Archive for February 2014 - Page 4

Meet Zach Suter a musician with a very touching story on what music means to him. Early in his musical journey, Zach played cello before turning to the “cool” instrument – the bass. Zach is the No Treble reader in the spotlight for the week of February 17, 2014. Bio: I have been playing music since I was seven, first...

Zon is going old school with their new Mosaic Mojo model. The new bass carries a classic style and are fitted with a set of Aguilar 60 series pickups to get a vintage sound. The Mosaic Mojo is built with a three-piece maple neck with either a maple or rosewood fingerboard. Zon offers the bass with either ash or alder...

Zander Zon impresses as always with a performance of his tune, “Kinetic”, from his album, Saturn Return. As Zander explained in our Track by Track feature on the album, “The ideas behind this piece were energy, motion and dynamics, hence the title. I’m using [a] thumb percussive technique … as well as tapping and fingerstyle.” While we love the composition...

Fans of The Allman Brothers Band’s 1990’s lineup can travel in the wayback machine and experience some of its famed concerts. documents the band’s first long run at the theatre. It, and DVD release , shows off the band after it reconstituted itself for its 1989 20th anniversary with new players, including bassist Allen Woody. (Woody left the band in...

Carvin unveiled the Xccelerator Series of basses at NAMM this year with its introductory model, the X54 5-string bass. The X54 sports several new features for the company including a fast-playing, thinner maple neck that’s reinforced with graphite. Its body also has a new shape with deeply sculpted cutaways for better access to the higher registers. The bass is built...

Here’s a quick lesson about a little trick for manually fading a note without using a volume control. It really is all in the fingers, and I bet it’ll come in handy.

In 1992, the Pat Metheny Trio took the stage at the Brecon Jazz Festival, performing Milton Nascimento’s “Vera Cruz”, among other tunes. Bassist Dave Holland and drummer Roy Haynes make the trio really cook. Check out Dave’s solo around the 1:00 mark. Oh yeah.

I love it when a top 10 list has another top 10 list in it. So much bass goodness. Last week, No Treble readers enjoyed more gear news from the NAMM Show (we’re still working on stories from the show!), as well as some great videos, Damian Erskine’s lastest “Ask” column, our interview with Snark Puppy’s Michael League and more....

Spector was showing lots of new instruments at the NAMM show this year, including the NS-2000/5 Dan Briggs Signature bass. It’s modeled after the same NS-2000/5 that Briggs has owned and played since he was 16. The bass features neck-through construction with a 3-piece rock maple neck, a rosewood fingerboard, maple body wings, and a quilt maple top. The body’s...

One of the great hangouts during the annual NAMM show is the Bass Bash held at JT Schmid’s in Anaheim. This year was no exception as players ranging from the great Uriah Duffy to Ethan Farmer to Snarky Puppy all laid it down to a crowd of bass fanatics. Here’s one of our favorite videos taken from the two night...

Bassist Carlo Chirio has released a new instructional eBook called Double Thumb Technique for Electric Bass. The technique, popularized by Victor Wooten, makes use of the thumb almost like a plectrum by striking down and up. Chirio’s book uses short patterns to get readers comfortable with the technique and groove before building on it. “I think that the choice of...

Following up on the introduction of the NS Radius Bass Guitar last year, NS Design has announced the CR4 Radius bass. The newest addition to the line is a 4-string version of the Czech Republic-made headless model. Similar to the CR5 Radius, the CR4 features bolt-on construction with the company’s Fusion one-piece maple neck, which features an embedded continuous carbon...