Articles about the Bass Guitar Community, demos of bands and new products, shopping and info, upgrades and replacements for you bass guitar hardware.
FAIR WARNING: What you will watch below may make a few of you cringe a little… …or maybe a lot. Or maybe so much that you’re going to comment and point out all the things wrong going on in the video below (such as using a pickup where the poles don’t line up to the … Read more
It’s time for a trip back to play some ’90s grunge. Mike Starr, who unfortunately passed away in 2011, laid down some amazingly good bass tracks with the ’90s grunge band Alice in Chains, and one of them is Would? The bass line on Would? is actually very simple to play but grooves very nicely. … Read more
(Editor’s note: This is a contributed article. You can also contribute an article! See details at bottom.) Cleaning and maintaining a bass is easy at home, but what about on the road or at a gig? You can easily create a small cleaning and maintenance kit to fit in your gig bag or case that … Read more
The saying “nobody is perfect” has been said countless times, and it certainly applies to bass players because everyone can make a mistake. Below is Give It Away from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, bass (Flea) and drums only. At the 3:36 mark you hear a mistake by Flea. And it’s a whopper of mistake … Read more
There is much debate on what a proper smooth ’70s bass tone is supposed to sound like. Some believe it’s nothing but P-Bass with the tone rolled off. Others believe it’s J-Bass with a 60/40 blend of rear and front pickup with the tone 3/4 of the way off. And then there’s the active/passive debate … Read more
At Best Bass Gear, we don’t do music lessons. That’s why gear is in our name and not lessons. There are however other places on the internet that teach bass lessons, and BassBuzz is one of them. BassBuzz’s lessons are beginner-friendly. They are friendly enough to the point where you don’t have to know how … Read more
Below is a video of the Sterling by Music Man StingRay Bass Ray35QM. And it sounds pretty darned good on its own. This is a sub-$1000 bass that has all the goods… …and it just might be the bass you’re looking for to upgrade with some Music Man size pickup mods. There are a lot … Read more
When looking for a bargain Japan-made Fender copy bass that’s actually pretty darned good, one of the better ones is a Tokai Hard Puncher, which is a Precision Bass copy. Tokai’s Jazz Bass copy model was called the “Jazz Sound”. The Tokai models are known to play and sound great and are easy to upgrade … Read more
“Walk This Way” is one of Aerosmith’s greatest hit songs from the album Toys in the Attic. There have been countless thousands of bass players who have covered this song. While there’s nothing wrong with that, many players tend to overcomplicate the song when covering it. Why do bassists overcomplicate the song when playing it? … Read more
Continuing on with the theme of 6-string basses this week, below are a few examples of how good the 6-string bass can sound. In this first example, we hear a classical piece by Bach. Generous use of the higher frets and treble strings are played. In this second example is one of the 6-string’s main … Read more
