I wasn't any more interested in music than most kids growing up but then in highschool, aged around 12 or 13, I got exposed to Rock and Metal and my life changed.

At first it was Sabbath and AC/DC and Iron Maiden but then I heard Metallica's Master of Puppets and Megadeth's So Far, So Good, So What? and all bets were off.

I went down a rabbit hole of heaviness...

Eventually I started to learn to play instruments because I had dreams of being a rock god; drums first (too loud, expensive, hard to store and transport), then tried guitar (too small) and eventually, thanks to a coin toss, bass.

I'm completely self taught and learned in the era before the internet and online tabs. Early on, I couldn't read the dots but knew that it was something I wanted to do and felt was important, so again, I taught myself. I was learning album after album by ear and making my own notes.

Occasionally I'd borrow an official tab book from a friend or buy one and try to play what was written in it, never once stopping to think, "Hang on, I know this is an official book, but there is no way in hell that THAT is what they're playing or WHERE they're playing it..."

It dawned on me: I could do better...

The early 00's saw an explosion of tab sites. I contributed to several of them because back then, as now, most of the bass tabs are dumpster fires not written by bass players.

Many are simply "best guesses" or they're written by guitarists who think they're helping/doing us lowly bassists a favour by adding it, or even keyboard players; they're often wildly wrong or they may have the right notes but in completely unplayable positions and combinations.

I started creating my own tabs in a text editor using the good old ASCII format, then in Sibelius and then in Guitar Pro. In my ASCII tabs I'd add in way more information that most people including rhythm notations, key changes and so on...

And then the music industry does what it does best: shits the bed and ruins everyone's fun.

All the tab sites were gone...

So the idea of Just The Riffs was born.

Initially I wanted to create and sell the tabs but the world of music publishing is a complete nightmare labyrinth whackamole of corporate takeovers and moving goalposts. I recently acquired a list of who owns about 1000 songs I want to transcribe and in the time since I got that list a number of the publishers have been swallowed up or simply no longer exist...

Therefore, I decided to make the tabs available to other bass players purely as educational learning resources, in the spirit of sharing knowledge, for free. For the record and the avoidance of all doubt: I am making no money from the production or distribution of them.

I do ask that if you're feeling generous that you maybe make a small donation to help keep the lights on on here. You can read more about donating on the Donations Page.

It's been a long road getting from there to here (hum it if you know it 😉) but here we are.

The site is here, the Tab library is filling up and expanding and hopefully you, my fellow low end Musketeers, are getting some use of out it all.

Even if you're not, for my own nerdy satisfaction, I know that some high quality, accurate as possible, tabs are finally out there.

In the meantime, dig in, enjoy and happy jamming!

Here are the latest Artists added to the collection; happy jamming!