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Doug Pinnick Bass Rig: A Pic

#43
jaywa said:
Dug is a great musician and I've always admired Kings X a lot, but whenever I see that many sliders and knobs in a bass rig I have to ask myself what percentage of all that processing ever makes it out to the audience once it goes through the FOH system....
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all of it gets to foh because dug is freakin' loud and really doesn't need pa.
 
#44
Posted by a roadie from their recent 2009 tour on another forum:

"Not sure the exact specs of Doug's bass rig, but from what I can gather he uses 2 main basses: a black custom (maybe Dean?) and a black 12-string with an I ****ED YOUR BOYFRIEND sticker on the back, and a peace sign/zig zag guy/rainbow sticker on the front. Only used for one song ("Pray").

His rack has 2 SVT-IV's (one main, one backup) and an Egnater tube preamp for high end dirt. Runs 2 signals out of a Boss TU-2 as a splitter.

Depending on stage size, he uses 2 or 3 Ampeg 8x10's. The other night in Denver we stacked all three sideways and on top of each other. Kicking myself in the ass for not taking pics, was the coolest thing I'd ever seen and sounded great.

His tone is ****ing nasty but in a good way. Sounds almost harsh by himself, but great with the full band. Plays with a pick, but I've seen him play with his fingers a few times for ***** and giggles."

Edited for here.
 
#46
Is all of that stuff really necessary?

Can't one get a great tone from a lot less stuff?

All that EQ too. Man, I don't know, but that would drive me nuts.

I dont use any effects and anything more than five knobs for EQ purposes would be too much for me on most days.


I've heard lots of Kings X and my ears dont "hear" all of that equipment.
 
#49
so what if it's stupid? stupid is cool. hey, it makes the guy happy to blow out a 700 seat nightclub with 3 810's cranked and ran through the pa.

i saw them when they did the 4th album with "black flag," and dug sounded excellent. a couple years later they toured behind "dogman" and i saw them in the same place and doug's sound was all low end and had nothing else, plus it would comb filter all over the place. i don't know what he had for the first show, but on the dogman tour he had 4 810e's, 2 svt's, and 2 dual showmans. in a 700 seat club! i could never do it, but hey, he's dug pinnick and i'm not.
 
#51
trying to understand why anything other than a head/cabinet is considered complex or STUPID

I have a fairly complex set-up using Compressors and EQ's and two amps...(complex meaning the math used in tweaking the EQs and shaving certain frequencies to open holes for other instruments )

I have always liked the sound of my heroes.. Entwistle, Chris Squire, Sheehan
all these guys have COMPLEX rigs... these guys wanted to have a bass sound for a certain purpose...

So please remember that there are new/young bassist on here reading these posts everyday soaking in as much info as possible,, and any un-needed negative comments about one of their future bass heroes sound, song writing or whatever.. may prevent them from aspiring to become more like these guys...

this should be a place to introduce BASS to the next generation and let these young minds form their own opinions about tone and such...

I have alot of students that come to this forum and I sometimes seem to hear them quoting some of the mindless dribble from some of these posts..

introduce opinions... or inspire creativity... you decide
 
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#52
i agree that complex rigs are not so silly or stupid. however, for all the blather that goes on here, there is a lot of great info, and that info can show people easier ways of doing the same thing without needing a 2-man road crew or ruining the house sound in the process.

now if you'll excuse me, i have to take my svt/810 to my gig in front of 150 people ;)
 
#53
I actually had the pleasure of being guided around that rig from Doug once here in Virginia. He was a friend of a good friend and we got to talking about preamps after a gig. This was right before he switched to the Egnater gear.

I've studied the hell outta that tone simply because to my ears, it is SO unique. First question to him out of the gate was how much his 4-string basses sound like his 12. He jumped all over that one and responded, "alot of people think the 12 string is on most tracks when really, it's the 4." He seemed very proud of that and should as I've never heard more crazy harmonics out of a drive rig then when I heard that one live (now 4 or 5 times over the years).

