Published on June 7, 2024 at 9:19:26 AM PDT June 7, 2024 at 9:19:26 AM PDTth, June 7, 2024 at 9:19:26 AM PDT
Product : NEW! Valeton Bass Dapper Mini
Valeton has just released the Dapper Bass Mini. The Bass Mini is a seriously potent effects strip featuring just the essentials for bass players that are looking for a compact solution for practice, live, and recording sessions.
The Dapper Bass Mini includes a tuner, booster / compressor, bass amp simulator, chorus, headphone out, AUX In, and XLR out. It's a bass rig that fits in your gig bag. With it you can send you signal directly to front of house and shape your sound, and not break your bank account.
Street price is $89.99.
Features
Tuner
Powerful Boost/Comp
Bass Amp module
Chorus
XLR output
Headphone output
Click here to learn more about the Valeton Bass Dapper Mini.
Update: Sid Griffin's Tuscany Workshop
The last week of May witnessed the first ever Sid Griffin Workshopalooza in sunny Tuscany Italy where a half dozen of Sid’s faithful guitar playing fans gathered for a week’s intense instruction on how to play ten…count ‘em…ten Long Ryders songs.
The ten songs learned by the Sid students were chosen by them and after four days study a local bass player and drummer were on hand to back the students up on the songs as they played guitar parts, sang lead vocals, sang harmony vocals, and generally had a good time playing the music of longtime Osiamo artiste Sid Griffin.
This first Workshopalooza saw students from the USA, the UK, and Benelux mingle as one, their shared love of music, good Tuscan food, the local wines, and sunny weather bonding them as only those things can. And the really, really great news is the two gents who created these weeks have already asked Osiamo artiste Sid Griffin to do it again next year, in May 2025, and this time to have ten students on hand. So if you love Sid Griffin’s music and good Italian food come along next May!
The exact date for the second Sid Workshopalooza is being sorted out now and an announcement will be made later on this year.
Story: You Were Born an Artist
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” —Pablo Picasso
Childlike curiosity is a wonderful thing to experience as an adult. What changes as we age, grow, and mature and why do we seem to lose interest in our natural artistic ability and choose instead to not use it? Why is being an artist often contrasted against a mature and responsible adult? Is our choice if we want to pursue are really Artist/Child or Adult?
Some people point to our innate desire to name things. They postulate that once we name a thing it is of less interest to us. We have identified it and put it into its box, correct or not. This seems to support the notion that as we get older and learn about more things and name them we eventually think or believe we’ve named everything, or enough of our reality to get by. Then perhaps we just get on with our lives thinking that the learning part of our life is complete?
Another idea put forward is that when we are younger everything is new and large in proportion to the sum of our experience. Hearing an awesome, catchy pop tune for the first time when you’re ten is a wonderful and unique experience. By the time we are 30, we’ve heard so many pop songs that it’s less unique and we can adopt the “heard it before” attitude. This backs up research that shows we decide most of our tastes in music, film, art, and other aspects of our lives before we reach 30. First, it’s not easy keeping up with all the new music. Second, most of it doesn’t seem as large to us because it’s a smaller, proportional slice of our lives in contrast to when we were younger. A song that spends a few weeks at the top of the charts when you’re 10 is proportionally a much larger part of your life. That’s why the number 1 song from when you were 10 wins out nearly every time unless connected to a large and unique experience later in life.
How do we slow down time? Can we stop and smell the flowers like when we were children? It’s impossible to see a butterfly again for the first time, but it’s not impossible to see it for the first time within the context of your current reality. Some call it meditation or mindfulness practice; I like to call it slowing down and observing. If only for a few minutes each day, watch a cloud, listen to a bird’s song, or savor the aroma of the food you are about to eat. It sounds like a bunch of hippie dippy bullshit, but it can help you get back in touch with your original, childlike fascination with the world.
As a musician, it could be allowing yourself to just explore just one note on your instrument. Play it, and only it, in a groove or a drone. Let it become your mantra that induces a trance. You may only think it’s one note, but the depth of that one note depends on the depth you put into it. Many of us forget that a muddy puddle left behind by a passing summer thunderstorm becomes a laboratory of discovery for children. Try to recall the childlike wonder when you hear a new song. If you try to replicate that feeling, you can reconnect with that part of your life.
Bottom Line: Recall the feeling the first note you played created in you.
