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Paul McCartney current live bass tone

#22
frankie5string said:
As far as I know he still uses a Tone Bender for guitar... it's his primary distortion pedal when he plays guitar.
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It’s my favorite for guitar, germanium-based…the Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page Yardbirds sound(Zep too), Ziggy-era Mick Ronson, I suspect it’s what is on the Moody Blues’ “Ride My See-Saw” as well. I prefer it to a Fuzz Face or Big Muff.
 
#23
Guitalia said:
Not sure what "overdrive a Hofner" means. Do you mean that Hofners have enough output to push most amps into overdrive?
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Maybe it's a combination of output and the hollow body (w/o a solid brace). At least that's what happened with the one I owned in the 70's using a big amp. It was hard for me to control the feedback, and yeah, I'm sure it was mostly me. :laugh:
Years later I had an Epiphone Viola with a solid brace and didn't have the feedback problem. But I was also a little wiser by then. :cool:
 
#24
Hurricane Jimmie said:
Maybe it's a combination of output and the hollow body (w/o a solid brace). At least that's what happened with the one I owned in the 70's using a big amp. It was hard for me to control the feedback, and yeah, I'm sure it was mostly me. :laugh:
Years later I had an Epiphone Viola with a solid brace and didn't have the feedback problem. But I was also a little wiser by then. :cool:
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I've never been able to make any Hofner feed back... maybe yours had a wiring issue? Or were you running it through some sort of ultra-high gain amp?
 
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#25
Hurricane Jimmie said:
Maybe it's a combination of output and the hollow body (w/o a solid brace). At least that's what happened with the one I owned in the 70's using a big amp. It was hard for me to control the feedback, and yeah, I'm sure it was mostly me. :laugh:
Years later I had an Epiphone Viola with a solid brace and didn't have the feedback problem. But I was also a little wiser by then. :cool:
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I guess that could be considered "overdriving a Hofner," but "overdriving" in this context usually means a bass with powerful pickups is causing the preamp or power amp or both to distort.
 
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#26
frankie5string said:
I've never been able to make any Hofner feed back... maybe yours had a wiring issue? Or were you running it through some sort of ultra-high gain amp?
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Young inexperienced first-time bass player with the Hofner and an Acoustic 450 head with the matching 6x12 cabinet.
Like I said, it was mostly me playing too loud and just not knowing what I was doing.
 
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#27
Hurricane Jimmie said:
Young inexperienced first-time bass player with the Hofner and an Acoustic 450 head with the matching 6x12 cabinet.
Like I said, it was mostly me playing too loud and just not knowing what I was doing.
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I think what Paul is doing these days , he is cranking up the gain on the amp. I tried to do that yesterday without using overdrive/fuzz pedal … and I m getting closer to what I think it’s his current bass tone live . Crank up the gain and the highs …..
 
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#28
ferrante9 said:
I think what Paul is doing these days , he is cranking up the gain on the amp. I tried to do that yesterday without using overdrive/fuzz pedal … and I m getting closer to what I think it’s his current bass tone live . Crank up the gain and the highs …..
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That's what Sir Paul McCartney sounds like to me when playing live...cranks up the gain with plenty of mids and highs.
 
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#30
I've had that bass (twice) and the first thing I needed was a pre-amp! It sounds like an acoustic bass, so you have to "turn up" its voice. For the rest of the sound that comes off live I guess that Sir Paul doesn't use any pedals.
 
#35
TN WOODMAN said:
By pushed I mean the gain is being driven into a higher setting driving the preamp section of the amp harder. Not an actual button being pushed.
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Although, if you look closely , it doesn’t seem like he is cranking the gain up at all from these close up pics . It’s barely at 10 o clock the gain , and the volume is also barely turned up ???! Any thoughts ?
 
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#36
ferrante9 said:
View attachment 7415250View attachment 7415251


Although, if you look closely , it doesn’t seem like he is cranking the gain up at all from these close up pics . It’s barely at 10 o clock the gain , and the volume is also barely turned up ???! Any thoughts ?
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I have the Prodigy, which is basically the little brother to the Strategy- cranking the Gain on these amps isn’t the best kind of drive, but pushing the power amp sounds killer. You also don’t know what kind of signal he is pushing into the front of the amps- often times these big stage shows will have the bass plugged into some sort of active splitter to drive multiple amps and quite possibly boost the signal into the front. It’s also quite possible he is just slaving the power amps of the amps off a single one of the preamps.
 
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#37
If all y'all remember, say, ZZ Top's staged amps among others, I'm not sure what amp settings you see on stage are even relevant to what the audience is actually hearing. And back-up rigs and empty head cases and cabs aside, I always harken back to Jeff Beck in his latter days appearing on stage with many amps at once, including Marshall stacks, but reading that much if not all of his PA sound was from Pro, Jr. combo's.

I would further postulate that Fractal/Helix-type stuff might well be involved - I seem to recall the surprise of Def Leppard years ago having no amps on stage because they were under the theatre-in-the-round stage.

That is not a criticism, we are talking about rock-n-roll shows, and McCartney is a consummate showman.

Finally, I am speculating.
 
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#38
Great opinions guys because we’re all speculating but the live concert amplication has evolved so much just in recent years to stage levels, PA levels, FOH post signal manipulation - you name it. And God forbid the lip synchers, backing track mimes , pantomime posers…
 

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