It’s one thing to hear an isolated Rush studio track played by Geddy Lee, but totally another to hear the raw live sound.
Below is Rush playing The Spirit of Radio live with Geddy’s bass isolated. You hear all the string buzzing, all the fret clacking, all finger dragging across the strings, all the string mashing, and so on. It’s all there where Geddy sounds like he’s banging on piano strings…
…and it’s absolutely glorious.
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Remember, even with the right pickups and the right tone, what matters is how you play. Listen to the track below, and if you want to try it out on your own bass, don’t be afraid to be “dirty” with your play style. These are not the smooth tones of Motown but rather the in-your-face sound of rock ‘n’ roll. Keep that in mind when learning your Geddy bass lines.
(Note: Audio starts at 7 seconds)
I love that tone. That’s a Rickenbacker, isn’t it? What else do we know about that tone? Acoustic head and cabinet with a mic or two? Who’s got further non-speculating info?
No, it’s not a Rick, he plays Fender Custom Shop Jazz Bass built to his specs. You can buy Geddy Lee J Bass from Fender.
That is his jazz bass on this track.
That’s the black jazz bass V2 through two demeter preamps and an accoustic amp of I don’t know what brand, always too dark on stage to see.
Its the 1972 Jazz Bass, with a custom shop neck.
If the audio is the same era as the picture, then Geddys the signal chain, is a combination of 4 lines:
A Sansamp rack mounted preamp, a Palmer speaker simulator used as a straight di, another Palmer, taking a feed from an Orange AD200 valve bass head and a final di taken from an Avalon U5 preamp di.
That much treble makes it sound more like his early years and if it’s live it’s a Ric not fender. In the late 70’s and early 80’s he always played a Ric live which is what that sounded like to me. In his later years he went back to solely playing a fender which he said in an interview he used more bass and less treble ( or crunch as he called it).
This recording was made with a jazz bass with stainless steel round wound strings, played up around the neck pickup to get slap off the neck.
I can get that sound playing my jazz aggressively in that spot on the body, coupled with a combination of a tech 21 RBI preamp and a tech 21 vt bass pedal.
Geddy hasn’t used an amp on stage in years. No speakers only in ear monitoring.
Hope this helps.
Geddy Lee is my King of the Bass; his tone is always great and he always has something interesting going on underneath his vocal parts that doesn’t just follow those patterns. He inspired me when I was actively playing and I still admire his playing to this day.
This was the first song that got me into Rush as a 14 year old. The sound of Geddy Lee playing was like nothing I’d heard before. J J Burnel of The Stranglers was the nearest anybody came to sounding like Geddy Lee. I love this track and Geddy’s playing is wonderful