Dont forget cliff burton ;) his tone on ride the lightning was very simmilar to how geddy sounds here... they all had simmilar playing styles...rhythm plus melody and heavy right hand attack...i would even dare to say geezer butler too
Listen to any isolated bass from chris squire, entwistle or anyone and you get something that sounds like this. Thats the nature of isolating different instruments. I love all the crap wannabee musicains that criticize this and try to point out mistakes lol.
>mistakes Considering the man wrote the damn bass part, there is no such thing as a mistake! Every part is 100% what he played. That's true musicianship. Perfect notes are what robots play.
I still get goosebumps when I hear that bass line come in over Alex's harmonics. My first ever rock concert in 1981 at Maple Leaf Gardens. #BrushWithRush
funny thing, check out the tom sawyer bass track. the bass lines in the chorus are way simpler in the chorus chord progressions while geddy sings, but it just sounds heavier with fewer notes and gives the vocals more space. awesome guy!
It's actually not as hard as it sounds. That's the thing about singer-instrumentalists, the instrumental and vocal parts are often fitting together in ways that aren't obvious in the mix, but make it far easier to play. For instance, listen to the part right before the solo (my favourite part of the song, "Well weathered leather...") - what he's singing and what he's playing match up almost perfectly. So it sounds ridiculously impressive, but there's no cross-coordinating rhythms making it surprisingly easy to play and sing together.
@@joshuaboniface I've sang and played guitar for 12 years semi-professional and I found some songs to be very easy and others to take a very long time to work up. Some of the stuff Geddy does is very hard...Vital Signs, headlong flight and many others
I play along with this song, yes this IS Geddy. This proves that an isolated bass sounds quite a bit different than when it's buried in the mix. And no, he is NOT perfect. That's the cool thing about a human bass player as opposed to a sequencer.
I just learned this, he changes the bass notes around even during the verse, constantly, how the hell did he do this in concert? Amazing even more than I thought, what talent these guys had!
The bass melody on the verses like on minute 4:00 on this song are so magical. It gives me a nostalgic feeling that it is incredible. One of the best feelings listening to rush
Are people still dumb to the fact that these recordings are coming from Rush masters for games like guitar hero and rock band? They are as legit as it comes...
It amazes me that these so called Geddy fans and Rush fans cannot hear that it's EXACTLY what you said it is! It's scary to think some are cursed with ears that can't hear...this is Geddy all day...now and then. all the best brother...peace.
@@westleyp.crawford9758 The dead giveaway is all the things there that you *don't* hear in the mix. The little flourishes buried behind a drum hit or a guitar fill. No one ever catches those in a transcription, not even the best by-ear players. I love these for showing those little bits off, makes a playalong so much more fun looking for the little nuances.
Also the main riff is transcribed wrong everywhere. That alone basically proves that this is the real version because it does the proper A -> G -> E -> C -> B at 1:13 while most transcriptions are F -> E -> E -> C -> B which is what *Alex* is doing. I only learned this when I got the Jammit version and it's been my "tell" for listening to covers of who *truly* listens to the bass part and who just wings it.
I learnt this song, what I love about rush is their songs are hard, but that makes learning them so fun, it makes the pay off so much better nothing is better than playing playing along note for note to your favorite songs, you're fucking beast Geddy
This bit is one of my tells for good transcriptions these days (and I mean, like, the professional ones you pay for). If they miss that, they likely missed a lot more.
I absolutely love this song, particularly for the Bass line. And to think that most of the time whilst Geddy is laying this heavy handed riff down... he's singing a melody. Phenomenal! And that outro... Especially when I watch/hear it on their R30 DVD... I just imagine in my head that Geddy is pissed off at his axe... the grit of his tone is excellent!
Love this tune !! It fuckin rocks! Any young bass player should learn it. It's just awesome. It has a cool groove, learnable instrumental and nice places to add some of your own personality .
+Lynn Mason Really? is that true or urban legend? what are the odds for that to happen? and who could live with themselves knowing they had and pawned Geddy Lee's first bass ....lmao sucker!
Oh okay, I get the story now...lol he bought his first bass at a pawn shop,I thought that the first bass he ever owned was lost sold or stolen then one day walked into a pawn shop and seen it hanging there up for sale..., with an additional cigarette burn on the head stock.....lmao can you tell I'm a drummer?
Geddy's big two influences on bass guitar are Chris Squire (YES) and John Entwhistle (The WHO). You can hear that on a lot of RUSH songs. Geddy is a Great Bass Player !!!
