Innehållsförteckning för March 2019 från Bass Player

One of the perks of working on this magazine is the variety of musicians that we get to meet. Soul, jazz, blues, rock, R&B, funk, reggae, and metal bassists—as well as those who defy categorization—it’s a privilege to spend time with all of them. Our only problem is that we could fill a magazine a month with hundreds of talented bassists and still not cover all the ground we’d like to. That’s why we’ve got two bass players rather than one on our cover this month. Johny Chow of Stone Sour and Chris Childs of Thunder, worthy representatives of two generations of rock bass, come together in a monster bass summit. Flip the pages and you’ll find we’ve also spent quality time with the Colombian genius Snow Owl, original Alice…

Hello, fellow bassists, and welcome! We bass players are not commonly known for our stage presence. I appreciate that this statement is a sweeping generalization—Flea, Victor Wooten, Robert Trujillo, Verdine White, and Billy Sheehan are just some bassists who buck the trend. But there’s some truth to the idea that bass performers aren’t the most outgoing musicians, so what I want to focus on with this new page is how we can become more effective performers on stage. The first question to consider is whether we’re trying to find our own authentic way of performing, or whether we’re simply aiming to be more visually in keeping with an existing band of musicians. You can extend this to include stylistic considerations for performance, and whether what we’re doing on stage is…

Judging by a recent discussion on our forum, some of us are a tad insecure about our musical ability. Yes, Basschat has been exploring impostor syndrome. While few of us know singers or lead guitarists who suffer from it, it seems to strike a chord (pardon the pun) with bassists. Many of us have felt, at some point, as if we’ve ended up in a band, or in a pit, or on stage, out of sheer luck. We feel like we’re bluffing, that we haven’t earned our spot thanks to our talent, and our years of practice and preparation. On some occasions the feeling is made worse by other musicians’ cliquey attitude, or by our awareness of their superior talent or experience. However, other than in our own minds, there…

Welcome, fearless readers and fellow bassists, to the second edition of Technique Of The Month! I hope that you’ve been practicing last month’s lesson on open-note bends, and that you’ve developed the strength in your fingers—no easy feat, I know—you’ll need to pull off that technique seamlessly, because we’re going to use that technique as a starting point for this month’s lesson. “WE CAN USE THIS BASIC TECHNIQUE TO PLAY SOME TASTY FILLS” Let’s explore other ways in which we can use this basic technique to play some tasty fills that help establish the tonality of the key we’re in. In our last issue, we bent the F# on the fourth fret of the D string up to a G, while at the same time popping the open G string…

Different gigs call for different approaches. I love writing bass-lines, creating melodies, and sub hooks. I’m a big Paul McCartney fan, because he wrote the perfect bass-lines, and I try to take that approach if I’m in the studio. If you were to ask anyone that has seen me play or played with me, they’d probably say that I’m predominantly groove based and like to dig in. I love rhythm, I like to take control of a groove and drive it forward if that’s what the song requires. My brother John is my favourite drummer, he’s amazing. We formed Son Of Sam in our teens and we’ve been playing together since childhood. Having a drummer for a sibling is any bass player’s dream. We have a deep pocket together. Funk…

I played a bit of guitar in my teens, mainly along to Oasis songs, but had all but given up as I was never very good at it. My parents always encouraged me to keep at it, though, and one day my friend talked me into trying the bass because he needed a bassist for his metal band. Three weeks later I was standing on a stage playing Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer covers, too petrified to peer up from my fretboard at the audience until halfway through the set. At that point, I realized that despite the sheer terror I was feeling, everyone was having a good time—me included. Me and a friend took a trip to Guitar Mania in Dorset, UK, and came out with an Ibanez GSR200 and…

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 speakers, and bass effects. Occasionally we’ll review a guitar effect if it’s particularly useful for bassists, and we’ll test recording equipment and general accessories every now and then as well, but generally speaking, this zone is for bass-specific gear. We take the ratings that we give each item very seriously. BPhas readers from all over the world, so we’re responsible about our conclusions. If a product is worth your investigation, we’ll say so; if it’s flawed in some way, we won’t hold back from making that clear. We’re not beholden to advertisers in any way, and our conclusions are entirely independent of the views…

