Bass Guitar Magazine

November 2020 - Issue 401

Jeff Ament and his Hamer 12-string bass are on the cover. Jeff states, “'My Father's Son', which was on the last record (Pearl Jam’s Lightning Bolt album in 2013), has a 12-string bass - with a heavy, riffy song, I always want to bust that thing out because it's such a cool sound. It's almost like having a piano out there with it.”

Editor’s Note: ‘Bass Guitar Magazine’ and ‘Bass Player’ have merged to the extent that these two magazines are both titled ‘Bass Player’. This issue has the notation “Now incorporating Bass Guitar” and it uses the ‘Bass Player’ issue numbering system. All further issues will be listed under ‘Bass Player’.

You can read Mark’s interview in its entirety in the Articles section.

The article offers some opinions about how to best record a 12-string bass, and also how to avoid phase cancellation, which is a problem rarely encountered when recording a 12. When asked about how he records, Doug Pinnick said, “There is no set way, it’s more like season to taste. It all changes from song to song. There’s no real secret for the 12 that I can think of. It is a difficult instrument to record and on the King’s X song ‘Pray’ I had to play a 4-string bass (dubbed with the 12) to get a tighter sound”.

Veteran 12-string bassist Ron Johnson adds, “The multi cab approach allows you to boost and level out the sound of the bass, as opposed to using a compression device. It is not a cheap option and after years of doing this you will get a bad back from all the lifting. But the splitting of the sounds allows all the tones of a 12-string or 8-string to really come out and the fullness of the sound is quite impressive and overpowering.”

This issue of Bass Guitar Magazine includes articles about both extended range and multi-string basses, but unfortunately there are quite a few errors made by the writers of each article. In the extended range article it is stated that Tom Petersson owned an 18-string Modulus bass, but that bass had found a new home with Allen Woody 20 years previously in the mid 1980’s. In the multi-string article, bassist Ron Johnson is misnamed ‘Ron Jackson’, plus the article sent readers who wanted more information about 12-string basses to a defunct site that soon disappeared from the web.

When asked why you would want to play a 12-string bass instead of just using an octave pedal, Johnson said, “It’s just not the same. Octave pedals will just not allow you to pick up the proper overdrive and distortion the extra strings will provide.”

In his one-page interview about the 12-string bass, Doug Pinnick states, “I think it works with any style. I think the key is how you play (it’s in your hands) and your tone is very important. It’s still an animal that needs its own thing to shine through, like on ‘Jeremy’ by Pearl Jam.”

Bass Guitar Magazine - March 2006

A full-page review of the Waterstone 12-string bass is included, plus this bass is shown on the cover.