Bass Player

Our colleagues at MusicRadar recently ran a poll to determine the public’s choice of best (or at least most popular) bassists performing today, with candidates suggested by the staff of this magazine. The results may surprise you, with a wide range o

Venture to Brighton on the south coast of England in the UK, and you will find GB Guitars, an innovative company building bass exotica for almost 35 years. The brand began life simply as Goodfellow, after its founder and luthier extraordinaire Bernie

Greetings once again, bassists of the world! This month, let’s look at a third lesson from a composition of mine, ‘Outbound’. This first appeared on my Favored Nations release of the same name in 2000, and there is now a live version available on Art

Glenn Hughes, born in Cannock on August 21st, 1951, has brought not only the bottom-end but the vocal frills to top-notch groups from Deep Purple to Black Sabbath. His musical adventures began in the 60s as singer and bassist for the proto-funkers Tr

The veteran heavy metallers Iron Maiden are so active, four decades after the London band’s inception, and do so much high-profile touring, that it’s hard to imagine that one of them—and the founder member, no less—would ever have time for a side pro

Tell us about the Sound Of London Collective, Stuart. The project originally started with Ollie Clarke and James Larter. James is an amazing percussionist from the Royal Academy School; he’s an amazing musician. Ollie is a virtuoso guitarist, and the

My path to bass has been pretty long. It began with dancing, because I used to dance when I was five years old. At the time, I saw myself as a choreographer, but seeing the example of my brother, who was fond of music, and my parents, who played musi

Few can claim to have studied the works of Sir Paul McCartney to the same degree as Dutch musician Bart van Poppel. Sitting down with the man is like opening a vault of Beatles insider knowledge, with all sorts of facts on instruments being switched

“The tour is going amazingly well,” opines Dream Theater bassist John Myung of his band’s current road trip. As he’s not a man prone to exaggeration, or indeed doing anything without extreme care and attention to detail, we know we can trust what he

My dad is a musician and my mother was as well, so I grew up listening to music from an early age. You could say it’s in my blood. Bands like Black Sabbath and early Metallica inspired me to play guitar and be in a band. My father gave me the best ad

Gene Simmons’ activities outside the scope of music—his womanizing, his love of money, his reality TV shows, and various minor controversies—has often overshadowed the fact that, first and foremost, he is a musician in one of the world’s biggest rock

When I was a toddler, I would listen to the radio, pretending to be a bass player. I never knew why this instrument in particular fascinated me so much—I guess I was always drawn to low notes. My dad brought home a mini Fender bass for me when I was

Ared Precision, with a honey gloss maple neck and fingerboard, gold anodized scratchplate, and chrome hardware is a classic look in anyone’s book—and straight from the supplied deluxe gigbag, this beauty returns you to a bygone era. What makes this p

Guy Pratt’s well-travelled 1964 Fender Jazz, referred to as ‘Betsy’, was previously owned by John Entwistle of the Who and despite her vintage, value and general desirability—Burgundy Mist was a very limited color—has covered many miles on the road w

With the current popularity of Class D amplifiers, you would be forgiven for thinking that valve amplification is becoming a thing of the past. Still, plug your bass into a high-quality valve amp, and you may have your head, and ears, turned by the w

his year, New York’s Electro-Harmonix celebrates the 50th anniversary of its original Big Muff pedal. Known for its thundering low end, rich tonal expanse and reliably potent sustain, bassists have long embraced the power of the Big Muff and with thi

We’re self-confessed SansAmp champions here, having been consistently impressed by the range over the years, but that doesn’t mean we let their makers, the veteran amp-modellers Tech 21 NYC, get away with anything less than the very best. After all,

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

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about articulation, and how to spell out my ideas on my instrument in a colorful way. I’m not talking about using effects, but the actual action of finger on string, and thinking of how to phrase. For example, playin

Okay guys, this month we’re going to dig into a little bit of theory and take a sideways look (isn’t this column always a sideways look?) at how to think about the notes in a Major scale. More often than not, when we learn and practise scales, we ten

Welcome back to my long-running column on the two-handed tapping technique. This month we’re going to be applying our now fully developed tapping skills to two new study pieces, each of which illustrates an interesting way to communicate harmony. As

Hello all—I’m back with the second instalment of my pedalboard column! I hope part one last month on compressor pedals has been useful. This time we’re looking at ‘drives’, or to be more specific, distortions, fuzzes, and overdrives for bass. In brie

Traditionally, the electric bass was very much a melodic instrument, but in today’s world, it’s evolved to become something far greater than its humble beginnings. Whereas once it was heard playing single-note motifs in a customary register, nowadays