Table of contents for October 2022 in Bass Player

We knew this day was coming. Magazines have been ceasing publication at an increasing pace over the last few years, not because their content is substandard or because their readers are moving on, but because the print industry itself is on its knees. Now it’s Bass Player’s turn. Our sales are good. Advertising revenue is decent. Subscription numbers are great. Our content is better than it’s ever been. Our readers are loyal—but paper stocks have increased punitively in cost, while energy prices make distribution a nightmare. We’re still Bass Player, though, the coolest bass magazine ever published, and we still have a community to support, and a lot of great bassists and basses to write about—so we’re not going anywhere. You can still find us at www.bassplayer.com, where we’ll be…

THE Lowdown After releasing his memoir Fathers, Brothers, And Sons last year, co-written with this magazine’s editor, Anthrax bassist Frank Bello has released a solo EP, Then I’m Gone. “I revisited some really dark times in my life when I was writing my book, and writing these songs was the result of reliving them,” Bello explains. “Music has always been a great outlet for me as a coping mechanism. I felt it was a good time to put out these songs for people who connected with the book, and maybe some who haven’t yet. Thanks for listening!”…

THE Lowdown E.S.P. is the debut LP from what is considered to be Miles Davis’ second great quintet, and it is notable for its broad range of composition by all its members, aside from drummer Tony Williams. The album teeters on the precipice of the avant-garde, while retaining Davis’ signature hard bop style. With its improvisational nature and tonal exploration, it is a statement of intent regarding the direction in which Davis et al would soar on forthcoming releases. That direction was to send Miles, and jazz, into previously uncharted territories of sound and rhythm. The line-up was completed by tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock, making the quintet one of the most skilful and flexible in their field. It was also one of the most anchored, with…

The question of whether to use a compressor live is one that I hear often. Compression is an absolute staple for mixing and mastering engineers in a studio context, or for front-of-house engineers when they need to get an overall polished sound for a band—but is it as essential when we play live? To remind ourselves what compression actually is, Universal Audio gives the following industry definition: “Compressors and limiters are used to reduce dynamic range: The span between the softest and loudest sounds”. In essence, a compressor makes our louder notes quieter and our quieter notes louder, resulting in closer volume consistency. The argument often made against the use of compression in a live setting is that it has the potential to strip our ability to be dynamic with…

Find us @www.guitarworld.com/bass-player Print magazines have had a tough time in recent years, with readers migrating to online news and social media, advertising revenue going to Google and Facebook, paper stock prices spiralling out of control, energy costs making distribution difficult – and the small matter of a global pandemic meaning that many readers couldn’t physically get this magazine. Here at Bass Player, we’ve watched while magazines closed all around us, with our colleagues and friends left jobless and their readers devastated. While you, our readers, have stayed loyal and our subscriptions and advertising numbers have remained relatively healthy, the costs of paper and distribution have finally caused us to cease print publication as of our next issue. While we’re saddened by this, we’ll continue to do our jobs at…

RYAN MADORA Dig into your favorite bass parts... and discover treasure! Ryan Madora is one of Nashville’s most sought-after touring and session bassists. Recent touring and session credits include Robben Ford, Kyshona Armstrong, and her instrumental trio, The Interludes. For the past five years, she has served as musical director for Bobby Bones and has played with Garth Brooks, Darius Rucker, and Carrie Underwood. In addition to instructing at Nashville’s campus of Musician’s Institute, Ryan has taught at Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp, and at universities across the USA. She has contributed columns to No Treble for over a decade and in 2019, published her first book, Bass Players To Know: Learning From The Greats. Ryan offers online education at TrueFire and her website. www.ryanmadora.com Facebook ryanmadoramusic…

Welcome back! This month, we’re going to look at an aspect of controlling your sound that is often overlooked, but which for a number of reasons has become more and more noticeable over the years—giving notes their full length. The amount of decay we want in a particular note—from ultra‑short palm-muted notes to infinite sustain—is a huge factor in shaping the sound of a line and its impact on the song. Today, we’re looking at the sustain end of the graph. The reasons why this has become more significant over time are both stylistic and technological. Style‑wise, the prevalence of synth bass in much pop music has brought about a taste for incredibly smooth‑sounding bass‑lines—often with no gap between the end of one note and the start of the next.…

