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That inimitable metallic slap tone

#3
The guy in the video plays a warwick bass with p/j pick-ups. if it helps, purchase a bass that has p/j pick-ups, equip the bass with a set of stainless steel strings, and purchase an exciter pedal and maybe an EQ pedal(if necessary). hopefully this would help you out on duplicating this guy's sound. an exciter pedal just might be the pedal that you're thinking of because you wanted to achieve that punchy sound. but everything else I've said should be able to help you out.
 
#4
Crystalman85 said:
The guy in the video plays a warwick bass with p/j pick-ups. if it helps, purchase a bass that has p/j pick-ups, equip the bass with a set of stainless steel strings, and purchase an exciter pedal and maybe an EQ pedal(if necessary). hopefully this would help you out on duplicating this guy's sound. an exciter pedal just might be the pedal that you're thinking of because you wanted to achieve that punchy sound. but everything else I've said should be able to help you out.
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I would say an active preamp in the bass (or possibly in pedal form) or a set of active pickups (EMGs for example) would be an important addition to get anywhere near that Warwick tone!
 
#7
sunbeast said:
I would say an active preamp in the bass (or possibly in pedal form) or a set of active pickups (EMGs for example) would be an important addition to get anywhere near that Warwick tone!
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Yeah true. active preamps can work too. I was helping Invisible kid on how to achieve that sound. when I mentioned purchasing a bass with p/j pick-ups, of course the bass has to be active. up-grading the pick-ups would work too. Invisible kid must of come here to the effects about this topic because he must be thinking about an exciter pedal(which does add punch). so I was trying to be as helpful as I can on how to achieve that sound on the youtube clip.
 
#10
RadioPilot said:
I agree with what others have said. It sounds like a P pickup with scooped mids, compression, and new Stainless. Having a very precise attack helps, too.
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Come to think of it, you might be right. it could be precision pick-ups with scooped mids, compression, and stainless steel strings. perhaps what Invisible kid really needs to achieve that sound is a bass with precision pick-ups or a bass with p/j pick-ups(which can provide punchy sounds) equipped with stainless steel strings, a compressor pedal, and scoop the mids on his amp. I haven't thought of it that way, but yeah that could be it.
 
#11
kevteop said:
That bass doesn't sound especially 'Warwicky' to me. I doubt it's got MEC electronics in it.

Lots of compression, brand-new roundwounds, scooped EQ on the amp, you should be good to go.
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It sounds pretty Warwick-y to me, though I also agree on the compression. I think I hear some subtle chorus as well. Probably a fair amount of processing on the computer in general, especially audible on some of his less aggressive tracks.
 
#12
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I normally never record direct because I think it sounds awful, but this is my bass recorded direct. I play a Gibson SG Bass which is pretty much the worst bass ever for thumbstyle playing, but with a little leveling and EQ I can get this tone. There's no chorusing or flanging on it. If I can get this tone direct with a Gibson SG Bass, you begin to see exactly how incredibly easy it is to get a metallic slap tone.
 
#14
Mark Olson said:
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I normally never record direct because I think it sounds awful, but this is my bass recorded direct. I play a Gibson SG Bass which is pretty much the worst bass ever for thumbstyle playing, but with a little leveling and EQ I can get this tone. There's no chorusing or flanging on it. If I can get this tone direct with a Gibson SG Bass, you begin to see exactly how incredibly easy it is to get a metallic slap tone.
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That is a nice slap tone, and very surprising from an SG bass (mostly based on their reputation), but it doesn't have the clinical depth or shimmer of the bass in the Youtube clip. I've never been a fan of that tone for myself (or slapping at all for that matter), but I "get it" and feel like I could get a reasonable approximation from a couple EMG-equipped basses I have owned previously when playing fairly aggressively with roundwounds and with fairly minimal EQ. I haven't owned a passive bass with that same kinda vibe (without a crap-ton of EQ), and for that I am grateful :D

I mentioned chorus because I feel like I hear some slight modulation when he plays the higher tapping, though it could be my imagination and is subtle if it is there. I do find that a little chorus can help add a similar sort of shimmer to a bass though...
 
#15
Yeah all I did for EQ was a 3 dB boost at 200 Hz and cut out some of the highs. I'm using nickel rounds by the way and not stainless. My point is, just get an active P pickup, and record it direct. There's no magic to that tone, I don't even think it's a very good tone. That's why I play an SG Bass, if anyone wants to come sit in at my gig and they think they're going to be cool and try to play some stupid Primus riffs, they're pretty screwed!
 
#18
Invisible_Kid said:
Alright, so I've been getting responses about active P style pickups. I have a passive Washburn T-24 with J pickups. It there any way I can mod it for active pickups?

Also, what exactly does an exciter pedal do?
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Honestly, I'd just get a P Bass. I don't think it'd be too easy to do a neat routing job on the T-24 to fit a precision pickup and make it look good.

And don't worry about an exciter pedal. They're absolute garbage. For the tone you're going for you want to go as direct as possible besides an active preamp, and exciters are just one more piece of gear to carry around and muck up your tone. If you get an active preamp you'll already be getting boosted bass and highs anyways, which does the job of the exciter anyhow. (I have owned aural exciters).
 

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