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The Cliff Burton Sound

#26
MysticBoo said:
Wasn't the intro to "Orion" done with a distorted Hammond organ?

Or are you just referring to live recreations?
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I'm not a big Metallica fan so I could be off base but I think he might be right. At least it sounds like it could be distorted bass through a leslie.

John Paul Jones did the same thing without the distortion on "Heartbreaker" (MONSTROUS bass tone on that one) which might have influenced Burton to give it a try. Or not. It's late and I'm tired.
 
#27
I agree with TheBigO on this one, I've read in a few places that Cliff used a Leslie to achieve that effect. I tried and failed to recreate that effect a lot before I actually found this out (guess thats what happens when you're only a veteran of 2 years bass playing)
 
#29
TheBigO said:
I'm not a big Metallica fan so I could be off base but I think he might be right. At least it sounds like it could be distorted bass through a leslie.
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It does, but I thought there was an interview where Hammett or Hetfield had mentioned a Hammond organ being used (at least, on the album). Live is another matter.

I'll have to see if I can track that info down.

TheBigO said:
John Paul Jones did the same thing without the distortion on "Heartbreaker" (MONSTROUS bass tone on that one) which might have influenced Burton to give it a try. Or not. It's late and I'm tired.
Click to expand...

IMO, "Heartbreaker" is a very different sound. But it is indeed monstrous. It's one of my favorite Zeppelin tunes. :)
 
#30
Just a thought, the Boss V-Wah models both a Morley (not sure which one off hand) and Big Muff, as well as other wahs and drives. So you may be able to get pretty darn close with just this. It'll probably be easier to track one down and try one out in a shop over there, not to mention cheaper.

If you do want to check one out, download the manual first as it's a PITA to set the drive models. Requires button pressing whilst turning on and turning over to refer to the bottom plate to do any manual tweaking.
 
#31
MysticBoo said:
IMO, "Heartbreaker" is a very different sound.
Click to expand...

I chalked that up to the difference between a Jazz and a Ric with distortion, but again, I have no idea - I haven't read anything about how Orion was recorded. Going by the sound is a bit difficult too since the mix isn't all that great on that song IMO.

As a side note, that's one thing Slayer always had over Metallica. Their albums were always mixed so well. Andy Wallace is a genius IMO.
 
#34
Deluge Of Sound said:
Oh yeah, you can totally hear the bass on a Slayer record...:ninja:
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Mostly I was just saying that the intro to Orion is a bit muddy IMO.

Mind you, thrash metal is not really a big genre for me but I've always thought that it was part of the sound to have the bass deeper in the mix. I never thought that was a mix problem so much as a conscious choice. But Slayer albums always seemed to be a lot clearer without losing any edge.
 
#35
I think Cliff's distortion came from his amp... he used a Mesa D180, which had cascading gain stages for super-heavy distortion. Channel 2 was for bass, and channel 1 was for guitar. He probably used an A/B footswitch to use Channel 2 for his "clean" sound, and for his distorted tones he used Channel 1.

Just my theory... a lot of folks think he used a Bass 400+, but that wasn't even invented until late 1989, three years after he died.
 

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