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So welcome to my second newsletter, December edition. Long time since the last one. It feels like the more work I have, the less time I have to communicate it.

But as always, we have alot to discuss.

As you may know I play the bass, but an instrument that is as big part of my practice as my bass is my pedalboard. It’s more that I see myself playing bass and pedalboard. Instead of bass. I have seen I started playing bass always used pedals extensively. And my pedalboard has gone through many iteration and variations to reach is current form. And the first part of this newsletter I will discuss my pedalboard and my relation to it.

PEDALBOARD:

So when looking for pedals I always have a few things in mind when choosing. These are the following.

Instant - I am always looking for pedals that have an instant parameter. With this I mean pedals that are easy, fast, and instant in turning off and on /or/and modulating the current effect. With that in mind, momentary pedals come in very handy. Below you'll find the difference between momentary and latching pedals.

Momentary: Momentary switches require continuous compression. They will switch on when the user compresses the switch and will remain on only for as long as there is pressure on the switch. Once the pressure is removed they will switch off. Think door buzzer.

Latching: Latching switches are switched on by the user and then remain on until switched off again. They do not require continuous compression from the user. Think Light switch.

New - I am always on the lookout for pedals that brings new effects to the table. Effects that are unique to that manufacturer. Effects you don't hear often.

“Bad” - Another thing that I’ve been working a lot with lately is buying pedals and using them in an unconventional way. So an easy example, buying an octave that is built to handle monophonic information, but you'll feed it polyphonic information. Often the outcome can be traced back to “new” things I'm looking in pedals.

Here is a list of my pedal board and short about the pedals. In the order of which one I use the most.

1. Digitech - Bass Whammy.
My relationship with the Whammy dates back to Christmas 2014. When I got it as a present from my grandfather. And it is the pedal I by far use the most, and probably the pedal that never will leave my board. It is in its rawest form an octaver. But with the nice detail that you can change pitch frequency with the foot pedal, and glissando between different pitches. This makes it very suitable for sudden and instant pitch changes. Apart from that, I find the whammy sound differs from a lot of other octavers. It has an octaver sound that is soft, and warm. Where I find other octavers often being quite metallic and harsh.

2. Strymon - Bluesky
The bluesky is a reverb. One of the few pedals I own that almost always is on. Even in ensemble situations when I play a more “conventional” bass role I usually have a small spring reverb going on. Even if it's very subtle I find that the bass sits much better in the mix with a small spring reverb. It's a good tip!
I have done a long reverb journey, and tried a lot of different ones. But I find my self always gravitating back to this one. It has a very luxurious brilliance that I haven't found in other pedal reverbs.

3. Rainger FX - Reverb X
Rainger FX is at its core a reverb (that has a gate function) combined with distortion. However, what makes it so very useful is its pressure pad controller called igor (this pressure pad controller is something that's included in almost every pedal rainger fx does). Igor enables the Reverb X to be momentary, but not in a binary way. Due to the pressure sensitivity, I can decide how much reverb I am letting through. So if I press hard = a lot of reverb. If I press soft = a small amount of reverb. On top of that, the distortion within the pedal is set to after the reverb. Witch makes for a much noisier and cascade-like distortion.

4. Korg - Kaosspad.
This is maybe one of the more unique pedals on my board, not in the way it sounds, but in the way it is used. It is in its core a multi-effect pedal. It was a pedal targeted for DJ, and to be used with your hands. But I find it very useful being a bass player and using it with your feet. So instead of using buttons, it has a touch sensitive pad to control the effect. And the pad's X and Y axis control different parameters of the effects. So e.g the effect called dly 8 (witch is maybe the one I use the most), is an Feedback Echo, where I on the X-axis Control the delay time, and on the Y-axis control Deley Depth.

5. Red Panda Lab - Tensor.
Tensor is a time warper effect, something that takes your signal and applies different time-based warps these could e.g be, stretching the sound, speed it up, taking it backward. Additionally to that, it has pitch-shifting options. The way I use this pedal mainly is to use it as a layering effect, as ad on an element to what already is playing. So having an element time-warping around 2 octaves up from what the input is.

6. Red Panda Lab - Raster 2.
The Raster is a digital delay with a pitch and frequency shifter integrated into the feedback loop. And the number of sounds you are able to get out of this pedal I impressive. I mostly use is for applying rhythmic elements to what I'm already playing.
For e.g
https://www.instagram.com/cassius.lambert/
But it's a pedal that also contains a lot of more cinematic soundscaping effects. It is a pedal I quite recently received, so I haven't had the time to fully explore it. But I am looking forward to doing it.

7. Digitech - Ricochet
Digitech ricochet is basically a Bass whammy, but in another form factor. And I use it a lot in combination with the whammy. Often for sudden and fast interval changes. However, I find it to have an octave sound that is a little bit harsher than the bass whammy. Which could be useful in some instances.

8. Strymon - Nightsky
Nighstsky is a reverberant Synthesis machine. And it is a pedal that is a pedal that I use more and more. At its core, it is a reverb and synthesis engine combined. I use it mostly to sculpt soundscapes to create more atmospheric soundscapes. It is also one of the few pedals I own that has a freeze function (freeze lets you play a note or a chord, hit the pedal, and freeze that sound in a sustained place, indefinitely). This is very handy when creating layers on the electric bass.

9. Land Devices - Domino
Domino is an ringer type of effect. And it's somewhat a combination between a ring mod and a octaver, in a very small package. The things I enjoy about it are 1. The dynamic of the pedal. The softer I play, with the pedal engaged, the more the signal sounds like an ordinary bass. The harder I play, the more of a Wurlitzer sound I get. 2. Changing of input register also changes the texture, so in a lower register the pedal sound more like a Wurlitzer, but in a higher register, it sounds more like a octaver. 3. It is really really “bad” at handling polyphonic information, it can like not at all handle it. And the outcome can be really great, in the right context.

10. Empress effects - Zoia

So this is what empress effects say themself about the pedal.
“The ZOIA is basically a modular synthesizer in pedal form. Instead of being a delay effect or tremolo, the ZOIA provides the modules necessary to build a delay or tremolo from the ground up. But since you're the one building it, you can make it do whatever you want. With the ZOIA you can build your own custom effects, synthesizers, midi controllers, and virtual pedal boards.” The way I use it 90% of the time is as a syntheziser, trigged by my midi controller “Mojo Pedal” by crumar. Usually, as a bass synth, och trigger drum sounds.

Bananana Effects - Mandala

This is a pedal that has a big array of glitch effects. And something a really enjoys with this pedal is that has sounds that are unique to this pedal. It exists like 1 million different distortions, chorus, octavers osv. But in the manadala, its some that it unique to that. And in that way its “new”. It also has a switchable lath/momentary switch.

If you buy this I recommend you explore its time knob, because with it you can get some really interesting self-oscillating effects.

12. Wampler - Low Blow
The Low Blow is a Overdrive/Distortion/Notch filter. I use it mostly as an overdrive. It is hard to find an overdrive for bass that still retains strong and clear low frequencies, but the Low Blow does it really well.

13.
Electro Harmonix - Pog 2
The Pog 2 is an octaver. With volume knobs for the different octaves. This is the effect I by far use the least, haven't turned it on in 2 months, and It will not be on in the next iteration of the pedalboard. The thing that kept it on the board is the fact you have the possibility to use control of the attack of your output. That can be handy sometimes.

14.
EQD - Swiss things

Swiss things is a multi-utility pedal. It can do a thousand things. But I use it as a fail-safe. Because traveling and playing with a big pedalboard can sometimes be risky. Partly it is subject to electric disturbance, which affects the sound, and partly because sometimes things break. But swiss things make it possible to disconnect the pedal board from your signal chain and go directly to the amp with the press of a button, and that is a very nice fail-safe to have when playing live.

Enough about pedals.

Quarter Tone Bass:

So now to something that has been taking up a lot of headspace lately.

Before I go deeper into this, let me explain what a quarter tone is.

A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone. So e.g, on a piano the shortest distance can be between a white and a black key, but with a quarter-tone piano, you would have a key between these two keys.

So this is a process that started for real in February 2022, after my latest tour to Egypt. During that tour, I had the great pleasure to play a little bit with the accordion player Wael El Sayed. And he showed me how he implements quarter tones in his playing (and yes, he has an accordion that can play quarter tones), showed me some theory behind it, but most importantly just played for me. And I was amazed. So when I came home I started to research how I could implement this on my own bass. And I found 4 different ways of implementing it.

1. Using a pedal that could pitch quarter tones.
It was very hard to find any effect pedals that would be able to pitch a quarter tone. You could argue that the whammy can do it, but getting a precise quarter tone would take a lot a lot of practice. However, the only one I found that was able to do this was the Gamechanger Audio Bigspy pedal. A pedal I actually bought. After using it for a while, it became apparent that it lacked something that I think is essential for how I want to use quarter tones, and that is ornamentation (hammer-ons, pull-off, drills etc). Something that Bigsby pedal was not especially good at. So I let this idea go.

2. Using bends and extended techniques to achieve quarter tones.
So when bending a string you can achieve quarter tones. If you bend it so the pitch just stays in between two semitones. I also have a bass with a tremolo arm, so I can both bend with the tremolo arm and with my fingers. This is a very handy technique to achieve quarter tones, but it is again, something that rules out a lot of ornamentation techniques.

