Bass guitar practice may not be something that you look forward to, but the only way to get better at anything is to practice. It doesn’t matter how expensive your equipment is, if you don’t practice, you will not improve. The skills you do have will deteriorate. Now I know that the thought of practicing scales for hours at a time doesn’t make you want to rush over and pick up your bass, does it. Well practice needn’t be dull and boring, and shouldn’t be. Read more »

Bass guitar lessons available on the Internet are growing in popularity for a number of reasons:

• there may not be a suitable teacher in your area;
• your schedule may make it difficult to make appointments at a set time;
• private tuition can be very expensive.

Consequently, there are a growing number of instructional videos, CDs, and books now available on the Internet. Unfortunately, these products are not all created equal and while some are great, others are not worth bothering with. Read more »

In this final part in our series of posts on how to tune a bass guitar we look at electronic tuners. Available in pocket-size models costing around $20 to large rack mounted models costing several hundred dollars, electronic tuners are a highly accurate means of tuning any instrument and after using one for a while you will wonder how you ever managed without one. Read more »

Echo, delay and reverb are bass guitar effects that when used properly can add a little depth and interest to your sound. These types of effects are probably more suited to recording than for live performances. In rooms with poor acoustics, you will be trying your hardest to reduce echo and reverb, not add to it. However, these effects units do have their place in a bass player’s box of tricks and so lets take a little look at what they do. Read more »