[youtube=http://youtu.be/tVCJF_L5zog]

This is a bass guitar cover of Royal Blood’s ‘Out of the Black’ performed by Adam Flanagan. A very challenging song to play (due to the cues on the pedalboard) but very fun to play none the less!

Now get comfy…

‘The huge sound that Mike Kerr creates is one of a mystery to most and no doubt many people are looking to unlock the secret to his tone. The majority have figured that with a combination of Bi-Amping different loop signals from the bass and a couple of Electro Harmonix POG2 pedals, that you’d be heading in the right direction to what is achieved to play Royal Blood songs effectively.

For me, I’ve always had an Electro Harmonix POG2 on my bass pedalboard to help achieve Sub-Bass and Octave up effects, but in particuarly with the latter, it’s always sounded a little weedy (even with overdrives/distortion pedals) and its only been since I’ve heard of Royal Blood that I’ve noticed the use of fuzz and the POG2 on a seperate line (to a different amp) that I’ve seen the benefit of such a setup (even for use in my regular functions band!)

 The signal splits at the Boss tuner, with the mute cutting out the bass whilst the fake guitar sound passes through the bypass jack into the LS-2, which in turn feeds the POG2 at the top of the board, through a Boss PS-6 (not used in this video), and into an Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi (which is in the loop of the Boss NS-2). This is the loop for the guitar sound of which doesn’t return back to the LS-2. Instead, this runs into either guitar amp or (in the case of the video) into an emulator such as the Clean Orange amp preset found in Logic Pro X. My bass sound features another POG2 (which works at the double guitar sound) into the Boss ODB3 (which I realise there isn’t a distorted bass sound in the Royal Blood tone but it works for me) and then into the Sansamp Bass Driver DI out into interface. Nothing too crazy (as I don’t have all the exact pedals) but this works as a general idea on how to achieve the sound. The bass has a huge impact as well. I’m using a Fender Jazz Deluxe and the tracking for the pedals worked better when in passive mode using the Bridge pickup exclusively. It’s also worth noting string gauge plays a part in the sound (particularly for the bends) of which I use a fairly heavy set (45-105s)

Bass guitar/fake guitar signal go straight into Logic Pro 10 (which is where the drums have been sequenced and also a clean orange amp model on the guitar signal) and filming was done with a Zoom 3QHD camcorder (on bass cam) and an iPhone 5 for the pedalboard cam.

Enjoy!’