Glenn Fricker Lets You Know How to Not Completely Suck on Bass Guitar

I want to speak to you for a moment, not as Editor-in-Chief of Gear Gods, but as a musician, and specifically as a bassist: this video is completely warranted. We deserve this. Thank you. I’m so sorry.

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But as a counter point, I plan to release my new tutorial “how to match the the black in your studio’s logo with the black in your header graphic’s background.” Then we’ll see who sucks, Mr. Fricker.

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Chris Alfano has written about music and toured in bands since print magazines and mp3.com were popular. Once in high-school he hacked a friend's QBasic stick figure fighting game to add a chiptune metal soundtrack. Random attractive people still give him high-fives about that.

Latest comments
  • “That way, you can spend your money on what you think is more important than your band: like a new tattoo” Or weed. I’ve known many a musician who never had money for gas or transportation or other basic necessities yet they always managed to have money for weed…

    The tip on boiling the strings was pretty cool too.

    • Do not boil the strings, then they will sound dead faster. Wash them in alcohol. Take a big jar, fill it with alcohol and leave them for one night. Afterwards clean them with a cotton towel. And you can use this jar with alcohol for endless string cleanings.
      If you have a friend who is a tattoo artist, let him clean your strings by ultrasound;)

      • 1. Rubbing alcohol or drinking alcohol? Does it matter?
        2. I somehow don’t think we’re thinking of the same kind of ultrasound. Do you mean autoclave? Because there’s a different use for it, ultrasounds are used to view babies in utero or to find kidney stones…

        • Ultrasonic cleaner, he means

      • He means once the strings sound dead, boil them and they will sound new. But only for a few days. But again, buy strings in bulk and you save more over time.

  • My thoughts:

    Just because he’s worked with crap bassist, he assumes they all suck (unless he’s joking but I can’t tell if he’s serious or not.)

    Most metal doesn’t lead itself to be open for a bassist to fill space, the stuff I dig like Isis has the clean sections or even slower heavy parts that the bass can move around in but if your jamming black metal/grind core/modern tech death/Djent stuff I assume its harder. (although I do really want to dub over my bass parts on to Sunbather to see what it sounds like when the bass is using as many effects as the guitarist.)

    • He’s fine with the good ones, but with the 90% of bassists that he works with, are the “meatheads” that you see him ranting on about.

  • I’d prefer a tutorial on “how to maintain sound level in a video,” which is something that, you know, a sound engineer would have plenty of experience with. But if you turn your speakers up loud enough to hear him speak, then the 0:19 screen just blasts your face off.

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