Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Bass Player

Where were you when John Entwistle passed away in 2002? I hope you had a bass in hand, because most of us owe Entwistle a favor. Ever stood quietly at the back while your band showed off? That was his MO half a century ago. Do you play fast, melodically, and loud? He was the king of all that. Did you record a pioneering, genre-shaping rock bass solo? Probably not—but Entwistle did. In this issue we salute the quiet legend, 50 years after The Who released the epoch-shaking Tommy album, with a look back at his life and work, from writer Chris Charlesworth. We strive to cover the whole bass world, so this month we’ve spent time with low-frequency stalwarts, ranging from veterans Yolanda Charles and Neil Murray, via stadium-fillers…

There are many opportunities to learn as part of an online bass community, from gear options you wouldn’t otherwise hear about, to philosophical ideas about music—and everything in between. But in my 19 years as a member of the double bass forum at Talkbass, one of the most useful aspects of the interaction has been the chance to receive constructive criticism from others who see things from perspectives other than my own. My online education began in the early 2000s when I was a much less experienced bass player. While posting on the forum, I happened to interact with more experienced players who challenged me on various subjects and made me question things in ways I had not yet thought about. I was fortunate to develop relationships with a few…

Hello again, fellow bass clef enthusiasts! I trust that you’ve been hard at work on last month’s lesson? Great! Let’s move along and finish what we started, because this month I want to show you how to play the complete head, or melody, of one of my first recordings, a song called ‘Country Music, A Night in Hell’. “I’VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO GET THAT NOTE… IF YOU CAN DO IT, THEN MY HAT IS OFF TO YOU” I heard a lot of bluegrass music growing up in the heartland of the USA, and when I was a kid I used to watch a TV show called The Beverly Hillbillies. At one point during the opening credits, the soundtrack went into a double-time banjo riff, and, depending on how much…

We last met you at the Warwick Bass Camp in the UK, Yolanda. How was it for you? It was really fun. I wasn’t sure what to expect, although I’ve been around trade events before. They can be quite draining, and although it was full-on, it was still fun. It’s such a privilege to hang out with people like Dennis Chambers and Alphonso Johnson, which, I have to say, I never imagined would happen in my life. When I was younger, it was like climbing Mount Everest, a different universe, and you could never imagine rubbing shoulders with the likes of these people. But over the years, as my career has progressed, I’ve become more qualified on the ‘muso’ scene, shall we say—and that has meant I’ve been able to…

Tell us about O.R.k., Colin. O.R.k. is an acronym, although everyone pronounces it ‘orc’, like Tolkien! The band is made up of myself, Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson on drums, and a couple of guys from Italy—Carmelo Pipitone on guitar, and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, also known as LEF, providing the vocals. He was also in another band, Obake, with me. That was a much heavier project, in which I was exclusively playing a downtuned bass. Lorenzo is a great singer, not least because he’s extremely versatile. Do you also sing? A bit. I do backing vocals live, but I’m never going to be Geddy Lee—singing and playing at the same time is way too challenging for me. You have to split your brain into two and it’s painful. As you…

I got into playing bass after I saw the Sweet live in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1975. Steve Priest, the bass player, looked so cool and played the bass in an excellent way. He also did lead vocal on two songs, ‘No You Don’t’ and ‘Restless’ with such great attitude and feeling. A bit later I discovered Phil Lynott, bass player, frontman, and songwriter, all in one. That’s what I wanted to be too, and with Rough Rockers it eventually happened. I hardly remember my first bass, although I know it was some kind of beginner’s instrument. After that I got a Fender Precision and I’ve stayed with Fender ever since. I use D’Addario strings and I stick to the classic bass setup of four strings. It fulfils all my needs.…

Two manufacturers, three pedals and dozens of different sounds—all of them available at the flick of a switch. None of them are cheap, though, so our reviewing eye is firmly on these units’ value for money. Let’s start with the M280 Vintage Bass Octave from the venerable MXR range, a slightly less full-featured octaver than the Deluxe variant also available—and at the same time, way simpler. Plug in, admire the petite dimensions and solid build of the unit, and select one of a few options. The USA-made M280 offers us the ability to go either one or two octaves down, plus a dry/wet blend, and a customizable mid boost. Roll on the dry volume for the most fun, remaining aware that a blend of your clean and effected tone may…

