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Overdrive as in Audioslave's "wide awake"?

mcnach

mcnach

Jun 16, 2007
8,722
9,565
Edinburgh, Scotland
#1
here's the youtube link



It's a very meaty, mild overdrive, but very "lumpy" (how do you describe a sound??? :lol:)

I can get something reasonable with a Danelectro Transparent Overdrive, but not quite.
An Ibanez PD7 does the meaty/thick very well... but the lumps are smaller :)
The Digitech Bass Driver is too gritty, and so is the MXR M80 Bass DI+.

Does anybody have experience using some other overdrive to get a similar sound to that in "Wide awake"?
 
#2
Im sure lots of people will have lots of diff suggestions for pedals, but it'll be tough to get the same sound without using 2 seperate rigs and blending them. Tim Commerford's setup is ridiculous and he runs 1 svt stack clean and the other stack dirty and blends them. At least he did in Rage som Im assuming he still does it. 2 svt 2 pros I believe into 2 810s. So that sound would cost upwards of ehhh $6000 + bass and effects haha. So its like a $10,000 tone. OUCH!
 
#3
slapstick13 said:
Im sure lots of people will have lots of diff suggestions for pedals, but it'll be tough to get the same sound without using 2 seperate rigs and blending them. Tim Commerford's setup is ridiculous and he runs 1 svt stack clean and the other stack dirty and blends them. At least he did in Rage som Im assuming he still does it. 2 svt 2 pros I believe into 2 810s. So that sound would cost upwards of ehhh $6000 + bass and effects haha. So its like a $10,000 tone. OUCH!
Click to expand...

:) I know all that :)
I was just trying to find something that can approximate that type of sound, as heard in that particular song, that's all. I'm not trying to copy the sound... but to find an overdrive that sounds a bit like that, as it is an example of a sound I love but I'm not quite getting at the moment: "thick and lumpy with beef gravy" type of sound... ;)
 
#5
Overdriven power tubes combined with clean tone. I can't think of any pedal or effects unit that will achieve that tone, but you can get close with a Sansamp BDDI or VT pedal in the effects loop and blended with some clean tone. It won't be the same but it will get you close.
 
#7
buglen said:
Have you tried a light OD (with clean blend) plus a medium-to-heavy compression added?
Click to expand...

That's the way I get something close to it, using the Danelectro Transparent Overdrive, but it's either too little or too gritty. It works... but I wondered if I could get a suggestion for something a bit better (without a ridiculous price tag. No point spending hundreds for just an extra few % "tone goodness")

It looks like I might try a VT-bass pedal to see what it sounds like.

Thanks for all the comments so far!
 
#10
The VT Bass is great for copping B-15 and SVT through an Ampeg 810 type tones. Commerford's tone has a "fatness" to it that I didn't get from the VT bass but a compressor might help.

In early Rage days he used a Marshall Guvnor as part of his basic biamped tone. I haven't tried it myself, but a current Guv'nor and a blend pedal is another possibility. His tone was thicker and "smoother" with Audioslave than Rage, at least to my ears.

My OD of choice is theInvalid Link Removed. Here's a video that has the Cochise riff as part of the demo. Not the tone I use for band stuff but I've had a lot of fun doing Timmy C stuff at home with it.

But it is on the spendy side. I'd start with a used VT Bass and see if that does it for you.

One final note. A big part of Tim's tone is simply the fact that he plucks HARD. If I'm trying to cop that vibe my right hand is getting a workout.
 
#15
Jared Lash said:
The VT Bass is great for copping B-15 and SVT through an Ampeg 810 type tones. Commerford's tone has a "fatness" to it that I didn't get from the VT bass but a compressor might help.

In early Rage days he used a Marshall Guvnor as part of his basic biamped tone. I haven't tried it myself, but a current Guv'nor and a blend pedal is another possibility. His tone was thicker and "smoother" with Audioslave than Rage, at least to my ears.

My OD of choice is theInvalid Link Removed. Here's a video that has the Cochise riff as part of the demo. Not the tone I use for band stuff but I've had a lot of fun doing Timmy C stuff at home with it.

But it is on the spendy side. I'd start with a used VT Bass and see if that does it for you.

One final note. A big part of Tim's tone is simply the fact that he plucks HARD. If I'm trying to cop that vibe my right hand is getting a workout.
Click to expand...


The Darkglass does some very nice noises, I like that.

As for plucking hard, I'm also playing in a RHCP tribute band, so plucking hard is no stranger to me! :)
Tonight I have a midnight-2am gig with them in fact. We're adding a few newer (for us) songs to the set, including Sir Psycho Sexy... really looking forward to playing that one.

I'm building up a pedalboard that I can use for both the RATM/Audioslave and RHCP bands (for the third band I'm in, playing originals... I only need a tuner - bliss! ;))
 

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