Frequently Asked Questions
Signing up to the Talkingbass membership provides access to exclusive content in the Members Area of the TalkingBass website and a thriving community of over 100k players.
The Members Area includes the following features:
- The TalkingBass Network (a complete social network for bass players)
- A wide variety of Forums and Social Groups,
- A Profile page and Timeline for posting any bass related content
- Multiple Free Courses on the My Courses page
- Free Ebook downloads (such as the Scale Reference Guide)
- Practice Resources (such as the 25 Bass Riff Challenge and much more)
A Free Membership is required for purchasing any Premium Courses. You access your courses on the My Courses page in the Members Area.
Click Here to Sign Up For Free!
The Talkingbass App was a short-lived app for IOS and Android that allowed access to all of the site features on a mobile device. However, we ran into problems with Apple and Google.
They now insist that ALL apps must have in-app purchases and declared that the courses you use in the app must be purchased through the app store (as in-app purchases). That’s bad enough, but to make things even worse, they take a large percentage of the revenue from any in-app purchases.
When I first added the app to the store you could release it as a free app. You had to jump through hoops to allow a free app to be published but it was possible. This is not possible anymore. There must be at least one in-app purchase.
So I complained and argued but, in the end, they removed the app from the store. The app’s still work for anyone that has it installed but with reduced functionality. It will eventually cease to operate with future OS releases.
When you purchase a Talkingbass course you have lifetime access to the videos on the website and all of the downloadable content.
There are both free and premium Ebooks available for download at TalkingBass. In the members Practice Area there are the following free ebooks:
- Scale Reference Manual
- Arpeggio Reference Manual
- Chord Reference Manual
- Spelling Drill Reference Manual
Then in the TalkingBass store you can purchase the following instructional Ebooks:
- The Cyborg Bassist Volume 1: Major Scale Mastery
- The Cyborg Bassist Volume 2: Minor Scale Mastery
- The Cyborg Bassist Volume 3: Triad Mastery
- Walk That Bass Volume 1
No. These alternate payment types don’t work correctly with our online ecommerce platform. I have halted those options on the website but if you see them as part of your own payment portal, do not use them. This is a well known issue regarding online payments.
There are several ways you can reset your password. You can use the forgotten password link on the login page. You will be sent an email and you then just follow the instructions provided.
If the email does not reach you and you can still have the ability to login to your account, you can change your password in the Account Settings page. The link is shown in the sidebar menu when logged in under Settings.
If you can’t login, need to reset but do NOT receive an email, simply send me an email at admin@talkingbass.net. I will manually reset the password for you.
Click Here to Sign up for Free or click on the Free Sign Up link in the Main Menu of the TalkingBass homepage. Simply provide an Email address and Username. You will be need to Activate your account for security reasons.
To do this, simply click on the link provided in the Email sent to your inbox.
Occasionally, Email providers may block admin emails from websites as they struggle to cope with ever more spam and nefarious phishing attempts.
If you do not receive an activation email, send an email to admin@talkingbass.net . I will immediately activate your account manually.
Activation is required in order to stop bots and other security infringements from getting inside the website perimeter! Such are the times we live in!
Yes. Unlike other bass education sites that provide a paid membership as their main product, the TalkingBass membership is very different. Other memberships such as at the SBL website provide premium courses and content within that area.
The Talkingbass membership is totally free and offers a wide variety of free practice resources. However, the premium Courses are paid for separately as standalone, lifetime access products.
There was an All-Access Pass available for a number of years. However, this was discontinued for several reasons.
First, people found it confusing. The customers that purchased courses outright had lifetime access.
Those with the All-Access Pass would lose access when the subscription finished. Some people did not like this situation because they would have paid more than the price of all courses after multiple years of membership. However, that’s how paid subscriptions work (like Netflix). It’s why every company likes them. You make more over multiple years of forgotten subscriptions than you ever would from single lifetime purchases.
Secondly, it caused problems from a logistical standpoint. There were difficulties running both a subscription service and standalone courses concurrently on the site. There were many different issues that came from this duality and one day I realised it would be better focusing on one style of product.
