Well it is social media so everyone has to have their opinion so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. I stick by my assessment though. No one is offended by your thread.
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Geddy fans: Let's end this!
- Thread starter bassnyc1
- Start date
A very serious study I conducted by sifting through data from the most reputable internet scholars, concluded that only Red Barchetta and The Camera Eye were recorded with the Ric.
All sounds like Geddy to me.
All sounds like Geddy to me.
I still think the best sound Geddy had was the Wal. Like it much more than the jazz that he used till the end of Rush. That’s also nice but a bit boring and less distinct sounding.
Saw the 2112 tour in Kansas City opening for Ted Nugent, the band was the sum of its parts but the Ric sound was apparent and i think the 1st time i saw a Ric bass live.
Still, at that time it was the whole trio though Geddy had loads of presence...thats what mattered most thinking back....Rush lost me after the late 70s with exceptions of course.
Still, at that time it was the whole trio though Geddy had loads of presence...thats what mattered most thinking back....Rush lost me after the late 70s with exceptions of course.
The 80’s period is actually my favorite Rush period. Signals, Grace OP, Power Windows and Hold YF. They lost me after that.
clearly they knew that someone would stroll in and ignorantly & proudly spit on the rug & mic drop like in post #17:
…completely oblivious to all of the posts by people who obviously do care and do find the speculation & guessing to be fun.
eta- and there’s probably going to be a few more Toan Iz In Teh Fignerrrzzzz friendly scholars who’ll do the same.
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It's always been trickier to tell which bass is which on MP - it's been mentioned before how processed the bass tone is, but also because Geddy's using the neck pickup on his Jazz and therefore doesn't have that scoopy twang we associate with it.
If you listen to Signals, the Rick and Jazz tracks are much easier to spot. Very different tones.
If you listen to Signals, the Rick and Jazz tracks are much easier to spot. Very different tones.
The isolated bass tracks I've heard do sound like the solo breaks were punched in. Which bass was used? No idea.
Solos are definitely punched-in and the effects/EQ on the said punched-in bass parts is different than the rest of the song. I would guess the same bass did all of it on that song.
I'm reading Geddy Lee's biography right now, and he says the videos were shot during mixing the album. So the instruments you can see were in fact around for recording the album. Of course we still don't know what was definitely used on what.
My big take in reading the book so far? Rush used a lot more drugs than I thought. I had assumed lots of pot passed through their hands, but lots of other things did, including cocaine. Geddy eventually dropped pot because he says it made him paranoid, and says he quit cocaine in the early '80s when he started to realise he and people around him were spending more time interacting with the stuff than interacting with the people around them. And that the interactions the coke users did have were repetitive and banal.
I don't get this seemingly widely held opinion (the album always comes in low in Best Of lists), when the album sold more than some of the preceeding ones.
Not just that, I think it's a really good album for a few reasons: Geddy, whose voice had been mellowing out a little on the last few albums, is singing really well here. Singing in a lower register, but also harmonizing more, and just being more melodic, vocally. He really pushed himself on their last album, sounding strained in some parts, and sounded awful doing the older stuff live.
I agree that the album wasn't adventurous or "proggy" enough, but I like the direction with simpler, more "songwriter" focused songs that were pretty catchy. It's not among their best, but still better than the THREE albums that followed (Counterparts, Test For Echo, Vapor Trails) and Caress of Steel.
There was some fantastic stuff on some of those albums, but some awful stuff as well. I'll put it this way, Roll The Bones wasn't a great album, but it was the most consistently solid album they put out until their final album.
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I think every period of Rush had it's good and bad.
I used to hate the 80’s era, but have come around and Power Windows is one of my favorite Rush albums, now. I still think Signals is overrated, but I don't hate it anymore
Geddy did go through his recording and touring basses in a chapter of the Big Beautiful Book of Bass. He isn't entirely systematic about it, but he says that the 72 Jazz was on Tom Sawyer and Vital Signs in the Moving Pictures album. A few pages before that he says that otherwise (before 1985) he alternated between the 73 and 77 Rickenbackers.
The bass breaks were definitely overdubbed. Source: I played them back in slow motion repeatedly trying to learn YYZ by ear, before the days of tabs and YouTube covers.