THE JAZZ BASSIST RUTH GOLLER Jazz warrior Ruth on ‘studio exhaustion’ It’s been a hectic couple of months. Usually I have a healthy balance of gigging and recording, but for some reason I have just recorded four different albums with different bands back to back. It has been overwhelming and quite tiring. I always find recording very intense, because I every take I do could be the one that will end up on the album—and suddenly I feel under pressure! With gigging it’s different, because the music only exists for a split second and then it has passed. This allows me to be a bit more relaxed and embrace mistakes, so I'm inspired to take more risks. Another thing that I’ve always struggled with in recording studios is getting the…

SLAY RIDE Everyone’s favorite thrash metallers Slayer are calling it a day, and to make this already significant event slightly surreal, Primus are slated to support them on some of the last dates of their world tour. If you know these bands, you’ll know that the combination makes about as much sense as mixing Guinness with chicken soup. Talking to comedian Bill Burr, Primus frontman and Greatest Living Bass Player™ Les Claypool said “[It’s] kind of a secret but maybe I can tell you now… it looks like we’re confirmed, we’re gonna play the very last run supporting Slayer’s very last tour…It’s starting at Madison Square Garden and ending at The Forum, that’s the rumour.” More to the point, it gives us an excuse to run this picture of Les…

A recurring topic on Basschat is that of PA systems. Most of these threads appear in the Accessories and Misc subforum, which gives the wrong impression given the critical importance of PAs for bands who gig in small venues that don’t have their own. It’s often the bass player who owns and sets up the PA, probably because few others are willing to spend half an hour plugging cables and adjusting levels before each gig. Or maybe it’s because we can go on Basschat to vent, complain, and look for advice. There’s plenty of debate on all aspects of a PA. Is hoisting huge, heavy speakers onto stands really necessary, or are linear arrays with subwoofers at floor level good enough? Do we prefer real knobs, or are we happy…

A bona fide rock god, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones is also a legendary session player, with collaborations with REM, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, Heart, and Brian Eno under his belt. The multi-instrumentalist and producer can turn his hand to mandolin, pedal steel, keys, guitar, and crazy hybrids like his three-necked mandolin monster. He’s also a brilliant arranger—consider his orchestra-conducting with Foo Fighters at the 2008 Grammys, for example. As a bass player, his influence is mighty; everyone from John Deacon to Gene Simmons has given him props, and he was given a Gold Badge Award by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 2010 for contributions to the UK music industry. Outside Led Zep he’s released several solo albums, worked with Josh Homme and Dave Grohl in…

“THERE’S SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS WHEN THE THREE OF US WRITE MUSIC TOGETHER” From 2000 to 2006, Matt Willis was a big deal in the world of pop music. A very big deal indeed. His band Busted, a trio also featuring Charlie Simpson and James Bourne, released a couple of albums and a lot of singles, and sold a ton of records, getting it all done just in time before the music business sank feebly to its knees and expired. After they called it a day in ’06, Willis played in various bands and acted in Eastenders, as well as winning I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Busted reformed in 2015 and their third album, Half Way There, has just been released. What has Willis got to say about…

Recorded live on June 23, 1980 at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, UK, Live… In The Heart Of The City captures the pre-MTV-era Whitesnake at their incendiary best. Featuring former Deep Purple members David Coverdale (vocals), Jon Lord (keyboards) and Ian Paice (drums), along with the twin-guitar attack of Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden, it’s evident that Whitesnake’s southern-tinged blues-rock swagger was a key player in the development of what is now known as glam-metal. Anchoring all of that testosterone with sexy, serpentine bass lines is Neil Murray, the journeyman bassist who has since played with Gary Moore, Black Sabbath, Brian May, and countless others. Murray’s playing on Live… represents the indelible imprint he’s made on the canon of rock bass. He provides the songs with an air of improvisatory…

We watched you play the Super Bowl with Lady Gaga, Jonny. Great job. Thanks! That was pretty crazy—it felt surreal to be up on those stages, doing splits. I would worry about damaging certain sensitive organs, myself. Yeah—all my friends bang on me about that! The splits does a number on your hips. I fully understand what Prince and James Brown had to go through. The crucial difference being that those guys weren’t holding a bass guitar when they did the splits. Well, I guess that’s what they say—listen to what people teach you, and then try and take it one step further. I’m from a small town just like Prince was, and I spent the better part of my life studying his accomplishments. Once I learned how to do…

