Tree today, but ended up getting Straight Ahead Bass today as I was liking those sounds more and it's currently on sale for $35.10, usually $89.99 so a heck of a deal if anyone else wants that.

I'm looking for a good upright bass sample library for dark jazz/rock soundtrack type stuff like David Lynch's "Lost Highway" etc. for Kontakt preferably, but standalone vst would be fine. Something very realistic for darker doomy jazz stuff that can be a little aggressive if I need it. I'm checking out library's from Ample Bass (read it's kind of "polite" sounding so I don't know), Orange Tree, Best Service and Vienna (I have a key) and I'm wondering what you guys are using and would recommend for something like this and in general. Thanks!