Hi everyone I'm new here and kinda new to bass(although I played alot years ago)I'm just now getting back into it. Anyway I've always been a huge def leppard fan and was wondering how rick savage gets the sound he gets from his basses? You can especially hear it on the pyromainia and hysteria albums. I've heard that his basses are drop or down tuned or he plays them through an effects pedal,which is it? I believe it hes played hamer and wasburn 4 and 5 string basses FWIW.
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Rick savage's sound?
- Thread starter 1911luver
- Start date
I think a lot of the bass on Def Leppard albums, Pyromania onwards was done either on a keyboard/synth or using a Fairlight sampler playing sampled bass notes.
eg. "Gods of war" was done using sampled notes,
whereas "Photograph" is real bass- a clearly different tone and a more natural transition between notes.
Vivian Campbell said in an interview in UK Guitar magazine that there's very little real bass on the records.
live, Rick Savage plays keyboard bass sometimes- eg. for the verses of "love bites" and "rock of ages".
eg. "Gods of war" was done using sampled notes,
whereas "Photograph" is real bass- a clearly different tone and a more natural transition between notes.
Vivian Campbell said in an interview in UK Guitar magazine that there's very little real bass on the records.
live, Rick Savage plays keyboard bass sometimes- eg. for the verses of "love bites" and "rock of ages".
Well there's no wonder why I hated his tone so much. It always sounded so synthesized to me. I guess you learn something new everyday.
live and on demo versions, it's him playing bass guitar, but on the albums Pyromania-onwards it's mostly synth or sampled-
he's certainly capable of playing it all on bass guitar, but I think they use synth/sampled bass on the records for that specific tone and tightness.
the drums on the albums, Pyromania onwards
, are programmed too-
I found an interview with engineer Mike Shipley saying how they made up synth drum sounds on Pyromania.
programming them also gives that machine-like tightness (or sterility, depending on your viewpoint....).
I've had the pleasure of hearing all the tracks broken down into Pro-Tools for "Rock Of Ages" and another DL song.
There is a crappy bass sound there- I don't know how much of that you're actually getting on the final mix- most of what you're hearing as the "bass" is the synth.
As far as the engineering of the record- For everything that you hear about Mutt Lange being an exceptional producer- the raw tracks don't sound much of any better than anything I've heard recorded at any of the decent local studios. Where he really shines is in the mixing and production aspects.
From the very beginning- listening to Joe Elliot's "awww right..." spiel- it sounds so forced- yet restrained and fake- Shows what I know, eh?
There is a crappy bass sound there- I don't know how much of that you're actually getting on the final mix- most of what you're hearing as the "bass" is the synth.
As far as the engineering of the record- For everything that you hear about Mutt Lange being an exceptional producer- the raw tracks don't sound much of any better than anything I've heard recorded at any of the decent local studios. Where he really shines is in the mixing and production aspects.
From the very beginning- listening to Joe Elliot's "awww right..." spiel- it sounds so forced- yet restrained and fake- Shows what I know, eh?
Given that Rick Allen is missing an arm and played entirely electronic kits from Hysteria up until recently, that's no surprise. I thought Pyromania at least used real drums, but with Mutt at the board, who knows?
Savage also plays some acoustic guitar on the albums and sings.
here's that interview with Mike Shipley-
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"You were some of the first people experimenting with sampled drums. On Hysteria those huge drums were all samples, played in a Fairlight.
Lots of people didn't know that. They were always asking me how I miked up such great drums! Pyromania was done the same way, on cheesy 8-bit Fairlight technology where we had to figure out how to record everything at half speed into the Fairlight to make it sound like it had some tone to it, and we'd be stacking up a bunch of snares and bass drums."
he also talks about working on the Cars' heartbeat city- similar synthetic drum sound, and some of the bass (eg. "drive") sounds like a synth too.
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"You were some of the first people experimenting with sampled drums. On Hysteria those huge drums were all samples, played in a Fairlight.
Lots of people didn't know that. They were always asking me how I miked up such great drums! Pyromania was done the same way, on cheesy 8-bit Fairlight technology where we had to figure out how to record everything at half speed into the Fairlight to make it sound like it had some tone to it, and we'd be stacking up a bunch of snares and bass drums."
he also talks about working on the Cars' heartbeat city- similar synthetic drum sound, and some of the bass (eg. "drive") sounds like a synth too.