Behold our world-beating bass gear review section, where we bring you the crop of each month’s new, interesting, or otherwise relevant bass guitars, bass amplifiers, bass cabs, and bass effects. Occasionally we’ll review a guitar effect if it’s useful for bassists, but generally speaking, this zone is reserved for bass-specific gear. We take our reviews seriously. BP has readers all over the world, so we’re responsible about our conclusions. If a product is worth your time, we’ll say so; if it’s flawed, we’ll make that clear. We’re not beholden to advertisers in any way, and our tests are independent of the views of manufacturers and distributors. When you read about a product here, you’re getting a balanced review from an experienced bass tester. Value for money is at the top…

Making you a better bass player Welcome to our lesson section, in which Bass Player collates the wit and wisdom of the crème de la crème of the electric and upright bass world. We’re fortunate enough to have some serious talent on the team, from world-class music educators, to experienced touring musicians, who between them have laid down the low notes in every studio, club, and arena in the civilized world. Note that we’ve divided the columns according to Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced level for easy reference. Whether you’re looking to improve your playing technique, expand your awareness of theory, set up your rig to sound like your particular bass hero, or simply get on a bus and tour, we provide the answers you need here. What are you waiting…

This month we’re continuing our running theme of looking at different ways that muting affects our sound. We’re going to have a think about it as a percussive effect. The uses we’ve explored so far have been about stopping strings from vibrating when we don’t want them to, or changing the envelope of the note by palm muting so that the notes decay much faster and have far less treble content. The variation we’re going to explore this month takes muting a stage further and uses it not to only stop the note that was ringing, but also to create a percussive sound in the process. There are several places where this can be really useful, and it ties in with a function that is right at the heart of…

Hello and welcome back to my long-running series on the various forms of the tapping technique. For the past few issues, we’ve been looking at ‘linear tapping’, the variant on the technique often favored by guitarists, which often features long sequences of notes on a single string. Last issue we adapted this technique to be used across all four strings of the instrument, with each tapped note pulled off to sound a note from a chord fretted below. In this month’s instalment we’re going to continue exploring this idea, but now using tapped double stops. Tapping Double Stops A double stop is simply two notes played together. In this month’s exercises, the majority of the double stops that we will be tapping will be intervals of a fourth, which means…

Welcome back to Live Performance 101! This time around, I’m going to be exploring how we as bass players can be effective communicators on stage. This is often a skill that is taken for granted, as we communicate all of the time in everyday life and, therefore, we assume we’re pretty good at it. However, in a live performance context, we need a heightened awareness of our surroundings to be able to connect with the rest of the band as well as with the audience. This will in turn lead to a more engaging and cohesive performance overall. Firstly, let’s address connecting with an audience. It’s surprising how many performers put all of their attention into watching their fretboard or looking aimlessly at the floor. The former may suggest a…

No Treble readers were on a gear high this month, with loads of new equipment hitting the market. The most talked-about piece was the freshly unveiled Ernie Ball Music Man Joe Dart Signature Bass, which was opened to pre-order on March 1. It’s something different from the company in order to suit the Vulfpeck bassist’s ‘less is more’ approach to his rig. Based on the Classic Sterling, the bass has an ash body in a natural finish and a beautiful flamed maple neck complete with a figured maple board. It’s simpler in looks as well as function, because the bass is fitted with a custom passive MM humbucker and just a single volume knob. That means no active preamp, usually a hallmark of Ernie Ball basses. Dart certainly doesn’t need…

Hello! By now, most of you will be aware that I’m not a great fan of practising scales purely for technique. I spent way too much time doing that in my teenage years, but soon realized that it was actually hampering my ability to create lines unless I practised with a context in mind—for example, how scales and modes relate to chords. Sure, scales and modes can be great technique-builders, but obviously they have other uses as a harmonic and melodic resource. In order for us to go on and create lines, we definitely need to have practised the technical aspects of scales and modes, but many players practise stepwise (running up and down the scales in ascending and retrograde form) and maybe sometimes in thirds. They often don’t progress…

