Archive for February 2016 - Page 8

Ibanez gave their Artcore line of basses a rustic turn this year with the Artcore Vintage Series. The semi-hollowbody, short-scale basses come in distressed finishes to give the vibe of an old workhorse instrument, right down to the antiqued pickup covers. Each of the models is built with a maple body, which the company says balances out the “boomy” quality...

Maurice Ellis is back with another killer all bass cover tune. The time the bassist brings his touch to “Latch” by Disclosure, featuring Sam Smith. Ellis, who has laid the low end down for artists from Meghan Trainor to Cee Lo Green, utilized his a pair of fretted basses and a fretless to add character and warmth to the arrangement....

Peter Hook and the Light will be returning to North America for an extensive tour this fall. Continuing his series of retrospective performances, Hook and crew will be performing Joy Division’s and New Order’s respective Substance albums. The compilation albums collected all of each band’s singles up until that point. “Widely considered New Order’s strongest album, ‘their most popular, well...

TC Electronic has taken the SpectraComp found in some of their bass amps and put it into a TonePrint-enabled effects pedal. The multi-band compressor is specifically tuned for bass and housed in a mini enclosure to fit on tight pedalboards. Based on their MD3 multi-band dynamics engine, the SpectraComp Bass Compressor features a frequency specific compression algorithm that the company...

I was going through my records this weekend and realized just how many of them feature the tasteful bass lines of Leland Sklar. Of course, that sent me into a Sklar phase on YouTube, which led me to this great version of James Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face” from 1988. His playing on this track is the perfect mix of anchoring...

Ever since its debut in 2012, the Mack Avenue SuperBand has become a staple of the Detroit Jazz Festival. Now the jazz supergroup is taking it on the road in support of their latest release, . Both the album and the tour are anchored by bass master and musical director Christian McBride. His bandmates for the tour include pianist Christian...

Ashdown’s AAA combo amps have evolved. Introduced at the Winter NAMM show, the AAA EVO collection includes four combo amps as well as a 1×15″ cabinet. Each of the combos comes with the company’s App Tek socket, allowing bassists to access amp simulators, effects, and other apps from their smartphones. Other common features include a Line In, a headphone jack,...

Earlier today, we reshared Jack Stratton’s visualization video showcasing the genius of James Jamerson on Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her”. No Treble reader Brian Wroten shared this video with us in response – with his playalong on David Ruffin’s “We’ll Have A Good Thing Going On”. The video includes the notation for Jamerson’s bass line, but he’s...

Looking for a little extra help in learning songs you’ve always loved? Hal Leonard Corp. has released its Bass Tab Method – Book Two. The second book helps you learn more notes up the fretboard, scales, and beginner slap bass technique. The book also comes with online audio featuring demos of the riffs/songs covered in the book, which include classics...

Following up on last year’s bass driver, Boss introduced the BC-1X Bass Comp at the 2016 Winter NAMM Show. The pedal is a multi-band compressor optimized for bass that the company says offers a wide range of compression without altering a bass’s fundamental tone. The BC-1X has the familiar compressor controls of Level, Release, Ratio, and Threshold as well as...

Jeff Berlin had a moment that he describes as “the dark night of the soul” at the age of sixty. Now, he’s 63 and he’s reflecting. He’s reflecting on his career as one of the most influential electric bass players who has ever lived, and he’s being critical of just how critical he has been about the state of the...

Bassist Alberto Rigoni is gearing up a new album called Bassorama for an April release, and to hype it up he’s published this video of the track “FutureFunk” featuring Remco Hendriks. The duo blends their own styles and don some creepy masks to really get into it. Bassorama will be released April 15th.