Sounds about right, JJ uses a thick pick and hits the strings hard, he told me he once broke an E string. His original cab had a damaged cone which contributed to his sound at the time.There's some serious overthinking going on in this thread. Have people forgotten what a tube amp sounds like???That's the tone of a P-bass (probably cirka late 70s and stringed with Rotos) going straight into a Hiwatt and played with a pick. There's no dark magic going on here. It's a cool tone but it's about as straightforward as it gets. Bass > amp. Play aggressively, turn up the volume until the good stuff starts happening. Simple as that.
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Aggressive Pbass tone with or without fx?
- Thread starter Phaidrus
- Start date
There's some serious overthinking going on in this thread. Have people forgotten what a tube amp sounds like???
It's not overthinking when you want to get it some other way. JJ Burnel made the original sound, but had trouble getting it later while trying to do so. Was he overthinking when he figured out a way? People can and do change gear, so thinking is necessary! JJ lost the sound the moment he had to replace a broken guitar. I bet that gave him serious pause for thought.
This business of 'overthinking' annoys me, when people talk of 'overthinking' it sounds like expecting to have natural talent with no need to practise.
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I've done that, while practising. Had to think about that too, tone changes a lot after restringing.
I don't know for certain, but what it does is seem to accent harmonics or gain in a very specific way. The tone becomes less bassy and more aggressive IME. I was able to get similar tones to what the OP is looking for with it when I used to own one.
Thanks. Sounds right enough. It's not just addign more HF, it's like the passive tone, beign a simple filter with no damping, has some ringing of its own to add. It's pickup coil vs capacitor, no resistor, so it would have a high Q.
And two fingers is right (post on page 1), I tried maxing that passive tone and cutting on the brightness on the GM-400's compressor instead. I usually like to keep a bit of brightness held back so I have room to compensate for the strings getting older, but cutting back brightness later in the audio chain rather than using the passive control on the bass makes the low notes work better. More open sound, less cramped.
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To me, it sounds like his particular, aggressive, right-hand technique is the primary factor in creating that tone.
EDIT: well, that and a P bass
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D
But it's just a P-bass! A bog-standard 70s P-bass into a Hiwatt. There's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about that tone. P-bass > Hiwat > done. If he had trouble getting that sound back then yeah, he was probably overthinking it IMO. Did he use COMPLETELY different gear, like solid state amps and active basses when he tried to replicate that tone? Because a standard passive P-bass into a Hiwatt will do it. Every single time.
German gear page Bonedo has a little Workshop on JJ Burnel. Funny enough it includes a detailed instruction how to get the Sound (in a homerecording setup) of that exact song. In short:
Use 2 D.I. signals. One clean, one with Drive and lot of highs and less low end.
Add much EQ with a wide Peak\ Bell EQ between 400 and 1000 Hz.
Add even more EQ @5000 Hz.
Use 2 D.I. signals. One clean, one with Drive and lot of highs and less low end.
Add much EQ with a wide Peak\ Bell EQ between 400 and 1000 Hz.
Add even more EQ @5000 Hz.
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Does it every time?
Sorry, had to be done..I'm not disagreeing, just saying that when we're having to do different, we have to think. Westone Thunder 1-A at £240 vs Fender P-bass at £1500+, and whatever monstrous prices a Hiwatt costs now. I repaired (a few times) a Hiwatt 400 owned by a Jamaican guy called Johnny, who used to run a sound system in St. Pauls, Bristol. That thing had as much 'mojo' as the Ox (probably JJ's favourite bassist), but last time I checked it was worth at least 2 grand.
The question is, and always will be, what else will do it. I can't get my mojo from expensive antiques, I have to make my own as best I can.
Thanks for that, it's very interesting to consider a mix with clean. I never thought of it that way before. That wide peak I did get though, I use a 3 octave wide boost peaking at 1.4 KHz, and a high shelf boosting too (they combine to good effect within limits of what my chosen device can do).
