Long quote but you asked for it:
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Loud but True: Inside Trujillo’s battery of bass gear”
Aside from his flirtation with vintage Fender and Danelectro 4-strings for Jerry Cantrell’s Degradation Trip sessions, Robert Trujillo has been associated primarily with Tobias, Ernie Ball StingRay, and Fernandes 5-string basses on tours and in the studio with Infectious Grooves, Suicidal Tendencies, and Ozzy Osbourne. But he’s trying some new approaches.
“With Suicidal, I was originally using a Music Man before I switched to Tobias in the early days. The Tobiases carried me through Infectious Grooves, and with Ozzy I used a combination of Tobiases and custom-made Fernandes basses. With Metallica, I’m finding myself using everything from Music Man basses to MTDs, and the Fernandes basses are crushing! I recently pulled out the Music Man I played on the cover of Bass Player in 1994, and it sounded like a Mack truck. So now we’re tweaking out other StingRays; I’ll be using Fernandes basses, too.” And the Tobiases? “They’ve given me so many good years on the road and in the studio, so I’m retiring them.”
For Trujillo, Metallica’s low tunings are a special challenge. “Everything’s tuned down a whole step on the E, A, D, and G strings, and sometimes even down to G# and A on the B-string. It’s sub-sounding, and I’m using tighter B-strings now, so the low B is in full effect. And the Music Man and Fernandes basses sound good as long as we set them up the for low tunings.” Trujillo strings all his basses with medium-light Dean Markley SR-2000 4-string sets—.046, .063, .080., and a .102 E-string—and he reaches for an Ernie Ball 130 B string. Everything’s connected by Monster Cables.
Trujillo is using different amps as well. When performing with Ozzy, he used two SVT 3’s for tone, one SVT 4 for power, and a Hi-Watt 4x12 half-stack. Zach Harmon, Metallica’s equipment manager and Trujillo’s bass tech, Robert is now using three SVT-2 heads with three Ampeg 8x10 Pro series cabinets and a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head with two Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabs. Trujillo’s effects include a Morley wah pedal, which he uses for everything from “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to newer material from St. Anger.
Harmon also reveals that Trujillo is using Tech. 21 products for distortion, Tech. 21 Sansamp products for additional bass tone, and Boss effects pedals for chorus and flange. For this summer’s sanitarium tour, Harmon says he’s putting “a trimmed-down version of the studio” into Robert’s rack, including multiple DIs—one for Robert’s clean sound, another for his full crunch tone and one for his blended signal. After 20 years in metal’s frontline trenches, Robert says, “We’re experimenting with a whole new sound.”
(Bass Guitar, Summer 2003)
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