TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
hey man, it is a cliff thread so its not a far fetched assumption that everyone in the thread knows a good bit of metallica "lore". side note: your account on here is older than me. lol
hey man im just playing around. Maybe he did use one. I've never focused too much on it.
He used the PWF originally for Kill em all and anesthesia. and then around ride the lightning and Master of Puppets he switched to the Power Wah Boost
Bingo!
I believe you are absolutely right.
I dont think thats the case because logically thinking, who needs two fuzzes in the same signal chain. Also there is a picture of Cliff with the PWB before he joined Metallica, when he still hadnt change the pickups on his rick, so I would prefer to think he used the PWB With a Limiter and a Muff on Anesthesia, and a PFW with a TS9 and Boss Comp For Ktulu/FWTBT
I know this is an old thread but being "this guy" in question i had to chime in to clarify certain things.
First stop, pedals in question (picture of Cliff, concert was in Belgium, Poperinge in 1984) are indeed Morley Power Wah Boost, Washburn Analog Delay, Boss CS2 Compressor Sustainer and Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer. His tone varied a lot from year to year but the basic premise is the same. And the setup 'CS2, PWB, TS9 + delay' seems to have been around for the longest period of time. From all the info I could come up with, it seems he had that setup since 84 up to 96 with only slight changes.
Concerning the Tel-Ray Morley Power Wah Fuzz, he is quoted by some people who knew Cliff(I forgot the guys name but i talked to him in a private message way back when) and the guy states that Cliffs very first pedals were EHX Big Muff PI(he said he remembers the PI symbol, that would've been a regular version...people saying he used russian muff are wrong since russian muff was not even around during Cliffs time) and EHX Bass Balls envelope filter. Bass Balls were replaced with Morley PWF shortly after. However we are talking here about the time waaay before Metallica. That being said lets move onto what we know about Metallica.
One person here stated he probably never used PWF during Metallica time and i agree with him, but i have to add that i believe he never used Big Muff either. Here's why:
Deducing via looking at live shows pictures, comparing dates and overall knowledge about how certain pieces of gear (affect the) sound.
Cliff burton first show with Metallica was on March 1983...at that time Dave Mustaine was still in the band and Cliff still had stock Rickenbacker(maybe with a strat pickup under the bridge, push pull pot activating it) and played through Sunn Beta Bass amps.
Now Kirk Hammets first show with Metallica was in April 1983...a month later. In the same show we can see Cliff again using stock Rick and Sunn, Peavey mark IV amps.
Those were some notable shows prior to Kill Em All album release which came out in july 25th 1983.
To my knowledge the first gig after the album was out...and also their first tour...was live in Metro...which was in August 12th 1983 just a few weeks after the album was out. At that show we can see the Rickenbacker modified(Mudbucker neck pickup, Seymour Duncan humbucking jazz bridge pickup installed and the Strat pickup was taken out before the Kill Em All release) and he also played through a Randall RBA500 bass amp. I believe that same setup was used to record the KEA album.
Why that is important. All of those amps have a built in distortion channel or can be pushed hard into overdrive. You can hear demos of the said amps on Youtube. Sunn amps distortion is the same as his tone at the first gig with Metallica(aka live at the Stone), live at Metro the tone is the same as the distortion from the Randall amp(which in turn sounds very much like studio Anesthesia altough live he had much more bass presence, but the distortion tone is pretty much the same). At the very same gig (most notably from this era) you can hear that when the wah is heel down sound is much less distorted as opposed when he pushes it forwars and "boosts" the overdrive into more saturation...see where im going...thats the characteristic of a PWB...that vocal quality and pushing the od into more distortion...and the same thing can be heared in some Maxwell Ranch tapes for example Vengeance.avi(on youtube) with some delay on. Which is why i believe Cliff really had PWB even before Metallica so he probably used PWF for a very short time and never during Metallica times, along with never using a Big Muff(rumor about the big muff most likely came from people hearing his distorted tone who pretty much assumed it is most likely that) since he already had amps with pretty good built in distortion which he only used to play Anesthesia at the time. Rest of KEA album was a clean tone, maybe slightly compressed.
Most likely time of his usage of a Muff is Agents of Misfortune. Trauma is already far fetched because ive seen pics with only wah on the floor and he already owned Sunn amp.
During KEA era (apart from distortion from the amps and PWB) he had MXR Limiter, BOSS CS1, BOSS Delay(probably the one used at Maxwell Ranch tapes), BOSS Chorus (some of which were stolen and neither of those side effects used all at the same time but rather frequently, he was really experimented at the time).
Now enter Ride The Lightning. He already got an Ibanez TS9 at the time(whole album is recorded with it, not sure when their gear was stolen, there was more than one instance so its possible the amps used to record RTL had no overdrive like his earlier heads, possibly Ampeg SVT which needed extreme volumes to overdrive, we'll get back to that, so he tried and liked the TS9 pleasant tube like character, the overdriven modified rick is a pure TS9 with a clean blend except for the Fight Fire With Fire clean intro...more or less gain added for certain songs and then the same setup with PWB and a delay used for lead tone in For Whom The Bell Tolls intro and Call of Ktulu solos, boost pushing the ts9 into more distortion). The very same setup was used live (we can see more than a few pictures of PWB and TS9 sometimes with CS2 and some delay). Washburn Analog Delay seen in a pic up here was replaced later in 84 with an Ibanez HD1500 delay/pitch shifter rack mount unit with its footswitches. Thats where the delay and shifted tones like you can hear at a gig in London, Lyceum 84 came from. (Fun fact: idea for a pitch shifter came during recording of RTL album, intro to Bells was in fact three bass tracks, one rhythm with ts9 only, second lead with pwb ts9 and delay and the third track is a higher pitch, but just a straight riff without any variations, that seems to be tapping harmonics, as the Anesthesia ending which is why no variations are added(impossible to tap like that) and its mixed into a regular lead track to get a bit more menacing feel, which he later fully blown reproduced live with the pitch shifter). Amps used at the time i cant say for certain, but i have seen more than one picture of 84 featuring ampeg amps(two svt heads one with black curved line and the regular blue line). Could be what was used to record an album as well. Dual amp setup was now well worn practice, one fully clean to hold the bottom end and clarity and the second amp with the effects. Furthermore he clearly needed higher power amps now due to bigger and bigger stages they played so the old ones(even if not stolen) were insufficient in volume.
