The mad genius behind alt-prog upstarts Primus’ rise to fame and success in the ‘90s is, was, and always will be the bass-wielding Les Claypool.
Claypool’s distinctive bass style, influenced in equal parts by Rush, Black Sabbath, flamenco music, and his copious appetite for mind-altering substances, is immediately recognizable and continues to inspire modern players to this day.
Claypool is rightly recognized as one of the foremost proponents of virtuoso bass playing, and has experimented with a range of sounds and techniques over the years. A consistent theme of his playing is his tremendous virtuosity, stretching the boundaries of what is possible on a bass guitar.
It will take plenty of practice hours to get up to the tapping and strumming levels that Claypool effortlessly whips out in live performances, but nailing the sound and technique is much easier with the right gear. In this article, I’ll run through the key pieces of virtuoso-worthy equipment you need to nail the Les Claypool sound.
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Les Claypool Bass Guitars
Les Claypool’s mad-scientist approach to music extends to his choice of gear. Claypool tends to dabble in diverse, strange pieces of equipment, often custom-made for the Primus frontman.
For years, he played mostly four-string basses, but for some songs, such as “Jerry Was A Race Car Driver,” Claypool tapped out his parts on a fretless six-string bass. I wouldn’t recommend hiring a luthier to build you a custom Claypool-worthy bass, nor acquiring the full arsenal of weird and wonderful gear that Claypool has at his disposal.
As a general rule, I believe that the right technique can get you most of the way to unlocking tones. Choosing the right gear is about finding equipment that facilitates and highlights the playing technique necessary to nail the sounds.
In recent years, Claypool has been designing his own basses to his own exacting specifications. The result, the Pachyderm bass, is a bizarre-looking custom instrument.
The key specs of this bass are its solitary volume knob (the “tone” knob actually controls light-up LEDs on the fretboard) and EMG Pachyderm pickups. This is a four-string bass with a maple body and an ebony fretboard.
Maple bodies are hard to come by these days, but you can get a similar sound from alder or ash. The Schecter P4 is one such guitar that offers good value for money. Of course, I’d be remiss not to recommend the Fender P Bass, one of the most consistently reliable instruments ever made. The P bass was also the preferred instrument for many of Claypool’s prog heroes.
The trick with a standard bass will be to give it the punch and clarity Claypool’s demanding playing style requires. You can get a lot of this sound by installing Claypool’s signature EMG pickups, as found in his Pachyderm bass, in place of your bass’ stock pickups.
Generally, you can adjust your playing technique to emphasize brightness and mid-forwardness, balancing out the relative warmth of the instrument.
This is also where choice of amplification, effects, and EQ-ing comes into play.
Les Claypool Amps
Recently, Les Claypool switched from his typical choice of conventional amplifier to the Fractal Audio AX8 Amp Modeler.
Claypool used a wide range of amps in the studio over the years. Sometimes, he’d just plug his bass straight into the mixing desk via a distortion pedal! However, live, Claypool was a devoted player of Ampeg and Mesa/Boogie bass amplification.
Claypool was a loyal player of the Mesa/Boogie Subway for many years. These days, the Subway comes in a variety of sizes and powers, so it’s easy to find a Subway model that works for your needs.
Claypool, like so many bassists of his generation, was also partial to the legendary Ampeg SVT. The SVT Micro Stack is a smaller, more affordable option for this infamously loud, heavy amplifier.
Any of these amps, when set appropriately, will get you pretty close to a workable sound for Claypool-style playing.
Les Claypool Amp Settings
Before digging into amp settings, I’ll reiterate that most of Claypool’s tone is in his fingers.
You need plenty of strong, consistent attacks with both your left and right hands. You’ll need to hammer on and tap your bass strings with a lot of finger strength. Likewise, you’ll need similar force with your right-hand technique.
Try moving your right hand around: you get more treble near the bridge, but more low-end playing near the neck. Les Claypool’s tone is very mid-forward and snappy, so I’d recommend playing closer to the bridge than to the neck, but not so close that the string tension makes it harder to nail your techniques.
Experiment with finding the “sweet spot” for your right-hand placement.
From there, set the amp as below.
Volume: 2
Primus were progressive and heavy in their own way, but never relied on excessive volume to get their sound.
Bass: 3
You don’t need much low end in this tone. Just enough to warm up any icy treble attack.
Mids: 6
This is a mid-forward tone with plenty of note definition. Set your mids around 6 and let your finger attack do the rest.
Treble: 5
While this is a bright sound, you don’t want to risk the tone becoming brittle.
Gain: 9
Set your gain nice and high to get the warm, thick, tube-like saturation of the classic Claypool tone.
Les Claypool Pedals
Claypool has used a wide range of pedals over the years. For practicality’s sake, he uses modeling effects live these days. However, I’d recommend the following pedals for tone coloring.
His choice of drive around the Brown Album was the EHX Hot Tubes. Live, he has used the MXR Bass DI + Distortion extensively.
For delay, Claypool has long favored the Line 6 Delay Modeler.
Finally, Claypool is a devoted player of the envelope filter effect. I would recommend the EHX Q Tron + to cover as many tonal bases as possible.
Final Word
With the right gear, you’ll sound enough like Les Claypool to look forward to practicing the bizarre, challenging techniques that shaped and defined his work from the 80s to this day.
One final tip for harnessing some of Claypool’s mad genius is to embrace his more esoteric influences: in addition to Rush and Sabbath, try learning some Bootsy Collins funk bass lines to get closer to Claypool’s own technique and influences.
