hi there, i am new to this forum. I used to play bass in a band a few years ago - with a crappy lower end ibanez. i am currently looking for a new bass - with this new bass i cannot spent a whole lot (under 500), but i am looking for a really nice heavy clean sound... stress the heavy. i want to be able to play really thick crunchy non distorted bass that sounds good (similar to THE MOVE, and early non distorted metal) if anyone has any ideas, please let me know! thanks alot!
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super clean but heavy!
- Thread starter dirtroad
- Start date
I think a Fender Jazz Bass with Rotosound roundwounds through WEM amplification was what was used on the later Move material. I don't know why that info is in my head, I suppose I could be totally wrong...
Listen to the Move's Looking On and Message from the Country for some examples... "The Minister" is a good one... Very crisp, trebly (but not thin) belching tone. There might be a little bit of natural overdrive from the amp, but it's not fuzzed out or distorted.
Maybe a P-bass or a OLP. Check out some of the SRX series basses and some of the Schecter basses in that range.
Sorry, couldn't find your example songs on YouTube. But I usually associate "crunch" as running with some sort of gain pedal in my signal chain. Downside, it takes away the warmer, softer roundness of the underlying fundamentals of the notes, but it definitely will give you a harder, punchier "crunch" to the tone. I suppose any good gain pedal or light OD pedal would suffice, IMO. A little boost added back in the lower mids after the slight overdrive should suffice for any low end loss associated with gain/OD pedals.
To me it sounds like there is definatly some kind of distortion/OD on the bass, as well as some chorus.
Yep, definitely some light chorus & mild OD going on, at least that's what I'm hearing....
Here's another couple of brief soundclips I found:
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It sounds like the bass is being played very hard....
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It sounds like the bass is being played very hard....
hey thanks for the quick responses! i will check out what you've recommended - i have been loving the album "message from the country" the last few months and i LOVE the bass on it. so bouncy and heavy. i guess i didn't quite mean crunchy, its just the word that came to mind at the moment i was typing... 'cause it is, kinda... right?
It's crunchy-sounding, maybe not in the way the word is traditionally used to describe bass tone, but I definitely understand where you're coming from. In the YouTube videos I've seen from that era (after Roy took over on bass) it looks like Roy is playing a Jazz bass, but it's hard to tell (low-quality video images).
There's some good bass tones on Looking On as well, some similar to the sounds on MFtC.
