Archive for January 2016 - Page 4

The No Treble Crew is in Anaheim, California to cover all the bass-related news from the 2016 Winter NAMM Show. Be sure to check in throughout the show and in the days following for the most complete coverage from the world of bass.

Bassist Olivier Babaz sent us this video of himself taking an arco solo over the gypsy jazz standard “Minor Swing”, and I had to watch a few times. Besides playing some great ideas, he gets a huge tone that will make your ears happy.

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels’ latest album on Blue Note Records, I Long to See You, features not only the jazz group’s longtime bassist, Reuben Rogers, but also some special guest vocalists. Norah Jones is the featured vocalist on “You Are So Beautiful,” while Willie Nelson steps in for “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.” While the album features...

Q: I have recently made the move from 4-string to 5-string bass. I love the extended range (my bass is tuned E-C), but I’m finding I need to add more practice time to accommodate the additional string. There were exercises that I played on 4 strings and I am now expanding that to include the additional string/range. I can see...

I’ve been getting pumped up for the Guns N’ Roses reunion this year by checking out older performances, and this one caught me. Shot in Tokyo in 1992, the video starts with Duff McKagan riffing for Axl Rose to intro the band with “Sail Away Sweet Sister” and “Bad Time” before kicking into “Sweet Child O’ Mine”. The song, of...

There’s been a great wave of instrumental/jazz-rock bands as of late, and Vels Trio is one of them. Anchored by bassist Cameron Dawson, the group explores genre bending grooves and textures. Here’s a great clip of the trio performing “Yellow Ochre,” which has Dawson alternating between a bubbling, filtered bass line and a straight groove.

British rockers Skunk Anansie have released their sixth studio album, Anarchytecture. The band features founding member Richard “Cass” Lewis on bass, and its camp is calling the record “a collection of hard-hitting alternative rock anthems, brimming with punchy riffs and the sort of fire that can only burn from the heart and soul of vocal powerhouse, Skin.” This is the...

Meet Dmitry Lisenko, a bassist and teacher who seemed to have some outside forces working against him in his early days. Despite that, he went for it and is now making his living in music. Dmitry is this week’s reader in the spotlight. Here’s his story… Bio: I started playing bass at the age of 16. When I went to...

GoGo Tuners has announced the Horizon Pedal Tuner, a new chromatic pedal tuner with a large horizontal screen. Its pitch detection range stretches from A0 (27.5Hz) to C8 (4186.00Hz) with +/- .5-cent accuracy. Other features include true bypass and the ability to daisy chain power for other pedals. “The new Horizon tuning pedal captures the ‘bigger is better’ philosophy with...

Carol Kaye is a living legend of the bass who played on countless recordings with memorable bass lines. One of those is “Good Vibrations”, and we’re lucky enough to have found this clip of Kaye and Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson playing through the tune as a duet. While the bass could be louder in this recording, it’s easy to...

Transcriptionist Aidan Hampson has returned with a new set of transcription books: 70’s Funk, Essential Cover Band Songs Vol. 2, and poignantly, with the the Jan. 10 death of David Bowie, Best of Bowie. He has also released his transcriptions from Michael Jackson’s 1979 album, Off the Wall. The books, available as PDF downloads, are feature bass transcriptions of great...

With a name like Evilectric, you might guess that the company makes some gnarly looking basses. You’d be right. Evilectric builds full 41 3/4-inch scale electric upright basses with custom designs. Only three have been made so far, and this week we’re checking out the Skull bass. The body is a skull and cross bones with the bridge sitting right...