Thanks for doing this and posting. I'm a bass player and it hard sometimes to be spot on when the other instruments are playing. Brilliant. Thanks Again your star Lynn From Scotland
The Overlord Of Procrastination THIS guy ?? It’s Geddy fucking Lee. Chris squire and entwhistle cant sing and play moog with feet while hitting these bass notes. Only Geddy Lee can do this and I wouldn’t be surprised if Squire and entwhistle had posters of Geddy Lee on their bedroom walls
Absolutely correct! A play a 74- 4001 Ricky. I play DR-High beams, run it through the Tech 21 Sansamp RPM. I bi-amp, overdrive and compress the bridge pickup and run the neck pickup clean. I do use a sonic maximizer stereo signal, run to two separate amps. And yes that bridge pickup is exactly how you hear it on this track. It's a thing of beauty! Now even after 35 years of playing, I could never hope to match Geddy's proficiency! All of that grind, clank and fret-buzz does sound fantastic in the mix! It does sound quite different when isolated.
This is definitely the original track, from beginning to end. Isolated tracks ~ speaking to my own recordings, especially ~ very often, never sound all that flattering by themselves, but within the mix, sound great. Also, when all the parts are mixed, certain notes can sometimes be heard (or, are implied), even if they weren't played. The drums (especially the bass drum) also plays a huge role in complimenting the bass, such that it may sound as though there's ie. an extra pluck of the string
I have a 1975 Rickenbacker 4001 and can say that the bass used here is a Rickenbacker. You cant get that tone out of any other bass. The growl and punch is a signature tone unmistakeable to Rickenbacher
You can tell by this time, Geddy started going mono out rather than Ric-O-Sound. I did the Ric-O-Sound thing in the beginning but it got old real fast with the gear hauling and possible points of failure. I go mono into my Line 6 POD HD500 and can get this sound no problem, hell just rolling back the neck pickup gets the Signals tone very easily.
One thing I notice in listing to this is that he's shoving the strings into the pickup covers/surrounds. You can sometimes hear an out-of-tune high note right on the attacks and the pitch of that note is always the same but only for each string. I like being able to slam the strings into the fretboard like that but I lower the pickup(s) enough so that doesn't happen.
after spending many hours trying learn this sucker, I can tell you that the fret buzz you hear at 5:24, is also on the recording. This definitely is Geddy, and is also the beautiful sound of a Ric.
I wish had figured out when I younger and playing on stage that a tiny bit of overdrive or distortion can make the bass cut through the mix like Geddy does. Now it's part of my tone.
Keep in mind, that Rock Band tracks ARE NOT the same the originals. The songs are usually have a bit different mixing: for example, ANY fade out endings are removed and songs end naturally. So this track may have some hearable differences.
red barchetta and camera eye are the rick. they sound similar up high, but when you get down bottom his rick sound has more growl, which you can here in this song big time. he blends the j bass sound with the lots of overdrive to give it that bite (as much as it can). The rest of the album is j bass. his sound on the j bass now covers all of their material pretty well
Yeah, this is the one. I think we just aren't used to hearing every fingernail scratch like this, so it is throwing some of us off. Or threw me off at first, but then all the years of hearing & listening for that bass took over. This is it.
You guys are kidding me... This is Geddy Lee. His Rick tone on Moving Pictures was this exact tone, this is just a little more overdriven than you are used to hearing. He used the Jazz bass on other songs on this album, but not this one.
I am not a Rush fanatic but I have always like this tune. As a prog rock style bassist, I was intrigued with the bassline but too lazy to learn it. This recording makes it much easier and I have learned it verbatim. The burning question. Is this Geddy Lee? It sounds fine when I play it along with the original recording but I haven't perused both recordings to pick out the anomalies.
This is very interesting and INDEED Geddy. I was sceptical as well and so I have on my PC the Moving Pictures album and so I thought if this is not Geddy then I should be able to play them at the same time and hear the difference between the playing. Well, after some trial and error I got them to sync, and guess what, It is indeed Geddy Lee's bass part. Try it yourself. And by the way, if you ever get the chance, Play with your band and record only your bass part, you won't beleive its you.
Interesting. Would like to read that interview. 4001 is difficult to EQ in a studio. Thanks for the response..at least we both can tell it's Geddy! No one has an attack like that.
At 5:29 on this the bass goes "diga dum", but in the original studio version it goes "diga da, diga dum". Also, at the very end on this he starts to repeat the A, F#, G, D pattern, but the studio album has him changing to playing what Alex is playing. Not saying it isn't Geddy, but it differs for whatever reason.
So can we get Geddy to do a commentation as he listens to this? I personally saw this happen live not with Rush but with Ed King from Lynyrd Skynyrd as he listened to the isolated Bass track of Freebird... And yes, Ed, not Leon played bass on the cut that made the album! He pretty much said it was too busy and he definitely would have used the "less is more" mind set if he could do it over again.
Many are saying in these comments that he’s playing a Rickie. I’m quite sure he recorded this playing a Jazz. And it sure sounds like one. Love Geddy’s playing. I've got a Geddy Jazz and a Jetglo Rickie, and Geddy's sansamp with a tube head, and both basses can drive this tone for sure. But the Jazz most closely resembles this tone. Both basses are superb, and we love Geddy for his incredible contributions to music, and his iconic bass playing.
If I recall correctly, Geddy played a fender on all songs on Moving Pictures except for this song and the bass fills in YYZ, where he used his Rickenbacker instead.
