Archive for 2016 - Page 47

Radial Engineering has announced the BigShot EFX, a true-bypass dual effects loop. The device lets you set up two separate effects loops to have two distinct and selectable pedal chains. This also helps to reduce tone-robbing and noisy by-products of certain non-true bypass pedals. Both loops are in series, allowing you to feed loop-A into loop-B for more creative options....

I remember the day that I got my first bass. Months of daydreaming culminated in a trip to Medley Music, a local music store just outside of Philadelphia. I knew that place well. It was a few blocks down the street from an ice cream parlor, a movie theater, restaurants, and various businesses. A frequent Friday afternoon destination, there were...

Vulfpeck has released another video of a track from their debut full-length album – and it is one of our favorites. Joe Dart really lays it down on this one. If you dig this, you should check out our bass transcription for the tune, by Alasdair McLachlan.

Clockwork, jazz pianist Victor Gould’s debut as a bandleader has arrived. The album features Ben Williams (Pat Metheny’s Unity Band) on bass, and even features an homage to bass great/composer Ron Carter, called “Sir Carter.” The record includes sextet arrangements and pieces augmented by strings. “I didn’t want to be locked in with instrumentation,” Gould says. “I’ve come to believe...

Bergantino Audio Systems has announced the HG310 “Holo-Graphic” loudspeaker. The forward-thinking cabinet, which features three ten-inch neodymium magnet woofers and a tweeter, is designed to create a 360-degree sonic experience. “Three woofers are mated to a lightweight sealed cabinet with 2 facing forward and a third facing rearward,” the company writes. “This speaker orientation generates a 3-dimensional soundstage that makes...

Miroslav Vitous. A legendary musician. A true innovator of the bass. Those are facts. Vitous attended the Prague Conservatory (where he played with Jan Hammer long before either of them were stars), which led him to Berklee College of Music. In the mid sixties Miroslav moved to New York, and found himself in the middle of one of the most...

As in most of the world, politics in the UK have taken some strange twists and turns this year and it deeply affected bassist Steve Lawson. Today we’re sharing a first look at his upcoming album, The Surrender of Time that expresses his feelings on the situation. “The next chapter in my instrumental exploration of what’s going on in the...

After Elvis Costello wraps up solo U.S. tour dates this fall, he’ll join with his band, The Imposters for East Coast/Midwest dates on the Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers Tour. The tour’s name, of course, references Costello’s 1982 album Imperial Bedroom and the tour will feature selections from that record, as well as ”the songs that led in and out...

Q-Tuner has announced a small-scale production of transparent versions of their neodymium q2.0 bass pickups. Each unit will be one of a kind and made to order. As such, the pickups can be fine-tuned in terms of output, dynamic response and frequency range, the company says. The new models, which will be available later this year, will act as a...

Q: I would like to ask you about improvising bass lines. Could it be unconscious? I recognized that when I play walking bass, I’m always think about how to reach the next chord. I sometimes have great ideas that I hear in my mind’s ear, but most of the time it’s a really conscious procedure. It’s really interesting because during...

Matteo Vallicella sent us this video of a project he’s working on with Italian singer Carlomaria. “I playied a ’66 P-bass with flats,” Matteo shared. “The efx [includes] a Wonderlove, a Doom by 3 Leaf Audio and an Oc2. Also a Ditto x4 by TC Electronics for a reverse effect of a pre-recorded slide at 1:58.” He had us at...

Music from a couple of storied and previously unheard recording sessions, which signaled a legendary melding of jazz and rock, is finally seeing the light of day. Those sessions were produced by jazz legend Miles Davis and Teo Macero on May 14 and May 20, 1969, and featured Davis’ then-wife, Betty (the pair split by the early 1970s) on vocals,...