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Geddy's bass tone

#202
Hi Jim!
I'm going to get royal crap for taking this time to post!
The Kittyhawk is a great solution for what I need. That unit can do SO much more. There are SO many other products out there that will do the same function, much easier and simple. I'll be honest, I like this product as it does what I have mentioned. I bought these things for myself.
I just like the way it it has been made, ease of use. The fact that all jacks are isolated are major. I don't mean they are buffered but isolated grounding-wise. It is an active unit. Most units I have said mentioned, fine, just sound like crap, UNLESS you want to spend big bucks, and my experience, not road worthy!!!!!
My two cents!



Jim Roseberry said:
Hi Russ,


The Kittyhawk sounds like a great solution...
As time permits, please keep the details coming.
It's facinating to hear the details of your experience.

Although I'm not primarily a bass player, Ged was always my favorite rock musician.



Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
[email protected]
Click to expand...
 
#204
Okay,

I'm back and will try to continue where I left off about Ged's signal routing.

The signal now goes from the Kittyhawk main out to the input of the Avalon D.I. The Avalon's tone setting are ON. I can't quite remember where the boost and tone levels are set. I don't have the gear in front of me and like I said before, my notes are in my toolbox in storage. I now take the 'thru' output of the Avalon and this goes to the Sansamp RPM.
By the way, the Avalon has a feature that you can turn on or off for the the thru setting. If you want to send the tone and boost settings to the thru settings, you can but I defeat that.

The Sansamp has a great feature that I use. It has a buffered, unaffected output, 1/4". This means you can take the original signal going into the Sansamp and take it out with no real line loss or coloration to the original signal.

What I mean on this is, this particular feature of the Sansamp is basically a "thru" jack but it is transformer isolated, so as to maintain original signal levels and no audio grounding problems. This is not perfect. You are splitting a signal, but it does a great job! It also bypasses the pre-amp effects, by the way, meaning all the tone and volume levels, etc.
Oh, by the way on this, the Avalon's thru jack is just that. It is not isolated to my experience and I don't have the spec's in front of me at this moment. If they claim otherwise, please talk to me. If you use the the tone button for the thru jack, well, I have never used that feature and that I can't comment about.

This is where I really like the Sansamp, and NO, I'm not getting any kick-backs for this!
The dudes at Sansamp have been thinking! I wish more vendors would do the same. Not only do they provide this unaffected buffered output, 1/4", they also provide an affected one. They also have XLR affected and non affected outputs. They also have the usual effects loop in and out's with the usual attenuation buttons. Well done boys!!!

Okay, must go, but I will continue and I want to mention a bit more about this Sansamp stuff.

Thanks!
 
#205
I have a question about the 72 black jazz ...

Is the body normal weight, heaiver, or lighter than normal? I suspect it is a little heavier than normal.

Or perhaps it is just a great peice of wood with above average resonance.:bassist:
 
#206
Hi,

Rush has never used a keyboard player. I don't deal with Ged's keyboards and sampler's. We have a guy who takes care of all this and he has been with the band for now over 30 years. He is amazing at what he does! His racks of sampler's and his wiring, etc, incredible! There are so many samples triggered by those three guys on stage. Rush DOES NOT use Pro-Tools, etc.
Yes, they trigger samples, but there is no timed sequencing of any kind. They are triggered from Korg midi footpedals, no longer in production, keyboards, and what ever Neil is using at the time. It is all done REAL time!
Okay, this a keyboard issue.


tomersg said:
Hi Russ
I've read this thread from the beginning and this is one of the most fascinating and interesting threads i ever saw. thanks god that we have this Internet and we can meet someone like you who share with us fans, that interesting knowledge with such generosity.
actually, i am new Geddy lee fan. i was always familiar with few rush tracks, and YYZ was one of my favorites, but i didn't pay to much attention to rush music, but before a year and half, I've got an epiphany and i started to get more into rush music with a very rush manner, surprisingly, very close to time when i started to develop a serious GAS for Rickenbacker bass. which i finally got and started to learn how to play a lot of rush stuff. and now i have all their music Cd's and some videos and i consider myself big fan of Geddy. i hope they will come to Israel one day..i heard Geddy have family here.. :) he should come visit them at holidays..

