Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

A Marshall super bass at max volume isn't THAT much distorted.
Listen to Lemmy

I always wondered what distortion Geddy used. I always assumed that he just played really really hard on the Ric. I play incredibly hard either right in front of the bridge pickup, or right over the back edge of the neck pickup, and I can get it to sound very similar to Geddy's kind of overdrive effect that he always had.

Mids are awesome. Nothing better for aggressive sound than lots of mids. My Genz Benz amp actually has a "Shape" knob instead of just a switch that scoops mids, so I can go from no scooping to mild to all the way very easily, rather than being stuck with only "none" or "all". It's incredibly useful for me when I don't want a lot of growl, because I can't really play lightly.

I saw a band tonight ... the 2 guitars were too distorted and overdriven and had an unpleasant nasal tone ... the drums sounded like cardboard boxes and the bass was boomy with a little bit of dinky highs ... and the vocals were feeding back ... bummer ... the band wasn't too bad but their tone was bad ... they all needed some warm mids ... except the drums were all mids and no highs and lows ...

Ive just begun experimenting with distortion. All these years I've tried to get the "Squire", "Geddy" tone the obvious has escaped me. And that is "distortion".

Just to see if I liked it, I bought a Digitech X-series bass distortion pedal for 25.00 bux off of Ebay. I must say, the possibilities are endless now, Its really got me thinking. I cant believe I've overlooked this all these years, (my neigbors didnt like me very well last weekend). I like just a little distortion, adding a little breakup when playing hard.

I'll probably be trying the Pod, and Sansamp now.

Playing with the gain/master settings will give you that attack controlled breakup that comes pretty close to Geddy's sound, but a mix of slightly distorted signal with clean is what he has used for a long time. It's funny, but I always looked for that tone as well, but didn't realize it was distortion either!

Here's what I picked up, nothin fancy, but very user friendly. $25.00 on Ebay. Not bad sounding.

John Wetton is THE man for THAT distorted sound... a la King Crimson - Red...

It's the most poinyant time I wanna put down my Ric and play a Precision... simply awesome sound you could only get with tubes and a P.

I have a CD with 2 vinyl lps on it ... King Crimson USA and King Crimson Red ... John Wetton puts on a clinic of bass playing and how to use Distortion and mids to sound good ... very cool ...

Jeff, every time I see your posts about the bass pod, they make me want to run right out and get one...then the little voice inside my head says:
remember the first bass pod that almost got flung out the window!!

I bought my bass pod on a Friday and by Sunday night I was ready to throw it out the window as well ... but I put it aside for a couple of days and got back into it ... first of all the directions on how to use the bass pod will guarantee an unpleasantly bad tone ... they say bass=0 middle=10 treble=0 on the bass amp that the pod runs into ... I know a guitarist who gigged with his amp set that way ... it really sucked ... also for recording I use the pod on amp mode ... on direct more it gets too muddy ...

When I use a bass pod first get a good setting on my bass amp ... I set my bass and mid and treble in the 4-6 range ... I boost high and low mids and cut middle mids on my graphic eq ... then I model amp 360 with a distortion device added ... and I use compression ... the result is a most beautiful tone ... So to use any effect I say get a good tone on your amp first without the effect the add the effect ...

To get a Geddy/Squire tone you need to play aggressively, have low action, use round wound strings, and have a little distortion ... it is not just turning up the treble ... a controled amount of fret buzz and a controlled amount of distortion are necessary ...

Joey ... If I ever meet you at a confluence or something I will bring my pod and show you how I use it ... I find I can make an inferior amp sound good and a good amp sound great ...

I use Korg AX10B

All I need:

"Joey ... If I ever meet you at a confluence or something I will bring my pod and show you how I use it ... I find I can make an inferior amp sound good and a good amp sound great" ...

I'd appreciate that, I hope I do meet you at a confluence or something...you probably will get me to buy a Bass Pod again someday! LOL

If you guys do a so cal confluence again I may come ... I would love to see the Ric factory ...