Bass Player drops print edition

[Dave W]

Bass Player magazine to close, as brand moves fully online

Apparently people still read it. I'm surprised.

[4stringer77]

Hey, it lasted longer in print than Payboy. Does this mean guys would rather wank on their bass than their johnson? 

[westen44]

Its only relevance anyway was for people who like to focus on everything under the sun except rock music.  I would buy an issue from time to time, but only because I'm so close to a big bookstore and it was so convenient.  But each time I did, I was almost always disappointed. 

[ilan]

/

[Dave W]

Back in the 90s when Jim Roberts was editor, it was pretty good. Then within a few years,there was an editor who couldn't write a paragraph without using the word groove at least a dozen times, followed by the guy who made it all-Jaco all the time. Ugh! I lost interest.

[westen44]

It got worse after the Jaco period and just kept getting worse.  I gave some of my magazines away.  Finally, they were pretty much talking about bassists I had never even heard of (and didn't want to hear about.)

[Grog]

I've subscribed to Vintage Guitar Magazine for about thirty years. It has kept shrinking steadily for years. Where it was made up of mostly dealer ads, now They take out just enough space to advertise their web address. It isn't much over 1/8th inch thick. Must be a sign of the times........

[ilan]

Guitar Player magazine was my main source of gear porn and info in the 80's, before the web. I still keep the May 1982 issue that featured the Entwistle collection. My favorite issue ever.

[morrow]

I used to love Tommy Tedesco's column.

[ilan]

I used to love Tommy Tedesco's column.

My favorite was Teisco Del Rey (Dan Forte)'s Off The Wall column.

[Chris P.]

It's sad. I had some comments on the mag, but it still had great content. My magazine had an agreement with Bass Player, so I could use some of their content, translated to Dutch in my magazine. Sometimes I just couldn't reach certain basssists, so I used their interviews a couple of times. For us with five magazines (guitar, bass, drums, recording, musicians') it's also hard, especially with rising prices and covid. We need advertisements and that's hard when container prices from China have risen from 1000 dollar to 15.000 (!). And the following:
Drums aren't sold, PA stuff isn't sold, so no ads. Interfaces and acoustics are sold to good and aren't available, so no ads, haha.


"Apparently people still read it. I'm surprised."

Our sales is going up a bit every year, we also offer digital subscriptions and for 10 euros a month you can read us on Readly, among a gazillion other magazines (Think car mags, photography mags, specialty mags as VW Camper or Land Rover mags, juist eveything).
Apart from the magazines we have podcasts, websites, facebook pages, facebook groups, instagram accounts, our own events, events we work together with, a radio programm, a video channel, our own Tiny Desk kinda concert series, all to be visible and not to be just a magazine. Every year we do more with less people, but it's fun.

"Finally, they were pretty much talking about bassists I had never even heard of (and didn't want to hear about"

It's quite hard to please everyone. I make four issues a year and I always try to make a mix between male, female, famous, coming up, old, young, Dutch/Belgian of foreign, all the music genres/styles, So every year I try to have famous bass players, up and coming players, men, women, and then also metal, punk, pop, funk, jazz, blues, rock, country.... I think one of the tasks of the magazine is to introduce players to our readers. There's one thing I hate: twice I had a metal bassist in it with a great story for each and every bass player. Some people told me they didn't read it, because they were metal players and those people weren't into metal. But as said the story was very good for any musician in any style. I really don't like that.
We were very early with Joe Dart, Michael League, I love to talk to people like John Stirratt of Wilco (twice), JMJ (twice) or unsung heroes like Gus Seyffert who  plays or played with Norah Jones, The Who (last record), Black Keys, and who's toring with Roger Waters. Nobody knows him, but he makes a great story!

My love for magazines: If I go to Spotify I listen to certain music. If I go to a big instrument website I go to certain basses. Through mags and real stores I disocver new music, new brands, new models. I really miss Q magazine to discover new bands and read about it.

I think it's a pity, I prefer real books and mags over Readly mags and my ereader (both very handy while traveling). I hope we can continue making our mags, but there aren't many bass mags left. I think a French one, maybe an Italian one, a German one I think. Maybe in Asia? I wish all the BP people lots of luck and I hope the online content will be great!

[lowend1]

Not surprising. I subscribed for a few years via Christmas gifts, but found it to be way too ad-heavy, and the articles - even the cover stories - far too brief.

[Dave W]

Chris, I'm glad to hear that your magazine is still thriving. My point was that BP had very little worth reading.

[Rob]

I used to love Tommy Tedesco's column.

Same here!

[westen44]

Like I've mentioned, I live very close to a big bookstore.  Years ago, there were three bass magazines available there.  There was Bass Player and two different magazines called Bass Guitar.  They had the same name, of course, but that was the only thing they had in common.  One was British.  I was able to buy all three at the newsstand for a while.  But that situation was temporary.  At that time, though, all three magazines were good. 

Eventually, the British magazine became hard to find.  Then Bass Guitar from the U.S. completely went out of existence.  That left Bass Player which deteriorated as a quality magazine year after year.  Like Dave said, there was little in it worth reading.