@Scepple The Rock Band version of this song is actually Rush, not a cover. And that's definitely Geddy. I've scoured over this song for decades, and what is on this track is what is on the album.
@tdelamont I would also like to add that this is probably only out of the bridge pickup of his rickenbacker. Which would explain the very trebly bite which isnt assss prevalent.
@Nikkodemis I agree. There's a certain "pumping" sound that comes out of a Ric in the higher register and I never heard it on the recording, but assumed that was the distortion. Without the rest of the mix in the way I can really hear those higher notes, and they have a much more even attack in that range. I have a vintage '73 4001 and a Squier VMJ (which felt and played identically to the Geddy Lee Jazz model next to it in the store), and this recording was done on a Jazz.
Ged's tone is very harmonically dense. Almost sounds like each note has an octave above playing at the same time. That comes from using a brighter sounding bass. (Rick or J). With new strings, distortion, and plucking the strings to death. Hence why the 3 piece sounded so big even live.
I love the isolated bass tracks, helps me to realize I'm overplaying and Geddy in fact plays less that I do/have been, less is more, even at his level. Secondly I was surprised that I did in fact learn it correctly, I just love playing RUSH tunes! Cheers to all!
One of my all time favorite bass lines and Ged is in my top 3 - Whoever played this track nailed it, but I'm sure its not Geddy. I dissected this bass line for content, feel, tone and phrasing years ago, and this isn't Geddy playing.
Ged was my main reason for getting 2 ricks (4001 v63 and 4003) but I have to go with this being a Jazz. No Rick Ive had or heard has that raspy bottom end like this even if run thru a tube pre-amp. My rig included Hartke 7000 amp - Tubeworks Bluetube preamp - Sonic Maximizer - midiverb III - Hartke 215XL for lows and 415XL on top . Ive only played American Jazz basses and owned a Squire Jazz once which was just awful and didnt last long. Doesnt truly matter since I love both Rics and Jazz!
I'm telling you, Red Barchetta and The Camera Eye are the Rick tracks. He said 'I think' after talking about Limelight and the Rick. I can be proven wrong but until then, this stands.
@jndlee92 After listening to this for the first time, I have to say this does appear to be Geddy indeed, but I would suggest that it may be a bedtrack or alternate trial version of the original. People are correct about the outro solo, at 5:30 there is a trill missing from the original recording. Also, the outro, as it fades, Geddy mimicks Alex's guitar line in the original. There is a flubbed note at 2:25 as well. No producer, or Geddy would let that get by.
I'm sure it was quite intentional for most bands lending tracks to Guitar Hero and the like, to provide alternate takes (when possible), rather than coughing up the ones that made it on the albums. They were probably smart enough to realize that people would start ripping tracks and posting them here. All the more reason to not provide the original track(s) if an alternate can be provided instead. That's certainly what I would do. In a away, it's kind of cool. I like hearing alternate takes. It helps me learn what types of takes the stars discard and which ones they keep.
***** You are correct. The isolated tone of instruments is quite different than what you hear when the band is included. This is totally Geddy and original. That little extra buzz is what helps the bass tone cut in the whole band setting. Guitar Hero had the budget for the masters after the 3rd game and Rock Band always had them. Hell people were throwing their masters at those games when they realized the incredible exposure to a younger crowd it was giving them.
Noah Stern I didn't say the buzz wasn't real and I KNOW they record different takes. I just heard Neil say so. I also didn't say it wasn't Geddy, I opined that it is not the take that is on the record. If you are going to pick at my comments, at least pick at what I actually said.
As someone who has slaved over this song as a teenager trying to learn it, and playing it for years, I can say with certainty that this is the original bass track to the song. All except for those strange missing notes at the end. They must have re-recorded that part. The rest of the song has every single auditory anomaly present on the record. Even the fret buzzing at 5:24 is present in full sing if you listen carefully.
@snapascrew I read an interview with Geddy where he was comparing his Rick tone to his Fender tone. He said Red Barchetta was recorded with the "Ricky" and Tom Sawyer was recorded with the Fender. He thinks there is an obvious tonal difference between the two bass tracks, because of the two different basses. I really can't say I can tell the difference.
This is def. Geddy playing, just a different track that they recorded. All bass tracks sound sssooooo much different when isolated from the guitar and drums.
It doesn't sound any different to me. It sounds just like Ged's distorted bass in 1980. It sounds like this when I play the song, too, only he is more fluid and precise than me (duh).
literally every rush song i’ve learned, i listen to the isolated bass and just think “motherfucker, i’m still playing it wrong.” i learned The Big Money like 6 months ago and there’s no isolated bass track online for me to compare, then i found a documentary where they play a snippet then i found out i was playing it completely differently.
before these isolated bass tracks I never realized how much overdrive Geddy was running. It's still subtle, but now it makes perfect how his naturalistic bass tone stands out so well in the mix, its not a nice tone, its got teeth in the overdrive, and of course in Geddy's hard hitting fingers. It makes sense he had to bi-amp in order to have the grit tone not yank the bass out of the deep tone.
