A quiet couple of days on the blog, due to a couple of VERY busy days off the blog - some of which will become apparent very shortly. There are still a few hours left (as I post this) to enter the Upton Bass pick up competition, before we roll into December. [More...]

www.mutantbass.com has produced this rather fantastic introduction to frethand leading… Mind bending and a brilliantly produced video too… [More...]

Carrying my bass amp around over the last few days, and listening to the amplifier woes of others, has got me to thinking about the different set ups choices we have as a bassist. It seems to fall into three main buckets:

1. Combo Bass Amp - A speaker / amp / pre-amp all in one.
2. Modular - A bass cab with a seperate head. Or even more modular - A cabinet with a pre-amp and power amp.
3. Amp-less - Something I’ve just started playing with!

Beginners often start out with set up 1 - A nice all in one unit. Some pros stick with a combo set up, so it is not to be sniffed at. I had an SWR Redhead which I used for many years - A very distinctive sound, but quite a beast to cart around. Later I splashed out on a more modular set up, which is what I still use at the moment :- an Accugroove cabinet (seen in “Choosing a bass cab part“, with a Clarus amp. I’ve started to experiment with an amp-less set up for some environments, but more on that in another post.

Each set up has its own advantages and disadvantages. I’ll be blogging some thoughts over the next few days, but right now I’m interested to hear your experiences. What is your current set up? What different set ups have you tried? What would you suggest to a beginner bassist?

I’ve played a various Music Man basses, including the Stingray 5 (of which I’ve been an admirer for a long while) and the curiously named Bongo (strikingly modern looking), but I’ve never played a Stirling.

So, I was very pleased to find this video with Ed Friedland (aka The Bass Whisperer), which gives a nice walk through of the Ernie Ball made Music Man Sterling 5 string for Guitar World Magazine (via Guitar Warehouse). [More...]

A couple of updates from US Bassist Seth Horan. Firstly, for those in the UK who missed him when he was over, he is back (for one show only!) - even after the Black Pudding incident:

• 27th November, The Thirsty Scholar Manchester, England.

[More...]

A very big thanks to Andy Long for bringing this one to my attention: Alun Vaughan has released a very special Christmas treat for bass fans: 10 Christmas carol arrangements for solo bass. These are chordal arrangements for solo bass in notation and tablature. It might seem a little early, but you’ll need time to practice, right? You can get it from http://bassbook.co.uk. [More...]

I was just about to write a post on bass cabinets, then I saw that Markbass has a plug-in that models all of their amps and a number of their speaker cabinets. The Mark 1 Studio Amp modeling software and digital effects have been popular in the thin-stringed world for a while. Options for bassists have been a little more limited. [More...]