Cliff Burton Metal Bass Microscope - EP. 5 

God damn old Metallica was just masterful.

I unironically want you to make a video on Jason. No joke his isolated bass tracks from Justice are insanely good. Also his playing on the Black album is rock solid. His live solos were great too.

Brilliant video as always Rodney, I learned some new things too! Thanks for inviting me to take part!

He's not the first person to inspire me to play bass, but he was the one who inspired me to play different and well.

One of my inspirations to play Bass. Cliff, Geezer, Steve Harris & Frank Bello. My Big 4.

Cliff was the main reason why I pick up the bass. Please do a video on Greg Christian from Testament. He’s another influence on me and super underrated

Cliff was the soul of Metallica's early albums. I won't go further into that, but the world lost a treasure when he died. I remember the first time I ever heard of him. I was in high school and the closest I had gotten to metal was listening to Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry. Seems everyone had that cassette in the mid-80s. But then in 1990 I was a sophomore and was chatting with a classmate and she asked who I thought the best bassist was. I said Michael Anthony, because Van Halen was favorite band and that was one of the few bassist names I knew. The teacher got onto us for talking, so she then passed a note to me that I can still see in my head. It just said "Cliff Burton". I had no idea who that was, but a few years later when I got to college I found out and holy shit was she ever right on the money. I think of Cliff as the Beethoven of metal. The raw, melodic power of his music is mesmerizing.

26/09/21 - 35 years to the day since Cliff's last Metallica concert, RIP.

Love how you did this story. I remember having poster of Cliff right next to my bed as a high school kid as a sat with my Sears Harmony Bass and little amp that I blown up pretty quick. Then he was gone.. and I kept that poster on my wall forever.... I was gone 6 years to the Army and Mom kept that poster next to my bed just like the day when I left. Anyway... long ago for sure. Cliff will always live on!

Cliff's approach to the bass guitar's role echoes back to what John Entwistle did as a pioneer and champion of bringing bass guitar into the role of a lead instrument. Some influence clearly filtered down to Cliff, whether directly or indirectly. As I've never come across Cliff mentioning the Ox, it was probably indirect, likely due to some bassists who carried the concepts along, such as Chris Squire, Geddy Lee (for sure), and Lemmy (also for sure).

Fantastic. What a force Cliff was! Would have loved to see more Metallica with him.

love that "Salvador Dali of the bass" comment - absolutely perfect!

Cliff actually had a couple of different Aria bass guitars. At first glance they appear identical, but they’re actually different. The Aria he used on Day of the Green had some more control options, including an active/passive switch. The one he used during master of puppets tour, the black and gold which Aria styled their Black and Gold tribute bass to Cliff, was only passive.

The Morley peddle itself gives out a really cool tone without actually using the peddle, but leaving it on and positioning the peddle in certain areas but not wahhhing it, if you get what i mean

Great video. What I wonder is how would he be going things if he was still here? Imagine him on a 6 string. Holy crap 😳

I first listened to Metallica as a teen in 1990, and that cassette was RTL. The album is a masterpiece. It's a shame that we'll never see what might have been if Cliff was still alive.

A true innovator in every sense, I can’t help but feel he had so much more to say through his instrument. No doubt I’m not the only one who thinks this. Given the more expansive format of the music industry nowadays and the musicians place in it (clinics, solo projects, guest appearances for other artists, social media exposure, RU-vid playthrough’s etc.), there’s no doubt in my mind that Cliff would have continued to set trends and standards for others to follow both in playing and gear use. Could you imagine with what tech is available now, what sounds it would produce in his hands? He injected soul into the towering steel juggernaut that was a young and hungry Metallica. Great work as always mate. Already looking forward to the next one 👍

There was something about those older EV-loaded cabinets, which were in Mesas back then. They had a very clear mid-range and lots of fidelity. I don't get into vintage cabs all that much, as modern bass enclosures are generally superior on all fronts, but if I came across an EV B215M in good shape, it would be hard to walk away.

There are literally no bass plays since Cliff that play like this. He was a true one of a kind. We lost more than any of us can imagine. Where he would have taken the bass after Master we will never know.

Hello Rodney, recently was recommended your channel by a talkbass buddy of mine. Gotta say, awesome stuff here from all sides. This was one of the best youtube videos I have ever seen and I’m not exactly a Cliff uber fan either although I certainly respect him. The last bit really made me emotional, great work. Shame you can’t continue this microscope series on youtube, do you have these available elsewhere?