Just so we're clear the Rock Band stuff is based on alternate takes and not the exact album cuts. yes it is geddy. no it may not be the precise cut, but it is geddy on his rick in 1980.
No two bass players ever made fret buzz and distortion sound as good as Chris Squire and Geddy Lee.
Totally agree
*stares in Lemmy*
Dont forget cliff burton ;) his tone on ride the lightning was very simmilar to how geddy sounds here... they all had simmilar playing styles...rhythm plus melody and heavy right hand attack...i would even dare to say geezer butler too
Agree.
5:17, one of my favourite bass fills ever
I agree, and nice pfp too
Listen to any isolated bass from chris squire, entwistle or anyone and you get something that sounds like this. Thats the nature of isolating different instruments.
I love all the crap wannabee musicains that criticize this and try to point out mistakes lol.
They may know a lot about their instruments, but know nothing about music. This fits perfectly with the overall mixing.
Every bass has fret buzz and clank, which makes it sound "sloppy", but in the mix it sounds fantastic.
WRONG DAVE, I play a FRETLESS Rick 4001 and I have NO Fret Buzz. LOL!
>mistakes
Considering the man wrote the damn bass part, there is no such thing as a mistake! Every part is 100% what he played. That's true musicianship. Perfect notes are what robots play.
@@joshuaboniface since he wrote it, maybe he wrote the mistakes and fret buzz :-) So playing the part without those would be playing it wrong! :-)
I had the bass around my neck ready to play along and just put it down. I'm done for the night.
Mark Lindell hahaha
Mark Lindell don’t fret! A lot of us experience that feeling with RUSH songs
@@fgs2732 no pun intended.."fret" haha
Ehhh it's not the trickiest rush song ever i can say that im about 65%there with this song. Working man it's out the question.
Lol
I still get goosebumps when I hear that bass line come in over Alex's harmonics. My first ever rock concert in 1981 at Maple Leaf Gardens. #BrushWithRush
hey bud, I was there too. sat in the greens
@@imontheoutsidelookingin2257 what a night! I was 12 or 13 and remember being blown away, sat in the greys.
My first concert was the same tour - but in Ottawa. FM opened for them. What a show!
The song that made me want a bass guitar when I was 13 in 2004. Still playing!
I was 14 when the song was released, it’s still one of my favorites! I’m still playing too🤘
He specifically states in an interview that he used the Rick on this song and the Jazz on Tom Sawyer.
Playing this is one thing but playing it while singing?? Holy shit! o.O
funny thing, check out the tom sawyer bass track. the bass lines in the chorus are way simpler in the chorus chord progressions while geddy sings, but it just sounds heavier with fewer notes and gives the vocals more space. awesome guy!
Yeah man, it's just impossible to me. Suddenly I start to sing with the bass and making the bass track with my mouth hahahahahaha
Don't forget that he also plays the synth pedals with his feet along with singing and playing the bass at points. Dude's an absolute monster
It's actually not as hard as it sounds. That's the thing about singer-instrumentalists, the instrumental and vocal parts are often fitting together in ways that aren't obvious in the mix, but make it far easier to play. For instance, listen to the part right before the solo (my favourite part of the song, "Well weathered leather...") - what he's singing and what he's playing match up almost perfectly. So it sounds ridiculously impressive, but there's no cross-coordinating rhythms making it surprisingly easy to play and sing together.
@@joshuaboniface I've sang and played guitar for 12 years semi-professional and I found some songs to be very easy and others to take a very long time to work up. Some of the stuff Geddy does is very hard...Vital Signs, headlong flight and many others
I play along with this song, yes this IS Geddy. This proves that an isolated bass sounds quite a bit different than when it's buried in the mix. And no, he is NOT perfect. That's the cool thing about a human bass player as opposed to a sequencer.
man I wish I could thumbs up your comment 80 times!
Westley P. Crawford
Thanks, man!
+Andey McFarlin Might not be prefect but I don't hear any mistakes. :)
same with cliff burton and steve harris...people bash them when they hear isolated track...and i like em even more...sheer raw power
Every bass has fret buzz and clank, which makes it sound "sloppy", but in the mix it sounds fantastic. That's what gives the band drive.
I just learned this, he changes the bass notes around even during the verse, constantly, how the hell did he do this in concert? Amazing even more than I thought, what talent these guys had!
The bass melody on the verses like on minute 4:00 on this song are so magical. It gives me a nostalgic feeling that it is incredible. One of the best feelings listening to rush
The bass absolutely sings on this track, and is how I knew that Bass was the instrument for me.
you need to listen Marathon my friend
Imagine driving in your car…looking in the rear-view mirror…and seeing this bass line coming at you!!
as long as you don't leave them at the one lane bridge
Are people still dumb to the fact that these recordings are coming from Rush masters for games like guitar hero and rock band? They are as legit as it comes...
