Good distortion pedals for Cliff Burton tone

[steveharrisguy]

I want a good distortion or od pedal that would help me achieve a Cliff-like tone. I have a fender standard p-bass and and use d'addario prosteels. Any you could recommend. I am thinking about a big muff pi. Any thoughts on it?

 

[Ryan Smith]

Big muff seems like the obvious starting point.

I have an ibanez st-9b that I really like for the blend knob. This feature tends to be key for holding on to low end. They can be had used for under a hundred dollars.

 

[Veldar]

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/search.php

 

[winterburn69]

Big Muff. Probably a big USA one like he used.

 

[crapusername]

Boss hm2

 

[Veldar]

I want a good distortion or od pedal that would help me achieve a Cliff-like tone. I have a fender standard p-bass and and use d'addario prosteels. Any you could recommend. I am thinking about a big muff pi. Any thoughts on it?

Hey this question is asked a lot on these forums, he's a link to the [This invalid link has been removed] where the same question has been answered many times.

 

[Metalbasspro]

I got a DOD death metal pedal that gets closer to Cliff's Distorted tone then anything else I have tried.

 

[Dave W]

Big Muff. Why get something that sounds like what he used when you can easily get what he used.

 

[FC Bass]

Bass - Boss CS-1 - Morley Wah (old Tel-Ray version) - Big Muff - Amp = Cliff tone

If you want to get the "weird" Cliff sounds add an Ibanez HD 1500 or HD 1000

Youtube link

 

[ldmm]

big muff

 

[musicman666]

No....Bass Big Muff.

 

[BioDriver]

No....Bass Big Muff.

Green Muff, yes, but go with Fuzzrocious, Wren & Cuff, or anyone else; EHX forgot how to make a fuzz sound good on bass.

 

[necropain]

so since cliff was one of my biggest inspirations to even start playing bass i have spent alot of time trying to get his tone. now this being said im no expert but i have some experience. so there is multiple distortion tones i can think of from him. the one i usually tried to achieve was the tone of for whom the bell tolls. so for that you gotta know that in the intro there is reverb. it is looked over alot but there is so what i use is the holy stain. muff distortion with the reverb on a little bit but then i like to use an EBS Metaldrive clone patch on my zoom ms-60b for his rhythm tone. for anesthesia i go back to the holy stain and also use a weeping demon. these pedal get me pretty close.

so basically my suggestion is
Ibanez Weeping Demon
Holy Stain(or some other type of muff. i would say black russian Muff honestly)
EBS MetalDrive or something similar. i suggest ebs for the extra bass.
and if you didn't go with the stain then some sort of reverb.

 

[necropain]

and don't use the bass big muff it will not help it will hinder

 

[FC Bass]

Normal Big Muff or Little Big Muff (the new little version of BM, not the 70's pedal) work best.

Cliffs lead tone was extremely mid/treble focussed, you don't want to use a Bass overdrive/fuzz for that

 

[BooshBass]

The first two pedals I ever bought about 15 years ago in 6th or 7th grade:

I went to guitar center and asked some metal looking fella how I could play the obvious - anesthesia pulling teeth - and he said, cliff burton plays it with a dunlop crybaby bass wah and the boss odb-3. So that's what I bought. Did he actually play it with that, I think so but I'm not sure, but if you put the wah AFTER the odb-3, you'll get it.

I now play with the wah before the ODB-3 (maybe some reverb/tremolo/chorus thrown in there) and get some nasty psyched out spaceship drivewah, but that's for another thread...

BTW, I have an ODB-3 for trade in the classifieds, not because I dont like it, just because I've never tried another dirt pedal... Make me a decent offer and I might sell it, or if you have another fuzz, od, distortion, lets chat. WAH NOT FOR SALE - KICKS ASS.