lot of questions asked so i have only one question: do you also maintain Geddy keyboards? what gear he uses now? does the show have another keyboard player when he plays the bass? maybe hidden? or they have sampled parts? if this is the situation, how does they triggered?
thanks
tomer
Click to expand...
 
#208
WOW!! I couldn't understand why this thread was getting so long and kept coming back! I finally looked at it yesterday and have read it front to back.

Thanks Russ for taking the time to talk to us on here! As others have said Geddy has influenced so many bass players over the years. I am 43 and have been a fan of Geddy (and Rics) since I was 13. All the World's a Stage is still in my top 2 for all time favorite live albums. :bassist:

Saw the Hemispheres, Permanent Waves and Signals tours. (Yes I know before your time). For the first time in 25 years they are coming back to Winnipeg on May 24. You cannot believe the anticipation that I have for this show. When the show was announced before X-mas Ray Daniels donated 2 front row tickets plus a meet/ greet with the band to a local radio station. The station auctioned them off (proceeds to Salavation Army) for $6500. No it was not me who won. I gave up when they got to $5000 LOL.

Yes I am being a fanboy but Geddy has been an idol of mine for 30 years. And I always have a great sense of pride knowing that Rush are Canadian! :):):):):):)
 
#209
Ric5 said:
I have a question about the 72 black jazz ...

Is the body normal weight, heaiver, or lighter than normal? I suspect it is a little heavier than normal.

Or perhaps it is just a great peice of wood with above average resonance.:bassist:
Click to expand...

Everything is resonant. You just have to excite the right freqs to hear it. I have some theorys I'm working on in regards to energy transfer in a bass. Bass tone can be altered with the right energy transfer.

Even a small amount of energy, not dampened can continue to expand if given a small constant force. Sorta like this situation.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw


After my latest tweaks, my Geddy jazz, sounds closer still to his 72 than ever before.
 
#210
Hi Everyone,

I will continue with routing stuff on a future date. While I have a moment, I have been getting emails from some of you, through Talkbass, asking questions. Could you all please do me a favor and ask any questions through this forum instead. I will rarely, or if at all, respond to emails.
I would rather answer all questions through this forum so everybody can read them, if they are interested. I don't mean to sound rude and that is certainly not my intention.

Thanks,

RR
 
#211
Russ Ryan said:
Hi Everyone,

I will continue with routing stuff on a future date. While I have a moment, I have been getting emails from some of you, through Talkbass, asking questions. Could you all please do me a favor and ask any questions through this forum instead. I will rarely, or if at all, respond to emails.
I would rather answer all questions through this forum so everybody can read them, if they are interested. I don't mean to sound rude and that is certainly not my intention.

Thanks,

RR
Click to expand...

Hi, Russ...

Thank you again for taking the time you have so far in detailing all of this. I'm looking forward to seeing more when it's convenient for you.

Thanks again!
Sean :bassist:
 
#212
Russ Ryan said:
Hi Everyone,

I will continue with routing stuff on a future date. While I have a moment, I have been getting emails from some of you, through Talkbass, asking questions. Could you all please do me a favor and ask any questions through this forum instead. I will rarely, or if at all, respond to emails.
I would rather answer all questions through this forum so everybody can read them, if they are interested. I don't mean to sound rude and that is certainly not my intention.

Thanks,

RR
Click to expand...
Russ, I read something about Geddy using cab simulators in concert. What exactly is he using for this and what kind of cab is he trying to simulate?
Thanks
 
#213
Hi Russ,

I have the Geddy Jazz as my main bass now and love it, but was thinking of dropping a pre-amp into it (the Audere brand) to give me some more "oomph" and tonal options. I find that the pickups are a wee bit low on the output (which appears to be a common, but very minor problem if you read some of the threads here) and the upper mids can get a little harsh.