First off, there are no crossovers in that rig. He runs his split signal as I remember Entwistle running his, with 1/3rd octave eq's. I personally don't care for that method but hey we're talking Doug and The Ox and if that's what they run, fine with me !! :-) So one eq cuts the hell out of the highs and is mostly boosted lows, the other has most of the lows cut and then boosts between 2k and 5k of all places. I'm assuming alot of his magic (other than his attack) come from the 3-5k area. I also noticed a compressor in there which he mentioned was key for that crazy sustaining clean low-end he gets. I've heard that rig 10 ft away with just the lows and then the high-end drive kicked in. The lows made my eyes water and sustained forever.

The new Egnater preamp is giving his drive side a Marshall-esque grind, then of course to that 2nd eq for shaping.

Still trying to figure that rig out to this day just for fun. You can clearly tell his tone has decades of influence from all of his heroes. They are all piled on at once and when both sides are going strong, it's a crazy cool unique sound.

The rig changes up from tour to tour but the same basic Doug principles are there every time.
 
#54
lsimy said:
I remember Entwistle running his, with 1/3rd octave eq's. I personally don't care for that method but hey we're talking Doug and The Ox and if that's what they run, fine with me
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This is the clean channel sound Entwistle got simply by cutting all the upper mids and treble out with the Trace Elliot MP11's EQ and boosting the lower mids. He had a seperate distortion channel, which - thankfully - is inaudible here. It sounded like a motorcycle engine running underwater. :smug:
 
#56
Some the comments in this thread are humorous. dUg's massive tone requires a lot of gear... so it's not as if it goes wasted.... and he gets a great tone that really fills out the three piece band. Even though I don't think I could commit to carrying that much gear around personally, or fine tuning it every gig, I don't have a problem with someone who does. Then again, I don't understand those who play a P-Bass with flats either.... :p

Regarding the 12-string bass. People have made similar comments about Tom Petersson's bass parts, thinking that they were hearing 12 when it was actually 4. I used to think that too, until I became more acquainted with the sound of the 12-string. It can also be more difficult to pick it out if it is mixed in with guitars, or has a lot of distortion.

When King's X were here Ty Tabor shared some of his thoughts on frequency slotting with me. Ty and dUg have spent years honing their respective tones so that they fit together to make one huge sound. This effort at slotting tones is something that is really lacking is a lot of groups... where often the guitarists and/or keyboard players are filling up the low end where the bass is supposed to sit.
 
#58
I still will never forget when I saw King's X in a "local" 250 capacity bar....9 8x10 cabs stacked sideways 3-high for his clean channel, and a marshall JCM uitar head and 4x12 guitar cab for the distortion. MASSIVE!

Believe me, his live sound has massive and clear depth.
 
#59
JimmyM said:
so what if it's stupid? stupid is cool. hey, it makes the guy happy to blow out a 700 seat nightclub with 3 810's cranked and ran through the pa.

i saw them when they did the 4th album with "black flag," and dug sounded excellent. a couple years later they toured behind "dogman" and i saw them in the same place and doug's sound was all low end and had nothing else, plus it would comb filter all over the place. i don't know what he had for the first show, but on the dogman tour he had 4 810e's, 2 svt's, and 2 dual showmans. in a 700 seat club! i could never do it, but hey, he's dug pinnick and i'm not.
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You saw Black Flag?

Weird.
 
#60
BassmanPaul said:
You actually LIKED that???? Sorry not for me, I like a bass to actually have some depth!

Paul
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Thank youtube for over compression. I assure you, Paul, when you're in the room when Dug's playing, there's PLENTY of depth! I saw them once in a club in Jacksonville, FL. My friends and I arrived early so we sat in the car in the parking lot and waited for the doors to open while King's X were soundchecking inside. Every note Dug hit was vibrating the car in the parking lot! :eek:
 

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