Getting a Mick Karn type fretless tone.

[Papazita]

Wasn't sure if I should post here or Bassists, but anyway.
Aside from a fretless Wal bass, what effects go into a good Mick Karn style tone, as in this video from leitnerjoe?


I've been playing around with combinations of compression, octaver, chorus, and reverbs using a Line6 HX effects, but I'm just not getting it.

 

[Bob_Ross]

In all my years of listening to Mick Karn's playing it has never even occurred to me that effects were part of his signature sound...even when I knew he was using an effect, its effect [sic] was overshadowed by the more conspicuous aspects of Mick's voice, which are present regardless of whether or not he's employing signal processing. To wit: His touch, his phrasing, and his melodic vocabulary.

That being said, the one time I saw Mick perform live he had a Digitech DSP-128 multieffects unit in his rig. He just seemed to be using it for some pretty generic chorus/flange stuff.

 

[Papazita]

Granted Mick Karn was an alien being trapped on Earth and that's part of his tone, but his tone doesn't always sound un-effected to my ears. There's a deep subrumble, something swirling and chorus-y, and maybe doubletracked.

 

[Pocket4]

Whoah the accompaniment on the video is too much, but would a good chorus pedal and light compression not work?

 

[kevmac]

This guy is a God with holy fingers,unfortunately us mere mortals aren't in his universe.But a Wal bass would put one on the right track somewhat.