How to get a Lemmy like tone

MOTORHEADBANGER · #1 01-27-2009, 12:33 PM

My band is covering a few Motorhead songs and I want to try to go for an authentic tone. I am using a P bass and a head with 4 band eq so I am not sure how far I can go to get a Lemmy like tone. Any ideas?

sevenyearsdown · #2 01-27-2009, 12:36 PM

Get a Ric and play through a marshall stack.

Dertygen · #3 01-27-2009, 12:38 PM

Mid the Bass
Full boost the Mid's & Treble
Use a pick.
Follow what sevenyeardown said.

waynobass · #4 01-27-2009, 12:38 PM

Bass: turn the tone knob all the way up.
Amp EQ: bass down, treble up.
Right hand: pick as hard and as fast as possible!

bohemond · #5 01-27-2009, 12:40 PM

Ive heard covers of Motorhead tunes on youtube. If you want to hear real nice renditions of Lemmy's stuff check out a player named Munkybarz on youtube, he uses Gk stuff with a Ric and he nails his tone with it. He is an excellent player.

Clammy · #6 01-27-2009, 12:48 PM

Honestly, without a Ric with high output pickups and a Marshall Super Bass, you won't be able to really get his tone. You can come close, but that's it. You might want to try some sort of distortion pedal.

I can nail his tone by plugging my 76 Ric 4001 (with DiMarzio X2N-B pickup) into my 73 or 74 Super Bass head into my 4x12 and 2x15 cabs, then just EQ it like Lem (bass at 0, most other tone controls at or near 10, volume on 8, plugged into the high channel 1 input). I'm not sure if it's still there, but one of my old bands (FALLOUT) recorded "Stay Clean" for the internet tribute on their official website (www.imotorhead.com). I used my Ric into my Marshall stack, and pretty much nailed Lemmy's tone, IMHO.

Motorhead is my favourite band, and Lemmy is the reason I ever bought a bass in the first place (being that I started playing guitar 13 years before switching to bass).

Cheers!

chanson · #7 01-27-2009, 05:00 PM

With what you're using now, I'd just say try to get an overdrive/fuzz pedal and mess around with it

msiner · #8 01-27-2009, 05:14 PM

First, you need to name your rig something like "Decapitator" or "Mike the Masticator". Then just follow the information from Wikipedia:

Quote:

The phrase "everything louder than everyone else" sums up Lemmy's sonic approach, as he plays at the loudest possible levels. He uses the bridge pickup exclusively (giving his bass sound more definition) and turns all the tone and volume knobs on the bass up full. On the amplifiers, he turns the bass and treble off, and the midrange up all the way, with the volume and presence up to the 3:00 position. The result is a biting midrange sound which is somewhat distorted but not "fuzzed out" or "blurry", a formula well-suited to his use of open-string drones and power chords. In the 1990s after a Motörhead show at Hultsfred, Sweden a radio reporter asked Lemmy "If you were to play here again in ten years, how do you think you would sound?" Lemmy replied "Same, but louder..."

Qvist · #9 02-27-2009, 06:20 AM

Now, this might be a really stupid question, but is the Marshall Super Bass amp really a... bass amp? I mean it's only a 100watts!

Darkstrike · #10 02-27-2009, 06:24 AM

Bass 0, Low mids 10, high mids 10, highs 0, thats the way I always do it, and agressive pickups.

Kink Rimson · #11 02-27-2009, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qvist

Now, this might be a really stupid question, but is the Marshall Super Bass amp really a... bass amp? I mean it's only a 100watts!

I had one for a while... You need to really crank the volume to compete with a loud drummer and guitarist, and then I had to pull a lot of the bass out to stop it farting like hell... End result - Lemmy tone. Sadly not what I was after, although it did sound pretty awesome. I sold it to the guitar player of a heavy stoner band.

MikeBass · #12 02-27-2009, 06:27 AM

First, you have to get the mole....from there, the rest is cake!

wizay · #13 02-27-2009, 06:34 AM

Lots of JD, and you will get the tone !

Qvist · #14 02-27-2009, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kink Rimson

I had one for a while... You need to really crank the volume to compete with a loud drummer and guitarist, and then I had to pull a lot of the bass out to stop it farting like hell... End result - Lemmy tone. Sadly not what I was after, although it did sound pretty awesome. I sold it to the guitar player of a heavy stoner band.

So it's a heavy guitar amp?

Godbody · #15 02-27-2009, 08:44 AM

OP: can you at least borrow someone's jazz-style bass? I know the P is supposed to fit into any type of music, but you're just not gonna get close in this instance. Any jazz-style with the bridge pickup solo'd will give you a big leg up.

I play Motorhead covers on my Jag, and get reasonably close. The preamp helps, of course.

All the earlier advice about maxing midrange, using a pick, and the wikipedia exerpt are great advice.