Although I love playing bass, my primary instrument has been 12-string guitar for many, many years. I just dropped an album of a dozen 12-string instrumentals. For the first time, I arranged these originals with bass parts. This was challenging because, like many 12-string players, my several guitars are de-tuned either a half-step or whole-step below concert pitch. This meant lots of transposing for some songs or de-tuning bass for for others. Anyways, I ended up being very pleased with my bass parts. I used all my basses over the course of the songs to have a different flavor. You’ll hear a Jazz bass, P-bass, Viola bass (fretted and fretless), a 6-string fretless, and my Dean ABG. It’s a pleasing variety of bass tones, which is why I mention it here. On a couple of songs, I used an Electro Harmonix Mel-9 pedal on bass to emulate a solo cello part. Check it out if you find this interesting. Here’s the link to Bandlab.
https://www.bandlab.com/gwguitarstudio/albums/
As a postscript, I just wanted to add that, during the Covid pandemic, my guitar playing abilities really declined (onset of arthritis). I took up playing bass earnestly again after a long hiatus. Over the past couple of years, the low string tension of the bass and gentle stretching of playing bass rehabilitated my hands and gave me back my chops for 12-string. This album would have never happened if it wasn’t for the bass.
https://www.bandlab.com/gwguitarstudio/albums/
As a postscript, I just wanted to add that, during the Covid pandemic, my guitar playing abilities really declined (onset of arthritis). I took up playing bass earnestly again after a long hiatus. Over the past couple of years, the low string tension of the bass and gentle stretching of playing bass rehabilitated my hands and gave me back my chops for 12-string. This album would have never happened if it wasn’t for the bass.
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