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Calling all Shiner/ Paul Malinowski fans!

gh0st42

gh0st42

Oct 25, 2019
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#1
Anyone else out there a fan of Paul Malinowski, bassist for Shiner?

His bass tone on the Lula Divinia album was incredible, and I’ve been trying to track down any info on the amps and effects he used to get it, and haven’t found much.

I found a few mentions of Paul playing through “a huge Mesa Boogie rig” and that’s it!

Anybody out there familiar with his setup?
 
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#2
Paul is famously mum about his tone, but since the release of Schadenfreude there have been some hints around the internet.

The first element is his #1 bass. It is an 80’s Fender Precision Bass Elite II, almost identical to this but now worse for wear: Fender Precision Bass Elite II In the Life as a Mannequin video, the headstock is painted black, indicating that it has been replaced. But the double P pickup configuration of this active bass lends itself to that huge, round sound.

Here is a recent pic of Paul and said bass:

I cannot dig up the references, but I recently stumbled on Josh Newton talking some poopie about gear and dropped a goof on Paul about his Peavey 400. This makes so much sense because Paul is a pawn shop urchin and pawns were lousy with these in the 90's. But more importantly, they have brutal distortion and fuzz built in. Once I heard this it all made sense. This demo gives you an idea of what is possible with this clunker:

Finally, let's consider the "symphonic" quality of his tone (I have heard this description many times). There is this wonderful doubling chorus-like sound to his tone. Paul being an engineer I figured he did a lot of double tracking, but suspected something else was at play. Well the latest Third Gear Scratch podcast settles this for me. Although Allen Epley wouldn't let Paul give up the tuning, they both discussed the secret sauce: a unison tuning. Episode 46 - Paul Malinowski — Third Gear Scratch — Overcast

Based on Paul's initial statement before being cut off by Allen, Paul lets fly with "G and C", and Allen says "not fourths" leading me to believe the tuning is CGGD, with the unison tuning int the middle! If you watch any live footage, you will notice two things: Paul wraps his thumb around to fret the C, but also plays a bar across the middle strings with his middle finger. A lot. You can see all this oddness in this performance of Cake:
 
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#3
Ah hah! Someone else is on the same quest to unlock the mystery Malinowski tuning....there is a reference in the podcast to the "Glazed Baby" guitar tuning, which Joel Hamilton clued me in on many moons ago. They tuned the high E to down to a "B" but pitched it 11 cents sharp to create a chorusing effect.

My initial take on Paul's tuning was to tune CGDD which would somewhat recreate the Glazed Baby drone string in the higher register, but you may be right...I'll have to give your take on it a whirl...
 
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#5
Yeah. The tuning thing is a bit of a light bulb moment. I had a bit of a late-night play along with Christ Sized Shoes with the CGDD tuning and it feels about right. Watching a few YT videos and it looks like he hipshots the low C up to D for some tunes as well.

I stupidly didn't say hello at the LA show and pick his brain when I saw them in 2017 and he was standing next to me during the support act. I've since moved back to Australia so likely won't get another opportunity.
 
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#9
I think he used to play a Mesa 400/+ when I saw them during the Lula or Starless era. Allen really was a dick for not letting him spill the beans on Third Gear Scratch...but Paul has always had incredible tone. I think a lot of those 90's bands...sparkyness mentioned Barkmarket...jesus, John Nowlin was good (not to mention Rock Savage), David Sims from the Jesus Lizard, Bob Weston with Shellac, I remember liking some of the sounds Eli Janney got with GVSB...all super unique players that had great sounds. I really do miss people making music like that.
 
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#11
Ryan J said:
I think he used to play a Mesa 400/+ when I saw them during the Lula or Starless era. Allen really was a dick for not letting him spill the beans on Third Gear Scratch...but Paul has always had incredible tone. I think a lot of those 90's bands...sparkyness mentioned Barkmarket...jesus, John Nowlin was good (not to mention Rock Savage), David Sims from the Jesus Lizard, Bob Weston with Shellac, I remember liking some of the sounds Eli Janney got with GVSB...all super unique players that had great sounds. I really do miss people making music like that.
Click to expand...
I agree! I bet it'll come back around
 
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#12
I'm on the same quest guys. I was going to get my chance to ask him in July, but the tour was canceled for obvious reasons. It surprises me that he would tune to C with everyone else dropping to D (unless they're actually down a step). For those that have tried a flavor of this unison tuning, are you tuning those strings to the same octave, or are some up one octave?
 
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#13
I'm tuning the higher register C's (in my CGCC) to the same octave, with the low C down an octave from this. This is based on the Glazed Baby tuning that Joel Hamilton told me about where the two highest strings on the guitar were tuned to unison B's. This made sense to me if PM derived his tuning from Glazed Baby as per the podcast. As for the low C, PM has a hipshot fitted to his Fender P Elite (not sure about his Epi Casady model) which he flicks up to DGCC for some tunes, but there's a low C on tunes such as Christ Sized Shoes.
 
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#14
Right on. Thank you for the reply. After I posted this I did some research and saw it posted somewhere that they actually do tune down a step, so the drop D that I thought they were in is actually drop C. I've seen Epley dropping his low string from standard to dropped in live videos, so everything you say makes sense. When Epley is in "standard", Paul probably uses the Hipshot to match his low D string. When Epley drops his low string, Paul matches him with the Hipshot.

I tuned my bass to DADD last night with the two lighter D strings an octave up, and it was awesome. I see the appeal. Barring across the 3 smallest strings sounded amazing.
 
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#15
Realizing that there is some "non standard" tuning involved, and unison strings in play was a real eye opener.

All of a sudden, everything snapped into focus on Paul's tone. The subtle "hugeness" and punch of every note all makes way more sense now! That epiphany moment of "no wonder it kinda sounds a little like a 8 or 12 string bass!"

Thanks @Tobias Morrison and @sparkyness ! Great info!
 
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#16
Paul's current rig. This is from his Facebook within the last week.
FullSizeRender.jpeg
 
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#18
Huge fan. Saw them a bunch In the late 90s and (very) early 00s and listened to Lula hundred of times.

At that time, Paul played through a Mesa 400 (the one with the graphic EQ) into a Road Ready 2x15. The part of the pedal chain I remember is a Metal Zone into a Tube Screamer. The magical chorus tuning was CGCC (I asked, he told me). But of course DADD will give you the same effect, just not all the notes you need for the songs on Lula. And all the shows I saw him play, he used that Precision Elite.
 
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