Whenever I ask for recommendations on Bass Guitar strings, one of the most mentioned makes is Elixir Strings. They are quite different, and not to everyone’s taste, but they have attracted a passionate following. Via Guitarkadia I came across this CBS piece on Gore-Tex, the company behind Elixir Strings (excuse the pre-roll ad):
OK, he isn’t actually playing this week at Ronnie Scott’s, but Jeff Beck does have a new DVD coming out, and that’s its title: Jeff Beck Performing This Week…Live at Ronnie Scott’s. The DVD features bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld - a Sadowsky Basses and EBS amplifiers and cabinets user who’s tour credits include Chick Corea, Eric Clapton, Joss Stone and on…
Jeff Beck will be on tour and I’ve been told that there will a chance to meet him too. Check out “Led Boots” from the DVD, featuring Tal too, pretty cool stuff: [More...]
A long time ago in Getting Back into the Groove there was mention of “meditating on your bass” but a recent discussion with Kalin in the comments on the Road Worn Fender Jazz Bass post got me thinking about it again, especially this comment:
“I was never a fan of quick-fixes. It takes time to make things dear to one’s being, and guitars surely have that facet…” – Kalin [More...]
A week on the road, with almost no Internet access – Ah, how do we survive these things? Oh, I know… With bass goodness… A few highlights from musicmesse:
TC Electronic added the RS410 to their range of cabinets (the RS212 and RS210) for the RebelHead450, announced back at the NAMM show. As you can probably guess from the name, it is a 4×10 cab, it has a tweeter too, and is good for 600 Watts at 8 Ohms. Here’s a video from the TC Electronic stand: [More...]
Lots of the newer bassists who come to chat end up asking about fretless. I was interested in fretless bass from the earliest days of my playing. Partly because of the Jaco influence, but also because when I started playing there were a number of bands in vogue that featured fretless (Japan, Paul Simon, The Christians and tracks featuring Pino Palladino and Sting were in force too).
There are many reasons to play fretless, from the instrument’s unique tone, to the ability to slide gracefully between notes. Ultimately it is a matter of personal preference. Recently I asked Steve Lawson about going fretless. Steve is well known as a teacher of fretless bass, on top of his Solo Bass career. [More...]
