Table of contents for January 2020 in Bass Player

Bass Player|January 2020

Editor

Clicky, buzzy, and as top-heavy as a bag of titanium wrenches thrown into a steel bathtub, the signature tone of Korn bassist Reggie ‘Fieldy’ Arvizu sounds the way it does for a reason—because it has to cut through a wall of low mid-heavy sounds created by two seven-string guitars. Despite this logical approach, Fieldy has always had more than his fair share of detractors, and in this month’s cover feature he explains why he does what he does—and how that unique sound has helped take his band to 40 million album sales and counting. As always, we cover as much bass territory as possible within a single issue, sitting down to interview bassists from the jazz, prog, and world music movements and celebrating new, old, big, and small bass players.…

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

LOW LIFE

Welcome back, bassists! In this issue I will be tackling a subject that our live performance students at BIMM Birmingham UK have recently been getting to grips with—performance anxiety! It’s a bit of an underlying concern that many musicians face, and if you happen to be one of them, you’re certainly not alone. Despite the projection of confidence that many live performers give off, the behind-the-scenes reality can sometimes be the complete opposite. Of course, not everyone is affected by pre-show nerves, but here are some coping mechanisms for those who are. PPPPP (PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE) Preparation is everything! Not only is it a testament to a musician’s professional approach to their work, but it also helps to negate feelings of anxiety. When I asked my students what…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

THEWOODSHED

Let me take you on a journey back in time, to an era many now nostalgically refer to as “back in the day”… Back in that very day, when the Fender bass reigned supreme, a new style of bass guitar emerged that came to be regarded as the ‘modern bass’. When it was first established as a genuine market segment, this modern bass movement was predominantly populated by thruneck constructed instruments. In time, some modern Fender derivatives and a few other bolt-on neck models joined them, but until well into the 1990s, the vast majority of modern basses utilized thru-neck construction. By the mid-1980s, modern basses had become less of a novelty and were more widely available in the retail market. An increasing demand for extended-range instruments helped to fuel…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

STAR BASS

Suzi Quatro’s career is an object lesson in badass rock’n’roll. Born Susan Kay Quatro in 1950, her first steps into the world of music came when she played percussion in her dad’s jazz band before becoming Suzi Soul in the mid-60s group the Pleasure Seekers, alongside her sisters, Patti and Arlene. They released a couple of singles before Quatro decamped to the UK in 1971, working with Mickie Most and touring with the likes of Thin Lizzy and Slade. The multi-instrumentalist and singer scored huge hits with ‘Can The Can’ and ‘Devil Gate Drive’, and by the mid-70s was a bona fide rock star. Quatro has never stopped touring and recording, and also enjoys forays into theatre, radio and TV. Her Leather Tuscadero character in Happy Days cemented her image…

4 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Foal Play

“MY HEROES ARE THE BASSISTS WHO PLAY IN UNDERGROUND SCENES” Coltsblood formed in 2010 when my wife Jemma and I decided to start writing together. We were joined in our early days by Paul Burnett on drums and recorded a few demos and splits, before recording our first album Into The Unfathomable Abyss in 2014, which was released via Candlelight Records. After a number of shows and tours, Jay Austin—who I’d previously played with in Black Magician—joined on drums and we recorded our second album, Ascending Into Shimmering Darkness, released in 2017. We’ve toured the UK and Europe extensively over the past few years, and at the start of 2019, we released a two-song split with Seattle’s UN on Translation Loss Records. We each contributed a 20-plus-minute song: Our addition…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Memory Games

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, or OMD as everyone calls them for obvious reasons, were and remain a force to be reckoned with in that most Eighties of sounds, synth-pop, for the simple reason that their songs have been consistently excellent for the last four decades. Real bass guitar parts, courtesy of frontman Andy McCluskey, have always underpinned the keyboard washes and melodies that made the tunes so persuasive, leading to a sound that many of OMD’s colleagues in the synth movement couldn’t match. The public responded keenly, leading to 25 million single and 15 million album sales, barely-digestible figures by the standards of today’s shriveled music industry. Little wonder that their longtime label Universal has released a five-CD, two-DVD box set called Souvenir, also containing prints, a poster, and…

6 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Calum Gourlay

My main band at the moment is a quartet under my own name. I also have a monthly Big Band residency at the Vortex in London that plays all my own music and arrangements of Thelonious Monk’s music. My quartet is Helena Kay on sax, Kieran McLeod on trombone and James Maddren on drums. We play my music and we’re currently touring the UK and promoting my first album as a leader, New Ears. I love playing in this sort of combo because the bass has so much freedom and so many options. You can play simply, or interact, or anything in between. I always wanted to play double bass. Maybe I saw one in a film or something and became fascinated—possibly Some Like it Hot where Jack Lemmon is…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Simen Daniel Børven