The Digitech XBW Bass Synth Wah Envelope Filter, to give it is full name, has achieved icon status in our world, having been at the foot of many a bass player the world around. Using Nineties digital signal processing technology, Digitech shoehorned not one, but seven filter effects in to this cute, green, all-metal casing. Why on earth are we looking at this uncool dinosaur? Any “uncool” pedal that more than doubles in value after its demise is worth looking into. We need to find out why! Does it sound good? Well, the XBW is capable of a respectable frequency response. From my investigations, I have discovered that it processes at 24bit 44.1Khz, with 16bit 44.1Khz being CD quality, for people who still buy them. Featuring a Harman brand Audio…

News and views from the bass world, collated by BP's team of newshounds It is with regret, a lot of sadness and a whole load of bring-it-on that the Bass Player team announces the end of our print magazine. You’re reading the last US and UK issue: the next one will be a final, UK-only issue. Subscribers will be contacted and offered alternative options. We’ve faced massive challenges over the last few years, through a difficult retail landscape and an actual pandemic, to maintain Bass Player as a profitable magazine, but 2022’s dramatic increase in costs for us and our suppliers – paper, printing, fuel, and distribution to name a few – mean that our print edition is no longer viable. Every cloud has a silver lining, though – the…

THE Lowdown Paul Ryder, the co-founder and longtime bassist of the British alt-rock band Happy Mondays, died at the age of 58 on July 15. “The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning,” the band wrote in a statement, adding “A true pioneer and legend, he will be forever missed. Long live his funk.” Born in Salford, England in 1964, Paul Ryder took up the bass at 13, and formed the Happy Mondays with his brother Shaun, the band’s dynamic frontman, guitarist Mark Day, drummer Gary Whelan, keyboardist Paul Davis, and dancer/percussionist Mark ‘Bez’ Berry in the early Eighties. Usually playing a Fender Jazz bass, Ryder supplied much of the band’s club-friendly low end, which helped…

I don’t know you, but I know a lot of people like you, and I think it’s a safe bet that you deserve better. You may aspire to own the best bass that money can buy, but too often that ‘dream bass’ is financially out of reach. Or is it? Having the best instrument rarely makes anyone a better player overnight. Owning an instrument from an aspirational brand may provide motivation to spend more time with a bass in our hands, and inspire more diligent practice regimens to justify its investment. But the most valuable investment we make as musicians is not in the gear we own, it’s the time we invest in ourselves to develop and improve. Let’s take a moment to think about what makes the best bass.…

PlayersKELLY-DAWN HELLMRICH grew up with a musical parent and a house full of instruments, so it feels like I’ve played guitar forever: I probably picked up a guitar every day of my life once I was physically able to. My dad bought me a bass for my 13th birthday because he was so determined that I was born to be a bass player. I was really repulsed by the idea at first, but I came around. I picked it up to learn some Blink-182 riffs one day—and then never really put it down. My first bass guitar was an OLP MM4 Stingray, but it was so heavy and way too big for me. I got that bass because a kid in a local band I really liked had one, but…

FENDER www.fender.com $1099 We reviewed Charvel’s relaunched San Dimas bass models a year ago, partly because we’re suckers for Eighties chic around here and a day-glo finish always gets our collective heads spinning. More importantly, they were and remain highly playable, fully-featured active basses that acknowledged their Bill & Ted-era roots, but added modern touches for today’s player. They continue to occupy a midmarket position in the low four figures, too. Now the five-string San Dimas has been beefed up with a new Area J DiMarzio pickup in bridge position, hence its reappearance, with new black and white finishes that are a little more mature than the vivid options of last year. Build Quality First off, Charvel and the brand’s owner Fender are presumably keenly aware of the value of…

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. PLAYING TECHNIQUES SLAP AND POP TECHNIQUE Notes slapped with the thumb are marked with a ‘t’, notes popped with the fingers marked with a ‘p’. ADVANCED SLAP TECHNIQUE Fretting hand slaps are marked ‘lh’ and double…