One thing critical to the sound of the Westone Thunder 1-A (unlike P-bass, it has some active circuitry) is to boost its active bass a bit, and later to use EQ to cut at 280 Hz. This cut brings out the grunt without muddying the lower mids. This is probably specific to this bass, but then again, the 1983 variant of the T1-A was very close to a similar design by Fender, so much so that Fender sued Matsomoku of Japan over it, and subsequently set up their own Japanese manufacturing. It was a growing awareness of that little detail that led to my choice of bass, plus the low cost.
I seriously doubt there are any pedals, the first commercially available overdrive wasn't available until the early 80s, and distortion pedals didn't come out until around the year this was released and they might not have even been available in England until later (even if they were, I can't imagine a punk band spending the bread on a brand new pedal). Fuzz was around, but why would they have turned a fuzz pedal down?
So, it's just Amp+Bass+technique. I think you could get pretty close with any P-bass and an amp with a decent EQ. Cut the lows and a bit of low mids, bump the hi-mids a scootch. OR if that's working, a pre-amp pedal like the Sansamp BDDI with a presence knob would do the trick. Maybe throw on a compressor pedal for good measure to even out the dynamics.
So, it's just Amp+Bass+technique. I think you could get pretty close with any P-bass and an amp with a decent EQ. Cut the lows and a bit of low mids, bump the hi-mids a scootch. OR if that's working, a pre-amp pedal like the Sansamp BDDI with a presence knob would do the trick. Maybe throw on a compressor pedal for good measure to even out the dynamics.
S'funny we all got this tone back in the day without even thinkin bout it. Fresh rounds lowish action tone up, hit it hard...bam!
There absitively posolutely is some 'amp grind'. It's not what I'd call distortion, but definitely overdrive. I could get similar with my old SVT rig -- but only at volume. It never occurred to me to get something like a V4B so I could push a lower powered tube amp just into the red when I couldn't crank the SVT (that said, I wouldn't have wanted to deal with the logistics of dragging two tube heads around).
There's some serious overthinking going on in this thread. Have people forgotten what a tube amp sounds like???
I agree: no pedals, just a tube amp run to the point of clipping on transients. Harmonic magic!
Wow, surprised that people can't believe it's just a P-bass into an amp.
Want to bet?
I remember a few bands here scrambling to get the 'Tube Screamer' to improve on whatever pedal they had already. But not earlier than mid 80's. They liked pedals. I didn't. After repairing a couple I came to hate them. At the time I started to like synthesisers.
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As other have said a P bass with an aggressive attack into a tube amp can get you in the ball park, or 90% of the way there. The remaining 10% well, thats where things usually get interesting.
It doesn't sound like a sound I've ever gotten with an SVT. It does sounds damn near the exact tone I go for though, and I've never listened to The Stranglers until now, so I'm in no way say this is how to do it.
I've had success with stainless steel strings, or fresh rounds, my SWR 4x12, and a hundred watt Sovtek Blues Boy amp. I do think a 12in speaker is a considerable piece of the equation.
I think its also worth mentioning that one can have an aggressive touch without it looking like you are absolutely punishing your instrument. A heavy attack can be a very controlled thing, which it appears is what's happening here.
It doesn't sound like a sound I've ever gotten with an SVT. It does sounds damn near the exact tone I go for though, and I've never listened to The Stranglers until now, so I'm in no way say this is how to do it.
I've had success with stainless steel strings, or fresh rounds, my SWR 4x12, and a hundred watt Sovtek Blues Boy amp. I do think a 12in speaker is a considerable piece of the equation.
I think its also worth mentioning that one can have an aggressive touch without it looking like you are absolutely punishing your instrument. A heavy attack can be a very controlled thing, which it appears is what's happening here.
I got a chance to give this a listen. It embarrasses me to admit that I didn’t know anything about the Stranglers before this post brought them to my attention, so bear that in mind, but based on the audio in the original post I think you have that sound pegged. My ignorance might actually work in our favor here, because I don’t know any better than any casual listeners at this point (though I do intend to catch up in a hurry). I don’t know if anyone can ever exactly reproduce a sound largely derived from someone else’s damaged speakers, but this comes more than close enough.
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