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Chris Squire sound from a pedal?

#41
Ewo said:
Whaddaya need a pedal for?

First, get a bass with frets.
Second, string it with roundwounds, preferably stainless.
Third, set it up with minimal neck relief and low action.
Fourth, dig in hard, and pluck down on the strings (rather than across). If you use a pick, come down on the stings.
Fifth, jack the treble on your bass and amp until you get enough.

Done.
Click to expand...

It could have been a combination of the way Chris was miced and the PA they used that night at the Ryman, but his low end was as crushing as his mids and highs were bright. That's the sound he had and I'll never forget it.

Let's not underestimate his considerable skill as a player either.

He had a one of a kind sound and a one of a kind style.
 
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#42
Yes, of course technique matters, but so does gear. I'm not going to comment on fretless Wal vs. fretted Ric. ;) Just here to explain Chris Squire's tone. He used a clean/dirty setup that was pioneered by John Entwistle of The Who, then modified by Squire, Geddy Lee, Billy Sheehan, dUg Pinnick, etc. Back in the day, the clean/dirty setup consisted of using a bass amp for clean-ish lows, and a guitar amp for distorted mids and highs. I read somewhere that Squire originally used Marshalls for dirty highs.

Of course like the vast majority of us, I have no intention of setting up multiple amp rigs, so I look at pedals. I agree with others that the Tech21 Oxford sounds great for Entwistle/Squire/Geddy tones. I was recently using it with my custom Sadowsky with MusicMan style pickup, and a guitarist in the audience actually said my tone reminded him of Squire. I wouldn't claim I nailed it, but it was clearly in the ballpark -- and I assume that's what the OP wants, rather than an exact match.

A better choice might be a dual-band distortion pedal: i.e. one that has a crossover which allows you to put different distortion levels on highs and lows. The first I'd recommend is from Brimstone Audio: either their Crossover Distortion XD-2, or their newer Basilisk (I haven't tried the latter). I also own and recommend the VFE Triumvirate 3-band pedal, but I don't think it's available any more.
 
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#44
Fuzzbass said:
Yes, of course technique matters, but so does gear. I'm not going to comment on fretless Wal vs. fretted Ric. ;) Just here to explain Chris Squire's tone. He used a clean/dirty setup that was pioneered by John Entwistle of The Who, then modified by Squire, Geddy Lee, Billy Sheehan, dUg Pinnick, etc. Back in the day, the clean/dirty setup consisted of using a bass amp for clean-ish lows, and a guitar amp for distorted mids and highs. I read somewhere that Squire originally used Marshalls for dirty highs.

Of course like the vast majority of us, I have no intention of setting up multiple amp rigs, so I look at pedals. I agree with others that the Tech21 Oxford sounds great for Entwistle/Squire/Geddy tones. I was recently using it with my custom Sadowsky with MusicMan style pickup, and a guitarist in the audience actually said my tone rem
Click to expand...

Ignoring the fact that I was still playing a fretless with flatwounds fingerstyle, I have been trying the split amp thing in the studio this weekend with my SCR-DI feeding both an Ashdown MiBass + downward-firing cab and an AER Alpha... not quite the size of rig that Chris might have used for a stadium gig but actually worked quite well.
 
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#45
TerribleLiar23 said:
Not sure about Squire exactly, but if you want clank and buzz, the dreaded EHX Steel Leather will do it. Widely despised around here, but I love mine. Certainly not an always on pedal, and a little goes a long way. Cheap too.
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Not just cheap, you can find them Abandoned in rehearsal spaces, not worth the effort and postage to sell, and they work great if you need more highs (which I never do hence the storage status)
 
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#47
The secret to the Squire sound is realty no secret, a little investigating and you'll find Chris explain that his signature tone comes from an old Marshall head that he has used from day one. He used it for most of his career as a preamp then run into a higher wattage rig , in recent years its been Ampeg , he has also used Fender and Sunn amps at times, but the tone came from a very old Marshall head, that and the Rick and Roto strings. If you can get all that in a pedal I would be amazed
 
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#48
bluesblaster said:
The secret to the Squire sound is realty no secret, a little investigating and you'll find Chris explain that his signature tone comes from an old Marshall head that he has used from day one. He used it for most of his career as a preamp then run into a higher wattage rig , in recent years its been Ampeg , he has also used Fender and Sunn amps at times, but the tone came from a very old Marshall head, that and the Rick and Roto strings. If you can get all that in a pedal I would be amazed
Click to expand...

It wasn't always a Marshall either. On some stuff he used an AC30 for the high end.

My money's on the Steel Leather for a cheap experiment, OP. It's gonna cost you 30-50 bucks.
 
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#49
New strings will certainly help, but the Steel Leather has a nice upper midrange. Rics are more about the ringing upper mids than highs.

Here's a really sloppy clip of mine with 10-month old Hi-Beams and an Alpha Omega fed by an Oxford(the Oxford is being used as a warm/clean tone)
You can hear its' prominent high mids(I wasn't going for anything near Squire btw):
Playing: Broken PC Loadupb.mp3 - picosong

And I have relatively high action.
 
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#52
GASing for an Oxford so bad right now- the Steel Leather sounds worth the minimal cash but it'd probably be overkill paired with my 4003 + Rusty Box -- the V2 Fifth Gear adds a glassy veneer to my overall tone, and while I'm not trying to actively emulate Squire's tone, this thread's been pretty informative!
 
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#53
FaithNoMan said:
New strings will certainly help, but the Steel Leather has a nice upper midrange. Rics are more about the ringing upper mids than highs.

Here's a really sloppy clip of mine with 10-month old Hi-Beams and an Alpha Omega fed by an Oxford(the Oxford is being used as a warm/clean tone)
You can heat it's prominent high mids(I wasn't going for anything near Squire btw):
Playing: Broken PC Loadupb.mp3 - picosong

And I have relatively high action.
Click to expand...
Digging this, Failure meets Depeche Mode vibe
 
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#54


Here is my attempt at Squire tone using the Oxford and the Leeds. I run them in series actually and split the signal afterward with a Yamaha Bass Stereo Chorus hard panning L/R. With all the knobs set at 1:00, it gets a nice wide pseudo-stereo, which is useful for Geddy tones as well as imitating the double-tracking technique of Mick Karn.

For purists, I know the slide is in the repeat, but this is only a test, and it's the best part of the song ... as Tony Levin would call it: "the Good Note" (Beyond the Bass Clef: The Life and Art of Bass Playing, p. 183).
 
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#55
A nice rat clone at low gain settings with an aggressive right hand picking technique, fresh rotosound 66's, and low action.

I can get in the ballpark of his tone with a lot of basses. All fretted, of course

Come to think of it...I've been replicating his tone for over a decade now and have yet to even play a 4003. :bag:
 
#56
veryvery said:
The first part of "Awaken" is on fretless. Wal no less.
Click to expand...

Chris Squire only used the Wal live - for recording the fretless part was probably a Guild, possible a Rickenbacker, although I've never seen him with a fretless Rick.
The Wal was commisioned by Rick Wakeman for the bass player in the English Rock Ensemble, Roger Newell. It currently resides in a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere, for years Squire used a Japanese copy made by a company called Kid's.
 
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#58
Old thread but B7K Ultra with the drive channel on, drive at 9 oclock, blend full on, bass at noon, low mids (forgot the frequency I had selected) around 10 or 11, high mids at 3k and highs around 3 oclock. Oh yeah but that's also with a Ric...
 

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