Fret-King www.rbimusic.com Automobiles and wine are always useful analogies when reviewing bass guitars, we find. A $5000 instrument is comparable to a Ferrari F40 or 1956 Château d’Yquem. A $100 bass can be likened to a 1998 Honda Accord or a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s. You get the picture… but just to confuse the issue, here’s a bass with a pricetag that says ‘2018 Toyota’, that has the looks of a 1960s Camaro and the feel of a 1970s Mercedes. What’s your simile-fixated reviewer to do? Build Quality The Esprit’s bodyshape is a love-it-or-hate-it affair, especially when combined with that pearlescent-effect scratchplate and vintage gold controls. We think it’s rather cool, perhaps invigorated by the observation of a certain G. Lee elsewhere in this magazine that…

Price | $499 Made in | USA Features | LFO: depth, speed, wave, shape; Fuzz: Level, Gain, Trem on/off switch; Filter: Freq, Resonance, LPF/off/ BPF switch, ENV/off/LFO control type switch; Bypass and Tap Tempo controls; 1/4” input, output, and expression jacks Dimensions | 143 x 127 x 57mm (5.6 x 5 x 2.5”), W x H x D Weight | 1.31 lbs Power | 9V DC WHAT WE THINK Plus | Freaky blend of powerful fuzz, filter, and tremolo effects Minus | A little counterintuitive for those disinclined to tweak heavily Overall | A unique sonic mangler that would be a welcome addition to many a pedalboard BP RATING…

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…

Hello again! This month we’re going to step away from patterns formed from scale and chords, and look at some ways we can use chromatic lines to join up the roots of chords. The word ‘chromatic’ just means using notes drawn from all 12 notes between a root note and an octave—in other words, on every fret of a bass—rather than sticking to keys and scales, which are defined as subsets of those 12 notes. Most of the patterns we’ve looked at so far have been drawn from either the major scale (seven notes out of the 12 available), pentatonic patterns (five notes), or triad chord shapes (three notes). Here, we’re going to be looking at approaching the root of a chord with a succession of notes a semitone apart.…

“I started making basses about 30 years ago. I’m a bass player myself, so I was always trying to find better instruments to play,” explains Péter Gáspá when we ask about his past history of making bass guitars. “I wasn’t satisfied with what I could find when I started playing bass. I made my first bass back in ’82 and I started making holes in it, replacing pickups—and that’s where it began for me.” Blasius consists of three luthiers—Balázs Mihály, Zoltán Mihályi and Gáspá. Mihály, who founded the company over 30 years ago, follows the philosophy that basses should be treated as acoustic instruments in their own right. To him and his colleagues, the resulting tonality resonates far more naturally, equating to a superior-sounding instrument. “PEOPLE CAN COME IN EVERY…

Bass—it’s the tool you use to articulate your musical voice. But does your bass say something about you? The range of customization available is immense, maybe even surpassing guitar, and bassists can get downright obsessive over getting their instruments exactly how they like them. When I started playing, I loved getting new issues of Bass Player magazine and checking out the ads for the custom builders. Six-string basses, headless basses, crazy body shapes—there were so many different styles and options I had never seen in local stores. As I became more familiar with bass virtuosos, I noticed their instrument choice was often synonymous with the player. Marcus Miller’s heavily modded 77 Jazz, Anthony Jackson’s Fodera contrabass, Stanley Clarke’s short-scale Alembics—basses so wildly different, but chosen by each player as their…

With over 4000 recordings under his belt, Abraham Laboriel López Sr. is rightly heralded as a legend of the bass. Hailing from Mexico City, he studied at the Berklee College of Music, where his classical guitar training gave him a huge advantage in technique when he turned to the low end. None other than Henry ‘Pink Panther’ Mancini advised him to get stuck in to the LA session scene in the 1970s, and since then Laboriel has recorded with countless names in the industry. His back catalog includes work with Elton John, George Benson, Herbie Hancock, Leo Sayer, Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Madonna and Stevie Wonder, and he’s also found time to record several solo albums with his son, Abe Laboriel Jr, on drums; the latter also tub-thumps for Paul…