Do you have any experience with preamps in these Jazz basses? Is the "rewiring of the one pickup" on Geddy's original 72 to address tonal issues? (like the upper mids on mine)? Sorry if you explained it and I missed but I went through all the posts and didnt see the reason for rewiring.

Thanks
John
 
#216
Russ Ryan said:
Hey Guys!

For whatever it's worth, some of you have posted that I have the "dream' job. Yes I do, and I am so lucky in my biz to have it. Once again, I must stress in my biz.
Guy's, you don't know what I have had to deal with other artists I have worked for over the years. You know I won't mention names. You guys have gone through crap in your respective employment. I say this as It is a job. You may think I have the great life but it's no different than any body else.
I'm almost 47 years old and there is nothing pleasant about some 20 year old, green haired guitar player screaming at you for a reason you have know idea about!
I've had cups, bottle, SHOES (that's always my fave), drumsticks ( I'm not even the drumtech), spit, etc, thrown at me or I have seen it with other techs. Guy's, I mess up once in awhile. I think we all do it at our job. We are all human. I go on about RUSH as THEY would never do that.

Do you still want my job? Okay, the money's good but sometimes....
Click to expand...

Thanks for that comment ... some people don't realize that a rock n roll lifestyle is not all roses ... I have learned to be a good tech and a bass player, but I can't work that job because I can't afford the pay cut.:bassist:
 
#217
Russ Ryan said:
Hey Guys!

For whatever it's worth, some of you have posted that I have the "dream' job. Yes I do, and I am so lucky in my biz to have it. Once again, I must stress in my biz.
Guy's, you don't know what I have had to deal with other artists I have worked for over the years. You know I won't mention names. You guys have gone through crap in your respective employment. I say this as It is a job. You may think I have the great life but it's no different than any body else.
I'm almost 47 years old and there is nothing pleasant about some 20 year old, green haired guitar player screaming at you for a reason you have know idea about!
I've had cups, bottle, SHOES (that's always my fave), drumsticks ( I'm not even the drumtech), spit, etc, thrown at me or I have seen it with other techs. Guy's, I mess up once in awhile. I think we all do it at our job. We are all human. I go on about RUSH as THEY would never do that.

Do you still want my job? Okay, the money's good but sometimes....
Click to expand...

Hahahaha... Great post!
 
#219
First, I will let you know about Ged's main bass regarding the pick-ups. I said I would follow up on that and will when I can. There is no re-wiring. It is a pick-up thing. Like I said earlier, I have to do some work to make sure I'm right. This can be quite involved.
Since I've been with Ged, he has never been keen on in-board pre-amps, in the bass. He as never given me any kind of Active Electronic bass to deal with.

jgroh said:
Hi Russ,

I have the Geddy Jazz as my main bass now and love it, but was thinking of dropping a pre-amp into it (the Audere brand) to give me some more "oomph" and tonal options. I find that the pickups are a wee bit low on the output (which appears to be a common, but very minor problem if you read some of the threads here) and the upper mids can get a little harsh.

Do you have any experience with preamps in these Jazz basses? Is the "rewiring of the one pickup" on Geddy's original 72 to address tonal issues? (like the upper mids on mine)? Sorry if you explained it and I missed but I went through all the posts and didnt see the reason for rewiring.

Thanks
John
Click to expand...
 
#220
You state you are a tech. May I ask for who? I'm always interested in talking to those who do what I do for a living.

Ric5 said:
Thanks for that comment ... some people don't realize that a rock n roll lifestyle is not all roses ... I have learned to be a good tech and a bass player, but I can't work that job because I can't afford the pay cut.:bassist:
Click to expand...
 

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