I also have an issue with the proliferation of paid subscription services in every area of life. The average person has a finite budget available each month for living expenses and any extra leisure. The more subscriptions we add to this pile, the more that budget crumbles.
When money is tight and people look to reassess their budgets, it’s the important stuff that takes priority like rent, bills, food. Y’know… the important stuff. We might keep a Netflix subscription. Maybe Spotify (Maybe). But a bass website subscription is going to be low on that priority list (at least it would be for me!).
So, with all that in mind, I would rather provide a single payment, lifetime purchase for courses.
Login to your account (the members area) then navigate to the My Courses page in the main menu. The My Courses page lists every course you have purchased as pretty thumbnails!
Click on the course and you’ll be taken to the main course page. You’ll see download links for course content and a list of all course lessons. Simply click on a lesson to start.
Every course video has a dedicated webpage on the website. When you visit your course page you will see a list of lessons. Click on a lesson to visit the webpage containing the video.
When you click on a course in your My Courses page you will see the title and a short description of the course. Below this you will see several links to the lesson material.
There is usually a link for viewing the PDF in your browser, a link for downloading the PDF to your computer, a link to a Dropbox folder containing all lesson material for viewing or download and then a link for downloading a zip file containing all lesson material.
The zip file is not recommended for download on mobile devices unless you have an zip file decompression app.
When you purchase a course you will receive an email containing information about how to access the lessons and downloads. All course lessons and practice materials are accessed from the course pages on the website (see above)
No. Aside from the obvious piracy problems with downloads, this also opens the hosting website up to DDOS attacks from those horrible internet bad guys!
All videos are embedded on the lesson pages. However, you can download the lesson material (ebooks and practice tracks).
Of course. Just browse to Talkingbass.net in your internet browser (Safari/Chrome etc.) and login as you would on a computer. The courses will all be there on your My Courses page
From a complete beginner level, I would recommend the following set of courses to begin with:
- Beginner Bass Guitar
- Bassic Fundamentals
- Groove Trainer For Bass
- Technique Builder
- The Creative Bassist
Beyond these courses you can move into more focused study. I would recommend:
- Chord Tone Essentials
- Scale Essentials
Chord tones should always be studied before scales.
Simple Steps To Sight Reading is a huge course devoted to reading music for bass. You can begin that course at any point after Bassic Fundamentals. It should be studied alongside all other courses and will provide lesson material for many years.
Simple Steps To Walking Bass, Slap Bass and Chordal Mastery are style based courses you can take at any point as a supplement if you want to follow those styles/techniques.
The Classical Study courses are aimed at intermediate level players and will greatly improve your technique and harmony knowledge.
Ultimate Music Theory For Bass is a deep dive into music theory for those of you looking to study from beginner theory all the way through to degree level .It is less practical than some of the other courses and features tests after every lesson. You will learn the basics of theory (intervals/scales etc) through to advanced Jazz harmony. It is degree level study for a fraction of the price. I would also recommend this course for any players looking to study at a music college.
There is no way for students to reset their progress for a course. To do this, simply email me at admin@talkingbass.net and I will manually reset your progress for any course.
At this point (2025) Talkingbass has been active for 12 years and the first course was created in 2014. In the time since that debut, the website has changed A LOT. In the oldest courses I might describe elements of the site that changed many years ago. I will be updating each course over time to reflect these changes.
You can read the PDF online in your web browser by simply clicking on the link in the course. You can also download the PDF so you can read it offline.
After downloading you can open the PDF in an app such as Books on an Iphone or Ipad.
Yes. You can read the PDF offline by downloading to your computer or a device. You can also print the Ebook.
No. The ebook purchase only applies to the PDF Ebook. Some of the books will be published as hard copies later. They will need to be purchased separately from Amazon.
All prices are shown in US dollars in the store. Your national currency will be displayed at Checkout and calculated within Paypal or Stripe.
Our biggest customer base is the US by far. Therefore, we display those prices on in the Talkingbass store.
Yes, you can have a no questions asked refund at any time within the first month of purchase.
If you want to delete your data and/or your full account simply send an email to me at admin@talkingbass.net and I can manually delete your account and any associated data.