Billy Sheehan is one of the busiest bassists on the planet, showing no signs of letting up even though he’s in several active bands—the Winery Dogs are currently preparing for a packed 2019 schedule; the embers of Mr Big are still aglow following the untimely passing of drummer Pat Torpey; and of course there’s Sons Of Apollo, at whose London gig we met him recently. “I love to play, it’s my favorite thing in life,” says Sheehan. “People send me their YouTube clips and I tell them they have to play with people on stage, in front of an audience. You don’t need to be all that ready to play live, but get in a band and get to work! To play live is the greatest joy there is and…

LPD Music www.lpdmusic.com A company with an enviable history, Aria were a desirable brand throughout the Eighties, and models from that period are still avidly sought after—but for several decades, the company has struggled to repeat their earlier success. This particular model may not resemble Aria’s classic Super Bass range—but with a quilted maple top and caramel burst finish, it certainly has premium visuals. Just what do you get for your $1,400? Build Quality Added to its ash body and quilted maple top, the RSB-1500’s rounded body curves, elongated top horn and extensive cutaways make for a sizeable body, very similar to the Super Bass models of old. Minimal chamfering on the upper bout is compensated for by deep contouring to the rear of the body, while the lower…

Wilcox Guitars www.willcoxguitars.com We applaud innovation here at BP, and we loved the last Lightwave Saber bass—an SL5 fretless—when we reviewed it back in September 2011. Still, technology moves along at a rapid rate, and eight years later who knows what extra digital witchcraft lies under the bonnet of this new Saber, the HexFX? At $1398, the instrument is within the grasp of many players—so let’s see how this latest incarnation performs. Build Quality The HexFX’s angular, futuristically shaped body is built from solid alder. It lacks contouring to the front or rear of the body, but on the upside its Highlight Yellow coloring and gloss polyurethane finish set it off a treat. A graphite scratchplate adds to the modern vibe, while deep cutaways offer unhindered access to all…

Phil Jones PJB BP800 Head Price | $700 Made in | China Power | 800 watts @ 4 ohms, 400 watts @ 8 ohms Features | Input, Mute/Low/High switch, five-band EQ (Lo-Bass, Hi-Bass, Mid, Lo-Treble, Hi-Treble), clip indicator, AUX in, headphones out, input level control, AUX level control, master volume, effects send/return, XLR DI with ground lift, Speakon out, preamp out Size | 7.5” x 12.5” x 2.5” (190mm x 317mm x 63 mm) W x D x H Weight | 5.7 lbs Phil Jones PJB Cab-47 Price | $499, including PJB cover Power | 300 watts at 8 ohms Speakers | 4 x 7” baffle mounted drivers, 3” tweeter Inputs | 2 x Speakon inputs Size | 16.3” x 12.6” x 17” (414mm x 320mm x 431mm), W x…

THIS MONTH: Morten Ehlers, Bass Buddha I was a pro bass player until I turned 30 and came to terms with the fact that I wasn’t cut out to be a touring musician. I decided to get an education as an electronic technician—probably the best decision I ever made! It turned out that there was an internship available at TC Electronic in Aarhus, Denmark. At the time TC were building the first mockup of the RH450 amp head. After a couple of months I was assigned to the project, since I had experience as a bass player. The years passed and eventually I became the product manager of all bass-related products at TC, traveling to essential events such as Bass Player Live, the London Bass Guitar Show and the NAMM…

The No Treble community mourned this month as the world lost another giant of the bass: Joe Osborn, who played on countless hits from the 60s and beyond, died of pancreatic cancer at 81 years old. Osborn was a native of Louisiana, where he spent his final days, but is best known for his studio work in Los Angeles, California. His first major hit came in 1961 with Ricky Nelson’s ‘Travelin’ Man’, which he had found as a demo and suggested to Nelson. After the band dissolved Osborn was able to do more freelance work. He quickly became a first-call musician alongside others like drummer Hal Blaine and keyboardist Larry Knechtel. The same handful of players, who recorded nearly every hit of the 60s and early 70s, would later be…

