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NorCal BASSIX meets Ken Bebensee of KB Guitars

I recently had the opportunit to meet Ken Bebensee of KB guitars. Ken is an extaordinary luthier of fine basses, guitars and acoustic instruments. My first encounter with KB basses was many years ago at a bass clinic. I was amazed at the attention to detail. Not to mention the tone..... ahh the tone. As you can see, Ken builds some true works of art. Ken and I spoke about his approach to building, neck woods and pickups.

For those of you wanting to have your dream bass built, I would suggest visiting KB Guitars and see what Ken can do.

The Denver Bass Bash

By Stew McKinsey

The Denver Bass Bash (originally the Lodo Bass Bash) is a bittersweet series of memories. Sweet because I heard phenomenal performances, met incredibly inspiring individuals and made friends that I am sure I will take with me through the rest of my days. Bitter as this year's event was the last. There will be other solo bass hangs, I know, but there was something very unique in the gatherings that C3 organized and hosted.

Some of these events have an agenda, benign or otherwise, and some are definitely too competitive for my taste ("Oh, you think you can play fast? Check THIS out!"), but that was never the case in Denver. The atmosphere has always been genial, fun and supportive. I watched some players take the stage as solo artists for the first time. I was accompanied by and got to accompany some of my favorite bassists in the world. And I felt like I belonged.

 I shared a stage with slappers, tappers, singers, shredders, goth cats and metalheads. There were moments of sublime beauty and jaw-dropping technique. Ambient soundscapes were created and effect-driven craziness was shared. The sheer array of eclectic artists was dizzying! Among the talent to take the stage at these events were Gregory Bruce Campbell, Trip Wamsley, Yves Carbonne, Jean Baudin, Darren Michaels, Jeff Schmidt, Zen Beer Bass, Brady Muckelroy, C3, Jay Terrien, Edo Castro, Kent Beatty, Matthew Moss, Steve Hahn, Jeff Martinez, Todd Johnson, Matt Skellenger and some players who never introduced themselves.

 Aside from clinics by amazing players, people like Skip Fantry and Carey Nordstrand have shared their knowledge and experience with us. Drummers like Dave Ferguson and Dray Pryor killed. And I was given an opportunity to play -- and teach -- when I was coming out of the worst part of my life. When I was at my worst, I was surrounded by the best people around. And I do not mean to ignore the most important people -- the fans! Players’ families and friends made the trek to these events. Musicians of all ages and experience levels sat quietly in the audience and erupted into thunderous applause. Music stores and all manner of organizations lent their support. Gear was given away. Contacts were made. Pranks were played. Laughter was shared.

More than all of that, these were events where we -- those of us on stage -- got to express our gratitude to those who deserve it. We were able to feel humbled, elevated, inspired and ludicrous all at the same time. This year's event was low key and informal. New faces made the scene and rafters were shaken. There was the usual banter about gear and gigs, but it felt more like a gathering of friends than anything else. And I had the added bonus of recording my new album there.

 I strongly urge you to support events like this and to thank those who organize/sponsor/host them. It is difficult living a life in the arts and there are certainly not many events like this. We are not here long and the ties we make are all special. the ones we forge among our kindred spirits can be amazing. I hope more events like this will come up in the future... and I hope to see you there!

FREEKBASS performs in NorCal

It's not very often that you come to find out that one of the worlds funkiest bass players is playing right on your home town. I recently had the opportunity to catch an amazing performance of "FREEKBASS"!

I have one word to say......

"FUNK"

This was one of the most impressive funk shows I have ever seen. Even with an outside temp. over 100 degrees, FREEKBASS and his band (sorry I didn't get your name guys) straight tore it up! Laying down some serious grooves with his killer thumb technique, FREEKBASS ran through an 8x10 KUSTOM bass cab/head. There was even the presentation of the "BOOTSY" Traben bass from the mothership, care of Bootsy. I was very impressed with the way that FREEKBASS used his skills with looping and envelope filters. Hopefully we can get him to submit a review of his gear and basses.

You definitely need a FREEKBASS injection in your funkification!