It amazes me that these so called Geddy fans and Rush fans cannot hear that it's EXACTLY what you said it is! It's scary to think some are cursed with ears that can't hear...this is Geddy all day...now and then. all the best brother...peace.
@@westleyp.crawford9758 The dead giveaway is all the things there that you *don't* hear in the mix. The little flourishes buried behind a drum hit or a guitar fill. No one ever catches those in a transcription, not even the best by-ear players. I love these for showing those little bits off, makes a playalong so much more fun looking for the little nuances.
Exactly. If you don’t believe, download all the tracks at put them together and it’s the original fricking song lol.
Also the main riff is transcribed wrong everywhere. That alone basically proves that this is the real version because it does the proper A -> G -> E -> C -> B at 1:13 while most transcriptions are F -> E -> E -> C -> B which is what *Alex* is doing. I only learned this when I got the Jammit version and it's been my "tell" for listening to covers of who *truly* listens to the bass part and who just wings it.
What a lyrical bass line. Just stunning even on its own.
I learnt this song, what I love about rush is their songs are hard, but that makes learning them so fun, it makes the pay off so much better nothing is better than playing playing along note for note to your favorite songs, you're fucking beast Geddy
Daft Doggo I didn't know you can learnt a song.
X.x Justdoitfool x.X 2 typo my boi
WHOOOOOO YOUUU CALLINN BITCHH
Is learnting harder than learning?
"YOU ARE FUCKING BEAST GEDDY" .....Who? Who is Beast Geddy who are you talking to? Sorry, never learnt about the Beast.
That bass tone is so powerful.
Geddy is probably one of few bassist who doesn't require isolated bass tracks, because his present is always very apparent.
Same with Chris Squire
He's always said he played an A against Alex's F chord and it sounds triadishly awesome.
Triadishly? Nice!!!!!!
This bit is one of my tells for good transcriptions these days (and I mean, like, the professional ones you pay for). If they miss that, they likely missed a lot more.
Geddy is singing, playing bass pedals with his feet and playing bass at the same!!! I STAND NO CHANCE IN HELL!! I'M NOT WORTHY! I'M NOT WORTHY!!!
..and sometimes one-handing the bass with hammer-on notes while he plays keyboard right handed...
Well, that's live, in the studio he typically does the track separately than scrambles to figure out a way to play the parts live at the same time
Pure gold. He’s killing it. Let it rip.
Now that's a mighty fucking bass
I absolutely love this song, particularly for the Bass line. And to think that most of the time whilst Geddy is laying this heavy handed riff down... he's singing a melody. Phenomenal! And that outro... Especially when I watch/hear it on their R30 DVD... I just imagine in my head that Geddy is pissed off at his axe... the grit of his tone is excellent!
Love this tune !! It fuckin rocks! Any young bass player should learn it. It's just awesome. It has a cool groove, learnable instrumental and nice places to add some of your own personality .
Its cool seeing an old picture of him with his number 1
+aaron sibley Yeah that he found in a pawn shop for $200.00 with an added cigarette burn on the neck..
+Lynn Mason Really? is that true or urban legend? what are the odds for that to happen? and who could live with themselves knowing they had and pawned Geddy Lee's first bass ....lmao sucker!
+Abraham Michaud it'd be a cool story to tell. It never would have been Geddy's first bass if that guy hadn't pawned it.
Oh okay, I get the story now...lol he bought his first bass at a pawn shop,I thought that the first bass he ever owned was lost sold or stolen then one day walked into a pawn shop and seen it hanging there up for sale..., with an additional cigarette burn on the head stock.....lmao can you tell I'm a drummer?
@@abemichau4706 that's someone who I really want to find out, the person who owned Geddy's number 1 one he bought it
Aw fuck, man, that bass behind the guitar solo. Just shoot me. God, is that ever some amazing bass playing right there. Shit, this is SO GOOD.
Geddy's big two influences on bass guitar are Chris Squire (YES) and John Entwhistle (The WHO). You can hear that on a lot of RUSH songs. Geddy is a Great Bass Player !!!
Thanks for doing this and posting. I'm a bass player and it hard sometimes to be spot on when the other instruments are playing. Brilliant. Thanks Again your star
Lynn From Scotland
I’m no Rush fan but damn... this guy is kickass. Right up there with the overlord Chris Squire RIP.
The Overlord Of Procrastination THIS guy ?? It’s Geddy fucking Lee. Chris squire and entwhistle cant sing and play moog with feet while hitting these bass notes. Only Geddy Lee can do this and I wouldn’t be surprised if Squire and entwhistle had posters of Geddy Lee on their bedroom walls
Geddy blows both of them away. Search circumstances bass . He actually is singing while playing that. Crazy
Chris Squire is the God of pick playing. Geddy Lee is the God of finger plucking.
Victor Wooten is the god of slap bass.
never seen anyone be so proud to not be a Rush fan
@@jmroxx1 Ged is my #1, but Squire *was* singing while playing his lines a lot of the time. The harmonies were Anderson+Squire+Howe.