This month’s study is designed to help us get inside the sound of the half whole (HW) diminished scale over dominant chords, while using a very simple motif. Don’t be alarmed—this is an awful lot simpler to play than the notation opposite might make you believe! We often use intervallic exercises to help familiarize ourselves with new scales or modes. As usual for these situations, it’s really worthwhile to practise all of the intervals that occur within the scale we’re working on. Due to the octatonic (eight-note) construction of the diminished scale, we have one more interval to practise than we would were we working with conventional seven-note, Major, and minor scale harmony. The first example features a motif predominantly comprised of tritones (steps of three whole tones), but it…

It’s been 30 years since the British veterans Thunder first bestrode a stage, and a mere 22 since Chris Childs joined them (he reckons they still think of him as a new arrival). The Iowa-based rockers Stone Sour are right on their heels, having formed back in 1992, with their bassist Johny Chow (yes, there’s just one N in his name; we predict a flood of “corrections”) signing up seven years ago. Aged 59 and 46 respectively, the two fleet-fingered low-enders bring decades of experience to our front cover, with Childs coming up in the era of Led Zeppelin and jazz-rock, and Chow a punk-rock upstart. What they have in common is a determination to deliver bass of the highest quality, thousands of accumulated air miles en route to the…

It’s a cold rainy day in London, UK as I make my way through the crowded streets into one of the swankiest hotels in upmarket Kensington. A top-hatted usher takes my coat and umbrella in the foyer, making me feel like a princess—which is only appropriate as I’m here to meet rock royalty! When Geddy Lee is shown over to our table, he’s exactly as I hoped he would be; pleasant, calm, well-mannered, and undeniably Canadian. He’s wearing a T-shirt, jeans and plaid shirt combo, combined with John Lennon-esque glasses which he peers over when making a point. My internal Rush fangirl is jumping for joy, but he’s not here to talk about the legendary trio, he’s here to talk bass. As if he wasn’t enough of a connoisseur on…

Wojtek Pilichowski’s musical journey began when he was just 14 years old in Warsaw, Poland, not only as an artistic pursuit, but also as a means to a better life. “I desperately wanted to be creative,” he recalls. “Having listened to all kinds of music on the local radio station, I thought, ‘This is something I want to try’. I never regretted this choice—music was my destiny.” Practically speaking, however, music was simply another way to keep Pilichowski away from crime. “We lived in a dangerous district and my dad was frequently in penitentiary,” he confesses. “My mom and grandfather saw the opportunity to nurture my interest in music as a way of steering me away from the local community.” Pilichowski adds that he gravitated towards bass due to its…

Basses | Bob: Kramer XKB-20, Guild 301B, LTD Stream 1004 with passive Nordstrand Big Blades pickups Scott: Rickenbacker 4001 V63, Gibson Ripper, Gibson Grabber .Effects | Bob: Custom clean boost and phaser made from Electra MPC Modules by Nerdknuckle, White Face Reissue Rat, Earthquaker Devices Pyramids, Hummingbird, Tentacle, Darkglass Vintage Microtubes, Saturn Toneworks feedback looper, Russian Big Muff, Tronographic Rusty Box, Correct Sound Custom MT preamp Scott: Nunez Amps Annex Bass Channel, Malekko B:Assmaster, BlackArts Toneworks Pharaoh, EHX Synth9, POG, Pitchfork, Holy Grail, Boss PS-6, DD-6, CEB0 Amps | Bob: Verellen Meatsmoke and Kalaloch, Acoustic 140 and 300 Scott: Verellen Kalaloch, Sunn Coliseum Bass Prototype, Sound City 120L, Sunn 4x12, Sunn 215BH Replica…

