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How to get a good post-punk tone??
- Thread starter Bassdude15
- Start date
I gotta put my two cents in real quick. David J used a 74 fretless p with Chromes. So look up Bauhaus and L&R for his tone. Jah Wobble, though technically post-punk with PiL, was always copping that Dub tone so his use of flats and an Ovation bass is how he got that tone I believe. Derek Forbes I believe was another fretless player and early Simple Minds is considered post-punk ish all the way up through New Gold Dream.
Gallup also used a Stingray quite a bit too so don't discount a black and tan Sub 4 if you are on a budget.
But, yeah, a pbass and some grit and maybe a bit of chorus and an pick and you should be set. Check out The Savages. New post-punk revival type band. Sounds just like Siouxsie, but the bassist has a killer tone and great attack with her pick. Pbass all the way.
The Savages
Gallup also used a Stingray quite a bit too so don't discount a black and tan Sub 4 if you are on a budget.
But, yeah, a pbass and some grit and maybe a bit of chorus and an pick and you should be set. Check out The Savages. New post-punk revival type band. Sounds just like Siouxsie, but the bassist has a killer tone and great attack with her pick. Pbass all the way.
The Savages
Your question is a bit confusing. You name three bassplayers who used completely different instruments and sounds and use 4 hard adjectives to describe the similarities between them?
Jah Wooble: no matter the instrument. Turn the treble completely down. Don't use a pick. Use higher gauge strings, at least not light strings. He is not growly at all. Never. No interest in mids or lower mids, where the growl lives.
Simon Gallup. Chorus, Flanger. Use a pick. On the early stuff he used flatwound strings too. But there is a huge difference between the later melodic stuff and the kind of sound he got on Faith and Pornography.
XTC. I didn't listen to them in decades. But I guess lots of compression, a Precision and a pick. Maybe I'm wrong.
Just one more thought that might combine the post punk bass sound and role. I grew up in the 70's and 80's.
If I would have asked people back then, who were just consuming music, not musicians, and who were fans of mainstream rock like Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Pink Floyd etc. what
John Paul Jones or Roger Glover is playing I guess they wouldn't remember anything at all. Just the voice and the guitar. But teenage girls and boys who were listening to The Cure or Joy Division back then could whistle the lines of Simon Gallup or Pete Hook. And you couldn't listen to PIL without recognizing the bass.
Maybe the only kind of similarity I can detect is that they all rejected the 70's mainstream rock mainstream pop mainstream hippy lower midrange emphasis the Fender Precision was so famous for (although at least Gallup used one). More attack, more low end, more high end, less mids, more audible compression.
Dirk
Awesome stuff here, Dirk.
Peter hook in Joy Division was a little grindy though. He used a Ric copy, a clone theory pedal and HiWatt amplification so he was sort of built for that grindy, dirty sound from the ground up. But not growly, no.
David J's tone was much deeper, but not deep like Jah Wobble. I keep bringing David J up because I think he had a tremendous sound that really laid the foundation for that Bauhaus sound and is right up there with Gallup, Hook, and Severin.
Severin and Gallup used Stingrays quite a bit. I'd really push for a test drive on the Sub Ray4 just to see. I always loved Serverin's tone in Spellbound:
Spellbound
Again, Jah Wobble was more interested in copping that Dub sound from Reggae so he went subterranean. David J gets near on some tracks and dub b-sides, but Wobble is his own man in every way.
And if we're going to talk XTC, I think you also need to look at Andy Rourke from The Smiths. I mean, he did make the three tone sunburst precision with tort guard famous after all. (joke
)
Andy Rourke Gear
Peter hook in Joy Division was a little grindy though. He used a Ric copy, a clone theory pedal and HiWatt amplification so he was sort of built for that grindy, dirty sound from the ground up. But not growly, no.
David J's tone was much deeper, but not deep like Jah Wobble. I keep bringing David J up because I think he had a tremendous sound that really laid the foundation for that Bauhaus sound and is right up there with Gallup, Hook, and Severin.
Severin and Gallup used Stingrays quite a bit. I'd really push for a test drive on the Sub Ray4 just to see. I always loved Serverin's tone in Spellbound:
Spellbound
Again, Jah Wobble was more interested in copping that Dub sound from Reggae so he went subterranean. David J gets near on some tracks and dub b-sides, but Wobble is his own man in every way.
And if we're going to talk XTC, I think you also need to look at Andy Rourke from The Smiths. I mean, he did make the three tone sunburst precision with tort guard famous after all. (joke
)Andy Rourke Gear
I think The Cure rocked Peavey gear back in the day. I somehow doubt that all those broke-ass early post-punk bands were rocking Ampeg SVTs. Ampeg didn't have the hegemony/monopoly on bass amplification here in the UK in the late '70s if visual documentation is to be trusted. Peavey, Fender, HH and Marshall gear creeps into backlines quite often.
As for OP's distrust of roundwound strings; say goodbye to the Cure, Gang of Four,The Damned and XTC tones at least.
I use a Ric, Dr Lo-Riders, Darkglass B3K, ancient Gallien Krueger 800RB, and an SM57 to get that "era" tone. One of my favorite eras for sure.
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Guess what Im doing today gents?? Thats right, Pbass testing!!!
If Rics didn't exist, I'd go cry. Then, I would go buy a P bass the next day.
