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For all you Justin Chancellor fans!


blind pilot
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[quote name='RhysP' post='955114' date='Sep 13 2010, 05:55 PM']My brother has got one - he's been offered stupid money for it but he won't sell it.
God knows why, it sounds like a piece of sh*t.[/quote]
haha yeah, i love the looks of them and they do an absolute killer over the top fuzz sound if you get lucky and it's bias'd right i totally wouldn't pay what they're worth for one though

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[quote name='Chris2112' post='956130' date='Sep 14 2010, 03:55 PM']Hopefully this will further end the obsession with his Wal basses - he could be playing anything through all those pedals and you wouldn't know the difference! A real shame, as Wal basses don't half sound amazing when you let their tone shine through![/quote]

i disagree completely with that, probably about 50% of tool tracks are clean bass, and that wal is immediately recognisable. justin said himself he had another made to the exact spec but it wasn't a patch on his original. if that wal tone wasn't so fundamentally important to him he wouldn't of gone to the trouble and you'd probably see him playing stock fenders or something.

you can't get close to his tone without a wal, more specifically the wal EQ. the song 'the patient' for example, that wah-like effect at the start is him sweeping a control on his trademark wal's eq.

this video has ruined my life... i now want that setup...

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To be honest, I think the same thing can be attained with a MM Bongo. That was the result of a long discussion TB discussion about Justin's tone and how best to emulate it. I passed the advice onto a friend of mine who is a real Tool fanatic. He bought an HH Bongo and presto, instant Chancellor tone.

So, it might not have the low pass filter for doing a "wah sweep" but in terms of actual tone, it's so damn close it's unreal. I think a large part of this is that Justin plays with a pick, which does away with the natural Wal tone anyway (round, burpy and middy). Especially when his sound is so often buried in effects...and to an audience, they won't know the difference even if you played the songs with a bloody P bass!

But being a pedantic bassist, I'd advise a Bongo. It will easily do a 90% impression of the Wal, if not 99% in terms of playing Tool songs. I'm not suggesting the Bongo is a replacement for a Wal in every situation (IE one where you hear lots of bass upfront played with fingers through a clean channel, you'd never get away with a Bongo there). However, given the rarity of Wal basses and the price of them, the Bongo is an excellent alternative. Not to mention, as much as I love Tool, what a waste of a Wal bass it is...where it's talents are so often hidden!

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I've managed to approximate JCs tone in the past with various Warwicks of mine using a steel pick and a Sansamp Para Driver or a Hartke VXL.
If you go and see Tool perform live you're still not going to hear the exact same tone you're used to hearing on the records even if JC is using the exact same gear. That's just the difference between the studio and the stage.

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And I dare say many a great basses could do a passable impression of Justin's tone! I just go for the Bongo because it has the 4 band EQ and the humbuckers for that chunky sound! But the issue is a complex one because if you were to suggest a bass to do an impression of Geddy Lee's or Jonas Hellborg's Wal sound then that would be much harder!

I'm also giving myself Bongo GAS now!

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