Mike Dirnt Tone

[Astre]

Mike Dirnt is the bassist for Green Day, for any of those who don't know. I am entranced with his raw tone but have had some trouble trying to replicate his sound. Holiday, Longview, and Basket Case are good examples of his tone.
The bridge of Holiday has a great, raw bassline with an awesome tone. It sounds like he's palm muting but upon trying this it is clear that he doesn't do it all the time. Any tips on how to achieve a similar, raw, tone?

Here's a video of a live version of Holiday (skip to around 2:10 for the bass "solo").
Thanks.

 

[two fingers]

Dirnt is a crazy good pick player.

His tone is mostly a P bass with round wound strings, a pick, and a little bit of dirt. I've never researched to see if his dirt is a pedal or from his amp. It doesn't really matter. It's a pretty standard "mild dirt" tone. Grab that from whatever makes you happy.

And get good with a pick. I put him right up there with Duff as far as rock pick players go.

 

[Gustopher]

I get close with my sansamp and pbass. I can actually get pretty close with my jazz bass that has an audere preamp too, run it into the sansamp, dial back the treble on my bass preamp and press the bright button on my Hartke LH1000 head. It sounds counterintuitive... but it works for a great punchy crisp Dirnt-esque tone.

 

[Microbass]

With the exception of Dookie*, anything with a P recording is 50/60's P bass with a pick. On most of the albums it was an Ampeg SVT into a 6x10 (Mesa initially, then I think he started using an Ampeg then a Fender for recording. Could be wrong). There was also some Yamaha guitar amp that had a signal go into it.

For live, there are no pedals. Just the Fender Bassmans dimed into those 8x10s, a P bass and a yellow pick. Hit hard, nudge the low mid and the high mid, centre mids even, should do the trick. I believe when he rocking the old Mesa M2000 amps the graphic had a bump at 250-280Hz and 1.2kHz.

*Dookie was recorded with a PJ with the J pup almost off
*Insomniac, the best bass tone, was a Gibson G3 into the SVT/Mesa 6x10/Yamaha guitar amp.

 

[Joe Nerve]

New strings and a pic are a good start. The rest, ya gotta ask others... I'm not a P bass guy.

Oddly enough, the first time I played my short scale Acinonyx with a pic, with brand new D'Addario nickels that came on it, was the first time I ever heard my bass sounding like his. I loved it.

 

[MCS4]

It sounds like he's palm muting but upon trying this it is clear that he doesn't do it all the time. Any tips on how to achieve a similar, raw, tone?

In terms of the "solo," it seems to me that he is only palm muting sporadically on at the beginning of the phrase he is repeating, and he doesn't always do it. The rest generally is not muted. However, his tone on this does sound slightly more "squashed" than the typical Dirnt tone that I have in my head -- possibly from a bit of extra amp breakup and/or some compression thrown in at the sound board -- so that may make the muted and non-muted parts sound more similar than they normally do. If you want to chase that component of this tone the right touch of extra grit could help, but I'd probably be looking at including some compression as well (again, I'm speaking of this clip in particular, not necessarily what I would generally do to copy Dirnt's tone in general).

 

[Don_Chancho]

Mike Dirnt is the bassist for Green Day, for any of those who don't know. I am entranced with his raw tone but have had some trouble trying to replicate his sound. Holiday, Longview, and Basket Case are good examples of his tone.
The bridge of Holiday has a great, raw bassline with an awesome tone. It sounds like he's palm muting but upon trying this it is clear that he doesn't do it all the time. Any tips on how to achieve a similar, raw, tone?

Here's a video of a live version of Holiday (skip to around 2:10 for the bass "solo").
Thanks.

After years of trying to get as close as possible, the trick is 12 o clock for bass, 12-1 o clock for mids depending on your set up, and like 7-9 o clock for treble. If your mids are mixed between low or hi then dial up the low mids and dial down the high mids.