Bass Player

2020 will see the release of bass-heavy albums by a bunch of our favorite rockers, not least Biffy Clyro, whose bassist James Johnston has graced these pages a few times over the years. Their new record, their eighth in two decades, will no doubt see

There are basses; then there’s Fodera basses. Established in Brooklyn back in 1983, by master luthiers Vinny Fodera, and Joey Lauricella, their company and instruments have no need for an introduction—playable works of art that would give the Sistine

It’s trade show season in the music products industry! With NAMM 2020 just finished, and the upcoming Frankfurt Musikmesse close on its heels, it’s the perfect time to talk about artist endorsements. Each year, manufacturers are solicited by what see

Hello once again, my brothers and sisters in all things bass guitar! I hope that you’re well and happy, and have been practising like the serious musicians that you are while still managing to have fun and insert your own voice into your bass playing

If the parents of Raymond Matthews Brown had been better off when he was a schoolkid in the 1930s, you’d now be reading a Star Trombonist profile. Thankfully for us—if not for the young Ray—his folks couldn’t afford the brass instrument, and so he to

It’s a rainy day in Soho as I make my way through the hustle and bustle of London, UK, to Ronnie Scott’s famous Jazz Club. The Wooten Brothers have a sold-out show tonight, and as I make my way through the doors, I’m greeted by a group of music fans

The sun is shining in Anaheim, California, and we, along with the editors of Guitar World, Guitar Player, Future Music, Music Radar, Guitarist, and other state-of-the-art MI publications, are hitting the ground running, even though NAMM really starts

December 2019 saw famed luthier Roger Sadowsky launch a range of bass guitars through a licensing deal with German company Framus Warwick. We were invited to Warwick’s German headquarters, close to the Czech border, to meet up with Roger and Warwick

What’s happening, Yuriy? My new album …For Its Beauty Alone features David Binney, who also produced the record, on alto saxophone; Matt Mitchell on piano and Prophet 6; Rudy Royston on drums; and myself on the bass. It’s all my original music and s

Vicky Warwick has been touring the world, holding down the bottom-end for such artists as Charli XCX, Gabrielle Aplin, and Josh Kumra, while dividing her time between London and New York—though lately she’s set her sights on the L.A. scene. “I was to

Voyager was first founded in 1999, two years before I had even started learning how to play bass. It wasn’t until 2007 that I was finally accepted into the band, and our seventh album, Colours In The Sun, is out now on Season Of Mist. Our future plan

Sometimes you feel slightly inadequate as a bass journo. Take our interview with Leon Lee Dorsey, for example: The man has done so much great work in the field of the low frequencies, alongside such illuminated names, that your questions about what s

I’d gotten into playing bass when I was asked to join a band in high school. The only position left was that of bass player, so I went out with my dad and bought my first bass. On the way home he told me if I wanted to take this on I would need to li

Andrew, the Brand New Heavies are busier than ever. How is the current tour going? It’s good fun. This tour’s pretty special for us, with the new album TBNH doing so well, so we’ve been trying out different iterations of the set. I’ve got an Aria P

Megadeth, a recording and touring metal band that has operated at the very top of its niche since 1984, was put on hold early in 2019 when frontman Dave Mustaine embarked on treatment for throat cancer. Fortunately for the band’s huge numbers of fans

My first bass was made out of balsa wood and didn’t even have a brand. I bought it for spare pocket money and played the absolute hell out of it. I stored it in the Berzerker’s basement when I moved from Australia to England, and it was destroyed in

I’m 40 now, and although I started playing piano at four and electric bass at 10, I honestly feel like I’m just starting; just getting to where I’ve wanted to be. For double bass, I was around 21 when I really got serious and put the time in. My mom

Okay, we get it. The Jazz Bass is the most popular bass design out there—perhaps because when you break it down, its components are relatively simple. Why is it, then, that one sounds so different to another? I have several examples in my collection

Ever since Enfield’s Cannon bass range was unveiled at the end of 2008, the Enfield range has undergone various developments in terms of features, aesthetics and the odd nip and tuck here and there. The ever-genial luthier Martin Sims has sent us the

Crafting high-quality bass guitars since 1989, Atelier Z has established quite a popular reputation among bass players around the world. Using a combination of expertly-cured ash and maple, Atelier Z constructs basses that are ergonomic, well-balance

With increasing numbers of bassists turning their backs on traditional—and cumbersome—amp setups in favor of digital solutions, there is now a dizzying array of product available to facilitate every conceivable setup. The latest offerings from Rockbo

elcome to our lesson section, in which Bass Player collates the wit and wisdom of the crème de la crème of the electric and upright bass world. We’re fortunate enough to have some serious talent on the team, from world-class music educators to experi

The Stave: Most music written for the bass guitar uses the bass clef. The example to the right shows the placement of the notes on the stave. Tablature: This is a graphical representation of the music. Each horizontal line corresponds with a string o

Everyone who has ever seen me play knows how much I love to play with lots of energy and enjoy rocking out on stage. This often comes with loud volume, not just from me but all of us on stage. Playing loud can make you feel a certain way and create a

Welcome back, guys! I hope that you’ve been having fun this past month experimenting and playing around the intervals of the major scale. For this issue, we’re going to take a look at the minor scale, and a few other pattern options for building bass

Welcome back! In my previous column, we looked at an array of chord tones, referenced in conjunction to a coinciding open string. The goal was to give you the ability to deliver triadic double-stops that could act as focus points to identify chord to

Hello, and welcome back to my long-running column on the two-handed tapping technique. We’ve covered a lot of weird and wonderful techniques over the past couple of years, and I hope you’ve enjoyed being on this journey with me. However, all good thi

Welcome to the third instalment of The Last Note, where we look at my virtual pedalboard signal path, take a chunk of it, explain what it is and figure out how to use it for bass! This month, we’re looking at equalization, or EQ. There’s a lot to say