Archive for May 2011 - Page 8

Bryan Beller is a difficult bassist to classify. A quick check of the list of projects finds him spanning all sorts of genres, all sorts of gigs, and a healthy travel itinerary. Perhaps best known now for his work on Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse show as the bassist for Dethklok, Bryan has a strong foot in rock, jazz (or as Bryan...

Last time we featured Nathan Navarro, it caused quite a stir (in a good way). Here, Nathan shows off his skills and creativity with a tune he wrote, aptly named “Electronica Bass”.

Finland-based Darkglass Electronics, a company focused on bass effects and boasts handmade pedals, is the brainchild of Chilean-born Douglas Castro. Castro started the venture to create effects and tones that he heard in his head but couldn’t get with other pedals. The company’s flagship is their Microtubes B3K Bass Overdrive, a compact pedal featuring hybrid JFET and CMOS gain stages....

Q: I have a question regarding power amps and cabinets. There are so many choices out there, and even more when you consider every amp available online (but probably won’t see in a store). How do you go about choosing an amp without just throwing a dart at the board and taking a huge financial chance? A: Unfortunately, there is...

Bassist Danny Fox sent us a few of his videos, each showcasing his musicianship (and cool Zon Hyperbass). This one, “The Meaning of Times Passing” caught our ear especially. Danny writes, “[These songs] are self-composed solo bass tracks and are played on my Zon Hyperbass. I was very honoured to have Michael Manring say that he liked them. [This] one...

Nikki Sixx and his band Sixx: A.M. have just released This Is Gonna Hurt, the album that accompanies his latest book of the same title. The release is a follow-up to 2007’s Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, which peaked at 62 on the Billboard 100. Joined by the Motley Crue bassist, Sixx: A.M. is rounded out by James Michael and DJ Ashba....

Meet Mina Burnside, a 14 year old bassist from Nashville, TN and our player in the spotlight for May 3, 2011. We first featured Mina and her impressive take on Jaco Pastorius’s “Portrait of Tracy” a couple of months ago. Bio: I picked up my first bass on June 16, 2007, and performed in the Freedom Middle School Jazz Band...

Esperanza Spalding is scheduled to open Prince’s tour on Friday, May 6 and Saturday, May 7, as part of Prince’s residency-style “Welcome 2 America” tour. The tour is a 21-date event in Los Angeles that began on April 14th at the Forum. Spalding has recruited keyboardist Raymond Angry, saxophonist Joe Lovano, guitarist Jef Lee Johnson and drummer Terri Lynne Carrington...

Andres Rotmistrovsky adapted a tune entitled “She’s Mine” by Fito Paez for solo bass. The performance is just stellar, and dig the tone!

Michael Manring has just announced a new CD release, featuring improvised music recorded in 1999. The release, Pattern Time, features band leader Lukas Ligeti and the band he put together, including Benoit Delbecq, Gianni Gebbia, Aly Keita and Manring. Ligeti, invited by the Vienna Musik-Galerie festival in Austria, put together the quintet and provided “compositional input”, with musical ideas, shapes...

Level 42, led by bassist/vocalist Mark King, has released a new DVD from their 30th Anniversary Tour last year. The performance is taken from their October 22, 2010 gig at the Indigo2 in London and features the full 2010 set with songs ranging their history. The band officially formed in 1980 but had a 7-year split starting in 1994. King,...

iTablaPro is an electronic Tabla and Tanpura , which supports all of the common taals used in Hindustani music. It is meant as a study tool or accompaniment for practicing. I’ve found it a wonderful means to practice harmonic concepts against a drone, rhythmic concepts on my bass by interacting with or mimicking the table and also as a great...