One of the best bass line in rock music, and one of the best bass sound ever.
"The sound" is heard on almost every '70s Rush and Yes song, it's definitely the overdriven Rick, not a specific compressor or mixer.
Absolutely correct! A play a 74- 4001 Ricky. I play DR-High beams, run it through the Tech 21 Sansamp RPM. I bi-amp, overdrive and compress the bridge pickup and run the neck pickup clean. I do use a sonic maximizer stereo signal, run to two separate amps. And yes that bridge pickup is exactly how you hear it on this track. It's a thing of beauty! Now even after 35 years of playing, I could never hope to match Geddy's proficiency! All of that grind, clank and fret-buzz does sound fantastic in the mix! It does sound quite different when isolated.
Great to hear this, & add the fact he's singing lead vocals on top!!
I can play this song 100% perfect on bass.
I love this track
nice
Me too. I did get confirmation on a couple notes too!
me too!
Playing it isn't the hard part. It's creating the bass part for the song that's is hard. Geddy is a genius when it comes to that.
@@Test4Echos absolutely, pure genius
This is definitely the original track, from beginning to end. Isolated tracks ~ speaking to my own recordings, especially ~ very often, never sound all that flattering by themselves, but within the mix, sound great. Also, when all the parts are mixed, certain notes can sometimes be heard (or, are implied), even if they weren't played. The drums (especially the bass drum) also plays a huge role in complimenting the bass, such that it may sound as though there's ie. an extra pluck of the string
This is the actual isolated Tra k no question.debate over...
100% positive Rick sound
My fender jazz sounds exactly like that with the neck pickup and three different overdrive's through my acoustic 600c combo
Guess that's why Geddy used both .🤘
@@evianx1 no it doesn't. Maybe similar, but a Jazz doesn't sound like a Rick.
@@parkerdavidson5868 pretty damn similar, both have single coils in similar positions
I’m pretty sure Geddy said he only used the Fender Jazz on Limelight and Vital Signs (though I could be wrong), so yeah I think it’s the Ricky
Like someone said learning to play it isn't the trick it's the fact he came up with this in the first place, that fret buzz, awesome.
Wow absolutely beautiful bass playing
...Yes, it is. It's unmistakably Geddy. That attack, that trebly powerful Rickenbacker...That's Geddy, all right.
I have a 1975 Rickenbacker 4001 and can say that the bass used here is a Rickenbacker. You cant get that tone out of any other bass. The growl and punch is a signature tone unmistakeable to Rickenbacher
Every time I read a comment, I have to listen to this again.
at 5:35 i think you can hear somone saying "ready"
Sounds like it!
1 of 3 instruments that makes this song come to life!
You can tell by this time, Geddy started going mono out rather than Ric-O-Sound. I did the Ric-O-Sound thing in the beginning but it got old real fast with the gear hauling and possible points of failure. I go mono into my Line 6 POD HD500 and can get this sound no problem, hell just rolling back the neck pickup gets the Signals tone very easily.
I have never bothered trying the Ric O sound on mine...just seems more like a pain in the ass than anything else...especially on a small stage..
One thing I notice in listing to this is that he's shoving the strings into the pickup covers/surrounds. You can sometimes hear an out-of-tune high note right on the attacks and the pitch of that note is always the same but only for each string. I like being able to slam the strings into the fretboard like that but I lower the pickup(s) enough so that doesn't happen.
My covers are a bit scratched from playing that way
More of this please! Not Rush covers or play alongs........... give me this!
Love this.. As a long time RUSH fan and a drummer, this is dope.
sick eraserhead poster.
It feels like it just never ends 🤩
Geddy is the Best Bass Guitartist ever!
It's a fabulous bass line and sits so well within the song and the mix - I need to get this tone... is it the Ric?
Yup
after spending many hours trying learn this sucker, I can tell you that the fret buzz you hear at 5:24, is also on the recording. This definitely is Geddy, and is also the beautiful sound of a Ric.
I wish had figured out when I younger and playing on stage that a tiny bit of overdrive or distortion can make the bass cut through the mix like Geddy does. Now it's part of my tone.
Keep in mind, that Rock Band tracks ARE NOT the same the originals. The songs are usually have a bit different mixing: for example, ANY fade out endings are removed and songs end naturally. So this track may have some hearable differences.
:) Having these semi-isolated tracks surely would have helped Wolf Marshall and Andy Aledort back in the 80's, but they managed! :)
Oh yeah kids… don’t forget he’s singing all the while.
🤩🔥
red barchetta and camera eye are the rick. they sound similar up high, but when you get down bottom his rick sound has more growl, which you can here in this song big time. he blends the j bass sound with the lots of overdrive to give it that bite (as much as it can). The rest of the album is j bass. his sound on the j bass now covers all of their material pretty well
Awesome. Great sliding notes.
I love that bass tone. Was this song recorded on the Jazz or the Ricky?
