Happy Bassmas – here’s to lots of playing and gear for 2010 – and The Bass Guitar Blog will be 3 next year! I’ll leave you with this, from young willwh. Level 42’s Mr Pink – I don’t think I was playing like this when I was 14

Simply Brilliant Adam Ben Ezra, doing Andy McKee’s Drifting on the double bass:

Hat tip to Guy for forwarding it to me!

If you want a really small amp, and I mean REALLY small, then there’s a new kid on the block: The Boss Micro Cube Bass RX. The cube family has been around for as long as I can remember, but this new bass-version really has taken it to another level. Roland has posted a video that goes through the product details, but I’ll give you a run down on their new bass amp here:

• Stereo amplifiers, with and four 4-inch (10cm) speakers.
• Eight COSM® amps, six Boss digital effects.
• Rhythm Guide function for practical rhythm training.
• Stereo AUX input for CD/MP3 player, Phones/Recording out.
• Battery driven (6 x AA, up to 13-hour continuous use).
• Built-in carrying strap.

You’ll not be playing stadium gigs with this guy, but as a portable practice amp it ticks lots of boxes. It looks the part too.

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I recently stumbled upon this great piece on practicing with a looper over at the Institute of Bass – the post was sponsored By SWR Sound Corporation and written by the ever impress Michael Manring, who I had the pleasure of seeing live with Steve Lawson last month.

Looping History

Looping devices used to be huge, expensive mechanical things, involving spools of audio tape, motors, magnets and generally were a technical nightmare. However, in the age of micro-electronics and flash memory chips, for the price of a few sets of strings you can get yourself a looping pedal. I have a DigiTech JamMan that I use for practice, I know others using the Line 6 DL 4, the Boss RC-20XL, and at the very high end there is the looperlative box. Somewhat ironically, there are now effects out there that aim to reproduce the sounds of the old  taped-based loopers. If you have your bass plugged into your PC, you might want to try out the Mobius Looper (for Windows or Mac), which recreates the interface of the old loopers and is good fun! [More...]

Hot off the press! Mark and the Accugroove crew have brought a new range of cabs into the bass world

“Eight years in the making, our new MiniGrooves are the first and only tiny, lightweight cabinets that are built for the serious professional.”

So says Mark, Accugroove’s CEO, and he’s bigger than me, so I’m not going to argue . [More...]