Geezer's sound on 'War Pigs'....

[BassFTW]

How does he get that hollow sound? (Well that's how I describe it) I love it and I want to get tone similar to it, he does it on other songs but that's the one I notice it most on

[TyronPotamkin]

He plays really close to the neck on the fender p-bass he used to record that album with. Watch some live footage of him and yo will see what I'm talking about.

I also dont believe he used any effects besides what the head produced from being driven really hard.

[JanusZarate]

+1 - Tyron's right on the money, AFAIK.

It's where that punchy, slightly hollow, slightly overdriven tone comes from.

[NKUSigEp]

Yup...play further up the neck - and word on the street is that it was recorded through guitar amps - probably Laneys since Iommi was using 'em too. I'm almost positive on this but don't quote me.

[BornboreD]

For the most part on early material I believe the recipe for Geezer's sound (omitting Bassically), is as follows...

P Bass tuned to C#, flatwounds, tone rolled off.

Right hand played over the end of the neck using a very agressive, almost swatting finger technique.

Left Hand using the upper frets on the lowest strings.

Amps...I believe back in the day they were Marshalls with 8x10's and/or 2x15's

At least that's pretty much what all of my research over the years could come up with.

[rockerc]

That's the way I play with my right hand speaking of lol Just the position of the right hand closer to the neck

[Sneckumhaw]

Originally Posted by NKUSigEp

don't quote me.

Ha ha! Quoted! Take that!

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

[johnvice]

Originally Posted by NKUSigEp

Yup...play further up the neck - and word on the street is that it was recorded through guitar amps - probably Laneys since Iommi was using 'em too. I'm almost positive on this but don't quote me.

I've heard that there were some exteme settings so that the amp would not crap out: gettign a decent bass sound from a guitar amp is problematic.

As I don't know what kind of bass amp you have, here is a good setting to get you started.

Bass: turn up the knob a bit past 12 o'clock for a moderate boost
Midrange: turn it to zero!
treble: Turn it all the way up!

If you have a bass with two pick-ups use only the neck pick-up to get a P-bass sound

[fishtx]

I believe BornboreD is right on the amps being Marshall. I thought I had also read somewhere that he used 4x12 cabs...and used a blown speaker cab for certain stuff...