Geezer butler had used overdrive n wah before Cliff but yeah Cliff did it more wellknown

Great stuff, as always, Rodney. You cut off 'To Live is To Die' right where the guitars come in, which is a very powerful moment; it's almost like someone completely breaking down in sorrow, musically, after holding it in too long...gets me every time, especially when it's cranked to 11. Majestic stuff...sadly, that Metallica is gone. I don't wanna' start the hate train rollin', though...not the place for it. Keep on keepin' on, man. \m/

I remember the mid solo he does in Orion I had no idea it was him till I heard Dreamtheater cover that album I freaked out and went back to metallicas version I always thought it was just the guitar that part where he start on the high not with a bend that part is nuts!! Which bass is a great channel!! He’s the one who got me into the Ibanez ATK! I got one coming next week! Thanks Alphie!!

James and co. made great thrash stuff. But imo what separates Metallica from every other thrash metal band ever is their beauty. The beauty in their melodies, their harmonies, their classical sound, their songs structures. And that's precisely what Cliff excelled at. My favorite piece of music they ever wrote is "Orion". Sometimes musicians who die young can become a tad overrated, but in Cliff's case he's not. He truly was the secret weapon that propelled Metallica past everyone else in the scene.

Cliff was one of those rare guys, that made you as a bassist stop and reevaluate what you were doing. (Entwistle, Claypool, Harris ect.) I saw him in a weird, one off small club date while they were on the Lightning tour, and me being a bassist seeing what he was doing close up and personal was mind blowing! Best $13 I’ve ever spent!🤘🏻

My bass microscope. Late 80’s fender jazz with factory pickups. Mid 90’s HARTKE 3500 with HARTKE 4x10 with a Carvin 15. With ProCo fat pedal mid 90’s set at distortion 3, filter at 4.

Jason leaving (kicked out) was the last straw for me and that band. I was religious about them up to and including MOP, started to get frustrated and stopped listening after AJFA. Cliff was Metallica as far as I am concerned and Jason did a hell of a job filling in. Jason got a raw deal. I never bought a single thing with Rob in the band.....he was never my style. RIP Cliff, you are STILL sorely missed.

I might be mistaken but I thought that the rhythm guitar parts were solely played by James on the albums (the first one to feature Kirk on rhythms was Load). Great episode for an awesome player!..!

thanks, Cliff still trips me out and I play him every day cheers from Australia

Noice, I play bass and love Cliff Burton. From Trauma to Metallica. Cliff was a kickass bass player. Cliff helped spread the word of Glenn Danzig’s horror punk rock band known as the Misfits🤘🏾🔥. Not just Glenn Danzig’s horror punk rock band known as the Misfits, Cliff also help spread the word of Glenn Danzig’s post Misfits band known as Samhain🤘🏾🔥, in which Samhain became Danzig. To me, that’s just something. Cliff was an awesome songwriter and bass player. Cliff may be gone, but never will he be forgotten. Cliff Burton was awesome. Other than that, cool:).

I have to say something about 18" speakers and the much more common 15" speakers, because those formats get a lot of prejudice. This goes through to more modern 15" and 18" speakers. Lots of bassplayers I know refuse to play speakers bigger than 10", because they think or feel like only 10" speakers are fast and punchy, and that even 12" speakers are getting slow, loose punch and get muddy. My first rig I had (after the F.A.L. Kestrel combo I had from 1976 on) contained a chinese copy of the Acoustic USA 220, the cab was a Marshall 118", a cab as big as a young elephants cascet. It was a folded horn Cab. The tone evolved about 30 feet in front of the cab. In the rehearsal room, standing right in front of the cab, you just had deep noise, some rumble, and no volume. As soon as I was able, I swapped the cab, as someone wanted to mount a midrange and highrange speaker into the cab and allready had one modified to built sidefills, offered me a 215" Thiele Small cab with EVM 15 L in it. This cab eith two 15" gave me the tone and volume I wanted. I kept the cab, and got a second one built, because I was fighting two Marshall full stacks - on every side of the stage. This equals 4 fullstacks. I played the two cabs throughout the 1980's, with a GK 800 RB on every cab. The tone and volume was what I needed. This episode made me think that 18" speakers have to be "slow", with no punch and tone. Until about 2006. I met a German cab builder then who had real inovative ideas and who builts pristine cabs. He has a single 18" cab with a tweeter, the top of the line of his High Power series. I learned that 18" speakers that are mounted on the front baffle, so they are able to give you their tone direct, are not slow or muddy. And that it was possible back in the days to built 18" speakers with strong magnets that were able to react and move fast. Mounted in a ported cab they are able to move a lot of air with astonishing frequency range. Modern lightweight neodymium magnets improved this even more. It was the folded horn design that tricked me. Those are built to produce ultra deep frequencys, have not a lot harmonics, so that you only hear and feel the "real" frequency. They need lots of room in front of the folded horn to be able to work out the complete sine wave of the tone. Folded horns only work in huge venues and are much better for FOH. After getting rid of the real heavy two 215" cabs I became a huge fan of 10" speakers, mounted in 410" or 810" cabs. The cab builders explanation made me want to check out 15" speaker loaded cabs again. I was thinking that 15" speakers may be something of the old times, when the EVM 15 L was built with a pronounced mid range to make the speaker more audible. As I had a strong relationship to Tecamp, playing two L 810" back in this times, I asked them to give me a L 215. I loved this cab from the start. More low end than the 810", and as loud as the fridge. The L 810" is more compressed and has a more pronounced mid range. The L 215" is more open and airy, but as fast and punchy as the 810". I still have the L 215", but kept a L 810", too, as this cab comes great with all tube amps. To reward the cab builder I ordered two lightweight 114" +5" cabs. The 14" is made by B&C and is a high excursion Neodymium speaker, the 5" Celestion does the midrange and high end. Those cabs have a small footprint, have a pleasing, fat and punchy low end and a midrange and high end that gives you a wonderfull and clear tone. Other as tweeter often do, the high end does not get shrill when you use a distortion pedal. Did I allready say that the cabs are pretty lightweight?

