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...]

Well, South by South West (or should I say “South By…”) was even more full on that I had imagined, and I had imagined it being very full on. Oddly, the thing stuck in my mind isn’t a gig, it was looking across at a rig. It got me thinking about having back ups and avoiding bass disasters…
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Having posted recently about house concerts, I’ll also point you to this great post by Steve himself on the matter: House Concert Hosting: a Beginner’s Guide. A number of recent posts have some great discussions in the comments, which are worth checking out if you haven’t seen them: [More...]

Recently I played bass for a musical. It was one of those lessons in how valuable being able to read a bass score is. I know many bassists who play by ear very well, it’s a great skill to have. However, when there are 20 songs to learn over two rehearsals, being able to read the bass lines off of the page is definitely a win. [More...]

The design of the bass has been pretty much set in stone since its birth. There have been one or two notable exceptions over the years, so when I saw and read about the Orchid bass, it really caught my attention.

The bass was designed and built by Luthier Rich Toone. It has a 32″ neck, a Trapezoidal Neck Profile, and was specifically designed for it’s player, Halie (aged 16 when the bass was made). [More...]