bassmagazine.com ; ISSUE 4 ; BASS MAGAZINE 81
GO-TO GEAR
F
or the Zen Walk album, Andy West used a
6-string built by Modulus Graphite founder
Geoff Gould. “We’ve been friends since the late
’80s, when he got me into playing a 6-string,” West
explains. “I’ve had about eight of his basses over
the years. I had him make this one specifically for
the Dregs tour I did last year. I played a 4-string
on all the Dregs stuff, but there’s a lot of notes in
those tunes, so when I went back to relearn them
I changed some of the fingerings to work on the
6-string. It’s got a tighter spacing than most 6’s,
with the width of a 5-string neck.”
Strings “I’ve been using La Bella for a long
time now. I used to use the exposed-core Super
Steps; I still have them on a couple of my bass-
es. When we were doing the Dregs reunion tour,
I was listening to my original tracks, which were
done on the Steinberger or the Alembic. When I
played the Alembic, 40 years ago, I used ground-
wound strings — GHS Bright Flats. They had thekind of bite I liked, but they were also smooth and
flat. Before we toured, I was talking to Richard
at La Bella, and I said, ‘Do you make any kind of
half-groundwound strings?’ and he turned me
on to their Limited Edition Super Polished Pure
Nickel strings. They’re very similar to a bright
flatwound, but very smooth, and really nice.”
Picks “I previously used .88 Jim Dunlop
picks, which are stiff enough to get some bite but
flexible enough to play really fast. But now I use
.71mm Gator Grip picks. For me, a pick has to
have enough bend so I can quickly cross strings
when I need to, but it’s got to be able to dig in,
too. I don’t really like a super-plucky sound, but
I do like a clear pick sound. I learned how to pick
from Steve Morse. His whole thing has always
been up-and-down picking, even when crossing
strings. I never learned the technique to his level,
but I was fast enough to play the parts I needed
to play. In the past few years, though, I’ve also
put some time into economy picking, and I think
there’s a lot to it.”