Be sure to visit  FREEKBASS

Bass Off The Beaten Path

By Stew McKinsey

To my way of thinking, the musicians I remember are the ones who have found their own voice, their own sound and approach to playing. While many people think of Victor Wooten or Les Claypool or Jaco Pastorius, there are several others who have created their own style.

Here is a list of some of those players and some of the cuts that they appear on.

 Andy West’s playing on “I’m Freaking Out” by the Dixie Dregs (from the album Dregs of the Earth) is an encyclopedia of bass technique with examples of how to execute each one flawlessly in the context of a song. The up tempo fusion piece features fast unison lines, bubbling finger funk, aggressive slap and angular syncopation that should prove a challenge to most players.

Victor Bailey’s playing on the Weather Report tune “Procession” (from the album of the same name) is standout for 2 reasons. First of all, the tone of Victor’s bass (a ’66 Fender Jazz) is nothing short of incredible. As the man who replaced Jaco Pastorius in the seminal fusion band, he had some big shoes to fill and at 19 years old I think he did it with great style. Second, his playing performs the function of bass but does it by playing all the things that bassists aren’t supposed to do. He does not come down hard on the 1 of any measure, nor does he emphasize the 2 and 4 to drive the piece, but it is one of the hardest grooving fusion songs I know.

These days people know Pino Palladino as the guy who plays P-Bass with John Mayer, D’Angelo and The Who, but he was originally known as a fretless player who raised pop songs to art with his additions. For me there is nothing that demonstrates this better than his ridiculously melodic and driving on Paul Young’s cover of the Marvin Gay song “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” from Young’s No Parlez album. He has amazing stuff all over that album. You will also find him twisting ears on Gary Numan’s I, Assassin album as well as on tracks like “The Lady in Red” by Chris De Burg, “No One Is To Blame” by Howard Jones and “Murder” by Dave Gilmour.

One of my favorite bass parts is not even played on a bass. There is a keyboard bass part on the song “Sean Flynn” which appears on the album Combat Rock by the Clash. Aside from being a really inventive part, the phrasing on this line is really hip -- A great exercise to try and play on a fretless!Brand X had the amazing talents of Percy Jones for most of their early albums and you will find something great on any track where he played. His completely frenetic playing on the pre-electronica tune “Noddy Goes to Sweden” is no less stunning than his improvisation all over their live album, entitled appropriately enough Livestock. He has gone on to a great career as a sideman, bandleader and solo bassist.

 Interestingly Brand X also had the skills of John Giblin, whose strengths lay in all the things that Percy didn’t do. Where Percy played quirky, unorthodox and extremely kinetic lines, John aimed for gentle melodicism and a full warm tone. His tune “April” on the Brand X album Product or his sublime duet with vocalist Tanita Tikaram on her song “Love Story” (from the album Sweet Keeper) demonstrate how it is not always chops that get you stuck in someone’s brain. Another fretless stylist that many people do not know is Mick Karn. While he learned to play with the band Japan (and everything on their albums Tin Drum and Oil On Canvas is incredible!), he has gone on to record as a solo artist and occasionally as a sideman. His sound and style are absolutely all his own.

 Lawrence Cottle has made a name for himself because he can read and play parts that would make most players panic. His playing on the self-titled album by the Fents as well as his terrifying work all over the Itchy Fingers album Quark will give any player tons to analyze and study. Whether he is slapping, playing impossibly fast and smooth unisons with a sax, imitating whale sounds or getting into some deep chordal work, he is always fresh and exciting.

 For a study in funk playing without slap, check out Anthony Jackson’s lines on the Chaka Khan tune “Clouds”, or pretty much any of the tracks he played on either of her first two solo albums. Anthony doesn’t play bass parts; He composes them! Any of the things he played with Eyewitness (especially the tracks “Suitcase” or “Guy Lafleur”!) will mess you up as well. Anthony believes in context as everything. He knows his theory inside and out and loves to use unusual harmonic choices when he puts together a bass part.

If you’re a slap fan, you may want to check “The Pursuit of Accident”, “The Chinese Way”, “You Can’t Blame Louis” and “Eyes Waterfalling” by Mark King’s from the Level 42 album The Pursuit of Accidents. Mark, like Jaco Pastorius and Will Lee, started as a drummer and switched over to bass. When he slaps, he has a drummer’s sense of drive and his groove is just crazy.There will always be players to inspire you. These to me are some of the ones who found their own style and that has pushed me to do the same.

