Archive for September 2018 - Page 8

Ashdown has just introduced the Tone Pocket, a compact headphone preamp designed for practice, home studio, and stage applications. It allows for plugging in your bass for access to a 3-band EQ plus a line input for connecting a smartphone and, of course, a headphone output. “The well-equipped rear panel of the Tone Pocket features a USB recording output for...

We’re continuing our exercise series this week with a lesson on modal arpeggio patterns. Learning modes, scales, and patterns help to open the fretboard up in your mind. You learn the connections, intervals, and relationships of the notes. Some of this sounds more complicated than it is. Hang in there and we will work it all out.

Stuart Clayton completed his impressive one-year run of his “Bass Lick of the Week” series this week. In this episode, Stuart incorporates slap and pop along with strummed chords. As always, Stuart is offering up the backing track and a PDF worksheet containing the notation/TAB and instructions on how to play the line on his Bassline Publishing website. Well done,...

Folk/Americana group The Devil Makes Three has released Chains Are Broken, which marks their sixth studio album and first of all original material since 2013. The trio also stuck to its core members – Pete Bernhard, Lucia Turino, and Cooper McBean – with only one guest on the album. Their touring drummer Stefan Amidon adds some extra support to their...

Meet Mark Hopkins, who started out on guitar in 1978. In 2012, he saw the light, switched to bass, and wondered what he’d been doing all those years. He’s collected quite a bit of gear since then! Mark is this week’s No Treble reader in the spotlight. Here’s his story… Bio: Born in 1963 in Spokane, WA, Mark Hopkins moved...

As jazz bassists, we know this scenario all too well: after taking their solos, the players in the front line head offstage, only to chat it up with each other until it’s time come back to trade or play the head out. Meanwhile, we’ve been playing non-stop since the downbeat. Frustrating right? Do they realize how much we’ve been playing...

Scott Varney sent us his latest, and it has a cool background story: “This is actually the first song I ever wrote that was not an instrumental,” Scott shared. “Before this song, I was the bass player who played instrumentals and was always in a band looking for a lead singer. I wasn’t even that comfortable singing back up vocals....

Four decades after its initial release, the historic Bob Marley and the Wailers album Kaya is new once again with a 40th Anniversary edition. The album features some of the band’s most recognizable songs including “Is This Love”, “Satisfy My Soul”, and “Easy Skanking”. The Wailers lineup was of course anchored by the mighty Aston “Family Man” Barrett, who contributed...

This week we’re checking out the Waja Bass Soma NT five-string, which features a striking body shape in an equally striking high gloss blue finish. The neck-through bass is crafted from a three-piece swamp ash body topped with flamed maple and a seven-piece birdseye maple and bubinga neck. Its fingerboard is ebony. Waja fits the bass with a pair of...

In this new bass lick lesson, we’re going to combine harmonics and double stops with a Mixolydian scale fill. First, I’ll play it at full tempo, then around the 1-minute mark, I cover it slowly for you to follow along. Be sure to grab the backing drum track for playing along at full speed.

Here’s a fantastic video of Victor Wooten visiting the Relix Studios back in November 2017. The video description says it all: “Bass master and Flecktone Victor Wooten recently swung by to warm up his fingers, sing, slap and treat the office to some fine, unfettered improvisation from true luminary. Here we present his full Relix session, a musical tapestry that...

Alice in Chains have released their sixth studio album, entitled Rainier Fog. The new record is a bit of a tribute to their hometown of Seattle as the name refers to nearby Mount Rainier. They also returned to Studio X, formerly Bad Animals Studios, where they recorded their 1995 self-titled album. Bassist Mike Inez told United Rock Nations that it’s...