Planetshakers Bass Rig, any ideas?

[RockinBass85]

Hey I've been looking all over the net but can't find anything. Anyone know what his setup consists of? I know he has a slew of Fender American Deluxe Jazz Vs. Don't know what other effects/rack components/amps/cabs he's got under his proverbial hood, but I like his sound. It's clear and very even all across the board, so I'm assuming he's got a good compressor somewheres. As it is, I'm looking at aqcuiring my own Fender Am Del Jazz V.

 

[WayneP]

Can't say I'd ever heard of these people before this. Based on a couple of Youtube videos I reviewed, there definitely is quite a bit of compression, but it’s impossible to tell if it's from his rig or applied in post production. It certainly doesn’t hurt that you’re hearing a first-class, professional mix (the latter doesn’t necessarily guarantee the former) that rolls the lows out of everything but the bass and drums, so the bass stands out clear and clean. On top of that it seems to be virtually impossible to make a Fender bass sound bad, even the cheap Squiers. If that's what you're angling to buy , you can't go wrong there.

Assuming no after-the-fact digital clean-up, he’s definitely a top-notch player - very articulate with tasteful (as opposed to flashy) embellishments. I like his style.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt


Administrator, Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Tobias Club #133
Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
Pedulla Club #45

 

[Calebmundy]

Interested! Those Youtube videos sound amazing-tones and playing for sure.

 

[TwoRivers]

Funny. Was just practicing for tomorrow...one of the songs I'll be playing is "The Anthem" by Planetshakers. I was thinking the same thing as I listened. Very impressed with both the mix (or his tone, whichever it is), but extremely impressed with how clean and articulate his playing is.

I play a Fender American Standard Jazz through a TCE RH450 and TS212. Not too hard to cop his sound with that setup.

I'm with the guys above me: Fender Jazz bass, wide open, relatively flat EQ to allow for the slight inherant scoop of the Jazz to come through, compression and a touch of breakup, whether from your amp or a pedal. I think this is one of those, "the simpler the better" kind of deals.

 

[TwoRivers]

Also, probably don't need to say it, but just in case - play over the bridge pickup to copy the high mid snarl he's got going on.

 

[4Mal]

Given the dead drums style of production I would guess that he's using whatever DI the producer told him to... A less produced, actual representarion of a live performance might be more informative.

 

[RockinBass85]

Hey everyone, thanks for the inputs. I didn't realize anyone replied till now. I never got emails alerting me to responses.

Anywho, I've been "immersing" into this subject.

I quickly realized that his sound is a very polished, compressed sound. From my research, he plays Fender American Jazz Deluxe and Fender custom shop 5 string basses. Don't know much outside of there. I don't really care to completely emulate it, but I do see it as a all-around-good sound to project for praise and worship.

The rig I play with now at home and the other one I use at church don't work too well for this kind of sound. At church they use a donated Peavey MegaBass system, which none of the bass players are crazy about. At home I play a Fender halfstack, Fender Rumble 200 head (Fender mailed it out when my 150 head blew! :-O ) and a Fender Rumble 410 cab (not the new one). So I began to wonder, if onboard preamps can color the tone of our instruments, I wondered how much do these rigs color/affect the tone of my bass even with the EQ flat and no additional effects added in.

A few things I've done since I posted this in pursuit of this sound, I bought an MXR M87 bass compressor. I replaced the BOSS LMB-3 pedal I had with it. Great pedal, still working on my ideal tone with it as I have little experience with compressors. Swapped the electronics out of my Yamaha TRBX305; Aguilar Super Doubles and a Seymour Duncan STC-3P. A great improvement across the board (never realized it to I A/B'd it, the original Yamaha pups sound a lot like a P/J set up). Lastly, I'm swapping the bridge pup of my MIM Fender from an EMG MMCS to an EMG LJ.

 

[fishsome]

I too have been interested in his rig and sound he is getting. Seems to be a bit of an old thread so perhaps you've found some updates to share?

 

[michaelmwong]

Hey there, I'm a bass player at Planetshakers church in Melbourne. Yes Josh is a great player. And as WayneP the clarity you hear has a lot to do with the mix. Yes he uses a compressor and dome pedals. Usually from pedal board straight to DI. There's a YouTube video on our channel where you can see the setup and hear him talk about his playing and his gear. I actually don't know if he's on TB but I think you can email questions to [email protected]

 

[Testing123]

Check out the following video (Josh shows his bass and pedals beginning at @16:16):

 

[two fingers]

That's why I love this place. Eventually the answer almost always comes from the source, or someone closely associated with the source.

 

[Growlmonkee]

A really well done all around mix, the bass sounds good, but, so does everything else, I think a stellar sound crew is a big part of what's so right about the bass sound, the vocals pop out defined too. Thanks for the share.

 

[fishsome]

I play at my church and am part of the sound team. We've been working on getting the bass and drums to drive the band and come through clear, very much like planetshakers sound. I use a sadowsky uv70 5 string jazz and a zoom b3 going direct. I can get some pretty solid tones.

I will say the mix has everything to do with what you're hearing. I decided to experiment by using the high pass filter on everything by rolling ~200/250 and below off. I left the kick and bass alone with a little hpf just to clean it up. Haven't perfected the exact frequency for every instrument but applying that filtering to everything (2 electric guitars, keyboard, and loop etc) I noticed the bass and kick come right through. So well in fact that you can hear every run all up and down the neck. (Mistakes are so obvious now lol)

Still need to fine tune it as we stream too but thought I'd share my influence from this thread and the results I noticed. Overall cleaning up the mix gave the bass definition in the house(and stream) and allowed it to be nice and full.

I'm definitely going to keep listening and next project is to clean up that rhythm guitar. Haha

 

[Geri O]

I play at my church and am part of the sound team. We've been working on getting the bass and drums to drive the band and come through clear, very much like planetshakers sound. I use a sadowsky uv70 5 string jazz and a zoom b3 going direct. I can get some pretty solid tones.

I will say the mix has everything to do with what you're hearing (ME: a good player is quite helpful, too!....). I decided to experiment by using the high pass filter on everything by rolling ~200/250 and below off. I left the kick and bass alone with a little hpf just to clean it up. Haven't perfected the exact frequency for every instrument but applying that filtering to everything (2 electric guitars, keyboard, and loop etc) I noticed the bass and kick come right through. So well in fact that you can hear every run all up and down the neck. (Mistakes are so obvious now lol)

Still need to fine tune it as we stream too but thought I'd share my influence from this thread and the results I noticed. Overall cleaning up the mix gave the bass definition in the house(and stream) and allowed it to be nice and full.

I'm definitely going to keep listening and next project is to clean up that rhythm guitar. Haha

Good ideas and standard mixing practices when mixing live.

I would be carful about a blanket-frequency approach, being careful to not thin out too much like guitars and toms, and even some male vocals by high-passing things too high. To me, 200/250 is a little high to start with hi-passing things, I would start around 125-150 and see what happens, assuming you have the time to work with the mix, which is often a big challenge.

But you are on the right approach. The low-mids of a mix (my take, 125-400hZ) are a balancing act between mud and being some of the impact of a mix. Frankly, even most sound guys miss the mark on this, although it's certainly wide open to interpretation. How well we do it is indicated by how many return phones we get....

Good luck!