Cliff's fingernail technique

[imChinOaChicken]

anyone really know how he did it to achieve those real high pitch screams?

 

[Matt Till]

Harmonics probably, that and a wah with a wide sweep can get really high endy.

Any specific examples of "real high pitched screams?"

 

[Baryonyx]

Wear tight trousers.

 

[SexFuneral]

were talkin Cliff Burton right?

 

[ARCtrooper225]

yea, fuzz (sovtek muff) morley PWB (has a huge sweep) and harmonics (or just high notes sometimes)...
Being endowed with godly bass powers from birth like cliff wouldnt hurt either

 

[SexFuneral]

yea, fuzz (sovtek muff) morley PWB (has a huge sweep) and harmonics (or just high notes sometimes)...
Being endowed with godly bass powers from birth like cliff wouldnt hurt either

The man....was a God. There will never be another quite like him. Ive got an old Sovtek muff like his, had to fork over 400 for it but it was completely worth it.

Im curious, any idea on what happened to his Ric after he passed? Rumour is Hetfield has it.

 

[Ryan Smith]

The man....was a God. There will never be another quite like him. Ive got an old Sovtek muff like his, had to fork over 400 for it but it was completely worth it.

weird...I hardly find mine worth the $20 I paid for mine.

 

[imChinOaChicken]

ive got a ri russian big muff and a ri morley power wah but i still cant get that harsh screech cliff had, like the chords in the begining of anesthesia after the triplet intro.

should i tinker with the l.e.d. on the wah or something? it kinda sounds like a screaming duck rather than cliff burtons screeching sound.

i heard he used his fingernails to help get this. dunno.

 

[SexFuneral]

weird...I hardly find mine worth the $20 I paid for mine.

uh...yeah I neglected to mention that I got ripped off. It happens right?

Still, I do really love that thing. You?

 

[Pete C]

He used really high notes with a lot of wah. I didn't know he used harmonics though, can anyone tell me the songs he used harmonics in?

 

[bigbadbuck]

ok the way you do it is you have to have your bass eq set right with enough high end in it and when you play a chord strum it or rake it with your fingernails and at the same time press you wah pedal full on treble it takes feeling and practice to get all those sounds out of the bass but just keep fooling around with it. i have found that another good way to get the screams is when i play a bass chord i actually like open palmed hit the strings with my fingers

 

[Basshammer]

He used really high notes with a lot of wah. I didn't know he used harmonics though, can anyone tell me the songs he used harmonics in?

I'm pretty sure there are some harmonics in Anesthesia.

 

[imChinOaChicken]

so he doesnt realy use his fingernails?

 

[bassist 4 life]

No big bad chuck its not achieved by just using a wah. what he does is called "pinched harmonics" search around here and you'll get tons of threads about them, Billy Sheehan uses them a lot.

 

[Kink Rimson]

I thought the fingernail stuff was the string scraping at the end... Although I suppose the 'howling panther' screams earlier on are downward strums so that's probably his fingernails too.

 

[hansahol]

I think Cliff actually pressed the strings against the polepices of the pickups.

Hans Å

 

[bassist 4 life]

He also used tapped harmonics, do a search on those... There a vid on youtube of cliff playing anesthasia, and u can see himd o tapped and pinched harmonics.

 

[sammcl1608]

ive got a ri russian big muff and a ri morley power wah but i still cant get that harsh screech cliff had, like the chords in the begining of anesthesia after the triplet intro.

should i tinker with the l.e.d. on the wah or something? it kinda sounds like a screaming duck rather than cliff burtons screeching sound.

i heard he used his fingernails to help get this. dunno.

Have you got the chain as:

Bass > Muff > Wah > Amp?

That gives a screaming duck sound, swap the Muff with the Wah.

 

[PrimusNut]

Cliff strummed with his fingernails holding his index finger/thumb together and down-strokes with his index and up with his thumb (Cliff 'Em All, the solo before Whiplash). He also used a few pinch harmonics (only time I have heard him use them is in his versionn of Star Spangled Banner). He did tapped harmonics a lot, usually at the end of a solo.

Hans, the tapping on the polepieces that you are talking about is that annoying screaching sound at the end of Anesthesia (after the fingernail scraping). He also open hand finger slapped the strings sometimes (Cliff 'Em All- For Whom The Bell Tolls, and his solo's)