I love Rage Against the Machine and wanna nail the tone when playing their songs. I have the Zoom B3 and I'd just like any tips to help me get there. Btw I'm looking for the later RATM tone. Evil Empire onwards. Thank you!
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
How to get the Tim Commerford tone on a Zoom B3?
- Thread starter TheIndieKid
- Start date
I posted this on UG, I'm presuming you didn't see it.
I have the B3 (great piece of equipment) and have been chasing Tim C's tone myself.
To emulate his tone I'm using a VM Jazz bass with rounds and fairly high action. Hit the strings hard, his style is very aggressive. Favour the bridge pick-up 100 to 60 neck pick-up.
Set the BBpre to about 50-60 blend and gain around 20-40, EQ to taste but keep it pretty flat. Then the opticomp, based on the Aphex he uses, and set the drive around 7.
Finally you have the choice to use the Sansamp sim, with fairly low gain or the SVT sim with the speaker sim set around 20. This depends on if you are going to use this patch with an amp or DI/headphones.
If you have an expression pedal you can swap out the BBpre for the wah and set the Sansamp with a higher gain. This way you can set two patches side by side for a clean and driven sound.
Finaly for the EQ on the sansamp/SVT, turn the bass down a little, his sound is quite mid focused, then everything else is left pretty flat. You can make small adjustments as it depends which album sound you are going for. For me the tone I'm chasing is more Evil Empire.
For the first album you need a musicman bass he only used Jazz basses after.
I have the B3 (great piece of equipment) and have been chasing Tim C's tone myself.
To emulate his tone I'm using a VM Jazz bass with rounds and fairly high action. Hit the strings hard, his style is very aggressive. Favour the bridge pick-up 100 to 60 neck pick-up.
Set the BBpre to about 50-60 blend and gain around 20-40, EQ to taste but keep it pretty flat. Then the opticomp, based on the Aphex he uses, and set the drive around 7.
Finally you have the choice to use the Sansamp sim, with fairly low gain or the SVT sim with the speaker sim set around 20. This depends on if you are going to use this patch with an amp or DI/headphones.
If you have an expression pedal you can swap out the BBpre for the wah and set the Sansamp with a higher gain. This way you can set two patches side by side for a clean and driven sound.
Finaly for the EQ on the sansamp/SVT, turn the bass down a little, his sound is quite mid focused, then everything else is left pretty flat. You can make small adjustments as it depends which album sound you are going for. For me the tone I'm chasing is more Evil Empire.
For the first album you need a musicman bass he only used Jazz basses after.
Thank you dude! I take it you love Rage like me. What's your favourite song? I really appreciate it though. Didn't think someone would answer.
Oh right! Okay. And Tire Me is just full of growling, grinding goodness. I tried your suggestion. Is the BBPre the Bass BB or the Bass Drive or whatever it's called?
Sorry, it's the bass BB. It's not exactly like what he uses but it's about the closest you can get on the B3.
Thanks a bunch. It's really helped! Sorry I have a few more questions though. I hope you don't mind.
-Have you tried the Overdrive and Octaver to mimic his tone? I heard Tim used them. I don't know what songs he's used the Octaver on.
-Why the Sansamp BDDI? The MXR has a few more options as well as a switch for distortion and clean channels?
-Do you use the DI with headphones and the speaker sim with an amp or the other way?
He uses the octave on one or two songs, i think on 'no shelter'. Not on the ones i play so i never bothered with it.
He used a marshal guv'nor overdrive before he made his custom one but the overdrive on the b3 doesn't really sound like it, it's a little fizzy. I use the sansamp as it simulates an ampeg svt (the amps he used for ratm) so it gets you closer. Again the mxr really doesn't sound like it. If you turned the treble down you could use it for the dirt but you still need to run it into the sansamp (on clean) or the svt sim.
At home i play through headphones so i use the speaker sim but when i use an amp i turn it off. Running speaker Sims into speakers can really kill the tone.
He used a marshal guv'nor overdrive before he made his custom one but the overdrive on the b3 doesn't really sound like it, it's a little fizzy. I use the sansamp as it simulates an ampeg svt (the amps he used for ratm) so it gets you closer. Again the mxr really doesn't sound like it. If you turned the treble down you could use it for the dirt but you still need to run it into the sansamp (on clean) or the svt sim.
At home i play through headphones so i use the speaker sim but when i use an amp i turn it off. Running speaker Sims into speakers can really kill the tone.
Thank you! I swear I seen a picture somewhere that showed he used a ODB-3. I remember hearing he taped it over because he's not an endorser of Boss Products.
My mistake. It was his DD-3 digital delay and OC octave pedal. However, this top picture has identified an MXR in the fray.
He has got to be the only bass player I know who uses 2 wah pedals in series bridged with a plank.
I went through that 2002 Audioslave album learning the bass just for the heck of it. This was years ago. It wasn't easy.
Hi guy, i am not a pro and dont know if it s true but i been told thats the 2 wha Pedals link with a plank are not in series but in parallel. So he could divide his signal in 2 ( a low and a high frequency) and treat the low in one way and the high with a diferent process. the 2 wha being link by a plank make the use of the 2 wha simultanous on both process (hi and low) to make sens for final tone. I been told also the low go to one amp and the high to another one. Similar to the way a Rickenbaker work with the Rick-o-sound ( each pick up signal is split). Knowing he began with a Rickenbacker long time ago kind of sugest he might have like this property of the Rickenbacker. anyway he his so secret on his tone and he also modify everything he own ! hope it might help... but i admit i could be totally wrong too.
