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[William A. Parrette]

Hi, I just received an e-mail with a question:

> I'm hoping you can help me. I've been searching some time now for info on what equiptment Mel used to get his raw, gas bass
> sound.~ bass, amp, effect pedals, etc....I cannot find this info anywhere! can you help me ?

Any takers?  Post the details here in a reply and I'll give the fellow the URL to this thread

Keep Shiin' On ...

Bill

[snakebyte]

Mel also stuck in a humbucker pickup into his Fender Jazz Bass to get that nice fat sound and he used a pick

[captmidnite1962]

More on Mel's gear....Mel's Jazz Bass was a post-CBS model as the neck binding indicates. He used black tape wound  strings and flat picked as noted. I believe the humbucing pick up that he mounted on his bass came off an old Gibson bass. He left the ashtray mounted over the bridge. You get a great look at this instrument on the recently released DVD in the PBS clip of "Inside Looking Out".

More detail on his amps and gear come from the summer 2003 issue of Bass Guitar magazine. Mel played through 2 West "Fillmore" model amps but the secret to his tone lay in the tubes. Mel had expensive UK made GEC KT88 tubes installed in his amps which made for a killer sound but the impedance mismatch with the West amps meant that the tubes often blew out in the middle of a gig. Mel's bass tech would stand on a stool  behind his stack wearing a pair of heavy flame resistant gloves waiting for the tube to flame out. When it inevitably did, he would quickly plug in a new one.

Berry Oakley of The Allman Brothers Band  used a similar bass setup; he played a Fender Jazz bass with a Guild humbucker inserted in the neck position and he also flatpicked to get his own distinctive voice.