3. Getting a fretless bass.
This would of course maybe be the most obvious choice. With no frets, you can reach all the quartertones you would like. You would be able to use all the ornamentation techniques that you could on a normal fretted bass, however, it exists a big but. Having a fretless bass changes the tonal quality a lot from a fretted bass. A sound that I'm not super fond of. Very nice in a certain contexts, but I would not like it as my default sound.

5. Implementing extra frets on a fretted bass.
So this means that you put in extra frets between the frets you already have. This was the way I ended up doing it. This is because I would have the same tonal quality as a fretted bass, but still have access to all the ornamentation techniques. Unlike choices 1 and 2, I will also be able to combine polyphony between ultrachromatic (tones from the quarter-tone spectrum) and infrachromatic (tones from the twelve-tone system) tones. However, I chose to do this on six specific places up to the twelfth fret. These places are on the 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12 frets. Not doing it beyond the 12th fret is because I believe the distance between the frets gets too small, and therefore hard to play. Not doing it on every fret is because the orientation would get harder.

The inspiration for this concept comes from a guitar Ibanez released in 2011 called KMMM1. It is a guitar that has some extra frets up to the 12 frets. But also from my great friend and colleague Nadin Al Khalidi, that plays an Algerian Mandol that has extra quarter-tone frets.

The beautiful thing about this system is also that I will still have access to all the notes I now have on my bass at the moment. I will just access even more.

Below you find a sheet I made that shows what tones I will have access to up to the 12th fret using this system

And here is one that shows what quarter tones I will have access to and in witch octaves (without octavers)

The new quarter-tone bass neck is now in production, done by the great luthier Christian Olsson. Will probably get this in late december. More about this in the next newsletter.

Concerts

And here is some concert I had since the last Newsletter.
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT CAME OUT.

It means the world.

3 December. CB3. Majestic Mountain Fest Oslo. Oslo, Norway.

27 November. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Almedalsbibloteket foajé. Gotland, Sweden.

26 November. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Havdhems Bygdegård. Gotland, Sweden.

25 November. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Rute Folketshus. Gotland, Sweden.

24 November. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Östergarns Bygdegård. Gotland, Sweden.

23 November. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Halla Bygdegård. Gotland, Sweden.

11 November. Tarabband. Palladium. Malmö, Sweden.

9 November. Tarabband. Kista festivalen. Kista, Sweden.

5 Nov. Tarabband. Stallet. Stockholm. Sweden.

4 November. Tarabband. Uppsala stadsteater. Uppsala, Sweden.

2 November. Tarabband. TBA. Gislaved, Sweden.

22. Okt. Tarabband. Smallville. Beirut. Lebanon.

14 Okt. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Teaterhögskolan. Malmö. Sweden.

11 Okt. CB3. Inkonst. Malmö.

22 sep. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Nyköping folkhögskola. Nyköping. Sweden

16 September. Tarabband/Nordiska kammarmusikorkestern. Tonhallen. Sundsvall, Sweden.

3 Sep. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Tikotin. Malmö. Sweden.

27 August. Tarabband/Östgöta blåsarssymfoniker. Brogården. Linköping, Sweden.

25 August. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Svarte, Sweden.

20 August. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Lomma, Sweden.

19 August. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Galleri tikton. Malmö, Sweden.

6 August. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Skanör, Sweden.

1 july. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Botaniska trädgården. Lund, Sweden.

15 June. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Söderscenen. Helsingborg, Sweden.

And here is some dates that are booked ahead (more to come)

Would love to see you there!

2022

8 Dec. CB3. Sörängens folkhögskola. Nässjö, Sweden.

9 Dec. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Grand. Malmö, Sweden.

18 Dec. Nadin & Cassius Duo. EOS hallen. Lund, Sweden.

2023

9 Feb. Tarabband. Cairo Jazz Club. Cario, Egypt

10 Feb. Tarabband. Cairo Opera. Cairo, Egypt.

11 Feb. Tarabband. Alexandria Biblotecha. Alexandria, Egypt.

27 Feb. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Hyllie Park. Malmö, Sweden.

20 Mars. Tarabband. Västerås Konserthus. Västerås, Sweden.

29 Mars. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Fridhem Folkhögskola. Svalöv, Sweden.

1 April. Nadin & Cassius Duo. Tikoton. Malmö, Sweden.

2 April. Nadin & Cassius. Cowgirl Gallery. Malmö, Sweden.

5 April. Nadin & Cassius. Allhelgona Kyrka. Malmö, Sweden.

16 April. Nadin & Cassius. Åkarp, Sweden.

27 April. Cassius Lambert BITOI (Premier). Intonal, Inkonst. Malmö, Sweden.

27 Maj. Tarabband. Göteborgs Opera. Gothenburg, Sweden.

19 Aug. Tarabband. Vitabergsparken. Stockholm, Sweden.

In my next newsletter, I will present my new project BITOI, can wait to start sharing this with you!

Best regards
Cassius