THE Lowdown Mesa/Boogie’s new Subway D-350 is a compact but powerful unit that the Gibson-owned company says is the lightest, smallest, and most affordable bass amp it’s ever produced. Given that it weighs just over three pounds and measures at just 3” high and 9” wide, we have no reason to quarrel with those claims. Small as it is, the amp packs a punch, with 350 watts of power. It’s built with a solid-state preamp coupled with a lightweight Class D power amp and switch-mode power supply, a four-band EQ, separate Gain and Master Volume controls, Active/Passive and Input Mute switches, and a Bright switch. Expect to pay $699.…

Welcome! Learning to play bass-lines and solos over different chords has its challenges. One of the most effective ways to learn this skill is by taking a line or a given chord and then transposing that line, note for note, over another chord. The benefits are immediate, because you’ll be learning how to play a melodic idea over one chord—and by simply altering a few notes, or even a single note, you will see how the line adapts to the new chord. This is extremely powerful, because instead of learning hundreds of licks, you can take a finite number of ideas and replicate the same lines over all the given chord qualities. Not only is this beneficial while developing your musical vocabulary, it’s also extremely useful for your technical development…

Sinai Dub Box (2012-2022) is the perfect collectible artefact, a box set of seven 7” vinyl singles that is limited to 1000 copies and is therefore both scarce and expensive to buy, although fortunately digital alternatives exist. Fans of Al Cisneros, bassist and vocalist with the cult stoner/doom metal band Sleep and founder of the experimental duo OM, will line up to purchase the box set. Somehow, its weight and exclusivity, coupled with the sidewalk-shaking low end of the immense music it contains, aligns perfectly with the ethos of Cisneros’ mission. “There’s a few new songs on this box set, and the rest are ones that I put out myself over the past decade. I decided to remaster all of those and put them into one place, because it’s time…

John Stirratt is one of the best bass players you’ve never heard of. He has served as the steadfast foundation of Wilco, a band that has shaped our definition of rock, alt-country, and indie music for nearly three decades. Standing alongside Jeff Tweedy since Wilco’s inception in 1994, he has received two Grammy awards and industry accolades, headlined festivals and toured the world, and recently recorded their twelfth studio album, Cruel Country. Stirratt has made a career as the bass player in a rock and roll band—something that many of us have aspired to do. As with most bands, the first few years were riddled by landmines: Ego trips, label feuds, rigorous touring schedules, and personnel changes. By 2004, Wilco finally settled into their current line-up, a six-piece ensemble that…

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 is the last English-language print magazine devoted solely to bass in the world, and we have readers all over the planet, 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 answerable to advertisers in any way, and our tests are independent of the views of musicians, manufacturers, and distributors. Let us know what you think of our…

Hey there, bass players! I don’t know about you, but when I sit down to craft a bass-line, I like to find a nice balance of flavors. Maybe I’ll stick to something classic, like chord tones with a splash of pentatonics, or perhaps I’ll add a few sour notes to tug at the listener’s ear in the form of half-step dissonance. It’s a delightful cocktail of sorts, complete with a few harmonious liquors and a touch of bitters. The process of mixing and matching notes that are deemed “right” with those that are deemed “wrong” can be a delicate recipe, but one worth mastering. In our previous column, we discussed the use of half-step dissonance to bring tension into our bass-line, particularly when resolving to the root note of a…

Welcome back! In the last issue we looked at chordal fingerstyle playing, an area of bass technique that offers some alternative perspectives on the combination of harmony and melody. In the previous instalment, we looked closely at the technique and worked through 10 exercises that put it to use. If you’ve worked through that material successfully, you’re ready for the next challenge. This month, we’re looking at an entire piece that was performed using the chordal fingerstyle technique. ‘Chordally Yours’ was written by virtuoso bassist Stuart Hamm and is part of his Le Petit Suite For Solo Bass, a series of solo bass pieces written to illustrate the versatility of the instrument. You’ll find this piece on Stuart’s 2015 album The Book Of Lies. “Chords are a great tool that…