Rick started to have some problems so he was searching for another bass. There was a short scale Alembic spoiler for a very short amount of time used live early in 85 before being stolen and the Aria Pro II came into play.
So 1985 features a new Aria Pro II bass endorsment and new Mesa Boogie D-180 heads. TS9 and PWB still a staple, those two clearly seen from the pictures of a famous Day on the Green concert(no compressor seen and no delay heared).
Now enter 1986 and the Master of Puppets album.
Recorded with Aria and Mesa no doubt however, the light overdrive heared people(including me) assumed is a natural overdrive from Mesa heads. While certainly possible(i have heared some demos of that amp, sounding simmilar) its still a possibility that was a Tube Screamer again(sounds different than Ride the Lightning sound because of Aria bass which has much punchier deeper midrangey tone than a twangy Rick...why i say that? I use a Precision Bass which is more sonically close to an Aria than a Rick, and TS9 with my bass sounds way closer to MOP tone than RTL tone, actually the overdrive and the way it responds sounds EXACTLY like the MOP sound, what differs is an obvious clean foundation of my P vs Aria, yet people playinf Stingray or Jazz bass are getting a more RTL vibe from a TS9...its a rather transparent pedal and what you plug into it has a great impact on its sound). In conclusion what we hear on the MOP album could be either a TS9 or a natural tube overdrive from the Mesa on the edge of a breakup, but from my experience, TS9 touch sensitivity and the way it crackles than fades when you play a note and 'cleaner' when played lightly vs 'dirtier' when you dig in seems to accurately reproduce what i hear on master of puppets isolated bass tracks, and since i havent had a chance to test D180(which is very possible gets the same tone and response when driven to the edge of a breakup so you have that clean to overdriven ratio) amp myself thats all i can tell you.
As far as live shows. I have seen 1986 photos featuring TS9 and PWB so he most certainly seems to still have used it(possibly to more easily overdrive those Mesa heads instead of cranking them like an idiot) and we can still hear HD1500 in action, used as a delay but this time(very late in 86 near his tragic demise) pitch shifter used an octave lower(very subtle octaver but you can hear it in his last shows) instead of being pitch shifted like in 84.
Most songs played on Aria bass(stock pickup in his preferable Aria bass now replaced by P.J. Marx pickup) and the Thing That Should Not Be now played on a downtuned(to D standard) Rickenbacker(used to record the song too probably as you can hear the tone is much different than the rest of the album, way more scooped with way more drive, guessing the mudbucker doing its magic).
I know this is a goddamn huge response but i really hope someone will read it and so we can slowly stop all the desinformation regarding the Cliff's tone once and for all.
All that being said there is more than one way to skin a cat and that tone can be achieved with many different things if the main layout was followed. A decent wah which can 'chew' the dirt pedal following it(either on its own or with some sort of a booster in front of it, like aditional fuzz, drive or boost pedal) and a delay to give it that spacious overtone.
In the video mentioned i used tribute Morley PFW, Joyo TS808 clone and a cheap delay from a Behringer multi fx pedal. However while decent enough to get you going it lacked that low mids vocal quality of the PWB present in all of Cliff's recordings and the distortion intensity is constant(unlike going from less to more saturation as you press the wah forward). That is because the wah on its own couldn't chew the overdrive and i had to mix in some fuzz from the pedal to give it a kick(used lightly more as a front end boost to strengthen the wah sweeping ability).
Today i use different set of pedals, but the point is, while not the best, you CAN use pwf to get the very simmilar sound(both new tribute or old tel ray)...you CAN use big muff or any other distortion if you only need a solo tone....however what Cliff truly used was a PWB and a TS9 for the biggest period in his life...and honestly the best result i got so far(using modern pedals) was with my current setup of Morley Bass Wah(surprisingly vocal quality of an old PWB and the level control truly acts as a boost, i get more then enough distortion for solos with it) Ibanez TS9B Bass Tube Screamer(giving me, with my Precision bass more of a MOP overdrive regular tone than RTL and boosted with Morley PBA for solos) and an Artec Analog Delay(seems to be inspired by 80s Washburn AAD Cliff used). The tone you can hear in my most recent little tribute video on youtube called "rest in peace cliff burton" (even if a little too compressed due to overloading phone mic so it can sound a bit too deep and dark compared to how it sounds live).
BOTTOM LINE, use whatever works for you but Cliff tone was all about dynamics. Lightly overdriven tone(cleaner when played lightly and more saturated when dig in) further pushed into more distortion via boost wah for solos and added atmospheric effects like delay to give it a special flavour and all that blended with a clean foundation.
Hope You find this an interesting and informative read! Rest in peace Major Rager, legacy continues \m/
