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How to get Geddy's tone on Tom Sawyer?

#21
I had a good result with:
- Peavey B90 Active (PJ pickups)
- 100% neck pickup + 50% bridge pickup
- Smith Rock Master strings
- Line 6 Pod Farm (GK head, Hartke 4x10" cab, Compressor and Tube 47 mic)
- Shure E2 in-ear

Playing with fingers pretty hard will give you the attack and the bright sound of the strings hitting the frets.
 
#23
JimmyM said:
Well the way I see it, you have two choices...either pretend it's not true and continue to live with the delusion that you can buy your way into a particular sound, or you can take the word of nearly every single professional musician in the world.
Click to expand...

Percy Jones taught me this. I think that the only way to really learn this lesson is "the hard way."
 
#24
Easy. Put a fresh set of Geddy's on your Geddy, and adjust the Geddy on your Geddy to get the most Geddy. Then, with your right Geddy, attack the Geddy's with a lot of Geddy, Geddying primarily over the neck Geddy. Don't be afraid to Geddy with your Geddy, or alter your Geddy if need be-this is needed in order to Geddy your Geddy and get the most Geddy. Also be aware that Geddy is known to Geddy his neck Geddy with his Geddy's-this is an important Geddy of the Geddy.
 
#27
I use my SX through a fearful and attack preety darn good. No pedals needed.

I recommend learning additional Rush tunes to get a better perspective on how he plays and what he plays (choice of notes, note duration, arpeggios/runs, etc.). It will come to you in due time.

Most of the time, there are no pure recipes to copy someone's sound exactly.
 
#31
Paul M said:
All good advice above.

I just dropped into this thread to see how long it would take for someone drop the obligatory "Tone-is-ALL-in-the-hands-and-you're-not-Geddy-Lee!" comment.

So far, so good.
:hiding:
Click to expand...

JimmyM said:
Well the way I see it, you have two choices...either pretend it's not true and continue to live with the delusion that you can buy your way into a particular sound, or you can take the word of nearly every single professional musician in the world.
Click to expand...

Jimmy, maybe you replied to the wrong post, but let's get real. Hands matter, but tone is not ALL in the hands. Guys like Entwistle, Squire, Lee, and Sheehan use tons of gear precisely because gear matters. Highly processed tones like theirs use plenty of EQ, OD, and FX -- not to mention complex stereo/biamp configurations.

Nobody's saying anyone could buy his way into any tone he wanted, but not even Tony Levin himself could duplicate his "Sledgehammer" tone using his hands alone (i.e. no signal processing).

Copying tones can be done. I heard a guy pretty much nail Justin Chancellor's Wal tone using a Ken Smith Burner and a rack rig. That, in fact, is the caveat: there's no guaranteed way for Player A to copy Player B's tone.

When a professional musician says "nobody sounds like me except me", they are talking primarily about style. And that is something I generally agree with! But this whole "tone is ALL in the hands" thing... Not even Jaco could clone himself on a vanilla P-bass... harmonics can't be pulled from it in the same way.
 
#32
Kingbreaker said:
I still don't understand how he can play what he does using only his index finger for most of the notes. . . . You will get a long way towards the "tone from fingers" part of the equation if you can figure that out.
Click to expand...

I play that way, especially when playing Rush. I started playing jazz (on electric bass), but have always had an upright approach, so doing the single finger type thing is pretty natural to me. It's really not hard.
 
#33
The way you/geddy plays matters but it can be broken down into actual componenets. Getting low action, playing closer to the neck, playing so that they snap against the frets when you hit the strings with the appropriate force.

It's in the fingers, sure, but it's the way the fingers are played in response to your setup and where you pluck.

People who say it's in the fingers are right, but it's not like there aren't a lot of quantifiable things they're doing with the fingers that contribute greatly to that tone.
 
#35
Oreomeister365 said:
The way you/geddy plays matters but it can be broken down into actual componenets. Getting low action, playing closer to the neck, playing so that they snap against the frets when you hit the strings with the appropriate force.

It's in the fingers, sure, but it's the way the fingers are played in response to your setup and where you pluck.

People who say it's in the fingers are right, but it's not like there aren't a lot of quantifiable things they're doing with the fingers that contribute greatly to that tone.
Click to expand...

As with anything, half the battle is having the tone in your head you are going for. Yes, there can be a few things that contribute but I know I can get my tone pretty much from any amp I plug into.
 
#38
Turns out, you just need a crapload of fret buzz.
Here's the isolated track from youtube.



I'll admit it sounds pretty good in a mix, but by itself it's total crap. If I ever sounded like this at sound check, I would get fired from any band I play with.
 
#39
two fingers said:
Turns out, you just need a crapload of fret buzz.
Here's the isolated track from youtube.



I'll admit it sounds pretty good in a mix, but by itself it's total crap. If I ever sounded like this at sound check, I would get fired from any band I play with.
Click to expand...


Yeah, it's interesting how the isolated bass track doesn't sound all that good, but in the mix, it rules!
 

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