This was meant to be up in time for International Women’s Day, but studio arrangements have kept me away from the blog. This is an amazing hour long interview with bass legend Carol Kaye, from The Snapshots Foundation, which makes for compelling watching. If you aren’t familiar with Carol, you WILL have heard her play. Over 50 years of playing, including with  Frank Sinatra, Simon and Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, The Supremes, The Temptations, the Four Tops and The Monkees, and Sam Cooke, oh, and that iconic bass line on Ritchie Valens La Bamba. Watch and learn.

A thought provoking list from Scott Divine, of the amazing Scott’s Bass Lessons:

1. Never Be Late (actually, be early!)
2. Don’t turn up under prepared (always be prepared!)
3. Be enthusiastic about the gig (never bring others down!)
4. Do NOT noodle in between songs (btw that includes during sound check!)
5. Rehearsals are not personal practice time (do your practice at home!)
6. Don’t bring bad vibes to a situation (if things are going bad, don’t make them worse!)
7. Use reliable gear (keep it in order and make sure it is solid)
8. Have a solid repertoire (know songs, lots of songs…)
9. Don’t be locked into one genre (have a wide repertoire).
10. Respect the type of gig you’ve been hired for (a slap bass solo from the pit at a musical won’t get you an invite back ;)).

Watch the video…

What would your 10 must do’s be?

Great interview from Reverb.com with Tony Levin. He is the bass and Chapman Stick player for King Crimson, since 1981, and has played with Peter Gabriel for several decades on top of a massive list of session contributions that include everyone from Paul Simon to Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and John Lennon. It is worth watching just to hear a few bars of the epic bass line from Peter Gabriel’s “Red Rain”

Tony started as an Upright player, coming to the electric bass later…

There are quite a number of DI options available to bass players these days, but Electro-Harmonix has just announced something a little different: the Battalion Bass Preamp and DI. It packs a fairly meaty set of features, including a four-band equalizer which has a 200Hz low cut/boost, 2kHz high cut/boost and two non-sweepable mid controls at 280Hz and  750Hz. It has a MOSFET distortion section which has three – yes, 3! – signal path options: pre eq, post eq and dry eq (partial by pass). There is a -10dB Pad Button to compensate for active versus passive pickups, keeping the sound levels under control for that ever-grateful soul on the sound desk.

The Battalion also includes a compressor, a noise gate and and, as you would expect for a DI, an XLR out with ground lift switch, as well as a 1/4 inch jack output (including a “headphone ready” socket). comprehensive I/O. They have posted a demo on the Electro-Harmonix youtube channel:

Quick Specs

Well, here’s a new thing from the folks at ghs strings – 5 string feel on a 4 string bass. ghs has released a “BEAD” tuning set of roundwound bass strings in their bass boomers range (nickel-plated steel). They say:

Tuning a 4 String Bass BEAD (or, the lower 4 strings of a 5 string bass) is not a new development. However, players had to either purchase strings separately or a 5 string set and throw away the G string to be able to do this.

With the BEAD Tuned Bass Boomers® sets from GHS Strings, players can now buy the exact sets they want without the previous hassle.

Though they do come with a warning :):

WARNING: These sets are optimized for BEAD tuning on a 4 string bass. Do NOT attempt to tune these sets up to standard EADG tuning.

Yup! That would hurt! Anyway, if you are a 4 string bass player who is after that low B, and you are happy to let the high G go, you can order a set here.

Well, it turns out you can do this:

Nice job Davie! He’s also quite good with no strings 😉