I have always, in my time of playing bass, wanted to be able to sound like the legendary Cliff Burton. But, I can't seem to get anywhere close to even similar to his sound. Can anyone help me with a cliff burton tone?
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Cliff Burton bass sound
- Thread starter Andy Fields
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Pretty much any of the Green Russian Muff variants such as Way Huge Russian Pickle, Earthbound Audio Supercollider, new EHX Green Russian Reissue, Wren & Cuff Tall Font Russian with a humbucker equipped bass ballparks you. He had kind of a Trebly tone and had I think a strat pickup in the bridge of his Rickenbacker for some of the records. Other people on here know way more then I do about his rig/setup though but I'd start with the right fuzz.
One of the bass gods! I think is legacy consists more of his playing and composing than on a particular bass model or tone- In my opinion you`ll get the tone with a double humbucker bass. I´ve seen him many times with an Aria Pro II on Youtube/Live Videos. He also used a Rick and an Alembic Spoiler. His soloing tone is really ratty...Big Muff and a Morley Wah. For the amp..I would recommend a Peavy 400.
I will make sure to. Lately I have been using just a normal distortion pedal and some random wah pedal (it's upstream from everything else pretty much so it sounds horrible in most cases and I can't be bothered to rewire my setup) along with a temporary marshall guitar amp (I haven't got it all set up yet) but I have a large pevey amp which is ready to be used, though I don't know what model it is. Anyhow, I will definately take this into consideration.
Side note: Do you know if Logic Pro has some decent pedal presets that would be good for a Cliff Burton tone.
Thanks for the reply
I believe that it is 'No Remorse' from the album 'Kill 'em all'.
Great song, that.
Thanks, you're right!
Tuned into a really old video of Cliff playing it & was all of a sudden struck with sadness.
Sad that Cliff is gone & sad that Metallica will never be that great again.
Tuned into a really old video of Cliff playing it & was all of a sudden struck with sadness.
Sad that Cliff is gone & sad that Metallica will never be that great again.
We shall join him in the kingdom of salvation, now or later.
We're coming for you, cliff!
I'm using a Warwick Streamer bass into Boss Bass Limiter, into the Morley Cliff Burton PWF reissue, into an Analogman modded TS9DX (modded to be a TS-808, like Cliff, SRV, and countless others had) and into my rig, sounds damn close to his soloing tone. Settings photo below.
I use the TS9DX tone control to tame the highest part of the Morley's sweep a bit.
When it's really, really loud through (2) 2x12's and (2) 1x15's, that high end is pretty brutal, so cutting it a little bit at the TS warms that up nicely, while retaining the wah's snarl.
Amp settings: bass cranked, mids cranked, treble half way up.
This seems to translate across pretty much any rig I plug into. Not that I can play like him.
Also, as over the top as it sounds, he wasn;t using the drive/gain on anything completely max'ed out, which is where I believe the punch comes into play. Plus, late 70's pedals of that nature weren't gained up like similar pedals are today.
Hope this helps.
I use the TS9DX tone control to tame the highest part of the Morley's sweep a bit.
When it's really, really loud through (2) 2x12's and (2) 1x15's, that high end is pretty brutal, so cutting it a little bit at the TS warms that up nicely, while retaining the wah's snarl.
Amp settings: bass cranked, mids cranked, treble half way up.
This seems to translate across pretty much any rig I plug into. Not that I can play like him.
Also, as over the top as it sounds, he wasn;t using the drive/gain on anything completely max'ed out, which is where I believe the punch comes into play. Plus, late 70's pedals of that nature weren't gained up like similar pedals are today.
Hope this helps.
Do you have a sound demo? EricJMoro
I'm using a Warwick Streamer bass into Boss Bass Limiter, into the Morley Cliff Burton PWF reissue, into an Analogman modded TS9DX (modded to be a TS-808, like Cliff, SRV, and countless others had) and into my rig, sounds damn close to his soloing tone. Settings photo below.
I use the TS9DX tone control to tame the highest part of the Morley's sweep a bit.
When it's really, really loud through (2) 2x12's and (2) 1x15's, that high end is pretty brutal, so cutting it a little bit at the TS warms that up nicely, while retaining the wah's snarl.
Amp settings: bass cranked, mids cranked, treble half way up.
This seems to translate across pretty much any rig I plug into. Not that I can play like him.
Also, as over the top as it sounds, he wasn;t using the drive/gain on anything completely max'ed out, which is where I believe the punch comes into play. Plus, late 70's pedals of that nature weren't gained up like similar pedals are today.
Hope this helps.
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