Muse sound from a Zoom B3

[Rusco]

Hi, our band is playing a few Muse tracks and I've been trying to get close to the sounds on Uprising, Starlight and Time is Running Out using my Zoom B3 with very limited success. I've been using my American Special P Bass, BB424X and Overwater/Tanglewood J4.

I'm still a notice in the world of effects so wondered if anyone could point me in the right direction please ?

Thanks :-)

[tonyquipment]

It's difficult to emulate muse bass sound... He's put it thru so much processing

Multi distortion / synths etc so unless you are prepared to split your signal up and blend a whole load of effects together, it'll be ballache to get close to the sound!

Early muse is easier to copy but later muse requires more time + ££££

[AttitudeCastle]

You can get passably close to all three with any muff-alike emulator, so those would be the first port of call, and then possibly the Ampeg amp sims. Starlight may be closer to a regular distortion, as it's a pretty open and sawing sound, as I believe it's mostly the animato plus octave.

If you have an octaver on the B3 that will help too!

I've hit the muse sounds (to a close enough degree that I'm happy with it!) using a Marshall jackhammer and a Digitech bass driver and a Zoom B1X. Unfortunately don't own the B1X anymore so cannot remember any of what I used for it, but I'm a distortion fanatic and using just those two it's not miles away!

Though as stated, a big part of Chris's sound is the way the multiple pedals react together, rather than just a single unit.

[Rusco]

Thanks for the replies. I know I'm not going to get the exact same sound as Muse but just trying to get something half passable for the limited gigs we play. Will have another play. cheers R

[Paul S]

We do Hysteria and I just use a Boss ODB-3! Not had anyone come up to me and say it sounds nothing like the real thing.

So far.

[Opticaleye]

IME the trick to getting the filters and octavers to track better is to boost the input to them. So Boost/fuzz>Octave>Filter works.

Also if you use the ZNR before the filter/octave you can avoid glitches and retriggering with a bit of experimentation. This does leave you with one less effect space however.

You could always get 2 B3's though!

[RandomBass]

I'm clearly not making enough effort. Heavily clamped signal on my LMB into my overdrive. Sounds good enough for most punters I hope lol.

[tonyquipment]

[quote name='RandomBass' timestamp='1367689160' post='2068481']
I'm clearly not making enough effort. Heavily clamped signal on my LMB into my overdrive. Sounds good enough for most punters I hope lol.
[/quote]

I also do this. Minus the OD. (It's far too noisy )

Instead I use octave + synth + chorus

Lovely synthy fuzzy noisy sound!

[RandomBass]

[quote name='tonyquipment' timestamp='1367693285' post='2068534']


I also do this. Minus the OD. (It's far too noisy )

Instead I use octave + synth + chorus

Lovely synthy fuzzy noisy sound!
[/quote]
Yes I've just started to use a sub octaver too. It's been quite an eye opener.