The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Bass Zone => Topic started by: Granny Gremlin on September 27, 2016, 01:56:29 PM
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Cliff Burton. Playing a Ric. Mudbucker in neck; J in bridge. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoDQl4gT3jA
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I remember my first time hearing the Kill 'em All record, in my friend's car around 1984. I was shocked and amazed.
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I knew a guy in high school (around '81) who had the same setup. Is that a burgundy 4001? Could almost be the same bass.
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I used to dream of putting a mudbucker on my Ric when I was in high school. Why? I have no idea. Guess I thought it would "improve" it somehow. I now love toaster reissues.
George, yes, burgundy.
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That was a lot more listenable than most bass solos. I thought the tone was kinda cool too.
Wonder how he balanced the pickups. Does anybody know, did he run those mono out or was it a stereo cable to separate amps or what?
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IMHO a mudbucker is a very good fit for this kind of pickguard aesthetically. The sound is not so bass heavy as you'd expect, because the jazz pickup loads the hotter mudbucker so youalmost dont hear it. You just hear a beefier jazz pickup. I think this bass had also a strat pickup "hidden" inside the bridge.
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At one point I had a DiMarzio J bass pup in my old Ric.......... It got changed back eventually.
I still miss that bass a lot. :-[
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Still sounds like a Ric.
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LOL, part of that may be the low end rolloff of the typical OD/Dist pedals of the time.
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Because of the body shape of the RIC, I have found that whatever pickup is in there, it still sounds like a RIC.
Play it unamplified, and it sounds like a RIC.
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Because of the body shape of the RIC, I have found that whatever pickup is in there, it still sounds like a RIC.
I agree. There's something about that neck position. Might have something to do with the huge route in the wood up there too.
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Obviously pickup postition influences the sound, but I wouldn't expect to replace a toaster with a mudbucker and get similar results.
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No, it won't sound the same, but there's still some truth to it. It's a combination of things, the construction, the bridge, the height of the fretboard above the body and probably a few more I haven't thought about. Look at it another way, put toasters in a P-Bass, it won't sound like a Ric.
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That would be a nice thread on it's own; pictures of muddified basses. Mudbucker equipped Gibson basses may not have a broad appeal, but the mud spice seem to have pleased more than just a few musical taste buds over the years. Maybe Gibson would be better off not making bass guitars, they could offer a mudbucker/router template kit and make thousands :)
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Does Gibson even make it's own pickups anymore?
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Jim De Cola of Gibson designed the Bass humbucker for the EB14 and Thunderbird.
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Gibson still makes their own guitar pickups, and the traditional bass pickups were made in house. No reason to think they would farm out the DeCola-designed bass pickup, although you never know with Gibson.
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I just figured Henry J would be the biz schooltype to outsource stuff like that (non-core business) for costs saving reasons. They are using other name brands of pickup in some guitar models after all.
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I'm always surprised at how melodic Cliff's bass solos were. The tone on that video is quite unusual. It is a little like the wah is also somehow controlling the level of the distortion, so it is a blend of clean with a rising/lowering distortion and wah effect. Not perhaps my favorite tone, but it is definitely the Cliff tone. I've heard a few bootlegs where he used an octave effect alongside all the other stuff.
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I liked that a lot, really tasteful and melodic. I never heard one of his bass solos in such good quality. Impressed. I knew he was very good, but this exceeded expectations.
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Cliff was so good, Rickenbacker should make a signature bass for him. Mudbucker and all! I bet it would sell.
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With onboard distortion! Cliffenbacker.
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I'm always surprised at how melodic Cliff's bass solos were. The tone on that video is quite unusual. It is a little like the wah is also somehow controlling the level of the distortion,
It sounds like maybe the wah is after (some of?) the distortion, so that it filters out varying amounts of the treble.
I think you're right that there's blending going on too.
Possibly via routing to different amps? Otherwise all that fuzz would obscure the attack when he plays more percussively. Not sure if the clean signal is really clean or just less distorted :)
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I think it's the camera mic limiting the sound on the louder distorted parts making the cleaner ones louder on tape at least. That is no board feed.
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I think it's the camera mic limiting the sound on the louder distorted parts making the cleaner ones louder on tape at least. That is no board feed.
I can't listen to it at the moment as I've misplaced my headphones at work. From memory it sounded like a mix of open-mic audio and a DI feed of some sort. A slightly nasty stereo image, again from memory.
Cliff's early pedal setup was, apparently a Morley Power Wah Boost and an MXR Limiter. Fairly early on his Rick gained a Gibson EB pickup at the neck, a Seymour Duncan Jazz bass pickup in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan stacked Stratocaster pickup in the mute cavity of the bridge itself. I've not discovered how any of this was wired up, however.
There should be an image at the end of the following URL. In it you see the two pedals, the unmodded Rickenbacker, and an amp stack with both a Peavey Mk IV head and a Sunn (Beta?) head as well. Anybody good at working out which output jack Cliff is using?
http://images.equipboard.com/uploads/source/image/13422/big_f55b2e.png?v=1433263706 (http://images.equipboard.com/uploads/source/image/13422/big_f55b2e.png?v=1433263706)
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I believe he used a Morley Power Wah Fuzz. Not sure how those work, but I imagine the pedal action might be able to affect the distortion part along with the wah?
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There is a hand-written note floating around that Cliff made for a fan. In it he mentions the Morley Power Wah Boost, rather than the fuzz derivative. I think he used a Muff at some point? In the following picture his signal chain looks like an Ibanez TS into a/the Morley then into the MXR Limiter:
(http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo3/666Demo666/Cliff.jpg)
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When I looked up power wah fuzz on YouTube, I came across someone who was saying that that was his original pedal, but then he switched to the power wah boost and added a tube screamer.
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The Power Wah Boost is pretty extreme. I think it explains the tone in the video at the start of this thread. Check out the demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrQJg-ZIFiE
At extremes the wah basically filters out so much that you hear next to no signal passing through. I think Cliff was using the Ric-O-Sound output on his bass, with the neck pickup driving an OD or fuzz through the Morley Power Wah Boost. His bridge pickup is running through a limiter (MXR or early Boss?) into a seperate amp. We are hearing the bridge pickup (maybe just a Jazz pickup, or with the Strat pickup in the bridge cavity as well), all the the time. The Morley is so extreme as to be basically mixing the dirt in and out of the signal, as well as that wild wah tone.
I like Cliff's slightly exasperated little hand gesture when he wants Lars to come in on the drums. It is almost like he wanted Lars to be more of a musician and to be following his little bass suite, but instead it was back to rehearsal room visual cues. :o Who knows!
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Amtech made a comment about "Mudified" instruments... obviously there's Mel Schacher's Jazz... anyone other than me with one in a Thunderbird...?
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A guy from another board that I just sold some parts to is selling one of those Morley fuzz wahs.