“My parents bought me my first bass for my 13th birthday. Every day at school, at every break, I would just be playing bass. It became an obsession, rather than just an interest, or a bit of fun.” Sometimes all it takes is one hit of the E-string and it’s love for life. Using the lower register as her own personal punchbag for bands including Triaxis, Fury, Dorja, and Hands Off Gretel, it doesn’t take a genius to guess that Becky Baldwin is most definitely of the metal and punk persuasion. This is reinforced by her affection towards Rickenbackers, itself the choice of the two greatest metal icons to have ever played the instrument. “DON’T GET A CHEAP FIVE-STRING LIKE I DID!” “Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead and Cliff Burton of…

There’s a lot of variety in the bass gear I use, depending on the gig. I’ve done a bunch of Las Vegas dates with Gwen Stefani this year. For her show I’m using a Kemper Profiler; it seems these days that a lot of the bigger pop tours are going ampless, because a lot of front-of-house engineers prefer it that way. We run around the stage so much that it’s cool to have something that’s MIDI-controlled and a virtual amp. Originally I had my tech build me a rig that was a pedal rack, with a bunch of pedals rack-mounted on shelves and a MIDI switcher, and I had that along with my Noble preamp. Unfortunately, for a show like Gwen’s that causes problems. There are so many lights and…

As passionate bass consumers in a capitalist economy, we’re usually keenly aware of a manufacturer’s strengths and weaknesses in advance of a big purchase. It’d be easy to dismiss Yamaha as the polar opposite of the boutique bass builders that tend to elicit the most praise. The reason is that Yamaha’s product portfolio is not only the broadest in the bass industry, it’s one of the broadest in all industry. I can’t think of another company that makes motorcycles, boat motors, and ATVs while also building pianos, basses, and home stereos. Perhaps it’s a particularly Japanese capacity for corporate multi-tasking, but whatever the reason, Yamaha is a uniquely impressive business. Given that fact, the two basses I’m reviewing here, the affordable TRBX600, and the high-end TRBJP2, are unsurprisingly impressive and…

The Eastcoast bass brand has recently seen some new additions, offering features and design elements you might not expect to see at this price. Here are two ends of the brand’s spectrum—a four-string fretless at a touch over $200, and a five-string through-neck bass at around $450. Neither is going to break the bank and both potentially offer good value. But is there a catch? Build Quality On inspection, the fretless has some fine features: a deep lower cutaway and contouring front and back for comfort, an interesting ‘transfer’ top, a vibrantly colored fingerboard, and a three-band EQ with independent pickup volumes. The longer top horn gives the player something to work against, and the bass sits very well against the player, despite its headstock bias. With 20mm string spacing,…

The Stave: most music written for the bass guitar uses the bass clef. The example to the right shows the placement of the notes on the stave. Tablature: this is a graphical representation of the music. Each horizontal line corresponds with a string on the bass guitar, with the lowest line representing the lowest pitched string (E). The numbers represent the frets to be played. Numbers stacked vertically indicate notes that are played together. Where basses with five or six strings are required, the tablature stave will have five or six lines as necessary. Notes shown in brackets indicate that a note has been tied over from a previous bar. PLAYING TECHNIQUES SLAP AND POP TECHNIQUE Notes slapped with the thumb are marked with a ‘t’, notes popped with the…

A lot of what we do is dictated by time. How much time we spend with our families, how much time we spend at work, how much free time we have, and how much time we spend with our basses in the shed! For most of us, time is at a premium—so when you practise, the division of the time available to you needs care, consideration, structure, and planning, in order to achieve all of your goals. An obsession over slap bass is something that concerns me and continues to raise a red flag whenever I hear students conversing about it. It’s not that it’s not a worthwhile pursuit, but it potentially distracts from the development of more essential performance skills. Let’s see if we can give the technique its…

“WHETHER MODERN ADDITIONS MAKE A BETTER OR A LESS AUTHENTIC LONGHORN IS AN ONGOING DEBATE” Instantly-recognizable for its twin-tusked body, the Danelectro Longhorn is one of the quirkier-looking short-scale basses available. The instrument has been a favorite of some huge names, including Bruce Thomas, Phil Lynott, John Entwistle, and Noel Redding. Positives for the Longhorn are its full, thumpy-twangy, middy sound, light weight, fun playability, and relatively small size, which enables it to travel easily. Set against this is the instruments’ inconsistent build quality over the years through various factories, company owners and copyists, plus a fixed bridge and a 24-fret neck that can cause intonation issues, and you’ve got a rather divisive bass. Danelectro was formed by former Epiphone engineer Nathan Daniel in 1946, initially building amplifiers for the…