When I was about 12 years old, I was the singer in a band. The kid playing the bass quit, and I came in last to rehearsals that day. Needless to say, the bass burden fell on me. In many cases I guess starting out on bass is almost like an arranged marriage. Statistics show that the average divorce rate is much lower... Hmm. Maybe that’s the way to go? Force your kids to play bass, y’all! My first bass was a plexiglas Harley Benton. Just terrible. I sold it a few years ago, but my father bought it back for me as a present recently. What a legend. Still a terrible instrument, though! In Leprous, I play a four-string bass set up like a five-string. Five is too much,…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Stonefield Mighty Mini ($325), Sub Mini ($375) and Mini Plus ($425) Cabinets

We’ve reviewed Stonefield basses favorably on several occasions, so we’re keen to get our hands on these cabinets, a new venture for the company’s big cheese Tomm Stanley. A man well versed in the joys of portable equipment and getting gear from A to B, Tomm has designed these cabinets to relieve the burden of the modern bassist when transporting them to and from gigs, rehearsals, and so on. Available in an assortment of colors and in three specific models—the Mighty Mini, the Sub Mini and the Mini Plus—these cabinets are designed to address issues that bass players complain about most often when dealing with amplification. Has Tomm hit the spot? There’s only one way to find out. Build Quality The dimensions of each cabinet are such that portability is…

4 min

Bass Player|January 2020

BASS LESSONS

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…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

THEFRONTLINE

How do you establish an identity? Ask jazz guru Ruth I’ve recently started playing in a trio, led by the jazz trumpeter Laura Jurd, with Corrie Dick on drums, and me on bass. I’ve played with both musicians in different setups before, so I was very excited about the new project. About a year ago I decided to play more electric bass than double bass, so that’s what I wanted to do in this trio. I didn’t quite know at the beginning what kind of music we would play, as Laura is so versatile a musician that we could have gone a few different directions. When we first got together, Laura suggested a few tunes which she felt inspired her as a musician and composer. These included songs by the…

7 min

Bass Player|January 2020

THE LOWDOWN

LAKE TOWN A press release from esteemed luthier Dan Lakin reads: “Dan is back with a new line of all USA-made basses. His new team consists of a designer, Kirk Hunter, and a master luthier, Dan Strack, who both worked with Dan at Lakland. Dan’s first prototype, just completed this week, is a short-scale original design that features a single Curtis Novak Bisonic pickup. “The Bisonic pickup design was introduced in the early 60s by Hagstrom and more famously used by Guild on the Starfire Bass in the mid to late 60s. Curtis Novak improved the design by adding an extra magnet. This pickup offers unparalleled frequency response and tonal clarity. Clocking in a just a few inches longer than a six-string electric guitar, this bass balances perfectly. An order…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

THEFORUMS

NO TREBLE KEVIN JOHNSON Winter wonders abound in bass world As the weather turns colder, things tend to also freeze up on the new gear front. This time of year falls between the trade shows that larger companies use to launch their new products, but smaller boutique outfits continue to churn out basses that make us drool. This past month had No Treble readers fawning over one-of-a-kind instruments by two of the most decadent builders in the world. First off was the latest addition to Fodera’s Masterbuilt Series, which is an outlet for their builder to get creative with design themes. The ‘Gothic Stained Glass’ bass got its moniker from its inspiration: An old Gothic church in Massachusetts. Fodera utilized their Monarch body design as a canvas for an array…

7 min

Bass Player|January 2020

THEORY OF THE MONTH

Right then, groovers! In my last Theory Of The Month column, we took a further look at applying pentatonic scales over various chord types. Pentatonic scales give us access to large intervals and can provide a relatively simple opportunity to establish lyricism in our lines. This month we’re looking at ‘voice-leading’, which is applying a resolution by a semitone or tone, explaining the fundamentals of how functional chord progressions work. Conceptually, this one isn’t difficult: Voice-leading describes the technique of a chord tone (or allowable extension) either ascending or descending in order to become a chord tone or allowable extension of the chord which follows it. For example, a G7 resolving to become a C major chord provides some fairly obvious voice-leading opportunities. The 3rd (B) can resolve up by…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

