Muse bass effects

BassRZ · #1 05-06-2011, 12:15 PM

I am a fan of muse and I like playing muse a lot on the bass. And only effect pedal I have that can be used when playing muse is the us bass big muff pi. I have a limited budget and was wondering if anyone have ideas about what pedal should buy to get a muse like sound.

rockstarbassist · #2 05-06-2011, 12:16 PM

This.Has.Got.To.Stop.

BassRZ · #3 05-06-2011, 12:17 PM

What?

Jared Lash · #4 05-06-2011, 12:19 PM

This may help:

Chris Wolstenholme: The Sticky Ver. 1

Downunderwonder · #5 05-06-2011, 12:41 PM

Actually it doesn't really help as it makes no suggestions for making a elcheapo stab at something "muse like".

I saw a utube vid where the guy posted up all the settings on a GT-6B for "Hysteria", sounded pretty good all things considered. Those are coming down in price if you can get your head around the programming.

Somebody commented about something I said about my prunes and custard on a thread about weird and wonderful pedals but I forget the details. Something about the P & C and another pedal, (might have been a fuzz?), it would cover one of the muse tones. You could search that up but the P & C isn't all that cheap.

My covers band does an up beat swingy version of "Starlight" where distortion would sound naff anyway so I'm not too bothered.

BassMonstrum · #6 05-06-2011, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BassRZ

What?

I see you are new to Talkbass so I'll lay it down for you:

There's almost a daily post where people ask about Chris Wolstenholme's effects and how to get 'that' sound. It's come to the point where someone made a sticky thread about all his gear in detail so that we could avoid the ongoing posts about Big Muffs, Deep Impacts, Hysterias, Uprisings, etc. Apparently it's not working...

It's nothing personal and I'll bet after a couple of months you'll be as frustrated as anyone else when some new TB'er makes a new thread about the exact same topic.

naruki · #7 05-06-2011, 01:10 PM

I don't get why anyone would want to copy his effects correctly other than to dedicate thousands of dollar into being a cover band bassist. I think Christopher Wolstenholme is a good effect bassist and I appreciate the way he uses effects to fit in with his band and learn a lot from that but I wouldn't want to completely copy his effects since I'm not interested in being in a Muse cover band.

Anyways, get a Digitech Synth Wah and Big Muff Pi. You should be able to create the TYPE of sounds in most Muse bassline. Not working? Yeah it's not gonna work perfectly unless you're willing to spend thousands.

Chronicle · #8 05-06-2011, 01:43 PM

Everything after this post has been discussed. Guaranteed. Even the "I don't get why people want to sound like this guy". Use search.

kaputsport · #9 05-06-2011, 01:57 PM

Thanks for posting my link Jared.

It has been covered before, but the whole "way would you copy that tone" argument is hilarious. I have used some of his exact sounds in other songs and it sounds like his tone, but not exactly like his tone, and further more the songs sounded different, so you would never really make the direct connection.

That being said, if we busted into a song with those tones, you would instantly know.

Happynoj · #10 05-06-2011, 02:53 PM

Kaput, you remember when you nailed Hysteria and said that there wasn't any synth in there? I'm pretty sure there is. The intro doesn't have any, but when it all kicks off at ~20 seconds in, I'm hearing a synth an octave lower than Chris. Maybe you've heard it, but I didn't notice it until I got a new set of headphones, and now I can.

kaputsport · #11 05-06-2011, 02:59 PM

Well, I will say there is a synth. It is a Roland JP8080 rack mount. It may or may not be triggered by Chris' bass. I also will say, yes there is an octave in there. I chose not to add that in my tone to show the true bass sound, and to show that it may or may not be midi triggering that is playing the synth tone.

I also did find an onstage monitor mix recording showing the click they play to, which leads me to believe it is a midi triggered synth for live use, and it would only make sense that Matt Bellamy programmed it for the studio too.

The octave was probably a reamped clean tone through the OC-2.

Happynoj · #12 05-06-2011, 03:57 PM

I think it is a backing track. I'm sure that in some of the live footage you can see Dom stomping on something at the start of some of the tracks, which I assume triggers the metronome/backing.

warwick.hoy · #13 05-06-2011, 04:15 PM

This has to be a troll thread.

Galatasaray or Fenerbahce,...which ever one the the OP supports I'm against.

(I'm just joking,...Assoc. Football would be better if it were hockey.)

Meddle · #14 05-07-2011, 09:13 AM

Another Muse thread?!

For what its worth, Muse achieve all their studio bass tones using a single 20 watt Gorilla practice amp close AND distance mic-ed. All the fuzz comes from a Boss DS-1 with loose components.

quadrogong · #15 05-07-2011, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meddle

Another Muse thread?!

For what its worth, Muse achieve all their studio bass tones using a single 20 watt Gorilla practice amp close AND distance mic-ed. All the fuzz comes from a Boss DS-1 with loose components.

Exactly
Just get distortion

kaputsport · #16 05-07-2011, 09:04 PM

Both wrong, but thanks for playing.

champbassist · #17 05-07-2011, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaputsport

Both wrong, but thanks for playing.

No they're right you're wrong

Kosko · #18 05-07-2011, 10:11 PM

Don't even try unless you're playing a Rickenbacker.

**DosiYanarchy** · #19 05-07-2011, 11:43 PM

although i agree that this topic has been covered in depth many times, my suggestion as a starting point other than the muff that the op already owns is may be digitech bass synth wah. they're pretty cheap used, im not sure where chris actually uses it in a chain, but the octaver is pretty good, its also an envelope filter, and the two are combined on certain settings, and also its got other wacky synth sounds to it.

To your average gig going non-muso, if you even played the line to hysteria clean, they'd know whats going on (assuming they know the track), hell in my first band (before i was into fx} we did a cover of plug in baby and i uses an old knackered korg guitar multi fx - at the time, just having some distortion on my tone convinced me I was there - obviously I wasnt but I belive its about the feel rather than hitting the nail on the head, some TB members like Kaputsport (who i have great respect for) have studied what it takes to make those tones and I think that is great. It good to know that if you want to find a sound it shouldnt be a magical secret kept by the rock and roll elite, everyone in a band starts off in the same place and works their way up (usually).

So i say first purchase: digitech bass synth wah. it'll get you some cool sounds, then if you really want the rizzle dizzle, check out Kaputsport's thread and always remember that what you hear on a CD is not necessarily what came straight out of a dudes amp.

If you want to go that bit further but not get the full biamped rig etc, you can always fork out a healthy/silly amount of money for a Akai Deep Impact synth pedal and an Human Gear Animato distortion pedal. But even then it wont nail the sound on the disk.

Time Consumer · #20 05-07-2011, 11:51 PM

I think as long as your willing to spend a fair amount of money buy buying a couple iron either effects and good expression pedal. I've got a xerograph and a pickle pie b(getting an oxide soon) but that combo with any cheap octaver from boss or whatever will work. Im using an old bsw i had in that role for now. But whatever, the point is I can get a very good approximation of muse tones from this combo, so much so i let out a giddy screech the first time i nailed city of delusion with my fuzz, xero and ex-pedal.