22:28 What a masterpice

Damn. Dude was even more of a freaking legend then I already knew him to be. Praying for his soul to be with God. It's always the best ones that get ripped from us.

I really enjoyed this series! No idea how much work goes into making these episodes, I think I saw you mention copyright issues in some other comments as well, but I certainly wouldn't complain if you made more of them. But I also get it if you don't.

Thank you

great video, thank you

Awesome vids my man, I just commented this on the bello video and I'm gonna say it here too. Please don't let my faith in today's metal bassists having recognition for a slightly obscure yet amazing player killed in an auto accident before having the chance to fully bloom ala Burton. ROGER PATTERSON- ATHIEST

Dude...How can you only have not even 2k views...Great vid, tks a bunch!! 🤘 RIP Cliff!! 🤘

Man this series is op, more please Mr Rondey

So good

I love Cliff and he was the most unique, musical and melodic bass player thrash metal ever produced, but the bass player in Church of Misery,has the sickest Wah/ fuzz bass sound around.Check it out people.

Great videos. Learning a lot from you.

Was looking for a lesson and found this. Great video most people just talk about pulling teeth and wishing he was alive. Cool to see his best stuff broken down forcing people to notice. There are a lot of fans that think Metallicas BEST bassist was Jason Newsted. It drives me absolutely nuts.

Great video!

I can think of a lot of other people who should have gotten into Kirk's bunk ... This is what you get when you hire a careless bus driver. Cliff 'em all.

Great video series. I’m not sure, but I thought Cronos from Venom used a lot of distortion and a wah pedal also. Obviously he is not the technician Cliff was but still a driving force in the genre. Anyways, great work.

Totally should do Roger Patterson. Criminally underrated

Cliff Burton - leading bass

Awesome!! Thank you.

More obscure choice but Jean ives (blacky) from voivod is amazing and not talked about enough

Very well done. You made me tear up at the end. Damn... I wish he was still with us.

Immortal Cliff

Great channel I’m loving it!! \m/ A few suggestions of mine would be Peter Ratajczyk Steele of Fallout,Carnivore & Type O Negative. James Lomenzo of Black Label Society,Megadeth,

Excellent Rodney!

Man this is awesome! Do you think you could a video for Duff Mckagan? I know that GNR and Velvet Revolver is not technically metal, but I think he comes with some driving basslines.

I like the bass players from Flotsam & Jetsam. Jason Newstead is most notable. But the guy who played on the 1990 album when the storm comes down was thunderous!

Awesome!!!

A great video, as always! P.S. Where does that article on 20:40 come from? I love how they misspelled "Värnamo" as "Vämama" ... :D

What about Necrobutcher from Mayhem?? No one seems to care about his tone... But it's an interesting one: aggressive, full and intelegible at the same time.

I think Steve Rowe would be a cool MBM episode. The dude pretty much created Jesus Thrash. Religeon aside, dude is a machine.

Lemmy and Al Cisneros are must-dos

He passed on my 8th birthday 😪

It's a shame that the mix of the bass line is so weak in every Metallica studio album with Cliff... Fortunately, Guitar Hero Metallica include some isolated bass track from this era, that allow us to listen properly to his kickass bass lines ! I thought they were going to include every isolated track on the deluxe edition of every album, but that wasn't the case, what a shame...

John Wetton was using wah pedal and overdrive way back in the 70's. Just saying.

Bingeing your channel too little too late I suppose. I’m guessing this series is 5/5 demonetized, and episode 4 was a copyright strike. Who was episode 4?

38th like.

Bro, I can't find episode 4

Where is #4?

Why tag out to the Leprechaun.

Kill em all bass solo made me want to pick it up instead of guitar.

So when they say “it should have been Lars” they mean it.

Ao many examples as to how far ahead of his time Cliff was . As a kid ! I've heard Metallica do Call of Ktalu and it sounded awful with other bassist no offense

🤘🤘🤘 Cliff em All