That Jeff Berlin tone

[Whitonguit]

Hard to believe perhaps, but I’m coming out of a 30 relapse... yeah I know... And gear has believe it or not, moved on..so I’m in the process of hunting down amplification to get that “tone” I’m looking for. That Jeff Berlin tone is probably the nearest to what I want, but it’s a mind field for someone who is, well, out of touch when it comes to gear. 

I see MarkBass have a signature Jeff Berlin  combo amp out there so that’s of interest, but I really don’t want it in combo form. Any advise on achieving that sound with a separate head and cab, would be really appreciated. Think I’m going to need minimum of 300 Watt, influences varied but mainly Prog, and Jazz. 

 

[EBS_freak]

Don’t buy an amp just cos it says his name on the amp. Copping a tone is more than buying signature gear.

[White Cloud]

Jeff's pickups are custom wound by bartolini. To my ears he has a very distinct 'mid' tone. Of course, passive basses with just a dash of chorus have also always been Jeff's thing. 

[EBS_freak]

“A dash” ?

[Bilbo]

Tragically (or not), I was a MAHOOSIVE Berlin fan in the 1980s and spent hours with the Bruford lps, Berlin's own albums, the Players stuff and Road Games. Couldn't get enough of it. At some point, however, his obsession with choral playing changed his sound and, for me, it got thinner and thinner to the point where I actually hate it and can no longer listen to him. I think it all started going wrong for me when he ditched his Fender Jazz hybrid. 

 

My advice is to find your own sound. A decent professional quality bass and amp set up and a few decades of experimentation and you should be fine. By all means listen to and learn from JB but find your own voice. 

[jebroad]

Cort's Jeff Berlin signature bass paired with any mark bass amp should sound pretty close.

[yorks5stringer]

FWIW the Jeff Berlin signature combo does not have a tweeter.

[visog]

57 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

“A dash” ?

LoL! I think the OP is referring to JB's tone prior to their hiatus so 30 years ago.

14 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

Tragically (or not), I was a MAHOOSIVE Berlin fan in the 1980s and spent hours with the Bruford lps, Berlin's own albums, the Players stuff and Road Games. Couldn't get enough of it. At some point, however, his obsession with choral playing changed his sound and, for me, it got thinner and thinner to the point where I actually hate it and can no longer listen to him. I think it all started going wrong for me when he ditched his Fender Jazz hybrid. 

 

My advice is to find your own sound. A decent professional quality bass and amp set up and a few decades of experimentation and you should be fine. By all means listen to and learn from JB but find your own voice. 

Exactly the same here! I loved his chording behind 'Tokyo Dream'. And live too where i saw him with John McLaughlin and Trilok Gurtu. I think the key element at this time was his 'Rowdy Roddy Piper' Precision with a graphite neck, single Bartolini pick-up, Badass bridge and little or no chorus. I think it got stolen and things went downhill from there tone-wise. Here it is pre-Roddy sticker. I believe the neck pick-up was never wired-up.

 

[SpondonBassed]

Of course, you could always ask @Jeff Berlin himself for pointers.

[fleabag]

Try finding a Peavey Palaedium.

Like rocking horse lips, but they are out there

 

Edited January 5, 2019 by fleabag

[Bilbo]

4 minutes ago, fleabag said:

Try finding a Peavey Palaedium.

 

 

I played one of these when they came out. It was very easy to play. 

[White Cloud]

4 minutes ago, fleabag said:

Try finding a Peavey Palaedium.

Like rocking horse lips, but they are out there

 

Amazing basses... abnd they do come up for sale once every thousand years or so!

[fleabag]

2 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

I played one of these when they came out. It was very easy to play. 

I've had several Peaveys over the years. Their necks are superb

[Mike]

I just sold a Peavey Palaedium a year ago. Great bass but not practical for me as a working bass player.

