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Cliff Burtons tone(i know how to use the search button)

The (album) Intro of Orion is a Hammond with distortion (Rat or Big Muff)

Cliff used the Mesa D-180. If I'm not mistaken, the first channel is for guitar and can be pushed into overdrive easy.
Best results I got with the lead tone is: Bass - Boss CS-1 - Morley Wah (old Tel-Ray version) - Big Muff - Amp (Mesa Bass 400)

If you want to get the "weird" Cliff sounds add an Ibanez HD 1500 or HD 1000 Youtube link
 
i thought i'd contribute my 2 cents to this after my setup that i nailed last night and my thinking and the vids i used to help

first and foremost, there's a couple of great vids on youtube where a couple guys go over the same 3 pedals and order and settings, check these out



they have the settings slightly different i believe and activate/de-activate pedals at different points, but both achieve the tone. One thing i found key from these is both guys had the tone on their big muffs all the way dry. I was always under the assumption that the tone needs to be maxed for the trebly sound, but in combination with the wah it didn't make the creamy explosive WAAAH that cliff does so well. I've been making this mistake for years and now i'm glad i finally made the simple switch. another plus with having the tone all the way off, for my tastes i don't have to switch any pedals on or off when going from the rhythm to solo sections. The big muff with the tone set to dry and sustain on max gives that really cool distorted tone that he has from ride the lighting and in some ways master of puppets, he used different guitars on each album so that's part of that. Now when going into the leads, just use the way and suddenly the creamy distortion kicks in so no dancing on pedal boards!

The wah behind the muff is key as well. Both guys use the boss cs-2 compressor, i don't have compression in my chain and i feel its still close enough, although i'll try it one day and see but for now i'm very satisfied.

For the record, i am using a russian big muff that i just got repaired, it's the black one, a dunlop wah bass pedal, not the morely wah and they are going into an orange bass terror 1000. So even with different gear it's still possible. I used my rickenbacker 4001 and the big thing for me was to use only the bridge pickup. Using both pickups together the bass sound of the neck hits the distortion way too hard and it just becomes a very intense fuzz instead of smooth distortion, so there's no definition so you can hear it even when the wah is engaged.

hope that helps people for the quest for the glorious CB tone
 
The (album) Intro of Orion is a Hammond with distortion (Rat or Big Muff)

Sounds like a leslie speaker, for sure. I'm not sure a Hammond could produce that much distortion, so you are probably right that it was a Rat or Big Muff. I've read that it was just the organ's pedals that he used, or that it is two bass tracks, one running in reverse.... take your pick!
 
Hi everyone, i want to ask one simple question :-)
Can i somehow get cliff´s ride the lightning tone with Hartke VXL Bass Attack, Cort C5H and homemade amplifier? I dont mean exactly same tone, but something more or less close.
 
Hi everyone, i want to ask one simple question :-)

Can i somehow get cliff´s ride the lightning tone with Hartke VXL Bass Attack, Cort C5H and homemade amplifier? I dont mean exactly same tone, but something more or less close.


Maybe. You may need to get some kind of fuzz or OD pedal still. Not sure if the Hartke is gonna get you there as far as that goes.
 
Can i somehow get cliff´s ride the lightning tone with Hartke VXL Bass Attack, Cort C5H and homemade amplifier?

The Cort is a good choice actually, as it has a bridge humbucker. After that you are out of luck...

I don't know anything about your homemade amp, or the speakers you are using so we can pass that over.

The Hartke VXL will not get the job done. I have one, and it works great as a budget Sansamp alternative, an SVT in a box or as a device where you want 'less is more' drive and you want to run everything at 50% clean to keep your mids from vanishing.


For Cliff's tone you need a distortion pedal. Any one would do, as his sound was so gainy that there isn't too much of a discussion going on there. I've got usable Cliffy sounds from a Boss DS-1, Boss ODB-3, Megadistortion, Marshall Bluesbreaker... turn the gain up to silly. It isn't a bassy tone you want, but a guitar tone that just happens to have a bass plugged in at the end.
 
As a long term cliff tone chaser, I can absolutely say that the vxl WILL get you a useable cliff ish drive sound.
The hm2 is probably the best boss pedal to get you close. They can be found for not a lot of cash fairly easily
 
Sounds like a leslie speaker, for sure. I'm not sure a Hammond could produce that much distortion, so you are probably right that it was a Rat or Big Muff. I've read that it was just the organ's pedals that he used, or that it is two bass tracks, one running in reverse.... take your pick!


Which is exactly what I was thinking. However, I was doing some research on the old Tel-Ray Morely pedals (which he used) and it turns out that the rotating oil Morely pedal actually simulated the leslie speaker sound or at least that's what it was built for.
 
I know that this only a thread for cliff burton pedals, but I found a og Morley Power Wah Boost on eBay but I don't have any money :( But I think maybe people looking for one would like to buy one so here you go: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 

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