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Berry Oakley
- Thread starter monroe55
- Start date
Do yall think this can be done (Darkstar middle and double jazz at bridge) on a p-bass or will it be too close together. I am seeing black/black/maple with black blocks/binding and 3 stacked vol/tone controls?
I get a pretty good Berry Oakley tone with flatwounds and a pick with my Mark Hoppus and my Orange amp with an OBC115. His sound on the "Live at the Fillmore" is so great.
Plus, didn't Fender always put the rest on the G-string side until about 1974?
Berry used a thumbpick more than a flatpick, as I understand it.
I know "Big Dave", who made the Tractor replica mentioned on the previous page, very well. Here's a shot of him with the "real thing" at The Big House in Macon last month! How cool is that?
I never noticed in Berry's SB tractor that his Guild pup was installed at a weird angle. If the one that Dave is holding is one of Berry's original tractors, maybe Berry had an acid moment during that installation??? And thus Dave's copy also used the same angled install?
Oh, it's the original, all right. It's now owned by BO's son and is on loan to The Big House in Macon.
Ditto.
Saw the Allman Brothers band only once around 1970 or so at the Sportatorium in Ft Laud and they were an incredible live band. I know most guitarist think the band was about Duane and Dickey but IMO it was mostly about the great combination of those two drummers, Berry and Greg's great bluesy voice.
That's so cool! Dave's looking véry proud, I sure would also if I was in his place
This is my Tractor:
after playing my jazz copy through my gigging rig the other day,i found the sound.......boring? i love the way the bass plays,but the sound was thin as hell.
im tempted to do this,but with a gibson eb pickup.
im tempted to do this,but with a gibson eb pickup.
With an EB pup? I did something like that before...wasn't a succes, really.
want it!!!
so we dont hijack the thread,do you think you could pm me with more info on that bass,and why you didnt like it?
thanks.
First, it seems he had two modded Jazz basses, but the key factor was that both had the Hagstrom pickup from a Guild Starfire Bass (which is NOT a humbucker!) installed. The stock Jazz Neck PUP got moved down. When Fender made a limited run of reproductions, their literature talked about the stereo operation. Seems the Hagstrom PUP went to one output and the stock Jazz bass wiring went to another.
The only article about Berry and his gear that I saw until about 8 years ago was a short "Ask The Pros" section in Guitar Player Magazine, around 1973 or so. The article commented that just before he died they'd set up a schedule for an interview, but they never got to do it. Most of the information was from ABB roadies. My recollection of his gear at the time was that they said he was using a Fender 400 PS (could be the head only, the entire article was about 1/2 page), and used some Fender nickle roundwounds. Based on the sound of his bass, especially "Hot 'Lanta" and the solo bits on "Mountain Jam" they could well be very dead nickle rounds, or flats either way.
Do you NEED a Darkstar installed in a Jazz to get close to that sound? I dunno, but equipment isn't the most important part of getting sound. Have a good sounding rig, know your EQ, and work on the attack. Sounds like he hit the strings fairly hard with a pick, didn't have too much bottom (he had a good low end, but it's never muddy and the mids are very prominent), and play with the same attitude. That'll get you into the sound.
All these discussions about gear to emulate a famous sound remind me of Mark Knopfler calling Billy Gibbons to get advice on getting a sound. Knopfler wanted a ZZ Top sound for "Money For Nothing" so he called Gibbons to ask how he got it. When Billy related the story in "Musician" magazine (RIP, the ONLY truly great music magazine ever) the interviewer asked Gibbons how well he thought Knopfler pulled it off. Gibbons' response was "Pretty good, considering I didn't tell him a XXXX thing!" Sure, Knopfler used a Les Paul for that track, but he didn't get a flat pick, nor the ancient Marshalls, or the Rio Grande cabs that Billy tended to use. If you have the sound firmly in your head, and you spend some time learning your gear, you can generally get pretty close. And getting into the minutea gets one distracted from the goal- because it's too easy to focus on the gear rather than the player.
Having said, that I'm not naive enough to think that an EB-0 with bright stainless rounds is gonna make it easy to get Berry's "Fillmore" sound, but a good Jazz bass should be able to get you about 90% into that territory.
John
The only article about Berry and his gear that I saw until about 8 years ago was a short "Ask The Pros" section in Guitar Player Magazine, around 1973 or so. The article commented that just before he died they'd set up a schedule for an interview, but they never got to do it. Most of the information was from ABB roadies. My recollection of his gear at the time was that they said he was using a Fender 400 PS (could be the head only, the entire article was about 1/2 page), and used some Fender nickle roundwounds. Based on the sound of his bass, especially "Hot 'Lanta" and the solo bits on "Mountain Jam" they could well be very dead nickle rounds, or flats either way.
Do you NEED a Darkstar installed in a Jazz to get close to that sound? I dunno, but equipment isn't the most important part of getting sound. Have a good sounding rig, know your EQ, and work on the attack. Sounds like he hit the strings fairly hard with a pick, didn't have too much bottom (he had a good low end, but it's never muddy and the mids are very prominent), and play with the same attitude. That'll get you into the sound.
All these discussions about gear to emulate a famous sound remind me of Mark Knopfler calling Billy Gibbons to get advice on getting a sound. Knopfler wanted a ZZ Top sound for "Money For Nothing" so he called Gibbons to ask how he got it. When Billy related the story in "Musician" magazine (RIP, the ONLY truly great music magazine ever) the interviewer asked Gibbons how well he thought Knopfler pulled it off. Gibbons' response was "Pretty good, considering I didn't tell him a XXXX thing!" Sure, Knopfler used a Les Paul for that track, but he didn't get a flat pick, nor the ancient Marshalls, or the Rio Grande cabs that Billy tended to use. If you have the sound firmly in your head, and you spend some time learning your gear, you can generally get pretty close. And getting into the minutea gets one distracted from the goal- because it's too easy to focus on the gear rather than the player.
Having said, that I'm not naive enough to think that an EB-0 with bright stainless rounds is gonna make it easy to get Berry's "Fillmore" sound, but a good Jazz bass should be able to get you about 90% into that territory.
John
I had a Trac-tor copy made, with a Darkstar. I noticed that if I used only the Darkstar and then rolled in the volume on the jazz pickups the volume would increase, then thin out, then increase again, all with a continuous change of tone. There was an out-of-phase thing going on. I flipped the phase on the jazz pickups. Instant awesome-ness.
The great thing about having a custom bass made is that one isn't limited to stock pickup spacing.
The J pickups could easily be positioned more toward the neck - so just a bit fatter than the 60's placement and a bit fatter than the '70's placement, and the Darkstar/Mudbucker/whatever could be a bit closer to the neck.
Of course that would be a different animal, but it seems that Berry's pickup placement was limited to one router job.
I certainly have my ideas but until I take them to another level I'm just thinking about this.
The J pickups could easily be positioned more toward the neck - so just a bit fatter than the 60's placement and a bit fatter than the '70's placement, and the Darkstar/Mudbucker/whatever could be a bit closer to the neck.
Of course that would be a different animal, but it seems that Berry's pickup placement was limited to one router job.
I certainly have my ideas but until I take them to another level I'm just thinking about this.