[timmo]

Or . if you have facebook and join The Bass Guitar group, he gets on there a lot and is very approachable . I am sure he would answer your questions there

 

[kodiakblair]

The Palaedium was the last bass Jim DeCola designed at Peavey, guitar and bass then got split into 2 dept and Jim headed the guitar side. Few year down the line Jim jumped ship to Fender. He asked how the Geddy Lee jazz differed from a standard jazz the folks told him 

"Your Paladium neck,we copied it" 🙂

[Whitonguit]

Thanks guys for the response. So to summarise, I get that it’s not just about amplification, it’s a combination of, the player.. obviously, the bass, the pickups, and amplifier, no mentioned strings... The Corts basses look look great, never played one. I currently play an Ibanez SDGR, and I love the neck on it, the sound if fine but not really “me”. Regarding the Corts basses, is it specifically the pick up on them that nudge the sound towards Jeff ? 

Thanks again

[White Cloud]

6 minutes ago, Whitonguit said:

Regarding the Corts basses, is it specifically the pick up on them that nudge the sound towards Jeff ? 

Thanks again

I think the answer - along with pickup spacing - is "yes." 

 

[Chris2112]

2 hours ago, Whitonguit said:

Thanks guys for the response. So to summarise, I get that it’s not just about amplification, it’s a combination of, the player.. obviously, the bass, the pickups, and amplifier, no mentioned strings... The Corts basses look look great, never played one. I currently play an Ibanez SDGR, and I love the neck on it, the sound if fine but not really “me”. Regarding the Corts basses, is it specifically the pick up on them that nudge the sound towards Jeff ? 

Thanks again

 

I may be able to offer some insight on this as I am something of an obsessive on the Jeff Berlin sound. It's always been a sound that I loved and since returning to bass full time in 2015 after a couple of years off, it has been the sound that I craved and sought to recreate in my playing. Of course, there are different eras of Jeff's sound but the key ingredients in getting his basic tone remain the same. Essentially, it's 15" cabs with no tweeters, an alder bodied bass with Bartolini pickups and a high mass bridge. Sometimes, but not always using a bit of chorus and almost exclusively using the bridge pickup with the tone rolled slightly back (it's worth noting that his 'blonde' bass had the neck pickup disconnected for many years before it was stolen).

For reference, my rig is the Markbass CMD151P Jeff Berlin combo, with a Cort Rithimic 4 string and Peavey Palaedium in amber, as per what Jeff played from the early 90's until he signed with Dean Guitars. I also use a TC Electronic Corona Chorus pedal, I am reliably informed that this was Jeff's chorus pedal for years, although Jeff now uses an EBS Unichorus. You can read interviews where Jeff talks about why he no longer endorses the brand, though he never names TC Electronic directly. It boils down to a dispute over loaning a pedal at a trade show where Jeff was demonstrating for them, and I do not propose to expand on this matter here.

I will note the varying eras by which I define Jeff's tone:

 

Bruford era - black Jazz bass and 'Blonde' bass. Due to the production techniques of the late 70's, the early Bruford tones aren't massively defined. The black jazz bass was retired at some stage and by the early 80's Jeff was recording almost exclusively with what I call the 'blonde' bass. This was an alder precision body with two Bartolini humbuckers. The neck pickup became static at some point and was disconnected and in later years, the control knobs for this pickup were removed from the bass. The neck was a Fender Jazz neck reprofiled by Michael Tobias (Jeff used a Tobias bass for the live shows with AWBH band). The Bartolini humbuckers were wound by Bill Bartolini to Jeff's specification and sounded tremendous. The tone was middy, but the recordings of the day don't capture the 'nasal' upper mid quality which later records did. This same bass was used on Jeff's first two solo records. Around this time, Jeff was playing Yamaha amps and appeared in some promotional material with Billy Sheehan.

 

The 90's - Peavey years - Jeff signed with Peavey and had the Palaedium signature bass made. The earlier basses used a different logo to the later instrument - look for the difference in a cursive, scrolled 'Palaedium' script against a more angular font. it is still unclear as to whether or not the pickups inside the basses are Bartolini. It is my belief that they are Peavey pickups. They are rather brighter and clearer than the Barts, with a little less warmth and a bump in the upper-mid character. For 1997's 'Taking Notes', Jeff noted that the bridge pickup was a little too close to the strings and created some interference on the record, though this is barely perceptible. By the end of this era, Jeff was getting more heavily into chorus. For whatever reason, by the end of 90's his Peavey basses had black tape over the Peavey logo.

