Customer Reviews

101 Bass Tips: Stuff All the Pros Know and Use

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There's a lot of useful information in this book. It's not a theory book or a practice book. It's just what the title says, a collection of tips, ideas, suggestions. So you don't get yet another compilation of scales to practice, but you do get a tip to set up a drone tone to practice your intonation with. It's one of the best books I've seen for basic stuff like setup and string replacement and one of the few that will answer most of your questions about fretless.

I have been a Pro Bassist for 20 years, this without a doubt one of the best books I have ever bought. Every Bassist should own a copy. The book is fun and very helpful, to Bassist's of all skill levels. It is a must for new students.

This book is packed with great tips on just about everything: technique, practicing, setting up your bass, playing over changes, getting a good sound, and much more. Each tip is concisely written and there are tons of very helpful illustrative photos and music samples. You can tell the book was written with care. Highly recommended!

I thought this would have tips on playing techniques, tricks in sight reading, or adice from pros. It contains only a handful of useful tips. For the most part it covers string boiling, making straps, setting string, and other maintenance related topics not actual playing.

The first reason you should buy this is: Gary Willis is one of the best, most creative, cutting edge bassists out there. What he plays can sometimes be too far out for a lot of people, but he doesn't compromise and in that sense is a true artist. For that reason alone you should buy it - so the royalty helps him carry on being an artist!

But you should also buy it because it's got some really interesting tips in it. Stuff that you might not need now, but when you need it will save you hours, or days, or weeks of searching around for an answer.

There's tips on all sorts of things in here, fretless playing, soloing, strings, false harmonics, transcription, boiling strings (!), all sorts. There's no order - but that's one of the book's charms (IMO).

It's modestly priced - it's worth reading through once, making a mental note of the contents, and then coming back to periodically to help solve problems, or to give a new angle on trying to solve problems.

Priceless.
And Gary Willis gets a royalty.
Sound cool?

This book has total shown me step by step how to set up my bass and some other tips. It saved me money by not having to take my instrument to a pro to set it up.

Nice book; I thought I knew the trick of the trade, but learnt some more from this book.
Easy to read and to follow

I would definitely recommend this to anyone starting up a band or moving up from ameteur who would like tips. While slightly helpful to the beginner, you really get the most out of this if you know your way around a gig bag already.

The 101 tips that modern bass master Gary Willis lays out in this excellent book will help bassists of all levels improve their craft in a variety of ways. Take me for example. I had been obsessing over the lack of mids in my tone, tweaking my preamp and considering introducing an expensive EQ pedal into my effects chain. Then I read Tip 49, and backed off the volume on the neck pickup of my Jazz(tm) bass. Wow! There was the articulation and punch I'd been looking for. I had also been feeling guilty for watching my alma mater's football games on Saturdays ("there goes another three hours that I could have been practicing!"). Then I read Tip 96, and bought a length of 2x4, some rope, and two screw eyelets. Presto - I had the perfect "bass" to focus on the mechanics of right hand slapping with my thumb, isolated with no need to worry about what my left hand was doing, all while watching football. Features a CD-ROM of audio tracks that you play over for some of the Tips.

[...]

I play bass guitar for years, and after so many years I found some new info here. This book is specially good for beginner, although profs can find some things they've never thought about.