Articles about the Bass Guitar Community, demos of bands and new products, shopping and info, upgrades and replacements for you bass guitar hardware.
If you ever wondered how gold can a Fender bass get, anything “HLE” out of the Fender Custom Shop is your answer, pictured above with the Fender Limited Edition Closet Classic HLE Precision Bass. HLE refers to Haynes Limited Edition, which indicates the instrument will have a gold finish, gold hardware everywhere and even a … Read more
A favorite song of many bassists because of its groove, Cult of Personality is a staple rock song of the late 1980s. 1988, to be specific. This song is played using all fingers and requires accurate fretting to get it right. Also, atypical to most rock songs of the late ’80s, the bass can be … Read more
Imagine you are playing a gig. Backstage, you accidentally trip over your amplifier and crash into your bass, snapping its neck. Or what if this same mishap happened while you were at home? Your prized bass cannot be repaired and is considered a “total loss.” Homeowner’s policy insurance will only replace your bass with an … Read more
If you can believe it, Rolling Stone magazine called Rush’s Signals album “mostly a wasted effort“. Crazy, but true. Well, aside from what Rolling Stone thought, some of Geddy’s bass lines were absolutely incredible on this album. One such song that shines is Digital Man. Here’s an isolated bass version (with drums): And since we … Read more
New from Ibanez (video demo is below) is the 7-string Ibanez SR “ASHULA”. What’s interesting about this bass – other than the fact it’s a fretted/fretless hybrid – is that the fretted strings are set up like a standard 4-string in E-A-D-G tuning, and the fretless is tuned A-D-G (no low E). So while it … Read more
Since most of us will never be able to get our hands on an Alembic bass, it’s nice whenever someone demonstrates one. It’s especially nice when a Mark King model is demonstrated, as you’ll see below. From a builder’s perspective, this particular King model is quite a treat for the eyes as there is buckeye … Read more
We get a good amount of dads emailing and/or calling us up for assistance with father-son or father-daughter bass build projects. Many of these dads are musicians themselves that help their kids out when learning their instruments, and if there’s one thing these dads possess more than anything else, it’s patience and lots of it. … Read more
While playing in The Jimi Hendrix experience, Noel Redding typically did turn up his bass extra-loud just to be heard better… …and we’re glad he did, because he had an amazing bass tone. While watching the video below, you will hear his “blare” loud-and-proud, even while playing slowly. You’ll also notice he favored playing up … Read more
Those who know Lynyrd Skynyrd obviously know Freebird, but most bassists get lazy when playing this particular bass line. And by lazy I mean not playing it how it’s heard on the album as it’s not something one would call easy. The player who played the studio track was Ed King. He started out as … Read more
The song Ramble On is well known to any John Paul Jones (bassist for Led Zeppelin) fan. What isn’t well known however is the vibrato John put into his playing for this particular song. While true you can clearly hear good bass tone in the original studio recording of Ramble On, some of what John … Read more
