I'm letting my Bass Player subscription lapse.

[chilliwilli]

I haven't had a subscription for almost a decade. It's cool if you are all about the gear, but when I was reading it the word "Player" should have been removed from the title

 

[Super Bass]

I don't know. I still love the magazine and love when it arrives in the mailbox. I just love all things BASS!

 

[buldog5151bass]

When I was in college, the monthly trip to the local music store was a great thing. Then, for years I was suscribed. But it hasn't been worth covering the bottom of a bird cage for a decade.

 

[BtaylorTheRogue]

I used to totally read that in 2003. I'm shocked it's still around.

Still, I learned some neat tips.

 

[Matthew Fisher]

Somewhere in this house I have #1 and the cover is signed by Billy Sheehan. Saw him at the G3 show in Raleigh some years back and took it for him to sign. He got a good laugh at the picture and his own hair.

Haven't read an issue in years. I forget what turned me off to it.

He had hair?

 

[Holdsg]

if I didn't get it free for going to BPL, I wouldn't be a paid subscriber.

 

[Mike Sorr]

I did it years ago when they started make me feel that if I couldn't play like Jeff Berlin, play super expensive boutique gear, and have a musical education from Berklee, I was irrelevant.

 

[Panda73]

This is the only one that matters .

 

[hands5]

Did a LONG time ago when their ad content started becoming bloated compared to actual content of useful bass playing information.

Exactly

 

[fretter]

Me too, but for different reasons.

The magazine has become predictable and really-really... boring.

Even the ads are in the exact place, in the exact same order in nearly every issue.

I have some old car magazines that I cherished as an adolescent and read cover to cover. I look at them now and think, wow, this stuff is so trite and predictable.

Edit: I look at the old mags now and think, wow, this stuff was so trite and predictable.

 

[pfschim]

Going way back to Bill Leigh and the other original editors/staff of BP, it really provided something bassplayers did not have before it.

More recently, I thought Jonathon Herrera did a nice job as editor, and still provides good, relevant, readable copy as a contributor today. Brian Fox was a stand up guy who was/is a regular working bass player, and he reflected that in his stewardship of the mag, but perhaps he was a bit out of his depth as editor in the wake of Herrera's departure. Lately, IMO, Chris Jisi is also holding his own in a very difficult print media situation overall - and NewBay Media is not particularly helpful either.

I am one of those old school types who prefers physical media like books, magazines and news papers. With some of the transcriptions and exercises provided in BP, printed versions just work better for me.

That being said, the web has, of course, opened up so many other outlets for reviewing gear, hearing clips, getting opinions, even interviews - media has gone from a broad-cast model, to a narrow-cast model where folks just go looking for exactly what they want to read. But, this can come at the expense of an edited, curated form of media which can take you to information and outlooks that you might not have gotten to on your own volition.

Oh well, time marches on.

 

[SteveBassJr]

I subscribe to Ibass online magazine. I like how their are lessons and informative videos embedded into the pages. I let my BP subscription end as well. It's to boring these days.

 

[Jetrider79]

I have to agree with the consensus here. I received a BP subscription over the holiday last year. It had been way over a decade since I had sat down with one, and not just a quick gander at Barnes and Noble. Meh. Still bored. Good info but good boring info. Not that my skills can top them. I don't know. It needs a refreshing rebirth!

 

[MobileHolmes]

I subscribed for about 5 years in the early 90s and even then, it was unbearably repetitive. I haven't even looked at a copy on the newsstand in probably five years. Sounds like I'm not missing much.

The magazine I really miss is Guitar School. It had lots of high quality tab, and usually baselines too. I think the first one I bought had Knock me Down, Peace Sells, Purple Haze, and Manic Depression. I guess all the online tab undercut the market for that, but man, it was great at the time

 

[MCF]

I have 30 years of BP and I just don't feel the need for it anymore. I can get everything I need right here at TB. Well, not everything.

There was a time I subscribed to about a dozen print magazines. BP, Natl GEO, The New Rebublic, Rolling Stone, etc. I now subscribe to one: California Fly Fisher; if only to keep it alive. Print media is dead.

 

[MCF]

It's an okay deal if you let your subscription lapse and get the 2 year subscription for $26 (I think it's like $24 to renew your subscription for a year). I liked the instructional and theory articles but they were the smallest part of the mag.

In addition to the ridiculous amount of advertising (even I got sick of seeing Warwick ads, and I love Warwicks), my big gripe was the amount of spelling/grammatical/print errors. It seemed like nobody even proofread the thing.

A clear sign that an English Major doesn't do the final edit. Spell check sucks.

 

[MCF]

I have some old car magazines that I cherished as an adolescent and read cover to cover. I look at them now and think, wow, this stuff is so trite and predictable.

I loved Car and Driver in the early seventies. I hung on until the mid nineties when it became completely irrelevant. I haven't read a car mag in years.

 

[MasterMonkeyMan]

I have enjoyed BP for many years. I always liked it primarily for the gear reviews. Unfortunately the gear reviews are lately way too few. Bummer.

 

[nixdad]

I've got the art of soloing edition of bp from 89, I didn't buy the first edition with Geddy on the cover.. it was so neat back then- we no longer had to read the occasionally rare articles on bass (in the guitar mags) but were no longer marginalized, we finally had our own magazine!

All good POV, but I really agree with this post. We all longed for any bass content in magazines prior to the birth of BP because it was so freakin' rare to come across anything bass related.

BP came along just a few years after bass players and gear really started getting the respect and notoriety they deserved. The 80's is when bass really came into its own, and was a very exciting time. The electric bass and amp market grew by leaps and bounds with exciting new ideas from boutique builders and traditional companies alike; bassists were no longer the forgotten red-headed step children thanks to the overdue notoriety of Jamerson, Jaco, Entwistle, McCartney, Bruce, JPJ and many others. Bass techniques expanded, bass specialty stores were launched, and we finally had our own magazine. This was all pre-internet. It was the beginning of an exciting time to be a bassist.

BP has been relevant and cool at many times over the past decades, and will hopefully find the recipe again no matter what the medium may be. As they approach their 30th Anniversary, I hope they remember and can recapture some of the reasons and excitement that lead to the launch of the magazine in the first place.

 

[bassboysam]

every bass player article is about keeping it simple/playing roots/about the notes you don't play. then they stick Victor Wooten on the cover. stopped reading that magazine 15 years ago.