Seemingly the most sought after Geddy tone is his Exit... Stage Left era sound, as it is the hardest to reproduce correctly. A few musicians on youtube have managed to get quite close using the same gear, but now that gear is almost impossible to obtain or even find used online. After gathering a bit of research on what gear Geddy used during that time period, I decided to take a stab at recreating it.
Geddy used his 4001 Ric as his primary bass, then routed it in stereo through two of the same preamps, Ashly SC-40s, with one of them (the one he ran his neck pickup through) modded for diode overdrive, and his bridge pickup ran into a clean one. Then into BGW 750 Power amplifiers for volume, using Thiel 1x15 cabinets for the bulk of his tone. Not a lot of EQ was used. A little bump in the upper mids on the treble side but it was ran mostly flat.
I didn't have any of that gear, but what I did have is ToneX, a Ric 4003, and some Dr Bonkers Soundlab IRs I could load into the ToneX program.
First, I must say that 80% of the tone is in fact the Rickenbacker bass, or rather the pickups and pickup placement they have. If you cannot afford a Ric, best of luck to you. A jazz bass produces a similarly ear pleasing sound, but it is not the same. I used rotosound swing 66 steel roundwound strings. Steel strings have a specific brightness to them that Nickel cannot reproduce.
Second, Ashly SC-40s are extinct, but they are merely an EQ. Their manuals explain the use of 1N914 diodes to mod distortion into the back of the unit. The closest thing to this distortion can be found within original Pro Co Rat pedals, which also use hard clipping with 1N914 diodes. I loaded up a low gain model in my ToneX program and used the ToneX advanced settings EQ for any adjustments.
Also within the ToneX program, I loaded in Dr Bonkers Soundlab IRs. Sepcifically TRAY 2X15 Bass Cabinet IRs with Electro Voice® EVM-15L 15 inch speakers.
I had two instances of ToneX running, one with the Rat activated for my neck pup, and one with it bypassed for the bass pickup.
Then I ran those into a bus with some major 1176 compression on them.
Here is what I ended up with:
Geddy used his 4001 Ric as his primary bass, then routed it in stereo through two of the same preamps, Ashly SC-40s, with one of them (the one he ran his neck pickup through) modded for diode overdrive, and his bridge pickup ran into a clean one. Then into BGW 750 Power amplifiers for volume, using Thiel 1x15 cabinets for the bulk of his tone. Not a lot of EQ was used. A little bump in the upper mids on the treble side but it was ran mostly flat.
I didn't have any of that gear, but what I did have is ToneX, a Ric 4003, and some Dr Bonkers Soundlab IRs I could load into the ToneX program.
First, I must say that 80% of the tone is in fact the Rickenbacker bass, or rather the pickups and pickup placement they have. If you cannot afford a Ric, best of luck to you. A jazz bass produces a similarly ear pleasing sound, but it is not the same. I used rotosound swing 66 steel roundwound strings. Steel strings have a specific brightness to them that Nickel cannot reproduce.
Second, Ashly SC-40s are extinct, but they are merely an EQ. Their manuals explain the use of 1N914 diodes to mod distortion into the back of the unit. The closest thing to this distortion can be found within original Pro Co Rat pedals, which also use hard clipping with 1N914 diodes. I loaded up a low gain model in my ToneX program and used the ToneX advanced settings EQ for any adjustments.
Also within the ToneX program, I loaded in Dr Bonkers Soundlab IRs. Sepcifically TRAY 2X15 Bass Cabinet IRs with Electro Voice® EVM-15L 15 inch speakers.
I had two instances of ToneX running, one with the Rat activated for my neck pup, and one with it bypassed for the bass pickup.
Then I ran those into a bus with some major 1176 compression on them.
Here is what I ended up with:
