Wanna sound like Geddy

Gear
#1

Hello bassmates.

A gray 2021 day here in Pennsylvania. Module 9 is going well, and now I’m relaxing by listening to Rush’s Limelight. Geddy Lee’s strongly mid-range, gritty tone is fantastic.

My question is this: What knobs and buttons to I have to tweak to at least get a little growl and grit?

I have a Sterling StingRay 4HH and a Fender Rumble 40 amp. Love the setup for its mellow, deep tone - especially on the E and A strings. But sometimes I crave a bit more ‘edge’. Thanks for any helpful hints.

-Ken

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#2

Try turning the stingray pickup selector towards the bridge pickup, and turn up midrange on the EQ. And overdrive on the amp (or a pedal.)

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#3

I am nt as familiar with the set up of the Stingray basses but I run a squire Jbass and my neck pick up sits at about 70% and the bridge is at max, tone I find the squire has a lot of tinny sounds on the higher strings so I rolled the tone back a good bit. If I am recording I run my amp through a DAW until it starts to clip and back it off a little. Then I play with some attack on the strings and get a good growl when needed. Geddy always used a DI set up which if you are using a program like logic pro on iMac you can actually find online a setting on the amp selector for DI amp and tweek it pretty good. There is one site that will give you a starting point. While I just covered rush in the post your covers thread I used my TC electronic amp to get the sound I wanted

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#4

Geddy uses Tech-21 Sansamp…and now has his signature pedal from them. That would probably be the easiest way to get there.

4 Likes
#5

On the one hand I’m tempted to say that will be hard to do with a ray. Otoh, he kept pretty much the same sound with a fender and a ricky, which I can’t think of two more different basses. So yeah, if you can swing it I think the easiest solution would be the sansamp geddy pedal.

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#6

Yeah. Though honestly a lot of his tone does kind of just sound like a normal J-bass to me.

Now how he got THAT out of a Rick…

1 Like
#7

I think it’s just a midrangy distorty thing.

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#8

I’m willing to bet rolling his 'ray to the bridge, boosting mids, and getting a little warm overdrive going will get close.

#9

Geddy, in his own words, is an “obnoxious bass player”. It might help to think of yourself in those terms to get the sound your looking for.

4 Likes
#10

Thanks, good people.
I tried Howard’s initial suggestions, working with the gear I have. That was a big step in the right tonal direction.
I then went back to the Module 9 dynamics lesson and played ‘obnoxiously’. (Although, as fellow Torontonians, Geddy and I have to really concentrate to get there.)
And the Geddy pedal…sigh… That’ll have to wait until I someday escape the guest bedroom and start jamming with other human beings.
Great suggestions all. Many thanks.
-Ken

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