Double Take, and how my bass playing has improved

Above is a new song I released, Double Take (because there are two camera shots in the video,) and I have a few words about how my bass playing is better now along with how it got better.

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I'm no stranger to bass guitars and bought my first one (some Epiphone P-bass copy,) back when I was a teenager for $368. It's long gone now and that's fine because I neglected that bass big time.

I currently own a Yamaha RBX170EW, and I take care of my bass a whole lot better these days. 🙂

The difference between the way I play bass then compared to now is that I'm 100% about the finger style. Playing bass with a pick is something I used to do all the time, and now I don't do that at all and play using only fingers.

My preferred style of bass play is Bernard Edwards. You probably have no idea who that is, and that's okay. He was the bass player for Chic (pronounced like "sheek.") If you listen to Le Freak by that band, you can hear where the inspiration for my present bass tone comes from. Instead of a ballsy, in-your-face punchy sound, I now prefer short-attack notes with "honk" to them. With the P/J pickup layout, I purposely turn down the P pickup slightly so the J comes through, then roll the tone off. In addition, I also employ the use of ghost notes (percussive mutes) and spacing out my notes to get more flavor in the mix, so to speak.

I, obviously, am not that great of a bass player. But I was really happy to get at least a somewhat-Bernard sound going on with what I have.

My Bernard-style of play works really well with the less-distorted sound for guitar I'm using these days.

When I get bored of the guitar, I pick up a bass

Although the RBX170 is my bass of choice, I'd probably just be as happy with a Squier Affinity P/J or a Squier Precision Bass. Heck, I'd probably even be happy with a really cheap SX bass.

I'd be lying if I said I don't get bored with the guitar from time to time. I do. When I do, I grab the bass.

What I learned a while ago is that the cure for guitar boredom is not more guitars. When guitar boredom happens, a different guitar doesn't help. What I need is something different, and a bass certainly qualifies. It's bigger in every way, has a very different sound and requires (for me, anyway,) a very different playing style. That's different, which is good.

If you get bored with the guitar sometimes, get a bass of your own. That, and real bass guitar always sounds better for your recordings compared to keyboard bass.