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Maiden Bass tone
- Thread starter Nicolas75
- Start date
I always thought Number of the Beast had a brilliant warm and powerful tone... but my favorite is Powerslave.
From Killers on, they had great recordings but I would say Piece of Mind/Powerslave era was great.
Yes.. Piece Of Mind..I Agree..I painted My Fender Precision Blue Too Because Of Steve Harris
That's why I had this done to my '72 P back in '82, IIRC.
I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Iron Maiden catalog, but of what I've heard, the bass on the 2015 remaster of their eponymous debut album slams. Listen to the chorus on "Iron Maiden" from Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden 
The earlier, thicker slightly distorted very mid-heavy bass tone on albums such as Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind were just as much due to Martin Birch's production as they were for Steve Harris' actual tone.
Steve Harris' tone in actuality was much thinner and clankier in person (such as heard on the later albums Harris produced himself, where his tone turned into an abysmal non-stop tinny thin clankfest). Martin Birch in the early 80's was very much into mixing in-your-face mid-heavy compressed slightly distorted bass. He did the same thing to Geezer Butler's tone on Sabbath's Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. Yes, Geezer himself had that sort of tone, but not nearly dialed up to the extremes as Martin Birch mixed it. Sabbath's bass tone was never the same after Birch, and neither was Maiden's.
I find Harris' tone on Piece of Mind on songs such as Revelations and To Tame a Land to be just about the perfect combination of mids and clank, where the bass is the loudest thing in the mix. Again, very similar to the way the bass is mixed on Heaven and Hell. Loud, in-your-face middy distorted bass aggression.
Steve Harris' tone in actuality was much thinner and clankier in person (such as heard on the later albums Harris produced himself, where his tone turned into an abysmal non-stop tinny thin clankfest). Martin Birch in the early 80's was very much into mixing in-your-face mid-heavy compressed slightly distorted bass. He did the same thing to Geezer Butler's tone on Sabbath's Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. Yes, Geezer himself had that sort of tone, but not nearly dialed up to the extremes as Martin Birch mixed it. Sabbath's bass tone was never the same after Birch, and neither was Maiden's.
I find Harris' tone on Piece of Mind on songs such as Revelations and To Tame a Land to be just about the perfect combination of mids and clank, where the bass is the loudest thing in the mix. Again, very similar to the way the bass is mixed on Heaven and Hell. Loud, in-your-face middy distorted bass aggression.
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When I got it in '79 it had a natural finish and I could never confirm what the body wood was but it's about 10 pounds.
Taking another look through my collection, I might have to go with Powerslave overall. Piece of Mind and Somewhere in Time have a bit too much honk going on—not awful, but not as good as Powerslave. "Aces High" pretty much nails it for me.
The guitar and vocal sounds got really good around Seventh Son and Fear of the Dark.
The guitar and vocal sounds got really good around Seventh Son and Fear of the Dark.
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