 

The 00's - Dean Guitars - The Dean instruments sounded very bight and nasally. They had an ebony board (like the Palaedium) but also Bartolini pickups. They had a beautiful singing quality to them. I understand that Jeff's instruments were made at Dean Guitars in Florida by someone called 'Mike', but I have been unable to find further info on this to date. There was a 'Grinch' bass, which had a slightly thicker than normal body. This had a top compromised of many different exotic woods. One ended up being sold to a TB'er in Florida (this was an early prototype) and another was sold by Jeff as part of his fundraising for the Jack Bruce project.

 

Current day  - Jeff now uses the Cort Rithimic. This includes Bartolini pickups wound to the original specifications of the pickup he designed with Bill Bartolini, after the original schematic for the pickups was recovered after many years being lost. The BadAss II bridge was replaced with a Babicz. It hangs on the body more like a traditonal jazz bass whereas the Palaedium and Dean tend to sit a little more in-board on the body. If you listen to 'Joe Frazier Round 3' you'll note that the bass sound is a little darker and punchier in the low mids. The Cort sound has serious balls, with a little more 'thump' than the earlier Palaedium and Dean. I think it sounds more like the 'blonde' bass and so it suits me to have both. One notes that Jeff does set his tone rolled back slightly, as in the instructional videos for his reading course, he has purple tape on the bass to keep the tone knob in the right place (ie, neither fully open nor closed). Over years of owning many, many basses, I am convinced that the Rithimic and the Palaedium are the best basses I have ever played and I would struggle to choose a favourite between the two.

 

The trick is to use hand positioning to modulate your sound. When Jeff walks, he plays closer to the neck and returns to the bridge for superior control over the length and tone of the note. Jeff has always played with a low action and light strings (DR DDT .40 - .100). I recall a post from a Talkbass user who had played one of Jeff's Palaediums at a trade show and recalled that the action was so low he struggled to get a clean note out of it, but Jeff was able to make it sing with his controlled touch. I note that his touch these days is more refined than it has ever been. The bridge pickup is absolutely key.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fleabag]

Brilliant post

[Daz39]

Yes, awesome detail, thanks!

[Chris2112]

I had also wanted to mention a couple of other things earlier but didn't have time. 

For the chorus sound, depth and speed are the key factors. Jeff mentions that he likes the EBS Unichorus because it preserves the fundamental so whatever chorus you choose, it's worth getting one that doesn't suck up all your tone. Jeff's usual chorus tone uses a fast speed and shallow depth for a sound that adds 'shimmer' and colour. If you slow the speed of the chorusing down too much, you'll notice you lose definition on quicker passages and it doesn't sound 'tight'. 

Jeff really ramped up his use of chorus post 2000, when he started a run of jazz albums. In this setting, he was backed by Richard Drexler on an upright bass and the bass guitar took the lead role, playing horn-like lines. A lot of these were soaked in this very distinctive chorus and post 1997 saw Jeff really develop his legato style. 

As for amp choices that'll suit you, anything with a 15" and no tweeter will be a good start but the Markbass 15" is a lot tighter and middier than you might expect. I used to despise fifteens up until I tried the Markbass Jeff Berlin combo and found it was nothing at all like the floppy-sounding bass bins of the past. Without a tweeter, you don't get that whistle-like, super crisp high end but your highs are present, they're just softer than you might expect. It's not the amp to use if you want super crisp, bell-like slap tones but it gets the sounds I want. I get a very modern tone with my Bogart Blackstone but it's not SWR-esque!

Edited January 6, 2019 by Chris2112

[White Cloud]

4 hours ago, fleabag said:

Brilliant post

Took the words from my mouth! 

[EBS_freak]

Fairplay @Chris2112, that's a decent, informative post!

 

[4000]

Indeed. I've never even liked Jeff's tone all that much and I still found that fascinating. That's the sort of stuff I come on these forums for.  Excellent post.