+1 on this idea. In the book titled "RUSH Tribute - Merely Players" there are several instances where Geddy himself said that he used bass-X in video-Y but that he actually used Bass-Z on the actual album. For instance, these are verbatum quotes from that book, everything between the quotation marks are exactly as printed including the parentheses and puctuation marks:
PAGE 242 - "Moving Pictures Album: Jazz was the only bass used (the Rickenbacker 4001 in the "Tom Sawyer" studio video is for 'effect')"
PAGE 243 - "Grace Under Pressure album: L2 bass (Geddy brought the 4001 in videos for "Enemy Within" and "Body Electric" for 'effect')"
PAGE 244 - "Power Windows Album: Geddy recorded with Peter Collins' English-made, natural walnut finished Wal bass (Steinberger in "Mystic Rhythms" video for effect.)".
PAGE 246 - "Presto Album: Same as previous album (Fender Jazz in "Show don't Tell" video for effect)."
{ed note; this book lists the black Wal throught Hold Your Fire album except for "Lock and Key" which was a Wal 5-string - that suggests that the Wal was used on Presto. end ed note}
Add to this is the sense of humor the three of them posess and things get even more clouded. Alex Lifeson on the "Hentor Strats" ...
PAGE 230 and 231 - "'Hentor' was the name that we had for Peter Henderson, the producer of
Grace Under Pressure. When he wrote his name out to leave us his number, it looked like Peter Hentor instead of Peter Henderson, so we nicknamed him Hentor The Barbarian. I got some Letraset and put it on this white Strat that I had. It has a Shark neck - these are unlabeled replacement necks - so I threw "Hentor Sportscaster" on there. Amazing all the mail we used to get over that [laughs]: "Where can I buy a Hentor? How much does a Hentor cost?" (Guitar Player 1986)".
The book also quotes Alex a number of times saying that he used certain guitars on albums but used other guitars in the videos (such as "The Big Money" .. in the video he's sportin' a black Strat with a white pickguard, but he says he used a Tele on the actual album's recording of that song).
A note about the Moving Pictures quotes: Even though Geddy says in this book that the Jazz was the only bass used on Moving Pictures, in video interviews viewable on You Tube he's said himself that he used both the Jazz and the Ric on that album. So the point here is that ....
you just don't really know! Artists can and will ~adjust~ the truth to keep their musical secrets to themselves. Eddie Van Halen used to play his tapped riffs with his back to the audience so no other guitar players would ripoff his (then new) technique, until he was accused of using backing tracks to play his solos in concerts. Only then did he start letting everyone see what he was doing with his hands. So artists .. even the pedestal-mounted Geddy (the pedestal that "we" have placed him upon) .. may be telling us one thing and doing quite another. He has his own "industrial secrets" to maintane .. mystery is a good thing in most cases. Besides, he doesn't belong to us ... he's free to keep his methods to himself.
My point here is that no matter what you see on You Tube, no matter what you read in books that allegedly "quote" someone about the gear/setups/whatevers they say they used, no matter what you
think you saw at a live concert .... you truly never really know. As it should be. That's why it's called Show Business. It's a business all about delivering a perception. If you were taken to a reality other than your own, or if the performance initiated thought, the job was well done.
Good morning.
