Buzz
Oteil Burbridge to Join Grateful Dead Alumni Band “Dead and Company”
Hundreds of thousands of people witnessed The Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” concert series, marking the final time the “core four” surviving band members would perform together under the band’s moniker. A month later, three of the four band members – Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart – have announced a concert on Halloween night at Madison Square Garden...
Universal Audio Introduces Ampeg SVT-VR and SVT-3 Pro Plug-Ins
Recording bassists have some new amp modeling software options with Universal Audio’s new Ampeg Bass Amp plug-ins. The two new plug-ins focus on the SVT sound with an SVT-VR model and an SVT-3 Pro model, both of which are included in UAD Software v8.3 and are made exclusively for UAD-2 hardware and Apollo interfaces. Each of the amp simulating plug-ins...
Getting “Unstuck” from the Blues Scale
Q: How do I get myself unstuck from using the blues scale? Whenever I solo in fingerstyle or slap, I can’t help but to be stuck on the blues scale. I want to move on from it. Also, when I’m doing slap, I stick to octaves, but I want to be able to do different intervals and move around a...
Herbie Hancock with Tal Wilkenfeld: Actual Proof
Herbie Hancock has never been short on great bassists to play with over his career. Here’s a killer clip of his band being anchored by Tal Wilkenfeld on “Actual Proof” during the 2010 Montreux Jazz Festival. Wilkenfeld brings tons of energy to the performance and follows each soloist to support their ideas. She then takes a thoughtful solo of her...
Reader Spotlight: Esat Ekincioglu
Meet Esat Ekincioglu, a bassist who has what I think might be performing with the longest list of bands I’ve seen here. He’s equally versatile too. Esat is this week’s No Treble reader in the spotlight, and here’s his story. Bio: I was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1990 and picked up the bass guitar when I was 12-13. I...
Top 10: The Most Watched Bass Videos (July 2015)
Clear your calendar for the rest of the day, because it is time to celebrate (watch) the top 10 most watched videos on No Treble in July. Thanks for watching, commenting and sharing. Enjoy! 1. Primus: Lee Van Cleef Just about all of Les Claypool‘s bass lines are catchy and fun to play, but “Lee Van Cleef” is one of...
Mike Poggione: Bass Playthrough of Doomsilla’s “Redlight Executioner”
Mike Poggione is back with another death metal playthrough. This time the bassist tears through his band Doomsilla’s “Redlight Executioner” on his 7-string bass with lighting fast riffs and a biting tone. Warning: death metal vocals ahead.
Vinyl Set Focuses on The Replacements’ Early Years
If you love the sound of the early days of The Replacements and feel like a vinyl record is the only way to hear the legendarily unruly rock group, a new four-album set has your name written on it: The Twin/Tone Years. The set includes the band’s first four records: Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (1981), the...
Bass of the Week: Fodera Flame Koa Monarch 4 Elite “#4000”
It’s always good to look back at your work when you hit a milestone, but Fodera does it with style. They recently completed a special Flame Koa Monarch 4 Elite that they’ve dubbed Fodera #4,000, and it’s a beauty. “Our Monarch design was our very first bass design and the second instrument that we ever built was a Monarch Bass...
Thumb Position Below the Half Point of the String on Double Bass
Although I sometimes use a 1-2-3-4 fingering technique below the half point of the string (12th fret, if we had frets), I often find a thumb position fingering to be more efficient, easier on the hand and, most importantly, more accurate. Of course, many bass players first learn thumb position starting at the half point of the string (G harmonic...
Andrés Rotmistrovsky and Miki Santamaria: Human Nature
Andrés Rotmistrovsky and Miki Santamaria are two of our favorite bassists to feature here. So it was super exciting to see a video of the two of them playing together. The setting is the Lorita Basses workshop in Barcelona, Spain, where Andrés and Miki were trying out their signature basses. The tune is Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” (Andrés performed a...
Eclectic Bassist Bill Laswell Releases Two Distinct Digital Albums at Once
Experimental/avant-garde bassist, producer, and composer Bill Laswell has released back-to-back albums as part of his M.O.D. Technologies’ Incunabula Digital Series. One album, On Brion Gysin, features the spoken word work of the late poet, photographer and filmmaker Ira Cohen, incorporated into Laswell’s music, in tribute to the work of the late artist and writer Gysin, who pioneered the cut-up writing...