Scott Thunes and Patrick O'Hearn

[El Deano]

Hi guys, first post here. Í'm looking for info on gear first and then amps. I have a Westfield bass which has a decent sound off it, nice tone. I'm lookin for an amp, a combo with around 150-200 Watts. I listen to a lot of these guys stuff with Zappa and i'm looking for the kind of sound O'Hearn had on Zappa in New York and the type of sound Thunes has on the "The Best band you never heard in your life", that kind of sweet high end and thick low end. I love the wah sound O'Hearn has and especially the fretless tone he's got on Rubber Shirt and the whole Sheik Yerbouti album. So my questions are:
What kind of amp am I looking for? What will I get thats close-ish to them sounds in the combo 150-200 W range? Any cheap effects pedals I might get that would get me closer to the sound?

Sorry for all the newbie questions but I'm specifically looking for these guys tones so I thought this'd be the best place to begin.

[cowsgomoo]

Originally Posted by El Deano

Hi guys, first post here. Í'm looking for info on gear first and then amps. I have a Westfield bass which has a decent sound off it, nice tone. I'm lookin for an amp, a combo with around 150-200 Watts. I listen to a lot of these guys stuff with Zappa and i'm looking for the kind of sound O'Hearn had on Zappa in New York and the type of sound Thunes has on the "The Best band you never heard in your life", that kind of sweet high end and thick low end. I love the wah sound O'Hearn has and especially the fretless tone he's got on Rubber Shirt and the whole Sheik Yerbouti album. So my questions are:
What kind of amp am I looking for? What will I get thats close-ish to them sounds in the combo 150-200 W range? Any cheap effects pedals I might get that would get me closer to the sound?

Sorry for all the newbie questions but I'm specifically looking for these guys tones so I thought this'd be the best place to begin.

for the Scott Thunes tone, play a P-Bass with a pick and a bit of compression... whatever amp you use, leave it fairly flat because the sound you hear is pretty much pure picked P-bass.. if your bass has a P pickup you should be in the ballpark

on some tunes on the 88 tour Scott also used a flanger

from the horse's mouth:

http://www.united-mutations.com/t/scott_thunes.htm

"How do you discuss tone? You ask what the gear was. Who knows what the gear was? Hardly anybody anymore. I was THERE, and I don't remember.

So, no, it wasn't a Trace-Elliott back then, as I wasn't an endorser at that point. That was Chads setup for his midi-stuff. He'd owned that for quite a while, as I recall.

I, on the other hand, was lucky enough to use an onld BWG (I think) head that he'd had lying around for years, along with a 2x15 cabinet left over from his PA.

I didn't use a Trace-Elliott until I had met my first wife, who introduced me to the president of the company. You think I could have gotten an amp from them if I was just the bassist for Frank Zappa?
Fagedaboudit.

Yes, I used a flanger on stage. I was this cheezy little thing I got from Pia Vai, right after she was fired from Vixen (before they got big, but after a couple of years of touring military bases).

The house engineer (Harry Andronis) on the '88 tour had the most amazing hard-on for my bass tone. That's the only thing that really made the difference for me. He completely rules the airwaves.

Frank had lost most of his high-end hearing way back in the old days, and that's what you're hearing on my earlier tracks, combined with the tone of four different brand strings on an '81 Carvin with active electronics (Valley Girl is a perfect example). Everything pre '84 was the Carvin. Post '84 is the '63 P-bass. The only exception was Cocaine Decisions, which was my '65 Jazz Bass. The only time I played that, except for broken strings in '84."

[j-raj]

^ what he said...

Oh BTW, Thunes is a killer bassist!

[JimK]

My favourite Thunes' quote-

"If you're a bass player in a Rock band then you are, by definition, a moron".

Check out O'Hearn's fretless sunburst P-bass on the Baby Snakes DVD!