ZERO SUM

“Man, we’ve made so many albums, I can’t keep up any more. This October was 25 years since the first album came out. Back then, you think you’re unstoppable!” These are the words of Reggie ‘Fieldy’ Arvizu, bassist with Korn, the first nu-metal band—if that term means anything anymore. The quintet from Bakersfield, California, who are now accurately regarded as pioneers in their field after a quarter of a century and over 40 million album sales, have just released The Nothing, their thirteenth studio album since their debut record appeared in 1994. Reminded of these facts, Fieldy displays a refreshing refusal to take his band’s success for granted, marveling: “It’s surreal. The chances of us making it this far must be almost a one in a million. We’re in disbelief.…

12 min

Bass Player|January 2020

World Music

You have four different projects on the go at the moment, Ruth. Talk us through them. Well, I picked a few bands this year that I want to focus on. I’ve been playing a lot with a band called Vula Viel. The bandleader is Bex Burch: She plays the gyil, which is a xylophone-type instrument from Ghana. Rhythmically, it’s very difficult. The music comes from the Dagaare tribe in the north of the country. Bex lived there for about five years, and learned how to build the instrument and to play it. They play funeral music where they sit around in a circle and play for 24 to 48 hours, non-stop. Explain the music for us. It’s a very strict form of music, so it’s not like jamming on two…

8 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Marshall Law

Walk The Sky is quite a departure, with how we’ve gone about writing the record, and also its overall sound is something new for the band. The way that the record came together was a different process this time. With our singer Myles Kennedy playing with Slash, and doing his solo project, our guitarist Mark Tremonti also doing solo work, and us all being in different parts of the world, we used technology to bounce ideas off of each other, specifically the Dropbox system. Myles was on the road and writing in hotel rooms, and Mark was doing the same, whether it be in hotels or at home. They would upload material, and from there, Flip [drummer Scott Phillips] and I would get used to the ideas. I would try…

4 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Ahmad Hani

In 1996 I bought my first bass and practised at home secretly behind my family’s back—I am a self-taught musician. Indirectly, I got into playing the bass by trying a friend’s classical guitar. I found that I could play a riff that he had been struggling with for a week in one minute, and I thought to myself, ‘I think I have some talent—why don’t I have my favorite instrument?’ I then bought my first bass, an Aria. I joined my first band in 1997 and for the next decade I played as many styles of music as I could, joining dozens of bands. At the end of 2007, I wrote my first solo bass piece, ‘Hazelcut’, and spent another 10 years composing more solo pieces and performing with other…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

GEAR REVIEWS

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…

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

MALIEN Contact 4B and 4C

We’re always keen to review bass products from new companies entering the marketplace for the first time, so we’re pleased to welcome London-based luthiers Malien to the front line. As a custom builder, the company is looking to work alongside customers to realize the instrument of their dreams, so we requested these two examples for delivery to us at our hidden command bunker. How do they stack up? Read on! Build Quality The shape of the Contact 4B has a touch of the BC Rich Mockingbird about it, although the upper horn is more extended than that of the venerable headbanger’s favorite. The richly colored body lumbers—zebrano and ebony—form a five-piece laminate, and the exquisite horizontal grain of the former lumber adds much to the visual. The instrument feels very…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

GR Dual 800

My first impressions of the Dual 800 are positive: it’s well-built and extremely quiet in operation, which is appreciated as a bassist who shoots a lot of lesson videos—this is something I’m personally always listening out for. Aesthetically speaking, however, the front face of the amp is very busy, there’s no getting away from it—there are a lot of controls on offer here, which may seem daunting to some on first use. Fortunately, it all makes sense once you get stuck in. There are two separate ¼” jack inputs to the left, meaning that you can plug in two instruments. GR suggest either two basses, or a bass and a keyboard, which is ideal for the modern player who also uses a synth for low-end work. There’s also an Aux…

4 min

Bass Player|January 2020

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Price | $325, $375, $425 Made In | New Zealand Power | 200 watts (120W MS) / 450 watts (225W MS) / 250 watts (125W MS) Impedance | 8 ohms Frequency Response | 55Hz to 5kHz / 32Hz to 1kHz / 45Hz to 8kHz Speakers | 6.5” Mighty Mini driver / 6.5” Mighty Mini driver with high frequency horn / Fourth order bandpass design Dimensions | Mighty Mini 325 (H) x 255 (W) x 195mm (D), Sub Mini 395 (H) x 295 (W) x 405mm (D), Mini Plus 370 (H) x 300 (W) x 250mm (D) / 13” (H) x 10” (W) x 8” (D), 15.5” (H) x 11.5” (W) x 16” (D), 14.5” (H) x 12” (W) x 10” (D) Connections | Two parallel Speakon/1/4” combo input sockets /Series/Parallel…

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

BP Notation Legend

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…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Beginners’ Lesson

