The Bass Geek

While walking the dog you see in this very post a couple of evenings ago, I noticed a large group of folks gathered on the sidewalk, looking rather disconcerted. One of the ladies in the group approached me and filled me in on what was going on - there was a missing puppy. The little thing had evidently gotten scared and bolted, leaving this group to wander around searching for her. She told me the name and asked if I’d look around for her.

While I did extend the walk a bit to aid the search, I just couldn’t bring myself to call out for the dog. I wanted to help them return their dog home - Sadie herself was a foundling. I just feared the consequences of pacing through the Fountain Square area yelling “SEXY!!!!” that much more.

I hope they’ll understand.

You can download the latest IMN Podcast from this link right here, or you can get it from the Flash player on the main site.

With Expert Podcasting Practices For Dummies on the shelves right now, and since I already brought up podcasts, I thought I’d shed a little light on the dark, troubled way the IMN podcast comes together. In this post, I’ll detail the tools we use and have used in the past, and I’ll look at the actual process next Monday.

In the two years, we’ve tried a variety of methods in hopes of finding one that produced the best quality of audio in the shortest amount of time (co-host Steve Hayes and I have lives to get back to, after all). We’ve tried recording directly to a PC using Sonar Home Studio, recording directly to my Mac laptop using Garageband 4, recording to a hard-drive-based music workstation, and a flash memory recorder. We alternate at this point between recording to my laptop or the flash recorder, depending on which one is easier to grab at the time. Both have proven to be fairly stable solutions, barring user error (yes, that user would be me).

Post-production stuff like editing and file conversion is done on the Mac using Soundtrack Pro and a couple of freeware programs: Switch converts the AIFF file to a 128kbps mp3 file, and Musorg helps me edit the ID3 tag for each file. I used to use iTunes for both purposes, but I didn’t care for the fact that I had to clear out the library each time I edited an episode. From there, I just SFTP the episode and the XML file for our RSS feed to the server, where it lies in wait for unsuspecting listeners.

In a perfect world, I’d have already upgraded to Logic Studio and use the new version of Soundtrack Pro 2 (my current version comes from the Final Cut Pro bundle), but that’s dependent on the budget. And the budget is slowly shaking its head at new carpet and an upcoming trip to New Orleans, so I don’t think I’ll slide this by for awhile.

So that’s the techie side. The planning and scripting part comes next week.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that we’ve used Shure, AKG and Blue Snowball mics. We’ve achieved great results with all three, although getting two Snowballs working at the same time required a little tweating in the Audio/MIDI section of the Mac OS - I had to create an aggregate device out of both mic and route the audio through there.

I’m not sure what to make of this.

I’m not sure at all.

I hate that word.

Anyway, I sat down Tuesday night for a one-hour Internet-based ‘cast of a Victor Wooten bass lesson entitled “Slap Fundamentals and Fundamental Groove Concepts.” The overly-scholarly title may imply more than could be communicated in an hour, but overall it was an enlightening time. He tackled a few examples (supplied previously to the session via downloadable PDF) and illustrated his lessons with some playing and explanations to questions submitted via text chat (I’m assuming voice chat would have been overwhelming, really). It was fascinating in a few ways:

• It was comforting to see Wooten have some technical difficulties with the electronic gear and know it doesn’t just happen to me
• It was live, so we got to see him as he rushed a beat or two, explain what happened, and how he adjusts to it - strategies like this can be just as helpful as showing somebody how to play perfectly
• It got me to break a couple rules - I’ve been used to slapping only the E and A strings and popping only the D and G strings, and his examples forced me out of that to learn another way of playing the written examples

It was also nice to have this kind of experience at home - it’s not the same as working with any artist in person, but it makes information like this accessible in remote places that wouldn’t always get such visits (my house being a prime example). Obviously distance learning is nothing new - this type of video broadcast with a chat option is the set-up they used for classes in my master’s program 5 years ago. I signed up basically to see how Wooten and Bass Player magazine (the folks putting this on) would handle a session like this, and overall I was pleased. My only complaint is that you can’t download the final product, but you do get a series of replays that expires after a certain date. I’ll be interested to see who comes up next on the schedule.

One quote that sticks with me is “Bass isn’t an instrument, it’s a role.” It’s a good concept to remember - it’s not all about the specific bass guitar or upright or keyboard or tuba or whatever. Still, that role has to be there and shouldn’t be ignored - White Stripes, I’m looking at you.

I got my shipment of Expert Podcasting Practices For Dummies yesterday, so it should be on store shelves soon. (I swear, despite the Amazon photo, I’m a co-author on this book. Ask anybody at Wiley. Seriously.) I’ve just looked through it briefly, but it’s looking good to me. I’m calling it “the home game” as kind of a nod to the parting gift game shows in the 70s and 80s (at least those like Family Feud) would distribute to their contestants. Feel free to take the magic home with you.

I’ve also been informed by a friend of mine that Sam Ash is carrying my my bass book, so thanks! She’s evidently been offering to give those who buy it my home phone number so that I can answer any questions. That scamp. Go ahead and e-mail me with any questions, though - ryan AT thebassgeek DOT net. I actually helped somebody who read “Windows XP Digital Music For Dummies” this way, and it was cool to know somebody was actually reading. Otherwise, I just imagine these books going into the ether. That’s kind of sad, really.