Rickenbacker on this and the camera eye, everything else is probably the Jazz bass.
Yeah, this is the one. I think we just aren't used to hearing every fingernail scratch like this, so it is throwing some of us off. Or threw me off at first, but then all the years of hearing & listening for that bass took over. This is it.
You guys are kidding me... This is Geddy Lee. His Rick tone on Moving Pictures was this exact tone, this is just a little more overdriven than you are used to hearing. He used the Jazz bass on other songs on this album, but not this one.
I am not a Rush fanatic but I have always like this tune. As a prog rock style bassist, I was intrigued with the bassline but too lazy to learn it. This recording makes it much easier and I have learned it verbatim. The burning question. Is this Geddy Lee? It sounds fine when I play it along with the original recording but I haven't perused both recordings to pick out the anomalies.
Thanks for posting this.
@corgang Its not wrong notes, its just a part leading up to the octaves, its written to be played that way on a sheet of music.
This is very interesting and INDEED Geddy. I was sceptical as well and so I have on my PC the Moving Pictures album and so I thought if this is not Geddy then I should be able to play them at the same time and hear the difference between the playing.
Well, after some trial and error I got them to sync, and guess what, It is indeed Geddy Lee's bass part.
Try it yourself.
And by the way, if you ever get the chance, Play with your band and record only your bass part, you won't beleive its you.
Interesting. Would like to read that interview. 4001 is difficult to EQ in a studio. Thanks for the response..at least we both can tell it's Geddy! No one has an attack like that.
At 5:29 on this the bass goes "diga dum", but in the original studio version it goes "diga da, diga dum". Also, at the very end on this he starts to repeat the A, F#, G, D pattern, but the studio album has him changing to playing what Alex is playing. Not saying it isn't Geddy, but it differs for whatever reason.
So can we get Geddy to do a commentation as he listens to this?
I personally saw this happen live not with Rush but with Ed King from Lynyrd Skynyrd as he listened to the isolated Bass track of Freebird... And yes, Ed, not Leon played bass on the cut that made the album!
He pretty much said it was too busy and he definitely would have used the "less is more" mind set if he could do it over again.
Many are saying in these comments that he’s playing a Rickie. I’m quite sure he recorded this playing a Jazz. And it sure sounds like one. Love Geddy’s playing. I've got a Geddy Jazz and a Jetglo Rickie, and Geddy's sansamp with a tube head, and both basses can drive this tone for sure. But the Jazz most closely resembles this tone. Both basses are superb, and we love Geddy for his incredible contributions to music, and his iconic bass playing.
If I recall correctly, Geddy played a fender on all songs on Moving Pictures except for this song and the bass fills in YYZ, where he used his Rickenbacker instead.
@@Sreven199 Jazz bass: tom sawyer, yyz, limelight. Rickenbacker, everything else on the album. Use yo earsssss. :)
oops, Witch Hunt is jazz bass too. :)
@@losingitrushI think witch hunt is Rick with tone rolled off and Vital signs is also Jazz bass
Geddy's Tone is so Beast!!!!
great tone
i might buy that geddy lee pedal.and grow my hair lol
@Scepple The Rock Band version of this song is actually Rush, not a cover. And that's definitely Geddy. I've scoured over this song for decades, and what is on this track is what is on the album.
@tdelamont I would also like to add that this is probably only out of the bridge pickup of his rickenbacker. Which would explain the very trebly bite which isnt assss prevalent.
Check out the Eraserhead poster. One of my favorite movies.
@Nikkodemis I agree. There's a certain "pumping" sound that comes out of a Ric in the higher register and I never heard it on the recording, but assumed that was the distortion. Without the rest of the mix in the way I can really hear those higher notes, and they have a much more even attack in that range. I have a vintage '73 4001 and a Squier VMJ (which felt and played identically to the Geddy Lee Jazz model next to it in the store), and this recording was done on a Jazz.
Ged's tone is very harmonically dense. Almost sounds like each note has an octave above playing at the same time. That comes from using a brighter sounding bass. (Rick or J). With new strings, distortion, and plucking the strings to death. Hence why the 3 piece sounded so big even live.
I love the isolated bass tracks, helps me to realize I'm overplaying and Geddy in fact plays less that I do/have been, less is more, even at his level.
Secondly I was surprised that I did in fact learn it correctly, I just love playing RUSH tunes!
Cheers to all!
His tone is really most obviously the ric but also its mainly his really heavy attack he beats the crap out of those strings to get that punchy tone.
One of my all time favorite bass lines and Ged is in my top 3 - Whoever played this track nailed it, but I'm sure its not Geddy. I dissected this bass line for content, feel, tone and phrasing years ago, and this isn't Geddy playing.
I totally feel the same way about the Professor's drumming. I'm 99.999% sure I can tell with just my ears when he's playing.