Pickup Basics

By Stew McKinsey

Bass players, like most musicians, are constantly after that elusive perfect tone. But the sad truth is that most of us have no idea what is involved in getting the sound we want. Part of this is due to the fact that we do not all agree on the definition of terminology, the ways we describe sound. The bigger part, though, is that we really do not understand all the factors in tone. This piece is about one of those pieces in the equation: pickups.

To begin with there are different categories of pickups. Most of us are familiar, at least a little, with magnetic pickups, so that is what I will address here. I will leave the discussions of piezo and light or laser technology that reads string vibration to others.

While magnetic pickups are essentially just magnets wrapped in wire designed to translate the vibration of the string into an electrical impulse that an amp makes into a sound, t here are really 2 pickup design camps: vintage and modern.

The vintage sound is aimed at bringing you the best of classic bass tones: P-Bass, J-Bass, Music Man and a couple of others (like Rickenbacker or Dark Star sounds). Vintage designs are based on pickups that are not new to get you those sounds. Generally the magnet material is made of Alnico (an alloy of aluminum, nickel and cobalt) and only one of a few different types of wire. Some of the companies making vintage designs are Fralin, Nordstrand and Seymour Duncan

The modern designs first appeared in the 80’s and have a completely different sound and goal. These pickups were created for studio players and players who recorded in the first super clean digital environments and used a lot of signal processing, so they needed pickups which produced less noise than vintage designs. They use different magnet materials, different types of magnets and different ways of winding the wire. Bartolini, EMG and Delano are some of the companies using modern designs.

Here are the most common types of pickups:

Single coil - This was probably the first type of magnetic pickup used with any kind of popularity. The original ’51 Tele-style P-Bass and the original J-Bass used single coils. The Rickenbacker 4001 used single coils. All this means is that there is one wrap of wire around the magnets. One big coil. This design is known for beautiful tone but noise and 60 cycle hum are very common with single coil pickups, particularly when one pickup is soloed.

Split Coil – This was the first way pickups were designed to cancel hum. The P-Bass that everyone knows now is the most common split coil design, but almost any single coil can be split. So many companies offer split coil J-pickups as well as the classic single coil types. A split coil has a somewhat “darker” tone than a single coil. This means that there is not so much brightness (high frequency response) and there is usually a bit of information in the midrange frequencies sacrificed by splitting a coil.

 Dual Coil – This is another way of canceling hum by combining two single coils, side-by-side, in one pickup. Probably the best known version of this is the Music Man pickup. A dual coil design differs from many of the other pickup designs in that it can be run in several different ways. The classic MM sound has the pickup operating in parallel, which provides a clean focused sound which is very bright and has a prominent midrange scoop. Parallel operation is *very* popular with slap style players. But the pickup can also be run in series which provides more output as well as a big round sound which fingerstyle players tend to favor. In addition to series and parallel operation, this pickup can be run as a single coil by bypassing half of the pickup!

Stack Coil – This is still another approach to hum canceling which is achieved by using smaller coils and stacking them one on top of the other. The advantage to this design is that it is almost completely hum canceling. The disadvantage is that it has less output than most designs. It also generally has a darker sound than most hum canceling pickup types. If the coils are significantly large the pickup can also be run as a single coil, which is achieved through bypassing the bottom coil.

There are many variations of each pickup type and there are several ways to alter a design. Changing the coil height or magnet type are the first two ways to do this, but one can also add to or subtract from the normal amount of wire. This is referred to as overwinding or underwinding the pickup.

 Overwinding a pickup adds to the pickup’s midrange output and generally gives the pickup a meatier sound. The brain often perceives this as ‘bassier’ but it is really the thicker character that we are interpreting as more bass.

Underwinding a pickup adds brightness and aggressiveness. An underwound pickup loses midrange output, sounding thinner. This is much more common on guitar pickups, where the signal may go through a distortion or an overdrive pedal, and that screaming high end is a desirable thing.

Remember that these are only some of the things to consider when you are searching for your tone. The materials in your instrument, the construction methods used in building it and most importantly, the way you play will all factor into the sound!