Welcome back! I hope that our improv adventures have given you all some tools for making up new lines for your music. This month we are going to have another look at ‘swing feel’, as used in a lot of jazz. I appreciate that jazz may not really seem like a beginner concept, and certainly if we were to dig too deeply into the harmonic side of playing music from the genre, we’d get way out of the remit of this column pretty quickly. But the ‘jazz feel’ is one that crops up in a lot of pop songs, and is really useful to understand and be able to employ, whether we’re playing covers or creating our own music. From ‘Moondance’ and ‘Riders On The Storm’ to hip-hop tracks like…

9 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Advanced Lesson

Hello again, and welcome back to my long-running series on the two-handed tapping technique. This month we’re continuing to look at some longer study pieces that will likely require weeks or months of practice, rather than hours or days. Approach with caution, then, but also with optimism—you already play better than you think you do! Jazz is the theme of this month’s pieces, and we’ll be looking at two styles that sit within the genre. The first is a straightahead swing based on the chord changes to Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’, well-known among jazzers as ‘rhythm changes’. This piece will require you to play a continuous walking bass-line, while tapping out chordal parts with your picking hand. The second piece is a bossa nova, based on the changes of Kenny…

5 min

Bass Player|January 2020

IN THE GROOVES

NEW ALBUM Avery Sharpe, 400: An African American Portrait (2019) The long-time upright and electric jazz composer stunned us with the scope of his latest album, out now. OLD ALBUM The Roots, Things Fall Apart (1999) The hip-hop classic that turned 20 in February. Massive, chunky bass, and drums that will level any crowd. REALLY OLD ALBUM Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) Two words and three letters: Geezer Butler, ‘N.I.B.’ Blues bass solo greatness. An album so classic we shouldn’t need to print the title.…

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

BASS OFTOMORROW

Some of us mortals have such a degree of skill and knowledge that even the gods look down on us with envy. Odin may well have his last eye fixed on American luthier Pete Skjold, head of Skjold Design Guitars, whose basses’ quality and craftsmanship is comparable to that of Thor’s mighty hammer Mjolnir. Since he’s been grinding away since 1992, we doubt he’ll be smitten down by their wrath any time soon. “I’m inspired by my Scandinavian roots and interest in the culture and mythology,” Pete says. “When I started designing what has become the Quest series, the Fire Drake, the Griffin, the Drakkar and even the Greyling—which is a small dragon—I decided to go with a little more mythical approach to the names. The dragons seemed to just…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

TECHNIQUE OF THE MONTH

Greetings my fellow bassists! Once again, we meet to work on a transcription of some of my favorite parts from the songs that I’ve written and recorded. This month, let’s continue with part two of our look at the song ‘Outbound’ from my album of the same name, released by Steve Vai’s Favored Nations label back in 2000. Last month, we looked at the tapping intro for this track, so now let’s move on to the main bass part, which combines slapping, popping, tapping, hammer-ons and pull-offs… all of the essential Stu Hamm techniques! The song is in the key of D minor, so let’s start off by getting your left hand in the proper position. The anchor points are going to be your first finger on the 7th fret…

5 min

Bass Player|January 2020

GEAR Of The YEAR 2o19

Can it really be a whole year since we last put this list together? Well, 2019 has certainly seen swathes of new gear released to the market for us to drool over—and despite being told that young people aren’t taking up musical instruments these days, if what we saw at Winter and Summer NAMM and the London Bass Guitar Show in the UK was any indication, kids are showing a huge amount of interest in guitars—and definitely those in the lower register! Maybe it’s just the natural cycle of things. Innovation and technological advances continue apace, and value for money has never been better—depending on where you live, and how much geopolitical turmoil is in the news this week—which is why all of our reviews dig deep into the build…

9 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Switched On

The new wave of American heavy metal has produced one of the most important bands to shape the modern landscape, combining hardcore punk with headbanging riffs since 1999. It can only be the Massachusetts five-piece Killswitch Engage, consisting of Jesse Leach on vocals, guitarists Adam Dutkiewicz, and Joel Stroetzel, bassist Mike D’Antonio, and drummer Justin Foley. This year marks the release of the quintet’s eighth album, Atonement, celebrated by fans and critics alike all over the world. As the band pack more heaviness into their records than ever these days, it is a challenge for D’Antonio to get the lower frequencies heard among all that downtuned madness. With modern metal’s emphasis on ripping six-strings, do metal bassists have it harder these days, we ask? “I think metal may be one…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Our Hex Induction