Ged was my main reason for getting 2 ricks (4001 v63 and 4003) but I have to go with this being a Jazz. No Rick Ive had or heard has that raspy bottom end like this even if run thru a tube pre-amp. My rig included Hartke 7000 amp - Tubeworks Bluetube preamp - Sonic Maximizer - midiverb III - Hartke 215XL for lows and 415XL on top . Ive only played American Jazz basses and owned a Squire Jazz once which was just awful and didnt last long. Doesnt truly matter since I love both Rics and Jazz!
I'm telling you, Red Barchetta and The Camera Eye are the Rick tracks. He said 'I think' after talking about Limelight and the Rick. I can be proven wrong but until then, this stands.
So much distortion ❤️
@jndlee92 After listening to this for the first time, I have to say this does appear to be Geddy indeed, but I would suggest that it may be a bedtrack or alternate trial version of the original. People are correct about the outro solo, at 5:30 there is a trill missing from the original recording. Also, the outro, as it fades, Geddy mimicks Alex's guitar line in the original. There is a flubbed note at 2:25 as well. No producer, or Geddy would let that get by.
I'm sure it was quite intentional for most bands lending tracks to Guitar Hero and the like, to provide alternate takes (when possible), rather than coughing up the ones that made it on the albums. They were probably smart enough to realize that people would start ripping tracks and posting them here. All the more reason to not provide the original track(s) if an alternate can be provided instead. That's certainly what I would do. In a away, it's kind of cool. I like hearing alternate takes. It helps me learn what types of takes the stars discard and which ones they keep.
Agreed. I hear a little too much buzzing for it to be the take that is on the record.
***** You are correct. The isolated tone of instruments is quite different than what you hear when the band is included. This is totally Geddy and original. That little extra buzz is what helps the bass tone cut in the whole band setting. Guitar Hero had the budget for the masters after the 3rd game and Rock Band always had them. Hell people were throwing their masters at those games when they realized the incredible exposure to a younger crowd it was giving them.
Noah Stern I didn't say the buzz wasn't real and I KNOW they record different takes. I just heard Neil say so. I also didn't say it wasn't Geddy, I opined that it is not the take that is on the record. If you are going to pick at my comments, at least pick at what I actually said.
As someone who has slaved over this song as a teenager trying to learn it, and playing it for years, I can say with certainty that this is the original bass track to the song. All except for those strange missing notes at the end. They must have re-recorded that part. The rest of the song has every single auditory anomaly present on the record. Even the fret buzzing at 5:24 is present in full sing if you listen carefully.
@snapascrew
I read an interview with Geddy where he was comparing his Rick tone to his Fender tone. He said Red Barchetta was recorded with the "Ricky" and Tom Sawyer was recorded with the Fender. He thinks there is an obvious tonal difference between the two bass tracks, because of the two different basses. I really can't say I can tell the difference.
Epic, Geddy is amazing.
This is def. Geddy playing, just a different track that they recorded. All bass tracks sound sssooooo much different when isolated from the guitar and drums.
It doesn't sound any different to me. It sounds just like Ged's distorted bass in 1980. It sounds like this when I play the song, too, only he is more fluid and precise than me (duh).
Just when I thought I learned it... Nope! So many nuances!
literally every rush song i’ve learned, i listen to the isolated bass and just think “motherfucker, i’m still playing it wrong.”
i learned The Big Money like 6 months ago and there’s no isolated bass track online for me to compare, then i found a documentary where they play a snippet then i found out i was playing it completely differently.
I did a side by side comparison with the bass version for the Jammit app. Yep, this is most definitely Geddy!!
The genius of Gary Lee Weinrib🎓
@Donniemeboy This IS Geddy. It's a master track ripped ripped STRAIGHT from Rock Band.
before these isolated bass tracks I never realized how much overdrive Geddy was running. It's still subtle, but now it makes perfect how his naturalistic bass tone stands out so well in the mix, its not a nice tone, its got teeth in the overdrive, and of course in Geddy's hard hitting fingers. It makes sense he had to bi-amp in order to have the grit tone not yank the bass out of the deep tone.
It's not a nice tone? Really? I think it sounds fucking awesome.
I really need to relearn this song. Such non-obvious notes in places.
Just so we're clear the Rock Band stuff is based on alternate takes and not the exact album cuts. yes it is geddy. no it may not be the precise cut, but it is geddy on his rick in 1980.
Just watched an interview with Geddy, where he plainly stated that this was done on a Rick. It was part 1 of the interview in the suggestions.
Was this recorded with the Rick or the Jazz?
Between 5:29 and 5:30, there is a slight deviation in the fill from the album track. Either a different take or a punch in.
only one! sic,sic,sic
This not the track that made it to the album, but it is absolutely Geddy and his Ricky.
Really? WRONG, listen again Mr.Merk
Edit: sounds like the basic track with some "punch in's" towards the end.
There are some differences in the line.
Wrong Merk, Geddy said himself he recorded this song on his Fender Jazz
I agree - it's definitely Geddy playing but the album version has two (rather than only one) triplets at 5:29.
Massive......