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Mike Shipley on Mutt Lange's production for Shania Twain-
"The bass was played and then hacked up and each note was re tuned and retimed and put back together so that the part could be changed and so that a synth could be added and help the sound but not "rub" with dissonant tuning."
sounds familiar.
Mike Shipley on Mutt Lange's production for Shania Twain-
"The bass was played and then hacked up and each note was re tuned and retimed and put back together so that the part could be changed and so that a synth could be added and help the sound but not "rub" with dissonant tuning."
sounds familiar.
That explains why the album "High N Dry" sounds so different from everything afterward.My favorite and IMO the best def lep rocording to date and from all the previous posts the last album they recorded traditionally. Mutt Lange was in the producers booth with this one as well.
I think Mutt was also trying to be innovative there... it was the 80s and all. Synth bass, FTL....
it's a similar thing with Trevor Horn in the 80's eg. Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
bass and drums on the Welcome to the pleasuredome album were programmed using a Fairlight or Synclavier sampler.
Norman Watt-Roy of the Blockheads says that they were booked to come in a jam in the studio, and Horn sampled notes and beats here and there, and programmed them to use on the FGTH recordings.
if you listen to FGTH's early live recordings, their bassist Mark O'Toole played a lot of lead bass parts that Trevor Horn often transferred to use as parts for other instruments instead eg. the strings intro to "two tribes". so they got writing credits, but didn't actually play on the album.
bass and drums on the Welcome to the pleasuredome album were programmed using a Fairlight or Synclavier sampler.
Norman Watt-Roy of the Blockheads says that they were booked to come in a jam in the studio, and Horn sampled notes and beats here and there, and programmed them to use on the FGTH recordings.
if you listen to FGTH's early live recordings, their bassist Mark O'Toole played a lot of lead bass parts that Trevor Horn often transferred to use as parts for other instruments instead eg. the strings intro to "two tribes". so they got writing credits, but didn't actually play on the album.
article on the Cars' Heartbeat city-
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"David Robinson had been particularly upset by the production process for that LP, complaining that he hardly got a chance to play.
"We used a Fairlight computer for drums on Heartbeat City;" Ocasek says, "and basically, at the time, David wasn't as attuned to the computer situation as Mutt Lange was."
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"Synth Bass — For many of his hits in the 80’s, he used synth basses, even when having world-class bass players."
the bass sound on The Cars' "Tonight she comes" sounds exactly like the Def leppard bass sound on Gods of war, Animal etc.
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"David Robinson had been particularly upset by the production process for that LP, complaining that he hardly got a chance to play.
"We used a Fairlight computer for drums on Heartbeat City;" Ocasek says, "and basically, at the time, David wasn't as attuned to the computer situation as Mutt Lange was."
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"Synth Bass — For many of his hits in the 80’s, he used synth basses, even when having world-class bass players."
the bass sound on The Cars' "Tonight she comes" sounds exactly like the Def leppard bass sound on Gods of war, Animal etc.
an interesting interview with Rick Savage from 1992 in which he talks about working with perfectionist Mutt Lange, playing to a click/drum machine and using synth bass-
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Mutt Lange's stuff all has a definite "signature" sound. Listen to Hysteria, back that up against any Shania Twain album and then put on the Brian Adams record he produced and there's like 90% sonic overlap. It's a definite formula and I'm not meaning anything good or bad by that. It certainly has sold a lot of records.
The one album Mutt produced that I think best retained the original identity of the band was AC/DC Back in Black. I would be very surprised if any electronics were used to replace the drums or bass on those tracks.
Parts of that interview were terribly depressing. It sounds like an incredilby cold and sterile way to create music. I kind of feel bad for the guy.
AFAIK their latest album - Songs From the Sparkle Lounge - was all done live. Or at least the bare bones were. Same with X - you can definitely hear the Ashdown tone pumping through some of the tracks on both records - e.g. "Now" or "Nine Lives". Slang was all done live too, but that was their "back to basics" album so no real surprise...
I'd love to recreate his "Women" sound live, but I'm odd.
My fave bass tone of his on Sparkle Lounge is on "Go" - big distorted phatness
I'd love to recreate his "Women" sound live, but I'm odd.
My fave bass tone of his on Sparkle Lounge is on "Go" - big distorted phatness
My favorite of theirs as well, although I'm a bit biased as that was the first I'd ever heard from them. I saw them live a few years back, and his sound was surprisingly good for a guy I never hear much in the mix (although I'm guessing that's mainly due to the synth sounds?). He's definitely a clean/tight enough player that they'd do well to turn him up a half-notch or so. I don't get it....
