Amy Humphrey

Amy Humphrey - Bass DVD

Bassist Amy Humphrey and her drummer husband, Joe Hayes, play together in a duo together called Clatter. They released their album Monarch in late 2006, and that album includes five songs that were recorded with a 12-string bass. Everyone who ordered this album in advance of the release date received two DVD’s as a bonus. One DVD highlights Joe’s drumming, and the other features Amy’s basses, an overview of her playing history, lyric writing, her unorthodox bass amplification system, and the playing and recording techniques she utilizes.

Regarding her Waterstone TP-1 12-string bass, Amy states, “It has opened up an entire new range of sonic possibilities for us. As a two-piece band we are always looking for ways that we can fill in some of the spaces, and a lot of the time we’ll do that with playing, but the nice thing about the 12-string is that it adds in some of the higher notes that were sometimes missing when we’re just doing the 4-strings.”

Amy demonstrates the clean and distorted sounds, and how she used all three channels of her amps to create the sounds of her bass on the song “Nighttime” that was included on the Monarch album.

Editor’s note: The song “Nighttime” from Clatter’s ‘Monarch’ album is included on the ‘Overkill Is Just Enough’ 12-string bassist compilation album.