How do I get Mark Stoermer's bass tone?

Mithriddle · #1 12-14-2011, 05:04 AM

Hi, I'm not sure where to post this but here goes. The bassist of The Killers, Mark Stoermer, has this really awesome bass tone that I've been trying to get for a while now. I've been coming close to doing so but I can't settle on a definite tone. The equipment I've got is a P-bass and amp. The amp has a distortion knob. How would I go about replicating Stoermer's tone as accurately as possible? (I understand he has an entire rig but I just want a tone that comes fairly close to his)

Here's a vid of his bass sound: [HD] Jenny Was a Friend of Mine The Killers Live at the Royal Albert Hall DVD - YouTube

BarkerBass · #2 12-14-2011, 05:33 AM

it sounds to me like he's using the neck pickup of his jazz, really attacking it with his pick, low action and a bit of dry OD/distortion to crisp up the attack.

If I were you with your Pbass I'd make sure you have new strings, lower your action so that it clacks a little and pops when you REALLY hit the strings and I've use a pick, take some of the bass off your sound and boost the high mids.

Unfortunately it's a sound a Jazz bass can cop easily but a pbass' naturally fatter sound might struggle slightly, but only slightly, others will have better ideas than me but play with your amp settings and small amounts of the distortion to help you see how close you can get

Mithriddle · #3 12-14-2011, 09:43 PM

Thanks man. Tried out your suggestion and it sounds pretty damn close to it. Thank you again!

MUSHROOMSeAcOw · #4 12-17-2011, 11:59 AM

Just would like to chime in that Mark is one of the most solid players in recent years, and his tone is to die for. I would crank the low mids a bit and give it just a tiny bit of distortion, and maybe roll off your tone just a hair. That gets me pretty close on my P.

MRDOOM · #5 12-17-2011, 12:05 PM

I don't know if it will help, but I read that he usually has his bass tuned down a half step.

Mithriddle · #6 12-21-2011, 04:16 PM

Hey guys, just got the DS-1 pedal and combined it with the amp setting you recommended. Noticed putting the pedal on the Crunch setting and putting the distortion to about 9 o'clock gets it pretty close. Still a bit unsure of putting the tone on my bass to 50%. Right now I've got my highs on 5, high-mid on 10, low-mid on 8 and lows on 5. Do you guys agree with these settings?