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my quest for geddy's tone


maxbeckmann
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greeting all,

 

over the last couple of months i bothered a couple of you folks in my quest to reproduce as close as possible the beloved sound of geddy's bass.

 

most of you told me that it was impossible. i tend to agree. sound comes from the machine but mainly from the player. since i am no geddy, that will never happen.

 

but when i have something in mind, it is hard for me to think of something else. anyways, to make a long story short, my mother died a couple of months ago and thanks to her great sense of generosity, she left me a fair amount of money.

 

i decided to invest part of my heritage in gear.

 

 

 

i am a fanboi. i admit it. so i took the path of geddy and purchased most of his recent rig. let be :

 

- fender jbass geddy lee mij with special pickups made by tom brantley.

 

- an orange ad200 mk3 power amp

 

- a rivera rock crusher power attenuator

 

- a sansamp rpm preamp

 

- a palmer pdi-05 speaker simulator.

 

(now i miss the avalon u5 d.i. - but this will come soon)

 

 

i record myself and i wish you guys to give me an appreciation. an honest review please. please don't judge my playing. i'm asking you to tell me what you think of my sound. is it close or not to geddy ? sometimes when you are too "into it" you miss the objectivity.

 

my point is not to prove that i achieve to reproduce geddy's bass tone. my goal was just to get closer to it.

 

your constructive comments will be truly appreciated.

 

here is a link to my soundcloud page. the track i recorded is red barchetta. (don't mind the main monkey business track i recorded months ago on amplitude 3)

 

the link :

 

best regards.

Edited by maxbeckmann
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Not bad at all. Hard to say on my computer speakers but I think if you scoop the mids and push the low and high ends up a bit you'll get that punch that Geddy gets. Like you said though, 80% of it is in the way you attack the strings. I play pretty aggressive so, play around with it but you should be happy with what you have there.

 

Also, Geddy's tone has changed and evolved so, going for Geddy's tone is pretty vague. I like what you got for the MP era.

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thanks kenny.

 

i was looking forward to your input.

 

i saw pretty much all your vids and this coming from you is something i really appreciate.

 

mB

 

My pleasure and thanks. Ironically, I love the tone I get from my MXR-80 but once the soundman gets hold of it, all bets are off. You really have to trust and work with the FOH sound man. If both of you get on the same page, you're golden.

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thanks kenny.

 

i was looking forward to your input.

 

i saw pretty much all your vids and this coming from you is something i really appreciate.

 

mB

 

My pleasure and thanks. Ironically, I love the tone I get from my MXR-80 but once the soundman gets hold of it, all bets are off. You really have to trust and work with the FOH sound man. If both of you get on the same page, you're golden.

What about Squires tone?... :huh: :)
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Really great tone!

 

thanks jarg.

 

although i am not here to receive flowers, i appreciate the comment.

 

feel free to tell me what should i do to "improve" my sound.

 

(i know...it's a very personal thing...)

 

You've already gotten closer than I think I could. I'm not a bassist, but I am a tone hound, and I think you're close enough that, given the right mix and tighter chops, no one but the purist of the purists would even be able to tell it wasn't Ged.

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Tone is a moving target.

 

Be happy playing. Be yourself. There is only one Geddy Lee. There is only one you. What does YOUR tone sound like?

 

Don't think Geddy, or anyone, sets up an amp for a recording or performance then keeps that setting throughout the production. Settings change, effects are added and removed. His gear setup changes over time because he wants something different. Some of what affects his tone are tweaks to make it work with the guitar. It's a moving target. There is no such thing as "his" tone because he messes with it. Because Geddy has multiple signals in his chain the ratios of the signal levels to each other change constantly.

 

I just don't understand chasing after a perceived ideal. There is no ideal, just what's available. Plug in, get a sound you like- enjoy. There is no Be All End All. It's the player, not the gear.

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Tone is a moving target.

 

Be happy playing. Be yourself. There is only one Geddy Lee. There is only one you. What does YOUR tone sound like?

