Electric and Acoustic Bass Gear for the Bass Player

How-To

Envelope Filter Funk : EVER SINCE BOOTSY COLLINS DID INDEED MAKE OUR FUNK THE P-Funk, bass players have gone ga-ga for envelope filters, those autoquackers beneath a great deal of uncut funk. While most of us know how they sound, many don’t quite get

Accessories

New Gear November 2009 : Industrial Radio MIDI Bass Bass players have long dreamed of a bass guitar that outputs reliable, pitch-accurate MIDI. With such a bass, a universe of opportunity awaits. Various manufacturers, to varying degrees of

New Gear June 2010 : KALA U-Bass Acacia & U-Bass 2 Ukuleles are so cool nowadays, there’s even a Uke Bass, or U-Bass for short. KALA’s 20" short-scale models come in fretted or fretless versions, with polyurethane strings, four individual

Effects

Boss GT-10B : It's been seven years since Boss introduced bassists to the GT-6B, a low-frequency version of its popular guitar multieffect extravaganza. Since that time, we’ve met its less expensive kissing cousins, the ME-20B and ME-50B

MXR M82 Bass Envelope Filter : The year: 1976. While much of Middle America was caught in a red-white-and-blue reverie celebrating our nation’s bicentennial, Bootsy Collins and his interplanetary brothers in Parliament were busy shaping the future sound of

Amplifiers

Trace Elliot AH1200-12, 1048H & 1518 : BY MICHAEL RICCI TRACE ELLIOT HAS ALWAYS TAKEN an original approach, as evidenced by the unique look of its gear. However, Trace’s real trailblazing was more than cosmetic. In 1980, there was little competition to the

Kala uBass : DESIGNED IN CONSORT WITH OWEN HOLT OF ROAD TOAD MUSIC, the Kala uBass ($500 street) is a baritone-sized ukulele strung with thick polyurethane strings and equipped with an undersaddle piezoelectric pickup system. For review,

Basses

Fender: Road Worn ’50s Precision Bass & ’60s Jazz Bass : Take the groove-goosing confidence you get from gigging with a real “player’s” bass, add the reliability and comfort of playing a new, pro-quality instrument, subtract the anxiety of schlepping a collector’s item that costs more

Moroccan Sintir, North Africa’s Bass Banjo : KNOWN AS SINTIR, GUIMBRI, AND THE ONOMATOPOEIC hejhouj, this instrument comes from the Gnawa people of North Africa. Descended in part from slaves taken from Sub- Saharan Africa, the Gnawa occupy pockets stretching from