bassists

Positive Grid’s mighty mini amp has taken the world of practice—and stage—by storm. Here’s the lowdown on the original Spark amp, the Spark MINI, the Spark GO, the new Spark CAB, and the company’s flexible, tone-hopping controller. Most are sale-priced for the holidays.

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Don’t wait ’til mixing to get a great tone. Record your sound as best as you can to make your tracks shine.

Recording bass can be a challenging task. Whether we are talking about a natural, woody upright-bass tone that balances well within a jazz quartet, or a nice, round electric tone with definition and copious amounts of low end for “modern” situations, the science behind how to achieve these sounds has eluded more than a few engineers and players. As both a player and as a recording and mixing engineer, I wanted to pass on a few tips that have served me well over the years.

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For part two of our crash course in harmony for bassists, we’re talkin’ triads.

As bass players, our job is often to indicate and support what is happening rhythmically and harmonically in the music we’re playing. And to do that, it’s important for us to understand the basics of tonality and how it works. In fact, every bass player must have a strong knowledge of harmony to do their job correctly. This month, we’ll continue last month’s harmony crash course with some more ways to brush up on your ear skills, in italics below, so you can do your low-end job effectively.

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