Owners of pre-1984 S models and new "64" models

foolycooly · Post by **foolycooly** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:54 am

Yes my horshoe is capped. Keep in mind guys. Paul played with picks, thumbs and fingers. There's really no telling, but on the Anthology his Ricky is all horseshoe during All you need is love and he used his thumb on that. His bass amp was mic'd, there's no telling what he set his Vox amp at either. But remember this, more gain on the amps gives you more growl. you'll gain bottom by kicking the gain down and the level up, kicking the bass up a little, rolling the trebble back a little, keeping the mid higher than the trebble, etc. Flatwound strings also come into play. Who knows how old his were. Everything was different back then. I think we as bass players are spoiled by the new tech that's available to us. Catch my drift?

teeder · Post by **teeder** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:57 am

I seen a few, more candid shots, of Sir Paul in the studio, that still have the selector in the down position. It certainly doesn't look staged, though alot are.

Here's another question.

Macca's bass had a hi-gain installed before Wings Over America, but in the Beatle Gear book, there is a picture of the bass "as it is today" that has what appears to be a horseshoe. Did he have a re-issue pu installed?
I've never seen this addressed.
If he did have it installed, it must mean he still uses it some, right?

foolycooly · Post by **foolycooly** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:02 am

That is actually an old picture honestly. i've seen that photo around before that book ever came out.

wints · Post by **wints** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:28 am

Kevin, we debated the Macca switch position a while back. Personally, I think that his bass may be wired in reverse and that down is the toaster and not the horseshoe. I have two 64 RM1999's (both with cap) and they sound nothing like Macca's tone when just the horseshoe is being used. They are thin, kind of nasaly with very little bottom. The toasters on the other hand just boom. Both very loud and with huge bass. I personally find it hard to believe in all the pics you see of him playing with the toggle down, between the p/ups that he's actually just on the horseshoe given the tone...

maplered · Post by **maplered** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:37 am

In the video of All You Need is Love, where it is being performed live, his switch is in the middle.

Also, in the pics of the Hey bulldog sessions, his switch is in the middle.

maplered · Post by **maplered** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:38 am

FYI Kevin, yes I believe that is a reissue horseshoe in their now. I'm not sure who posted the info regarding that, it might have been Nick Thiel?

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:09 pm

Yes, it is, one of the reissue C64's, the S I believe is like his 1999 is today. He had a specially made high gain built at Ric for a while after his toaster went dead during the early 70's, I'm not sure when that pickup was taken out and the reissue horseshoe installed but it was done. Mark Arnquist did some of the work on his bass, the finish work I believe.
I have often thought too that maybe the toggle switch was wired upside down.
Nolan I use all tube amps (made in the 70's with very good tone sections) and flatwounds (except for one bass) I'm the original curmudgeon when it comes to modern effects, I use 0, ask anyone here, haha!

bear · Post by **bear** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:27 pm

There was bubble caption article in BP magazine in which they talked to Geoff Emmerick (sp?)about recording Paul's bass.

The previously unknown points, to me, were

(1)they pulled his Vox amp out of the baffles and into the middle of the studio, late at night with no one else there.

(2) They used the figure eight pattern on the microphone when they miked the amp. Geoff made a big deal about this being his personal opinion of where a lot of the sound/tone came from. They did not close mike the amp but set the microphone an undisclosed distance from the amp in the middle of the room.

(3) They often miked the amp using another speaker cabinet as the transducer into the tube compressor into the board and then to tape.

(4) The final ingredient was to make the bass prominent in the mix and was accomplished by mixing everything but the bass to a composite level of -3 dB and then bringing up the bass channel until the composite level went to 0.

I do recall using a Vox AC-100 head during a battle of the bands back in the late 60's into a Westminster bass cabinet with the Goodman 18.
I remember thinking it sucked because it was all boom and click no matter where you set the two tone controls, and the Top Boost added even more clack to the sound.

I also recall Duck Dunn talking about recording bass tone, to paraphrase it went something like this, if it sounds really thin and like the most horribly clanky sound to ever come out of a bass amp you're there, upon playback it sounds perfect, but when you are right on top of the amp the tone just stinks.

I can verify the truth in this when I have soloed my bass parts during playback but in context it was perfect.

YMMV as this is probably not even .02 cents worth of info.

foolycooly · Post by **foolycooly** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:50 pm

Why would they wire just his bass in reverse? If that was the case why wasn't Chris Squire's bass or John Entwistle's I think the sound he got came from the engineers, and his playing. I can get the same sound from my 84 4003S with horseshoe pickup and a toaster in the neck. Its really a lot of sitting down and just fiddling with amplifier and bass guitar settings. I took me about two listens to MMT and one listen of Sgt. Pepper's to get the same sound. Its really not as big of a mystery as a lot of people think it is. Its a matter of patients. I had to get the crispness out of my flats when they were still new. I had to fiddle with settings on my amp. Even the volume can make or throw off the sound.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:26 pm

Because his is left handed and upside down. If they used a right handed wiring harness the toggle switch would work upside down in a left handed bass. I don't know if that's what happened but it's a very plausible idea and has been talked about here before also. I don't think any of us will really ever know a lot of stuff about what really went on in The Beatles recordings except what we read and nowhere does it say what pickups he used on anything.
I have a 72 4001 and before I bypassed the cap in it with flatwounds it had so little bass it was almost non-existent compared to the toaster, the old pickups were different than the newer ones, they were much less hot. I think most of his stuff was both pickups, some was toaster and a little bit was only horseshoe but that's just my opinion as all of our opinions are just that: our opinions.
Actually if you have a copy of the Magical Mysterey Tour LP his toggle switch is in the up position in the photo. What's that mean? Who knows?

foolycooly · Post by **foolycooly** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:57 pm

Also don't forget that his sound also was determined by where on the bass he played. Obviously if he played in front of the bridge pickup the tone would be warmer than if he played behind it. I personally play behind it, so I adjusted my sound to have that same warm tone as if I'm playing before the bridge pickup.

wints · Post by **wints** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:40 pm

Nearly all the 60's guys played in front of the horseshoe. The toasters on the original RM1999's are far more powerful than the treble and I think the majority of people playing at the time felt that this was the tone to have.
Bob's right about the wiring etc...The L/H loom does not go righty. I think Gerry's 64 has the toggle wired back to front, treble up, bass down. Quality control was not quite to the standards of today. You see these things from time to time with all 60's Rickenbackers..

teeder · Post by **teeder** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 2:56 am

"Because his is left handed and upside down. If they used a right handed wiring harness the toggle switch would work upside down in a left handed bass."

That's exactly what I thought. His was one of, if not the first, left handed Rick Bass. So, they may not have had a left handed wiring harness.

foolycooly · Post by **foolycooly** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:04 am

hmm, I suppose anything is possible. Its weird though because I can get that same sound using my capped horseshoe. Maybe I'm just lucky eh?

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 6:18 am

Do you have a real horseshoe in yours Nolan or a reissue? They were very different in sound, the reissue had much more bottom and was wound a lot more with stronger magnets.
There is only one thing that I've thought of, maybe the horseshoes when new were much more powerful than they are now but I still don't think that would explain the switch being on the horseshoe alone. Andy is right about most bassplayers back then, they wanted maximum boom out of their basses, the deeper the better. The was a period when bass players were putting neck pickups in P basses for example, usually EB-0 pickups, sometimes toasters. I bought a 68 P bass in 1977 that had had an EB-0 pickup in it right next to the neck. I took it out and gave it back to the guy.