dimebag squeals!

[dereksilloway]

So to some of you this may sound kinda silly but whatever. I really want to be able to pull off some squeals and bends like Dimebag Darrell. Ive got the harmonics down and the bass with the whammy but just cant seem to get them to sound anything like his do. What I mean is the long sustain, ghostly sounding notes that are just all divebombed to hell.
Im sure that there is some way I can get a similar sound on my bass. Or isnt there? Is it just a lost cause?
What kinda of effects or eq would I need for this.

[Darkstrike]

He used delay, mabye a delay pedal with maxed out feedback and minimized delay time.

[Risen Ashes]

Bump for a good question \m/

[silky smoove]

Pinch harmonic using a pick, lots of distortion, lots of reverb/delay.

This combination on a bass won't sound anything like his did on guitar, but it'll be about as close as you can get.

[juan_caliente]

Check out the youtube dimebag squeeling lessons, he describes how he does it. I think he hits the note, dumps the bar, then hits the octave while pulling up on the bar, and of course lots of delay and distortion, and I think he uses a gate too.

Good luck and post some clips.

[neptoon]

not sure if it has anything to do with it, but i'm almost sure that guitar pickups are engineered quite differently than bass pickups...i was reading about al caldwell's erb and why he had added guitar pickups to the treble side of his bass for just that reason...dimebag's pickups are also modified...and on his original guitar, i believe he flipped the coils upside down...i'm also sure that guitar strings react quite differently than bass strings...i'm not saying your cause is lost, by any means, but you may have to develop your own technique, or at least modify dime's to fit bass...i'd love to see your take on artificial harmonics and divebombing when you get it down

[bacid]

Hmmmm, Dime bass squeals? I am more than intrigued. If you have a trem on your bass, it should be possible with a ton of distortion. This is how I do it on guitar:

1. Push trem down to loosen strings up a bit.
2. Flick the string with your fretting hand.
3. Hammer on the harmonic on the flicked string while the string is still loosened up by the trem.
4. Pull on the bar to stretch out the harmonic and squeal.

Watch the Dime squeal videos on youtube.
Why is this in the amp forum?

[stranger0]

There was a bassist a few years ago, metal bassist (early 90's) I can't remember who but he had a whammy bar on his bass and pulled off some wild stuff, if I can remember who he was I'll post it (I think Sheehan had a whammy bar at one point)...for some reason the name Randy Coven is coming to mind.

[JanusZarate]

My brother (a guitarist) can do the Dimebag squeals, but he does it with a combination of high-gain distortion, reverb, and most importantly, technique. I don't even think he touches his whammy bar... I'd have to watch him do it again to be sure. My brother spent a long time trying to nail that sort of harmonic squeal with new approaches to his technique.

Honestly, I think a bass may be a little TOO different than a guitar to let you pull that off. You're going to have a tough time getting even close, that's for sure...

[sarcastro83]

My suggestion is that you grow a really radical, prefferably pink goatee.

[Asa Samuel]

i think he uses quite alot of pinch-harmonics, quite easy to do.

[bluestarbass]

i think he uses quite alot of pinch-harmonics, quite easy to do.

Thats all that squeeling is, a pinched harmonic. They are a little tricky at first. I think they would be close to impossible on a bass becuase the harmonic is such a lower pitch than on a guitar. The whammy bar and effects have something to do with it, but not much, its just a technique. Switch to the neck pickup, turn your amp up real loud, choke up on your pick and kinda use your thumb and pick together. Its kinda hard to describe in words.

[69nites]

your bridge pickup. Harmonics are stronger with the bridge pickup.

he used an extreme amount of gain. We're talking and EQ to boost certain frequencies (part of how you get a squeel to sound like his), a MXR Wylde overdrive, and your amp's gain set to the Max. You gotta EQ a bit to get your squeals to sound like his. It's also a technique that takes a bit of practice to play cleanly.

[Implosion]

Originally Posted by bluestarbass

Thats all that squeeling is, a pinched harmonic. They are a little tricky at first. I think they would be close to impossible on a bass becuase the harmonic is such a lower pitch than on a guitar. The whammy bar and effects have something to do with it, but not much, its just a technique. Switch to the neck pickup, turn your amp up real loud, choke up on your pick and kinda use your thumb and pick together. Its kinda hard to describe in words.

I know that this is an old topic, but there's some misinformation in here so...

Pinch harmonics are indeed done with the thumb of your picking hand, but a pick isn't necessary once you learn the technique properly. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNoHFlYtHEs

Dimebag used them a lot, but he also used whammy bar squeals, which some people may accidentally mistake for a pinch harmonic. It's a special technique and here is a video of the man himself explaining how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFEMxlIKmh4 (begins about at 1:00 into the video).

But how to do them on a bass is a different story

...and yes, I played guitar for 12 years before I found my true calling

[Spector_Ray]

I've seen Dime do it with an assortment of guitars.

[Phantopeth]

Yea, again, just search for Dime Squeels or something and find the instructional feature he did for some magazine insert. Not only is it informative, but funny as hell.

Here's the steps I got from watching the video:

Step 1: get your pull
Step 2: go for some 15th-fret action
Step 3: whammy up on it

Nasty amounts gain/overdrive/distortion and a fair amount of delay, and you're good.

Last but not least: "Be the string"