Aria RSB-1500/M Price | $1,400 Made In | Japan Color | Caramel burst, gloss finish Body | Ash with quilted maple top Neck | One-piece maple, 34” scale Neck Joint | Bolt-on, six-bolt attachment Nut Width | 40mm Fingerboard | Maple Frets | 24 Pickups | Aria AJJ-1 single-coil pickups x 2 Electronics | Active 9-volt, two-band EQ Controls | Volume, pickup pan, bass, treble Hardware | Chrome hardware, Gotoh J510SJ bridge, Gotoh GB1 machine heads Weight | 8.6 lbs Case/gig bag included | Gigbag Left-hand option available | Yes WHAT WE THINK Plus | Fine tones and playability Minus | Will it stand out? Overall | An interesting bass from a legendary company BP RATING…

Price | $1,398 Made In | Indonesia Color | Highlight yellow, gloss polyurethane finish Body | Alder Neck | Three-piece maple, 34” scale Neck Joint | Bolt-on, four-bolt attachment Nut Width | 40mm Fingerboard | Rosewood Frets | 24 Pickups | Lightwave analog optical pickup Electronics | Lightwave designed active pre-amp Controls | Volume, bass boost/cut, middle boost/cut, mid-sweep, Icetone blend, MIDI volume control, wet/dry toggle switch, program selector switch Hardware | Black hardware, custom Graphtech Monolithic bridge with Icetone saddles, die-cast machine heads Weight | 7.7 lbs Case/gig bag included | Gigbag Left-hand option available | No WHAT WE THINK Plus | A well thought-out solution to MIDI triggering Minus | A little complicated for some players Overall | Great ideas in one package—and a great bass in its…

Seymour Duncan www.seymourduncan.com Despite the fact that Seymour Duncan has been designing stompboxes and effects for over a decade, most bass players only ever encounter Duncan’s wares in their hunt for an aftermarket pickup. My guess is that the oddly-named Fooz will go far to broaden the brand’s pedal pedigree in bass players’ minds. Seymour Duncan calls the Fooz an ‘Analog Fuzz Synthesizer’, three words that, when grouped together, I find especially interesting given the direction my musical tastes are evolving in these days. Imagine my dismay, then, when I realized that there’s no synthesis lying within the pedal’s sturdy metal chassis. To be a true synthesizer, the Fooz would have to be capable of generating sounds of its own. It doesn’t do that. Rather, it offers a trio…

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…

THE JAZZ BASSIST RUTH GOLLER Jazz warrior Ruth gets percussive I’ve started playing in a new project called Warmer Than Blood, led by my friend, guitarist Chris Montague. He used to have a band called Troyka that some of you might know, and was also part of Squarepusher’s band Shobaleader One. Chris has written some brilliant new music which was originally designed for a quartet consisting of guitar, drums, piano, and electric bass. We did some rehearsals with a couple of drummers, but then practised as a trio without drums. As we were getting our heads round the music, it became obvious that we were arranging the music and developing the band to be drumless. Suddenly we had so many more dynamics to play with, especially with the acoustic piano.…

Welcome! Almost every contemporary recording we encounter on television or radio is composed entirely in 4/4 (also called ‘common time’), meaning that the underlying pulse of the music can be felt evenly in subdivisions of four. It’s when this platform is removed that we begin to perceive a time signature as ‘odd’. This issue we're going to begin studying this strange, off-kilter world. Although 4/4 time signatures dominate the soundtrack to our lives, there are some examples of ‘odd time’ in our day-to-day consumption of contemporary music. The most common non-4/4 time signatures that we come across on a regular basis are 2/4, sometimes referred to as ‘marching time’, and 3/4, the time signature of waltzes. It's this last time signature that we'll explore this month. “ALTHOUGH 4/4 TIME SIGNATURES…

Hello, and welcome back to my series covering the tapping technique. In our last issue we focused on linear tapping, the single-string form of tapping that is often favored by guitarists, as well as bassists such as Billy Sheehan, Stuart Hamm, and Victor Wooten. We’ve covered the importance of basing lines around chord tones or other appropriate melodic material, and in this month’s instalment, we’re going to be taking the idea a step further and using the technique to play lines that move across the strings. At the end of last month’s instalment, we looked at performing a rapid-fire trill by combining tapped notes, pull-offs and hammer-ons. In this column, we’re going to pick up where we left off and begin embellishing this idea. Example 1 The rapid-fire trill example…