 

Don't think Geddy, or anyone, sets up an amp for a recording or performance then keeps that setting throughout the production. Settings change, effects are added and removed. His gear setup changes over time because he wants something different. Some of what affects his tone are tweaks to make it work with the guitar. It's a moving target. There is no such thing as "his" tone because he messes with it. Because Geddy has multiple signals in his chain the ratios of the signal levels to each other change constantly.

 

I just don't understand chasing after a perceived ideal. There is no ideal, just what's available. Plug in, get a sound you like- enjoy. There is no Be All End All. It's the player, not the gear.

 

i knew you we're basically tell me that because you already did.

i respect your opinion.

i also think you're probably right, for the most part.

 

the purpose of my post was to get people opinion on the quality of the sound i developed.

 

is it close enough or very far from geddy's tone (i'd must have been more precise, from the moving pictures era) ?

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Do YOU like it? That's the only important thing. Are you learning what you like or don't? Are you learning your gear?

 

Other people's opinions are only important as you let them be. Including mine, which only matters to me. :D

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I wish I could hear red barchetta but for some reason I can't get it to play. Tmmb sounds pretty good. I guess my question is does geddy have 1 tone? IMO the tone on red barchetta and tmmb aren't really the same on the recordings.
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I wish I could hear red barchetta but for some reason I can't get it to play. Tmmb sounds pretty good. I guess my question is does geddy have 1 tone? IMO the tone on red barchetta and tmmb aren't really the same on the recordings.

 

thanks for your interest.

 

just went to the soundcloud page....

 

red barchetta seems to work fine.

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I'm finally on my computer instead of my phone so I can listen to it now. Sounds pretty good, but might be able to tell a bit better if you turn the song up a bit more in comparison to your bass.
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I wish I could hear red barchetta but for some reason I can't get it to play. Tmmb sounds pretty good. I guess my question is does geddy have 1 tone? IMO the tone on red barchetta and tmmb aren't really the same on the recordings.

 

That's true, and luckily Max's tone is different on the two recordings.

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Geddy's tone "fits". That's what makes it great. It ain't great for every band or every song. That's why he changes his tone from album to album. What fits is what is most important.
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Geddy's tone is pretty bad since around Vapor Trails. The SansAmp/Tech 21 stuff has a rasp to it I find distracting and scratchy. I like his ESL tone which is the Ric (complete with Ric-O-Sound) through those amps he'd had for a while. You certainly cannot achieve it through an Orange with a mono signal. Not playing a J either.

 

The problem is recording engineers who become yes men when they work for Rush. They don't stand up and say what's best for their project. All of their tones have gone awry in recent years because there is far too much reverence given to aging rock stars who can't hear worth a damn anymore. So things get brighter to compensate for standing in front of amps for 30 years then mix engineers have to shoehorn all those upper frequencies together and you end up with over compressed pieces of garbage like VT and CA.

 

Stop sucking their dicks. Everyone.

Edited by CygnusX-1Bk2
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Geddy's tone is pretty bad since around Vapor Trails. The SansAmp/Tech 21 stuff has a rasp to it I find distracting and scratchy. I like his ESL tone which is the Ric (complete with Ric-O-Sound) through those amps he'd had for a while. You certainly cannot achieve it through an Orange with a mono signal. Not playing a J either.

 

The problem is recording engineers who become yes men when they work for Rush. They don't stand up and say what's best for their project. All of their tones have gone awry in recent years because there is far too much reverence given to aging rock stars who can't hear worth a damn anymore. So things get brighter to compensate for standing in front of amps for 30 years then mix engineers have to shoehorn all those upper frequencies together and you end up with over compressed pieces of garbage like VT and CA.

 

Stop sucking their dicks. Everyone.

 

Like what happened to John Entwistle's tone over the years.

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Well a lot of what goes on in Geddy's tones are inspired by Entiwistle. Yeah, I wasn't crazy about John's live tone towards the end. Overtly bright for sure. It's hard to get definition when bass and guitar try to live in the same frequency spectrum.

 

If you want hear some great bass tone listen to Fleetwod Mac Rumours. It's pretty much a high end custom DI into an API console. In your face, strong and defined. The DI they used were custom boxes made by a friend of the recording engineer/producer Ken Calait. Super fat.

 

Geddy's tone hasn't been fat since Signals.

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