Archive for December 2016 - Page 9

I love it when luthiers think outside the box with the woods they use for their instruments. A recent trend has been to recycle old skateboards to create instant mojo, and Brazilian bass builder Antonio Cesar Scopel nailed it with his P-Board bass. Inspired by the Fender Precisions from 1951 to 1957, the P-Board’s body is made entirely from used...

Pentatonics using hammer-ons and pull-offs sounds great, but maybe you have noticed that if you stay within the same pentatonic pattern, you can only hammer on certain notes. In an effort to go beyond that, we are stringing two pentatonic patterns together so that we can pull off pull offs from every single note. I’ll show you two major pentatonic...

We love seeing bass playing buskers, and this video is a good example of why. America Paz and Eduardo Sitja took to the streets of Santiago, Chile to play some bass and melt some faces. The duo trades slap lines back and forth, building on each other’s ideas for a fun jam session.

Ten years after their last release, Emma Electronic has unveiled the ON-1 Okto-Nøjs. The octave/fuzz pedal features an all-analog circuit that works well on both bass and guitar. It has separate footswitches for the octave and fuzz effects for flexibility. Controls include Dry, Okto, and Tone for the octave section with Gain, Tone, Color, and Nøjs for the fuzz. Level...

Time to close out another week with a celebration of the best of the best from the world of bass. Here are the top 10 most read stories and most watched videos on No Treble. Thanks for reading, watching, commenting and sharing! 1. Sadowsky Unveils Vintage Style Single Cut Bass Roger Sadowsky and crew have introduced a vintage version of...

Ernie Ball Music Man has unveiled their 2017 Spring Collection, including a 30th Anniversary StingRay5 model. The 5-string version of their flagship bass was first introduced in 1986 and the company is celebrating gorgeous limited edition version. The bass is built with an ash body covered in a transparent buttercream finish that’s accented with a red tortoise shell pickguard. The...

Federico Malaman messaged me the other day about a new project he’s involved in. The idea was to take “five musicians from four different countries and make music together without ever being in the same room!” This tune was composed and arranged by keyboardist Eden Rabin (Israel) and features guitarist Tony Martinez (Spain), saxophonist Shlomi Cohen (USA), drummer Eran Asias...

The Rolling Stones are back with their 25th studio album, entitled Blue & Lonesome. Produced by bassist and Blue Note Records president Don Was, the album is the iconic rock band’s first full-length album to feature only cover songs. Blue & Lonesome is described as a tip of the hat to their early years as a blues band when they...

We covered lots of new bass gear in November. Here are the top 10 reader favorites for the month. Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing. 1. Sadowsky 3-Knob Onboard Bass Preamp Sadowsky has released a the 3-knob Onboard bass preamp, which is their first to be available as a prewired drop-in for J style basses without a side jack. No...

Bassist Chika Obiora sent us this video of her band Signals of Bedlam. “We play heavy progressive rock a la Tool or Mars Volta. We’ve got heavier stuff, more atmospheric trippy stuff, and songs that are a little of both,” Chika shared. This is their song, “Mass Appeal,” which appears on their album, Escaping Velocity. We’re going to be on...

25 years after they called it quits, jazz/rock fusion pioneers UZEB will be hitting the road a reunion tour. The trio of bassist Alain Caron, guitarist Michel Cusson, and drummer Paul Brochu last performed at a farewell concert at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1992 to a crowd of 96,000 people. “A few months ago, guitarist Michel Cusson, bassist Alain...

Anyone who has played a concert can tell you that EQ’ing is an important skill. If you’re looking to hone your ear to perfect that skill, you may want to check out a new app called hearEQ. The ear training app helps musicians and sound engineers with custom EQ training exercises that your tracks from your own device. “These exercises...