Archive for July 2012 - Page 7

Berklee bass professor Anthony Vitti has released his latest method book, this time focusing on funk bass. Funk Bass Fills offers up bass fills spanning funk, soul, R&B and hip-hop styles, playing fills in different positions and keys, funk rhythms and rhythmic patterns and more. The 72-page book comes with a companion play-along CD, including the recorded bass lines –...

Nordstand Pickups has expanded their NP4 line with the NP4V, a P-style pickup designed to deliver old school tone. The new pickup is “made to exacting early 60’s specs”, including its vintage correct size traditional Alnico V magnets. The NP4V acts as a direct replacement and fits into nearly all P-style basses. Its split coil hum-canceling configuration offers noise-free operation,...

Polish luthier Piotr Zakrzewski has some pretty great bass designs, including his Exclusive model. The mid-range of his three basic basses, the Exclusive is a double-cut bass with the lower horn being significantly deeper to provide easy access to the very end of the fingerboard. The Exclusive EX1 01 really caught my eye with its faux f-hole, which provides more...

Our Facebook friend Guy Dayan shared this video with us, and we are happy to pay it forward (we’re huge Adam Ben Ezra fans here.) This is Adam’s latest video, featuring his original composition, “Can’t Stop Running”. Adam says, “One take, no loops or layers.” Amazing. The track is available for purchase via Adam’s BandCamp page: Can’t Stop Running by...

New Wave band Tom Tom Club has announced Downtown Rockers, their first new release in 12 years. Available digitally on September 4th with a vinyl edition coming September 11th, the EP will pay homage to now defunct nightclub CBGB, where the musicians got their start. “It was our incubator,” bassist/vocalist Tina Weymouth told Rolling Stone. “It was very intimidating to...

With Summer NAMM just around the corner, TC Electronic has unveiled their most compact bass amplifier to date: the BH250. Weighing in at just four pounds, the Class D amplifier boasts 250-watts while packing in the company’s intelligently contoured tone controls and TonePrint among other features. The BH250’s tone controls are tailored specifically for bass. Instead of single frequency bands...

Q: Can you give me some exercises to play with a triplet feel? I’d also love a comparision of how the division is different from a binary feel. A: Simply put: A triplet is kind of like shifting the time where you can fit three notes in the space of two: A half-note triplet is when you fit three half...

Wojtek Pilichowski is a bassist that blows me away every time I watch him. Tony Oppenheim sent in this video of the bassist performing the song “Bass Dance” with his group Pi Electro Step at the Thanks Jimi Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. (And we’re now eternally grateful. Thanks Tony!) Once Pilichowski busts out his solo at the three minute mark,...

After 40 years at the helm, Rich Appleman retired as Chair of the Berklee College of Music’s Bass Department in May of this year. During his tenure, Appleman helped shape the face of the school by growing the bass department by leaps and bounds. Succeeding Appleman this fall will be bassist Steve Bailey, who brings his own incredible credentials to...

Meet Heyko Gülicher, a bassist from Germany who takes on the big task of anchoring a Jamiroquai tribute band dubbed Jamirolike. He says he fell in love with the bass “from the first time [he] played Peter Gunn on an E string”. Heyko is our player in the spotlight for the week of July 10, 2012. Bio: I’ve been brought...

Is there anything better than an awesome bass video? How about ten awesome bass videos? Here are the most watched videos on No Treble last month. Enjoy. 1. Billie Jean’s All Stars, Featuring Marcus Miller What do you get when you have five jazz masters improvise to an a cappella version of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”? An Italian radio show...

I’ve been listening to Vulfpeck’s EP, Mit Peck a lot lately. The band – which is the Vulfrecords Records’ house rhythm section – is so funky, thanks in large part to bassist Joe Dart who just lives in the pocket. But the whole group just grooves, with drummer Jack Stratton, keyboardist Woody Goss and guitarist Theo Katzman. This tune, “Prom”,...