Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Me and a bass player buddy were on the way to work this morning with yes fragile cranked up and he asked me what Squires amp choice was back then . I was told along time ago that it was fender dual showman heads .Does anyone out there know what his amp of choice was then ? What does he use now ?

When I saw them live in '73, he had what appeared to be a blackface Showman or Bandmaster over a 2 x 15 cabinet, and a tan face Sunn Coliseum Lead over a Sunn 6 x 10. All speakers had silver voice coil dust covers, so I assume they were JBL or Altec. Now he's Ampeg and Marshall. Pretty good details of his rigs are listed on his website. Chances are pretty good he may have used his rig in the studio too, or a blend of it and direct signal.

As far as I can tell apart from the Sunn amps Squire always had the old Marshall Superbass in his setup in the 70s. There are pictures of him using Fenders in early 70s setups.Dont forget he split the output from his bass so that the Superbass produced the distortion on the topend.
I find you get as good a bass sound as Squire with an Ampeg SVT3 using the valve drive and eq.
In fact in recent photos of Chris with the SYN he was using the SVT3 top and SVT cab.
Remember also when listening to Fragile that its a studio recording and theres a semi acoustic bass following the Rick on a "ghost" track.Crank up the volume and listen to YESSONGS to get a truer idea of Chris Squires live 70s sound as I heard it from the front row of the Free Trade Hall Manchester.The sound isnt perfect but the energy there is enormous.

Chris's take on recording circa 73 (as stated in Tom Mulhern's Bass Heroes) is that he refused to DI, claiming that "it rules out all you've done previously to get your own sound". Cool book BTW.

I also saw Squire with Yes back in 1974 (or '73?), and he was using a blackface Dual Showman with its 2x15" JBL cab.

"Remember also when listening to Fragile that its a studio recording and theres a semi acoustic bass following the Rick on a "ghost" track"

Actually CS doubled the Ric bass part on a Gibson acoustic guitar.

Chris's take on recording circa 73 (as stated in Tom Mulhern's Bass Heroes) is that he refused to DI, claiming that "it rules out all you've done previously to get your own sound".

I still agree 100%, and thank God more and more soundmen (and ladies although I've never seen one) have seen the light in the past few years.

Bob, I had a protracted argument with a recording engineer many years ago on the same subject. He was recording my band at the time! It was an argument I won in the end though; there was certainly no DI for me that day, although obviously it depends exactly what you're trying to achieve, and I have DI'd on occasion since. I generally prefer not to though, particularly when playing rock.

The three times I was fortunate enough to catch YES live in the '70's I saw three different rigs being used. In each instance every cab had a microphone on it as well.
1) Fender Dual Showman w/Reverb Heads and 2x15 JBL (I presume)loaded Showman cabs.
2) Black Face Dual Showman with the aforementioned 2x15 cab. Marshall Superbass with a Marshall 4x12 cab.
3) Sunn heads (Coliseum Bass and Lead) The Energy 2x15 cab and the Sunn 6x12 (V-angled front baffle board)for cabs. "Close To The Edge" tour Alan White's second night live with the band in Milwaukee.

in the 60s Squire used what looked like a fender bassman type amp ... in the 70s he was using the Sunn amp with a couple sunn 6x12 cabs ... these days he seems to have 2 amps ... an ampeg svt and something else ...

Steve is bang on with Chris's gear so far as I'm aware. "Bass Heroes" says that in the Syn he originally used a Vox AC30 with two Vox cabs. Apparently he moved to the Marshall when Yes was formed but after a year or so went out on the road with 2 Fender Dual Showman's and four Fender cabs (15s I believe). He wasn't happy with the sound and so switched to two Sunn 6x12s. Apparently he played the first US tour using a Sunn lead guitar amp after being given a bass amp and 4x12 and being unhappy with it. He then bought a Coliseum lead amp when he returned to London.

His Marshall is still in use. During the 80s (?) he also got hold of an SWR-400 and 2 fifteen inch Energy cabs for 5 string use but I think they were eventually just used for his bass pedals.

I had heard that he also used the Acoustic guitar cabs with two 15s and the horn in them. Anyone else heard that?

Speaking of Yessongs, has anybody bought the remastered CD? I just saw it last week and wondered how much better they made it. The older CD version is pretty bad IMHO.