How did John Enwistle get his sound?

[HelterSkelter]

Back in the day with those Vox and Hiwatt amps and no modern day effects.

[1tallbassguy]

OX, you are being paged!!

[beam]

P-bass and talent.

[82Daion]

By plugging in and turning them WAAAAAYYYY up.

Entwistle never really used effects anyway.

 

Some of the late 60's/early 70's sound is either Stramp or Alembic preamps through really big power amps(Crowns, if I recall correctly.) The Vox/Hiwatt thing was pretty short-lived. Most of his amps were Sunn, and he used different variations of those into the 80's.

 

As Pete Townshend recalled, the best thing about the Voxes was that he could cut them in half with a Strat.

[T. Alan Smith]

 

Originally posted by beam P-bass and talent.

 

 

Well put.

I was gonna say, by developing his touch.

[bholder]

Nah, you're all wrong, he just asked The Ox, that got him straightened right out.

[el_duderino676]

 

Originally posted by 1tallbassguy OX, you are being paged!!

 

 

beat me to it.

[bnyswonger]

A lot of it had to do with very fresh roundwounds & a willingness to turn the treble up...

[der oxenrig]

Which era of The Who? He had so many different sounds over the years it's hard to nail down anything consistent, except for his talent, of course. Forget about the Vox stuff, he didn't use it by choice, but by necessity. In the early days, he used 100 & 200 watt Marshalls, cranked up through 4x12s. After that, he did breif stints with Vox & Sunn while in the states, but once back to England, he settled on Sound City, which later became Hiwatt. Personally, my favorite of his sounds was the Hiwatts on Live at Leeds & at Woodstock during Pinball Wizard. At times the amps sound like they are close to exploding!!! He was also using special P-basses, with special circuitry that made them sound raunchier than regular P-basses. Afterwards, he switched over to Sunn solid state Coliseum heads & cabs along with Gibson Thunderbirds & custom made "Fenderbirds" until 1975, when he discovered Alembic. Then, he started using Stramp preamps along with Crown & Sunn power amps into various arrays of different cabinets. He kept that rig until the late 80s, when he started using Trace Elliot amps, Acoustic Sound Service cabinets, & for the first time, a {censored}load of cheesy effects, along with Warwick Buzzards. The amps & cabs later became Ashdowns, and the basses Status Graphite Buzzards, until his untimely death.

 

He also was a stickler for having brand new strings all the time. He mainly used Rotosound Swing Bass 66 Stainless Steel strings, until 1989 when he started using Maxima Gold plated strings.

 

If you want to read more about his equipment & sound, this website is probably the best source on that information.

 

 

Originally posted by 82Daion By plugging in and turning them WAAAAAYYYY up. Entwistle never really used effects anyway. Some of the late 60's/early 70's sound is either Stramp or Alembic preamps through really big power amps(Crowns, if I recall correctly.) The Vox/Hiwatt thing was pretty short-lived. Most of his amps were Sunn, and he used different variations of those into the 80's. As Pete Townshend recalled, the best thing about the Voxes was that he could cut them in half with a Strat.

 

 

He didn't use the stramp & alembic preamps until 1975.

[Sixgun77]

I knew his sound was 4-12 marshalls for a while, but didn't he jack up mids, not treble? Oh, and he's made the best sounds a T-Bird ever made.

[der oxenrig]

Originally posted by Sixgun77 I knew his sound was 4-12 marshalls for a while, but didn't he jack up mids, not treble? Oh, and he's made the best sounds a T-Bird ever made.

 

Back in the 60s, most of the amps only had bass & treble controls, midrange didn't really come about til the late 60s.

 

 

But yeah, he jacked up everything.

 

EDIT: I forgot, his T-bird sound didn't really have any treble at all.

[1tallbassguy]

Now that is a rig of doom!!

 

[BoundandBlocked]

Originally posted by 1tallbassguy Now that is a rig of doom!!

 

 

 

 

WHAT??

 

 

 

[82Daion]

Okay, so I was half-right!

 

All this info about Entwistle's amplification just kind of turned into a soup of equipment names. Not so good on time periods. I will agree that the Hiwatt tone on Live at Leeds is stunning-the bass sounds like some sort of mutated horn or something-wonderful.

 

I think my favorite Ent tone is from the Who's Last album-Daltrey sucked ass at that point, but the rest of the band sounds good. I think he sounded best in the Alembic era, personally.

[The Insomniac]

Ok - how cool is this:

 

 

 

That's the kind of stuff that made me want to play bass in the first place.

[BoundandBlocked]

Not as cool as this!

 

 

 

 

 

[filterthing]

wow, that who site is the {censored}... Anything like that for John Paul Jones?

[mrcrow]

is this any good.

[der oxenrig]

Originally posted by BoundandBlocked Not as cool as this!

 

[MageZ]

Originally posted by The Insomniac Ok - how cool is this: That's the kind of stuff that made me want to play bass in the first place.

 

 

No BC Rich???? Tsk, tsk....

[oldivor]

 

Originally posted by The Ox Which era of The Who? He had so many different sounds over the years it's hard to nail down anything consistent, except for his talent, of course. Forget about the Vox stuff, he didn't use it by choice, but by necessity. In the early days, he used 100 & 200 watt Marshalls, cranked up through 4x12s. After that, he did breif stints with Vox & Sunn while in the states, but once back to England, he settled on Sound City, which later became Hiwatt. Personally, my favorite of his sounds was the Hiwatts on Live at Leeds & at Woodstock during Pinball Wizard. At times the amps sound like they are close to exploding!!! He was also using special P-basses, with special circuitry that made them sound raunchier than regular P-basses. Afterwards, he switched over to Sunn solid state Coliseum heads & cabs along with Gibson Thunderbirds & custom made "Fenderbirds" until 1975, when he discovered Alembic. Then, he started using Stramp preamps along with Crown & Sunn power amps into various arrays of different cabinets. He kept that rig until the late 80s, when he started using Trace Elliot amps, Acoustic Sound Service cabinets, & for the first time, a {censored}load of cheesy effects, along with Warwick Buzzards. The amps & cabs later became Ashdowns, and the basses Status Graphite Buzzards, until his untimely death. He also was a stickler for having brand new strings all the time. He mainly used Rotosound Swing Bass 66 Stainless Steel strings, until 1989 when he started using Maxima Gold plated strings. If you want to read more about his equipment & sound, this website is probably the best source on that information. He didn't use the stramp & alembic preamps until 1975.

 

 

What did he do to his p-basses?

[tdempsey]

Thank you, whoever started this thread.

 

For spelling his name correctly.

[der oxenrig]

 

Originally posted by mxpxfan What did he do to his p-basses?

 

 

Back in 1966, Fender had a very limited run of "slab" P-basses that had special circuits in them to make the sound raunchier & growlier (even slightly distorted) than regular P-basses.

 

 

[oldivor]

Originally posted by The Ox Back in 1966, Fender had a very limited run of "slab" P-basses that had special circuits in them to make the sound raunchier & growlier (even slightly distorted) than regular P-basses. Later, he smashed the slab basses up, and Frankensteined one together, now known as Frankenstein, which he used at Woodstock & Live at Leeds, as well as on the Who's Next album. My guess is that either the pickups were overwound on the slab basses, or a diode similar to the Stew Mac Black Ice Overdrive was used, as some of the slab P-basses had more than 2 knobs & switches as well!!! (Jack Bruce also had one of these installed in his EB-3 after Cream disbanded)

 

thanks a ton Ox. I'm going to look into the Stew Mac Black Ice Overdrive thingy.

[It's Read]

EDIT: Repost about the P-basses.