steve harris's rig

hi. from bass player.com:"Steve Harris has used the same mid-’70s Fender Precision Bass since Maiden’s early days, playing fingerstyle with Rotosound flatwounds. Steve’s P-Bass has seen a number of different finishes over the years, including blue sparkle; it’s currently white with the emblem of the West Ham United Football Club. Harris uses custom heads modeled after vintage Hiwatt 200s, and Marshall 4x12 cabinets. “An Ampeg SVT is the closest I’ve gotten to getting my sound with a ‘normal’ amp,” he says."

 

i heard something about him using trace elliot preamps somewhere though...

 

Marshall 4X12 cabinets, but loaded with EVM12L speakers.

 

Good luck with that, Steve Harris is the reason I started playing bass 23 years ago.

I didn't know all those Precision's were the same bass though - neat. Anyone know if he's made any mods to his bass, other than paint?

 

The Fender Steve Harris P Bass has a BadAss II bridge and a Duncan Quarter Pound pickup...

 

This statement is a bit misleading. It's true that Steve does still play this bass, and he's had it since the early days, but he has not played this bass through all of Iron Maiden's career. During the Powerslave days Steve was playing a bass that was of similar shape to Spector's Rex Brown model. I have no idea what manufacturer it is, but you can see him playing it on the "Aces High" video.

 

Didn't he play a Lado

 

Yes, during Powerslave they were Lado sponsors. I hated it.

Eeven though Lado was a CDN company, it was just weird to see Dave without his Strat and Steve without his P Bass. Adrian, well, who cares.

Steve also played a J bass early on, back before their first album.

 

Yah, further research led me to Wikipedia which told me it was a Lado "Unicorn".

 

They experimented with different sounds before reverting to the tried and true.

 

I was really surprised to see flatwounds! I love flats!

 

Just bumping Steve Harris up there with the Wooten's and Jaco's of the world. Hopefully some young guy will see the name Steve Harris and look it up. Learn to play with attitude, it's important. Also learn to play with "A BAND", that's important too.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Rotosound-SH77-Harris-Signature-Strings/dp/B0002GNY0A

 

I HOPE you aren't saying Jaco didn't have attitude...

And both Wooten and Jaco play/ed in great bands.

And steve Harris rocks!

 

No, wasn't saying that at all, I just don't hear Steve Harris' name come up in the same conversation with the virtuoso types, that's all.

 

Thats becouse he aint no viruoso player like them, first off, he hates bass solos, and call em "boring and self induligent"

And the P bass have always been used the most, exept for a little time in the begining of the 90's where he apparently used a chekered 58 P bass wit rosewood fretboard.

you can see him always using the trusty old P bass on every live recording. he have a bunch of them, so you might have seen another sometime, last time i saw em he was suddenly playinga blue one, (strings died)

bass is:
Mid 70's P bass with mirror pickguard. heard many places its supposed to be 1972.
Got a badass II bridge around Number of the beast
Current pickup is custom seymour duncan to be wired "as close as possible to the original pickup"
to my understanding, this bass have been: White, black, blue sparkle (from around killers up until NPFTD, my personal favourite) and again white with blue and "wine red" bindings.

this is from the Iron Maiden FAQ from 1997:
Steve Harris - 4 Fender Precision bass guitars with mirrored scratchplates,
badass II bridges and Seymour Duncan custom SPB1 pick-ups
4 Sony WRT 27 wireless transmitters
2 Raycom/Sony WRR 37 receivers
Peter Cornish custom switching system
Trace Elliot GP12X pre-amps
1 DBX 160 compressor
2 C-1 audio FR707 amplifiers
8 Custom Marshall 4x12" cabinets fitted with EVM 12L speakers
3 Korg WT-12 tuners
Rotosound jazz bass flat wound strings
Spares: Electronic preamps, Carver PM 1-5 and PM1200 power amps

 

Here however is Steve's rig for the recording of the "AMOLAD" album. i do not posses the ability to see what everything is.

Picrures is taken from producer of the album, Kevin Shirley's homepage.

 

It´s always nice to see some scrappy looking cabs from a pro player!