Buzz

Craig Akin: “Do it!” Funky Upright Bass

Craig Akin sent us this epic video of a tune he wrote for solo upright bass. The tune, “Do it!” was featured on Abbie Gardner’s album, Hope in 2011. Craig said he’s performing this tune on his 19th century Tyrolean bass with spirocore strings. Oh yeah.

Darryl Jones Joins Dead Daisies for Tour

Rock supergroup The Dead Daisies has announced that Darryl Jones will be joining their ranks for an upcoming UK tour. The renowned bassist, who also plays for The Rolling Stones, will be filling in for regular bassist Marco Mendoza who will be performing with Thin-Lizzy spinoff The Black Star Riders. The rest of current Dead Daisies lineup includes former INXS...

Moog Introduces Five New Minifooger Effects Pedals

Moog has unveiled the Minifooger family of effects pedals designed for use with bass and electric guitar. The compact stompboxes are housed in cast aluminum enclosures and feature completely analog signal paths, true bypass, optional battery power, and an expression input for adjusting parameters on the fly. Each of the pedals is designed and hand assembled in North Carolina. Moog...

Alejandro Masafret: Bass Improv #2

Alejandro Masafret sent me this video of him performing what he calls “fragments of several improvisations” on bass. His slap skills are quite impressive, as you’ll see. But then after he lays down some loops, he switches to soloing over top of it all in an equally impressive way. Then he changes it up yet again. And again.

Megadeth Announces Tour Dates and David Ellefson Book Signings

Megadeth has announced the Super Collider Tour in support of their album of the same name released earlier this year. The trek starts on November 23rd at Myth Live in St. Paul, Minnesota, then heads east through Pennsylvania, down to Florida, and across the South. It ends December 19th in Reno, Nevada. David Ellefson will also be making some special...

Weekly Top Ten: The Best in Bass for the Week of October 6th

Here’s the best of the best in the land of the low end… the most viewed stories, how-to’s and videos on No Treble for the week of October 6-12, 2013. Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing! 1. Guitar Bank: Fender Jazz Bass Shootout There’s always been debate about the differences in quality between Fender basses made in different factories. Guitar...

Cody Wright: “Blackbird” Solo Bass Arrangement

“Blackbird” by The Beatles may be one of the most covered songs ever written, but Cody Wright of the Jonathan Scales Fourchestra puts an awesome spin on it with his unique bass arrangement. Switching between tapping, fingerstyle and picking, Wright’s mesmerizing version was captured during his performance at the Asheville Music Hall in Asheville, North Carolina on September 26, 2013....

Randy Brecker Releases “Brecker Brothers Band Reunion” with Will Lee and Chris Minh Doky

The surge of jazz fusion in the ’70s produced some incredible music, especially the work of the virtuosic Brecker Brothers. Led by trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonist Michael Brecker, their self-titled debut blew listeners away with an electric sound that melded genres and spawned the classic track “Some Skunk Funk.” “When the band started back in the day, the original...

Fender Introduces Vintage Hot Rod ’60s Precision and ’70s Jazz Basses

Fender has rolled out two new basses as part of their Vintage Hot Rod series, an American-made lineup that the company describes as incorporating the best of old and new features. The Fender Vintage Hot Rod ’60s Precision Bass and ’70s Jazz Bass riff on classic designs while adding new features like a 7.25″-12″ compound-radius fingerboards, new neck profiles, and...

Miki Santamaria: “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” for Solo Bass

I’ve been super impressed with Miki Santamaria since the first video we shared by him. It goes beyond his bass playing, which is remarkable enough. It is his musicianship that impresses me even more. Here’s Miki performing a solo bass arrangement of “Somewhere Over the Rainbox”, which he says is “One of the prettiest melodies ever!” Now it is one...

Eventide Introduces PowerFactor 2

Eventide and Danish company Cioks have teamed up to release the PowerFactor 2, a power supply that can run up to four Eventide pedals as well as up to four other pedals. It has eight regulated, isolated DC outlets – four rated at 400mA, two rated at 200mA, and two rated at 100mA – all of which are protected from...

Learning New Tunes: Go Beyond the Bass

Let’s face it, we’re not all singers. Some of us opted to join band in school instead of choir, and in doing so, we missed out on the vocal warm-ups and breathing lessons. We never took the bull by the horns and sang lead, be it on stage or around a campfire, and maybe a few of us have been...