Peter Steele's bass tone...

[BurningTheAltar]

I was listening to some Type O Negative at work tonight, and it kinda got me thinking (again)....how did Peter Steele get his bass tone? Info on the net is few and far between. Aside from a little write up from Pete's guitar tech and a few fuzzy photos, I haven't been able to find much. Anyone have a clue?

 

[/\/\3phist0]

He used Fernandes, peavey and ESH basses
Peavey amps and cabs.
Lots of red wine

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Peter Steele's bass rig

 

[/\/\3phist0]

 

[BurningTheAltar]

Thanks for linking that thread.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Opened for them in 1990:
peavey max heads 2x410 side by side tube screamer, lots of chorus. Really overly bright overall tone, grating.

 

[BurningTheAltar]

Thanks man! I knew he used the Peavey heads, plus I read that he used a delay and chorus, which I have. I can get close to his tone, but not quite.... I'm sure the heads and tube screamer may have something to do with it.

 

[neptoon]

peavey max preamps, boss DS-1, dd-3 delay and a super chorus...just about every note he ever recorded had those elements plus his 1983 alembic spoiler, esh and fernandes...he was a tone chaser and used other stuff, but those are the core to his sound...at one point he was splitting his signal and recombining for a while using Marshall ab-y boxes...live he used the esh stinger, a custom fernandes, a Gibson thunderbird (see the Christian woman video, he used a hole saw to cut it up a little), a Washburn m-10, and for a long time, the alembic...if you watch old videos, you can see that between 94 and 95 he started doing the green position markers...one of the older carnivore videos I saw he even used a fender jazz...you can google Peter Steele pedals and it will show you those pedals I named above on a board with a boss tuner and it shows you the position of the knobs, too...pretty cool...should get you started...people are getting close with multi effects, too

 

[BurningTheAltar]

peavey max preamps, boss DS-1, dd-3 delay and a super chorus...just about every note he ever recorded had those elements plus his 1983 alembic spoiler, esh and fernandes...he was a tone chaser and used other stuff, but those are the core to his sound...at one point he was splitting his signal and recombining for a while using Marshall ab-y boxes...live he used the esh stinger, a custom fernandes, a Gibson thunderbird (see the Christian woman video, he used a hole saw to cut it up a little), a Washburn m-10, and for a long time, the alembic...if you watch old videos, you can see that between 94 and 95 he started doing the green position markers...one of the older carnivore videos I saw he even used a fender jazz...you can google Peter Steele pedals and it will show you those pedals I named above on a board with a boss tuner and it shows you the position of the knobs, too...pretty cool...should get you started...people are getting close with multi effects, too

I've been able to get close with a Damnation distortion, Digitech bass multi chorus and digital delay...the gain is at 3 o'clock and I added a fuzz pedal, which makes the sound resonate a little more. I also got an A/B/Y pedal to split the clean and distorted channels, to run individually or together. Pete's sound got me into chasing different tones as well. While I didn't want to copy his tone directly, I wanted to use it as a base to form my own sound. Also thinking of adding a Ghost Echo to experiment with.
Thanks for the info!

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

You need a piezo and a sustaniac to truly ape Peter's sound. He had a Fernandes Bass Sustainer but they were only available to artists. A small run of basses were produced for a Japanese run but they are pretty rare. A Sustainiac will get you close, it's essentially the same thing. You need the piezo to add the top end "sizzle" that Peter loved.

He used BOSS pedals, the overdrive and chorus are the most essential. He also runs them both simultaneously to get a more metallic sound to his overdrive.

I'm a huge Peter Steele fan so I am very familiar with his tone. I have been meaning to do a build so I can combine both the piezo and sustainiac but I'd really only be making the bass to play Type O.

 

[Planespotter]

I know it's off topic, but I loved it when he wore an upright bass on a chain and played it like a bass guitar in the video for (I think) Black No. 1. RIP

 

[BurningTheAltar]

Yeah Pete was a character, and one of my heroes that made me want to pick up a bass to begin with....probably started my love for all things Peavey as well. His tone is unmistakable, even without lyrics you know you're listening to a Type-O song. I'll have to check out the piezo and sustainiac, thanks for the info Diabolus!

 

[Bacchus27]

I own a custom Washburn Pete Steele m10, even went the lengths of getting a sustainer in there. You don't even hardly have to run the effects with this beast, the m10 just has this natural dark sound. Hard to explain.

 

[Bacchus27]

But if you want to obtain his sound you have to have piezo tweeter horns, not an actual bridge unless your shooting for his Esh sound. I also highly recommend the boss ge7, helps shape the tone alot. I run a ds1, ch1,ge7,dd3,sonic maximizer, then into a decimator, then finally into my rig. The more eq for shaping the better off you'll be

 

[mmbongo]

Didn't he tune down like 23 steps as well?

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

Didn't he tune down like 23 steps as well?

Peter was tuned to BEAD for most of his playing career but I think some of Carnivore was done in standard. They were apparently toying with a new tuning for the next record but that never came to fruition. I have always wondered what the new tuning was, my money was on them going up and not down based on the last album(s).

 

[Killer Canary]

What was it that got him?

 

[hondo4life]

What was it that got him?

His heart was too big.

 

[Raineman_13]

You need a piezo and a sustaniac to truly ape Peter's sound. He had a Fernandes Bass Sustainer but they were only available to artists. A small run of basses were produced for a Japanese run but they are pretty rare. A Sustainiac will get you close, it's essentially the same thing. You need the piezo to add the top end "sizzle" that Peter loved.

He used BOSS pedals, the overdrive and chorus are the most essential. He also runs them both simultaneously to get a more metallic sound to his overdrive.

I'm a huge Peter Steele fan so I am very familiar with his tone. I have been meaning to do a build so I can combine both the piezo and sustainiac but I'd really only be making the bass to play Type O.

It's impossible to run a sustainer and a piezo at the same time, if you do a piezo tweeter yes sure but as far as running a piezo bridge with a sustainer will not happen, sustainers are very touchy pickups with alot of pickup frequency, a piezo would interfere with its capabilities

 

[Raineman_13]

You need a piezo and a sustaniac to truly ape Peter's sound. He had a Fernandes Bass Sustainer but they were only available to artists. A small run of basses were produced for a Japanese run but they are pretty rare. A Sustainiac will get you close, it's essentially the same thing. You need the piezo to add the top end "sizzle" that Peter loved.

He used BOSS pedals, the overdrive and chorus are the most essential. He also runs them both simultaneously to get a more metallic sound to his overdrive.

I'm a huge Peter Steele fan so I am very familiar with his tone. I have been meaning to do a build so I can combine both the piezo and sustainiac but I'd really only be making the bass to play Type O.

It's impossible to run a sustainer and a piezo bridge, the frequency from the sustainer would interfere, a piezo tweeter is what you want. I previously owned an m10 with a sustainiac in it, now I'm the proud new owner of a fernandes asb100. It comes equipped with a fernandes bass sustainer, and your right that the sustainiac is basically the same thing but the fernandes sustainer has way more power and versatility