Your Most Specific/Niche Interest

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What do you think of Friar Park, George Harrison's place?

http://www.contrabass.com/

Yeah, Friar Park is a doozy. I know less about it because it's been privately owned and inaccessible for so long. There's a few photos online but it's hard to get a sense of the place.

There was a sort of mania for follies and grottoes in the grounds of stately homes at this time, everyone was trying to outdo each other. It's thought that Sir Frank Crisp (who built Friar Park) was a big inspiration for Whitaker Wright when he was building Lea Park, both of them built follies inspired by the Blue Grotto at Capri. But Crisp was about 10 years ahead of Wright, chronologically. It's unthinkable that they didn't know each other.

I have an old book which has a good description of the grottos at Friar Park, this was before George bought it. It sounds incredible.

I like the thought of George hanging out there with the gnomes. I think his family still own it and live there but hopefully it'll go to the National Trust at some point and people will be allowed to go and see it.

"Double Reed Web Ring", "Copyright 1995-2005".

OMG. This is amazing!! Thank you for the blast from the past!

One of my current obsessions is musical scales and modes. When no-one else is around at work, I'll often sing my way through a set of 28 modal jazz scales, ranging from "Major" to "Diminished 3rd and 7th Locrian." There's also the Melakarta Ragas of South Indian music, a beautifully organised set of 72 unique 7-note scales.

do you have any contrabass instruments that you like?

I like bass guitar tuned one octave down, but it gets lost in the mix so it's hard to make effective use of.

one way you could get around that problem is with parametric EQ, you would pick a band [on the sub-bass track you described] centered between 200-1000 cycles [you will have to do this by ear until it sounds right], approx. Q=.5 or about 2.5 octaves bandwidth, boost it somewhere between 6-12 db [again, by ear]. that will have the effect of making your super low notes more audible. now if the bandwidth of the super low notes is too narrow, you will have to fatten or double it [mix in an octave or two octaves higher] before you do the EQ bit, that step may in fact save you from having to do that kind of parametric EQ on that track. mebbe you could make your keyboard synth do that part of it?

I'm pretty familiar with how to get clarity in the low end when mixing, the problem is that a standard tuned bass has a low note of 41Hz, so down an octave that's ~21 Hz. Unless you're listening on a good system or with decent headphones the fundamental just isn't able to be reproduced.

Yes, in theory I can try to boost harmonics of the fundamental, but it makes more sense (to me) to just play the bass lines an octave higher. Why waste time polishing a turd when I can just record another take that will work better in the mix without requiring any polishing?

Sometimes I can accept that an idea that sounded good in theory doesn't work very well in practice. Too much going on in the sub-bass region doesn't really work well with heavy music. I feel like if it did we'd see metal bass players getting as crazy with downtuning as guitar players have gotten. I feel like the fact that hasn't happened suggests it's a physics problem, not a me problem.

^^^if you persisted in mixing in the sub-bass notes for bassaholics like me to enjoy, we'd be appreciative

Hm... Quite a few actually. I got to play the contrabassoon for a semester (imagine that, if you will. LOL). My favorite is probably the contrabass clarinet, though. I'm a huge fan of low clarinets. I bought a bass clarinet years ago and it is so fun to play. I've never played a contrabass clarinet before, but I can imagine it's even better! I know theoretically there are even lower clarinets.

If a contrabass oboe is ever made in the modern era, I think I'd enjoy that, too. Since I started on bassoon before oboe, I first thought that the bass oboe was "redundant" when we have bassoon, I couldn't be more wrong! I love them both!

^^^ did the contrabassoon take a lungful of air? i played the contralto clarinet [a sort of contrabass-lite] in Eb, it took relatively little air to get as loud as it could get. it was hard to make it squawk even with V2 reeds.

What about the "tromboon"?

A cross between the bassoon and the trombone ..that enables you to slide from one low note of the bassoon to another without sacrificing any of the ...obnoxious tonal quality of each note!

a sub-contrabass recorder. the great-great-great grandaddy of the little tonettes we useta play in elementary school music class. if you make 6+ figures, you too can have one.

@auntblabby I wish I could tell you. It's been over a decade since I played it. The biggest thing I remember is that the contrabassoon I played on was a larger than standard model and boy... it was so clunky. And I had to carry it up stairs to get to orchestra rehearsals. D: lol

@naturalplastic You know, I've heard of this for years. I own both a bassoon and a trombone, so... I think it's quite shocking I've never tried it!

Speaking of subcontrabass instruments, lets talk about the subcontrabassoon! I was actually there in person to see this presentation! It was so cool! And Richard (the inventor) is a major woodwind nerd as could probably be expected. I feel privileged to have got to meet him!

^^^put some real keywork on that monster and you'll have a new king of instruments.