In 2012, I dropped out of university to pursue my dream of becoming a rock god... sorry, Mom. I threw a Hail Mary pass into the ether, posting a “bassist seeking band” ad that night. A few dodgy auditions later, Welsh sisters Sam and Charlotte Bolderson contacted me, as their current bass player was leaving to focus on beauty pageants. It was safe to assume I wasn’t about to follow the same path. The Kix, as we were known back then, were a three-piece classic rock covers band. We landed a steady stream of pub gigs, bike rallies, and the odd wedding. Naturally, we began to write original material, drawing inspiration from the bands we were covering—AC/DC, Led Zep, ZZ Top, and so on. Sneaking them into a cover set…

3 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Jan-Olof Strandberg

Maybe you could call my bass style progressive, because that word includes everything—funk, jazz, and rock included. I love the bass guitar and study it every day. Identity is very important whatever you play: your stamp is your sound and the way you approach the instrument. Bass is almost like a religion, to me. I mainly play Mayones Jabba four-string fretted and fretless basses. My son, Jan ‘Jysky’ Strandberg, introduced me to these great instruments many years ago. They work great for both studio and live work—what more can you ask for? I did a tour and a recording with my favorite bass player, Armand Sabal-Lecco, in 2014, released as Live In Finland the following year, and everything I play on the recording is played with Mayones basses. For amps,…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

JS SERIES Spectra JS3

The past few years have seen Fender making significant strides with their Jackson bass range, and that expansion continues with the addition of three new models to the Spectra series — the JS2, JS3, and the five-string JS3V. Unveiled in January 2019 at Winter NAMM, these instruments aim to deliver above-average playing comfort, and unique appointments, at a competitive price point. We put a JS3 through the paces to see how it measures up. Build Quality Straight off the bat, the size of the contoured upper horn commands attention. Beyond its eye-catching aesthetic prominence, the generous contours distribute the weight evenly from stem to stern. Played seated, the JS3 sits snugly on our lap regardless of posture, while hanging from a strap, the body and headstock balance extremely well. The…

4 min

Bass Player|January 2020

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Price | $999 Made In | Italy Power | 800W RMS @ 4ohms Features | Two channels plus mix, overdrive, tuner, four-band EQ, six selectable mid frequencies, deep and bright filters, footswitch included Connections 2 x Speakon combo jacks, FX send and return, aux in, headphone input with dedicated volume control, 2 x pre and post DI, USB charging, 9V power supply for pedals, footswitch Dimensions | 31cm x 26cm x 9cm / 12” x 10” x 3.5” Weight | 2.95kg / 6.5lbs WHAT WE THINK Plus | Lots of tone-shaping options Minus | Many controls to contend with, some difficult to get to quickly Overall | A very impressive feature set BGM RATING…

1 min

Bass Player|January 2020

FISHMAN Fluence Soapbar pickups

hen Fishman rolled out their Fluence pickup line in 2014, it promised substantially wider palettes of tones from their standard setup. Fluence technology uses a solid core instead of a wire coil, with a magnet similar to more conventional pickups, in order to tame the pesky humming and other noise inductance issues often associated with wire-wound pickups. To cover as many bases as possible, we put it through its paces on a five-string Schecter Hellraiser Extreme. The Soapbar comes with the same fully-active EQ and voicing switch that they’ve used with their guitar pickups for some time, which is something unique to Fishman. There are four knobs—a pan pot, a volume, and two EQs. Both have center points that yield a flat, neutral sound. The front is the bass/treble knob,…

2 min

Bass Player|January 2020

Intermediate Lesson

Welcome back! As advancing musicians, there will always be external elements that influence us. ‘Exploration’ and ‘necessity’ are two such components that shape and manipulate our musical prowess. Comprehending ‘exploration’ is relatively straightforward; you are today what you practised yesterday. If your study is constrained to a small group of subject areas, then your musical ability will mirror this and may result in being restricted. ‘Necessity’, however, is an entirely different animal, as a third party generally sets its parameters. We never know which gig is around the corner, which means that preparing for every eventuality is almost impossible. Only when we’re confronted with a requirement can we respond and develop the appropriate skill sets. Take the study of time signatures, for example, which generally resides near the bottom of…

5 min

Bass Player|January 2020

THE LAST NOTE

Welcome to The Last Note! Picture this: A pedalboard chock-full of effects under your feet. Each month I’ll be dissecting that virtual pedalboard to help you craft your sound more quickly and efficiently. Today, we’re looking at the humble compressor. What does it do, how do I use it—and why the heck can’t I hear anything happening when I turn it on? WHAT IS COMPRESSION? In simple terms, the change in volume from our quietest notes all the way up to the loudest transients we can produce is known as the dynamic range. Compression, whether it’s in the form of a small pedal, a professional rack unit or a software plug-in on a computer, takes that dynamic range and reduces it. WHY DO WE DO THAT? Well, limiting the output…

4 min